New & Notable Books, November 2018
Peter F. Hamilton, Salvation (Del Rey 9/18) Space opera, intrigue, and complex worldbuilding fill this first novel in the Salvation Sequence, a trilogy following three timelines ranging from less than 200 years ahead to the far future, this time focusing on investigators studying a crashed alien spaceship with a sinister cargo discovered in 2204 at the edge of human space.
Joanne M. Harris, The Testament of Loki (Saga Press 5/18) The Norse gods find a way to escape their post-Ragnarok purgatory by sharing the minds of humans who remember them, in this entertaining sequel to The Gospel of Loki and the fourth volume in the Rune series.
Mary Robinette Kowal, The Fated Sky (Tor 8/18) The alternate history Lady Astronaut duology wraps up with this second volume following Dr. Elma York on her historic path to Mars in the 1960s, a gripping prequel to Kowal’s popular novelette “The Lady Astronaut of Mars”.
Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro, ed., Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World (World Weaver Press 8/18) Ecological SF gets a Brazilian slant in these nine stories looking at sustainable energy in the future or alternate worlds. Groundbreaking when originally published in Brazil in 2012, this anthology appears here for the first time in English, translated by Fabio Fernandes.
Patrick Ness, And the Ocean Was Our Sky (HarperTeen 9/18) Whales tell their story of hunting a legendary monster, the human Toby Wick, in this young-adult novella, a dark and marvelously strange inversion of Melville’s Moby-Dick, set in a world where whales have their own ships and harpoons, evocatively illustrated by Rovina Cai.
Tim Pratt, The Dreaming Stars (Angry Robot 9/18) The second volume in the acclaimed Axiom space opera series about the crew of the White Raven and their efforts to save humanity from the ancient, hibernating aliens of the Axiom. “It has the atmosphere of pulp space opera, and a gleeful approach to the big ideas (and the big furniture) of science fiction.” [Liz Bourke].
Philip Pullman, Dæmon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling (9/18) The noted author offers 32 essays on writing and storytelling, with looks at the writing process, the works that influenced him, and the interplay of story and fiction with science, religion, and education. First published in 2017 by David Fickling Books in the UK.
Brandon Sanderson, Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds (Tor 9/18) This collects the three novellas in Sanderson’s fascinating action series about the famous genius Stephen Leeds, who compartmentalizes his vast knowledge into a group of people only he can see, and has to interact with as if they are real. This adds the thrilling new novella Lies of the Beholder, which finds the system breaking down, just as a lead comes in on a woman Leeds desperately needs to find.
V.E. Schwab, Vengeful (Tor 9/18) The superhero action returns in this thrilling sequel to Vicious.
Shaun Tan, Tales from the Inner City (Levine 9/18) Shaun Tan’s world is like no one else’s, and his delightful, often surreal art combines powerfully with 23 strange stories and two poems in this young-adult collection about urban animals, including high-rise dwelling crocodiles, giant snails, and bears with lawyers.
Sheldon Teitelbaum & Emanuel Lottem, eds., Zion’s Fiction: A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature (Mandel Vilar Press 9/18) Israeli S F since the mid-1980s is showcased in this anthology of 16 stories (some translated from Hebrew and Russian), by authors including Gail Hareven, Nava Semel, and Lavie Tidhar, with an introduction on the history of Israeli SF by the editors.
Greg van Eekhout, Voyage of the Dogs (Harper 9/18) Dogs stranded on a damaged spaceship work to get to their destination in this fun middle-grade SF adventure, good for dog lovers of all ages.
This list and more like it in the November 2018 issue of Locus.
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