New Books: 14 December 2021
Graham, Jo: Sounding Dark
(Candlemark & Gleam 9781952456053, $21.45, 240pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, December 14, 2021)
SF space opera novel, the first in the Calpurnian Wars series. A legendary ghost ship has been missing for 200 years, but it might be the miracle a small pirate republic needs to withstand an invading navy.
Haas, John: Cults of Death and Madness 
(WordFire Press 978-1-68057-232-2, $16.99, 336pp, formats: trade paperback, hardcover, December 14, 2021)
Lovecraftian fantasy/horror. A doctor in the British army in India discovers a cult determined to wake a sleeping evil.
Hossain, Saad Z.: Cyber Mage 
(Unnamed Press 978-1-951213-28-2, $18, 288pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, December 14, 2021)
Near-future science fantasy novel. Dhaka, Bangladesh uses nanotech to survive global climate apocalypse in 2089. Some people are starting to change and mutate oddly, while the Djinn have seemingly disappeared.
Though it works perfectly well as a standalone, Cyber Mage brings back a few characters from 2017’s Djinn City, to which it’s partly a sequel, and shares important figures with The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday (reviewed here in August 2019), to which it can serve as a kind of prequel [. . .]
Hossain has a voice and a vision entirely his own, and Cyber Mage is as hugely entertaining and provocative as we’ve come to expect from him.
—Gary K. Wolfe, Locus, December 2021
Pavlov, Amanda: Mind Like a Diamond 
(Sword and Silk 978-1-73643-007-1, $14699, 318pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, December 14, 2021)
Fantasy romance novel. Witch Ellara Wist, her green skin making her an outcast among humans, fought on the losing side of a war and ends up making a deal with the new king, who sees opportunity for change if she marries him.
Thomson, Alex: Spidertouch 
(Angry Robot US 978-0-85766-960-5, $14.99, 400pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, December 14, 2021)
Fantasy adventure novel. Razan, a translator of the fingerspeak language of his land’s mute dictators, has to decide whether to side with his employers, rebels, or invaders who may be even more crueler than the current regime.
Wilson, David Niall: Jurassic Ark 
(Crossroad Press/Mystique Press 978-1-63789-934-2, $16.99, 270pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, December 14, 2021)
Alternate history/fantasy novel, a major twist on the story of Noah’s Ark. A man and his family get a prophecy of a flood they can survive only if they build an ark.
