Simon R. Green, Night Fall (Ace 978-0-451-47697-5, $27.00, 453pp, hc) June 2018.

Green wraps up the Secret Histories and the Nightside series (and a few more) in a massive kitchen-sink of a battle between the righteous Droods and the lawless Nightside that brings together a host of old characters with a bunch of impossibly deadly weapons, a massive body count, and a healthy sprinkling of humor. Some­thing happens in the ...Read More

Greg Keyes, The Reign of the Departed (Night Shade 978-1-59780-937-5, $14.99, 348pp, tp) June 2018. Cover by Micah Epstein.

Errol Greyson says he didn’t intend to commit suicide – but he wakes in a body carved of wood and joined by wire and bolts, and his classmate Aster tells him his real body’s in a coma. She’s originally from another world, and needs to re­turn there for the magic water ...Read More

Jim Butcher, Brief Cases (Ace 978-0-451-49210-4, $28.00, 437pp, hc) June 2018. Cover by Chris McGrath.

This new collection in the Dresden Files series offers 12 entertaining stories, some real gems. Three of my favorites, previously collected as Working for Bigfoot, are relatively light stories about Harry and a sasquatch who needs help for his half-human son. Several take the viewpoint of characters other than Harry Dresden, with a couple of ...Read More

Anne Bishop, Lake Silence (Ace 978-0-399-58724-5, $27.00, 402pp, hc) March 2018.

The need for understanding between humans and Others remains the crux of this first volume in a new arc in Bishop’s world of the Others. There are definite similarities with the previous volumes, such as the focus on bemused Others learning from a hu­man female needing protection from bad men, but new characters and the small-town setting offer intriguing ...Read More

D.J. Butler, Witchy Winter (Baen 978-1-4814-8314-8, $25.00,591pp, hc) April 2018. Cover by Daniel Dos Santos.

War and winter are coming in this second vol­ume in the epic flintlock fantasy series begun in Witchy Eye, which introduced this fascinating alternate history of a world where magic is real, and has greatly changed the course of history. Re­ligions are fascinatingly altered, and the magic, from various cultures, is intriguing. Despite the changes, ...Read More

A.P. Winter, The Boy Who Went Magic (Chicken House UK 978-1910655092, £6.99, tp) June 2017; (Chicken House US 978-1-338-21714-8, $17.99, 279pp, hc) April 2018. Cover by Manuel Sumberac.

Magic is a myth repressed by the government in this rousing middle-grade fantasy, a solid first novel. Some 200 years before, when kings had real power, people believed in magic and the magical land of Ferenor. Bert Rumsey, an orphan raised at ...Read More