New Books : 9 October 2018

Ursula K. Le Guin’s last book of poems, So Far So Good: Poems 2014–2018, and other titles by Dale Bailey, Ben Bova, Amy S. Foster, Vic James, Gary Kemble, Marie O’Regan, Ransom Riggs, K. Arsenault Rivera, and K.B. Wagers

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* Bailey, Dale : In the Night Wood
(John Joseph Adams 978-1-328-49443-6, $23, 224pp, hardcover, October 2018)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 9 Oct 2018

Fantasy novel about a scholar who moves to a small English village to write a biography of the author of a famous Victorian children’s book.
• Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s site has this description with blurbs and an excerpt.
• The Publishers Weekly review concludes, “Bailey’s eerie prose centers readers firmly and successfully in his seductive and frightening night wood.”
• Lila Garrott reviewed it in the September issue of Locus Magazine: “The characters are well-drawn, the cipher is clever, and there’s a neat use of symbolism to make subtle comparisons between the characters’ roles in various iterations of the Horned King’s rebirth….”

• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound

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* Bova, Ben : Power Failure
(Tor 978-0765388032, $27.99, 368pp, hardcover, October 2018)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 9 Oct 2018
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780765388056
• Jake Ross #3

Near-future SF novel, third in a series following Power Play (2012) and Power Surge (2015), about a science advisor to a senator and their quest to establish solar satellite transmission.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.

• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound

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* Foster, Amy S. : The Rift Coda
(Harper Voyager 978-0-06-244323-6, $24.99, 368pp, hardcover, October 2018)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 9 Oct 2018
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780062443250
• Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 9780062865977
• Rift Uprising Trilogy #3

Young adult SF novel, third in a trilogy following The Rift Uprising (2016) and The Rift Frequency (2017), about a teenage super-soldier who’s joined a rebel group struggling for the truth about a network of rifts that connect alternate Earths.
• HarperCollins’ site has this description with a sample.

• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound

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* James, Vic : Bright Ruin
(Del Rey 978-0-425-28418-6, $26, 416pp, hardcover, October 2018)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 9 Oct 2018
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780425284193
• Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 9781524780623
• Dark Gifts #3

Fantasy novel, third book in a trilogy following Gilded Cage (2017) and Tarnished City (2018), about magical aristocrats in modern England.
• Penguin Random House’s site has this description with an excerpt.
• The Publishers Weekly review concludes, “With so many characters and subplots in motion, new readers may have trouble getting up to speed, but a little patience will be rewarded with this intricate tale of ruthless scheming and bloody betrayals backlit by an unquenchable glimmer of hope.”

• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound

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* Kemble, Gary : Strange Ink
(Titan 978-1785656439, $14.95, 391pp, trade paperback, October 2018)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 9 Oct 2018

Horror novel, the author’s first novel, about a journalist who moves into a new house and wakes with strange tattoos on his body.
• Titan’s site has this description.
• Amazon’s “Look Inside” function provides previews.
• The Publishers Weekly review begins “In Kemble’s taut, suspenseful debut set in Brisbane, Australia, local and international concerns combine with the supernatural” and ends “This is a strong debut by a promising new voice.”

• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound

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* Le Guin, Ursula K. : So Far So Good: Poems 2014–2018
(Copper Canyon Press 978-1-55659-538-7, $23, 100pp, hardcover, October 2018)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 2 Oct 2018

Collection of poems, completed shortly before the author’s death earlier this year.
• The publisher’s site has this description.
• Publishers Weekly gives it a starred review by Peter Milne Greiner: “For work that is so highly mannered and formal, a subject about which Le Guin wrote extensively during her life, these poems are candid in the extreme, casual in the faces of death, funny, glum, reverent, irreverent, certain, uncertain, but never trivial, never an afterthought, never the product of anything other than rigor and discipline and delight in what’s left of the world.”

• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound

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* O’Regan, Marie, ed. : Phantoms: Haunting Tales from Masters of the Genre
(Titan 978-1785657948, $14.95, 400pp, trade paperback, October 2018)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 9 Oct 2018

Anthology of 18 ghost stories, all but four of them original to this book.
• Authors include Joe Hill, Muriel Gray, John Connolly, and Paul Tremblay (the four reprints), with original stories by Angela Slatter, Tim Lebbon, Kelley Armstrong, Gemma Files, and others.
• Titan’s site has this description.
• Amazon’s “Look Inside” function provides previews.

• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound

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* Riggs, Ransom : A Map of Days
(Dutton 978-0735232143, $22.99, 496pp, hardcover, October 2018)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 2 Oct 2018
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780735231481
• Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 9780525492207
• Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children #4

Young adult fantasy novel, fourth in a series following Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2011), Hollow City (2014), and Library of Souls (2015), about a boy’s search for his grandfather’s childhood home, as inspired by vintage photographs.
• Penguin Random House’s site has this description with an excerpt.

• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound

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* Rivera, K. Arsenault : The Phoenix Empress
(Tor 978-0765392572, $16.99, 544pp, trade paperback, October 2018)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 9 Oct 2018
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780765392565
• Ascendant #2

Epic fantasy novel, second in a series following The Tiger’s Daughter (2017), about two young warriors traying to save their world from encroaching demons.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.
• Publishers Weekly gave the first book a starred review: “Rivera’s immense imagination and finely detailed worldbuilding have produced a series introduction of mammoth scope.”

• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound

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* Wagers, K. B. : There Before the Chaos
(Orbit 978-0-316-41121-9, $15.99, 480pp, trade paperback, October 2018)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 9 Oct 2018
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780316411202
• The Farian War #1

SF novel, first in an epic space opera trilogy that following the author’s earlier Indranan War trilogy, about galactic gunrunner and former runaway princess Hail Bristol.
• Hachette’s site has this description with an excerpt.
• The Publishers Weekly review concludes, “Wagers achieves a rare balance of action (most of which takes place late in the book), tension, and quiet moments, keeping pages turning while deepening the portraits of Hail and the friends and foes around her. Fans of the original trilogy will welcome Hail’s return, and any space opera reader can easily jump in here.”

• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound

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These listings are based on publisher schedules and availability on Amazon (rather than on confirmation of physical publication via purchase, review copies, or sightings in bookstores). Titles are listed only once they are published (with rare exception). We do not list galleys or advance reading copies.

Page counts are based on publisher or Amazon listings, and typically only approximate the bibliographic page counts of finished books.

* = first edition
+ = first US edition

Date with publisher info is official publication month.

‘Nominal Publication Date’ is the day of publication, typically as indicated by Amazon.com.

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