New Books: 28 September 2021
Aoki, Ryka: Light from Uncommon Stars 
(Tor 978-1-250-78906-8, $25.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
In order to escape damnation, Shizuka Satomi makes a deal with the devil. She must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She finds a young transgender runaway to be her seventh, but also develops a crush on a starship captain who might offer some other hope.
Barker, RJ: The Bone Ship’s Wake 
(Orbit US 978-0-316-48805-1, $17.99, 592pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
Fantasy novel, third book in the Tide Child series. Joron Twiner has lost his shipwife, Keyshan’s Rot is running through is body, and he’s running from a prophecy that says he will destroy the world. But the Sea Dragons have miraculously returned, so maybe some other miracles are possible.
Clipstone, Lyndall: Lakesedge 
(Macmillan/Holt 978-1-250-75339-7, $18.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
Gothic YA fantasy novel set on the banks of a cursed lake. Violeta Graceling and her younger brother expect a monster at Lakesedge, but instead discover the compelling Rowan Sylvanan and the sinister death god he is bound to. Violeta must undergo hazardous challenges to save her brother, Rowan, and herself.
Crutcher, Paige: The Orphan Witch 
(St. Martin’s Griffin 978-1-250-82363-2, $30.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, trade paperback, audio, September 28, 2021)
Fantasy novel about Persephone May, a 30-year-old foundling who discovers her family are witches, trapped by a curse only she can end.
Datlow, Ellen, ed: When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson 
(Titan Books US, 978-1789097153, $24.95, 352pp, hardcover, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
Original anthology of 18 dark stories in tribute to the genius of Shirley Jackson. Authors include Laird Barron, Elizabeth Hand, Stephen Graham Jones, Richard Kadrey, Seanan, McGuire, Josh Malerman, and Joyce Carol Oates.
DiCamillo, Kate: The Beatryce Prophecy 
(Candlewick Press 978-1536213614, $19.99, 256pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
Middle-grade medieval fantasy novel. In the midst of a war, a monk finds a mysterious girl out of prophecy and nurses her back to health. As Beatryce recovers she recounts fabulous tales, and Brother Edik realizes that people are searching for her, and the king wants her dead. Illustrated by Sophie Blackall.
Doerr, Anthony: Cloud Cuckoo Land 
(Simon & Schuster/Scribner 978-1-9821-6843-8, $30, 640pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
Literary novel with SF elements. A long-lost book from ancient Greece has effects on three different times and places: 1453 Constantinople, present-day Idaho, and an interstellar ship bound for an exoplanet.
Garber, Stephanie: Once Upon a Broken Heart 
(Macmillan/Flatiron 978-1-250-26839-6, $19.99, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
Young-adult fantasy novel. The first in the eponymous series, a spin-off from the Caravel series. Evangeline Fox offers the legendary Prince of Hearts a bargain when she learns her love is about to marry another.
Goodwater, Walter: The Liar of Red Valley 
(Rebellion/Solaris US 978-1781089118, $24.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
Horror novel. Sadie unexpectedly becomes the Liar in Red Valley, California — keeper of secrets, with power enough to remake the world (with enough blood) — but what she wants is answers.
Gray, Ayana: Beasts of Prey 
(Penguin Random House/Putnam 978-0-593-40568-0, $18.99, 496pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
Young-adult fantasy novel drawing on African mythology. Two teens in the jungle city of Lkossa, where magic has been driven underground, help each other after an attack by an ancient creature.
Henry, Christina: Horseman 
(Penguin Random House/Berkley 978-0-593-19978-7, $17, 320pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
Horror novel, a reimagining of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. Local boys like to playact the Horseman’s story, but when they discover a headless body in the woods, they start to wonder if the Horseman was actually real? Or did the legend hide something even worse?
Knausgaard, Karl Ove: The Morning Star 
(Penguin Random House/Penguin Press 978-0-399-56342-3, $30, 688pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, September 28, 2021)
One night in August a huge new star appears in the sky, leading to a series of strange events. Translated from the Norwegian by Martin Aitken.
Lem, Stanislaw: Dialogues 
(MIT Press 978-0-262-54293-7, $39.95, 360pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 28, 2021)
Non-fiction collection of neo-Platonic dialogues on cybernetics and its influence on culture and ethics. This is the first English-language edition, translated by Peter Butko from the Polish.
Lewis, Kayvion: The Half-Class 
(The Parliament House 978-1736981993, $24.99, 406pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 28, 2021)
Young-adult fantasy novel, the first book in the Class Chronicles series, set in a city where only those clearly light or dark are welcome, and those in-between classes begin to rebel. Half-caste Evie gets close to Prince Cass to find out what the king is planning, and finds him more charming than is safe.
Lostetter, Marina J.: Activation Degradation 
(Harper Voyager US 978-0-06-289574-5, $16.99, 384pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
Far-future SF novel. Autonomous Maintenance System Unit Four defends a mine orbiting Jupiter, but when captured by aliens that look like it, it begins to question everything it thought it knew.
Marino, Andy: The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess 
(Orbit US/Redhook 978-0-316-62948-5, $16.99, 352pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
Horror novel. A woman returns home, encounters a masked intruder, and flees. When she wakes up in the hospital she is told she killed the intruder in a very deliberate and horrific fashion. She must search her suppressed memories to discover the truth.
Mohamed, Premee: The Annual Migration of Clouds 
(ECW Press 978-1-77041-593-5, $15.95, 168pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 28, 2021)
Post-climate-apocalypse SF novel. A young woman infected by a deadly parasitic fungus on a devastated Earth must choose between a chance at safety at a legendary college, or helping her ravaged community and ailing mother.
Moore, James A.: The Godless 
(Angry Robot US 978-0-85766-842-4, $16.99, 400pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 28, 2021)
Epic fantasy novel, the fifth book in the Seven Forges series. The war with the Sa’ba Taalor has ended, but troubles continue, including a spate of murders, a necromancer stealing souls, and an army of the Godless who are following a new master.
Novik, Naomi: The Last Graduate 
(Penguin Random House/Del Rey 978-0-593-12886-2, $28, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
Fantasy novel, the second in the Scholomance trilogy about a deadly magic school. El Higgins plans to survive graduation, but she must resist her foretold destiny of dark sorcery and destruction if she wants her friends to make it out too.
Strahan, Jonathan, ed.: The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Volume 2 
(Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 978-1-5344-4962-6, $18.99, 642pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, September 28, 2021)
Year’s best anthology of 27 short SF/F stories from 2020, with a discussion of the year by Strahan and a list of recommended reading. Authors include Charlie Jane Anders, Yoon Ha Lee, Ken Liu, and Tochi Onyebuchi.
Stross, Charles: Invisible Sun 
(Tor 978-1-250-80709-0, $27.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, September 28, 2021)
SF novel, the third in the Empire Games trilogy set in the same world as the Merchant Princes series. Disgraced worldwalker Rita and her intertemporal-agent mother must deal with an inter-timeline coup, a renegade British monarch, and robotic alien invaders.
Ward, Dayton: Star Trek: Coda, Book 1: Moments Asunder 
(Simon & Schuster/Gallery 978-1-9821-5852-1, $16, 368pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, September 28, 2021)
Star Trek tie-in novel. The crews of Jean-Luc Picard, Benjamin Sisko, Ezri Dax, and William Riker unite to prevent a cosmic-level apocalypse, as an unknown adversary attacks countless alternate and parallel universes.
Williams, Allen: Covenant: The Art of Allen Williams 
(Flesk Publications 978-1-64041-044-2, $39.95, 144pp, formats: trade paperback, September 28, 2021)
The first collection of Allen’s personal drawings and paintings. Each character is accompanied by a line of text, a poem, or a brief story, building into an overall narrative journey into the mind of the artist. This is an oversize trade paperback with French flaps.
