Sponsored by Saga Press
Dive into an epic summer with these titles from Saga Press. The Kingdom of Liars blends the taut crime drama of The Wire with the epic worldbuilding of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. Savage Legion captures what lies at the heart of epic fantasy—sweeping journeys, brutal battles, and impossible odds—but with true diversity that defies the status quo. Fans of Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver and RF Kuang’s The Poppy War will love The Vanished Queen, a timely fantasy novel about a country held in the thrall to a vicious king, and one woman’s fight to take him down.
Happy Tuesday, shipmates. The hits just keep on coming, huh? Alex here, and I’ve got some new releases and some news items if you need something to escape into for a bit. The power might be fighting us as hard as it can, but you can’t keep good space pirates down. Unfurl the black flag, keep the powder dry, and eyes up to the horizon!
A thing that made me smile: Geolgical baking!
Looking for non-book things you can do to help in the quest for justice? blacklivesmatter.card.co and The Okra Project
New Releases
Note: There do not appear to be any authors of color on the new release lists for this week I have access to. (Just gonna gently set down the link for FIYAH’s Black SpecFic Report portal here.)
Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks – In the wake of Mount Rainier’s catastrophic erruption, the Greenloop Massacre was almost forgotten… until the journals of one of its victims came to light. The bloody, terrifying truths revealed in those journals are many, but the most earth-shattering is that Bigfoot walks among us, and is not friendly.
The Unconquered City by K.A. Doore – It’s seven years after the hungry dead rose in an event called the Siege, the city of Ghadid remains unbowed, protected by its militia against the ever-increasing waves of flesh-hungry guul. Illi, trained to be an elite assassin in that militia, must face her inner demons and her past when a general from a neighboring nation arrives searching for the source of the guul–and in that search, the unearths a terrible secret hidden at the edges of Ghadid.
The Grand Tour by E. Catherine Tobler – A collection of stories of Jackson’s Unreal Circus and Mobile Maramalade. The steam train that brings the circus mysteriously to town might seem ancient, but its metal confines lead to destinations beyond the imagination, just waiting for the right visitor. The circus is a place where you can be whoever–or whatever–you want.
The Kinder Poison by Natalie Mae – Zahru is a lowly girl with magic that only allows her to commune with animals; she believes she’s fated to work in the royal stables until her magic runs dry and she dies. When the Crossing, a deadly race across the desert, is invoked to determine the next heir to the throne, Zahru sneaks into the palace for a night to enjoy the revelry. But one mistake puts her between the feuding heirs and directly in the middle of the Crossing–but not as a contestant. She’ll be the human sacrifice the triumphant heir will make at the end of the contest.
The Lightness by Emily Temple – After her father disappears while on a meditation retreat, Olivia follows him to the mountains to find out what happened. She signs up for a summer program for troubled teens at his last known location, the Levitation Center. She’s drawn to a trio of fast friends who are determined to achieve enlightenment this summer and learn to levitate.
Hella David Gerrold – Hella is a world that’s earned its name, home to dinosaur herds, mile-high trees, and a climate so vicious and extreme that the human colonists who live there have to migrate twice a year to escape it. A neuroatypical young man with real-time access to the colony’s computer become the bridge between the residents of Hella and a ship of refugees from Earth that arrives unexpectedly. Can a barely self-sufficient colony take the burden of a thousand new people, bringing with them many of the problems they were fleeing?
News and Views
Because we need joy to fuel the fire, the People of Colo(u)r Destroy… special issues of Lightspeed are now FREE.
New Star Wars anthology alert! From a Certain Point of View strikes back.
A delightful low-budget remake of Alien.
Sarah Pinsker’s A Song for a New Day has been optioned for television.
The next Doctor Who audio series is going to be about Rory, and what he was doing that whole time he was sitting around and guarding a giant box.
A history of slash in six ships.
Deep structures in the Earth! Geology is awesome!
How do neutrinos get their mass?
Kathy Sullivan was the first woman to walk in space, and now she’s the first woman to visit the Challenger Deep.
On Book Riot
15 Paranormal Mystery Books to Read Right Now
You can win a copy of Agnes at the End of the World by Kelly McWilliams
Enter before the end of the month and you could win a 1-year subscription to Audible or a $250 Barnes and Noble gift card.
See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.