Author: Alex Acks

In the roaring 20s in Washington, DC, Clara Johnson has a hidden talent to talk to spirits. And while that may have saved her several times, this magical skill has left her indebted to powerful spirits. When an opportunity to gain her freedom is offered, Clara takes it, no questions asked; all she has to do is steal a magical ring from the wealthiest woman in the city–shouldn’t be so hard, right? To gain her freedom and pull off this heist, Clara has to put together a team of unlikely musicians and artists, only to find they’ve all gotten more than they bargained for when the spirit world starts breaking through into the real world.

Firuz-e Jafari is a refugee from their homeland, the survivor of the slaughter of traditional Sassanian blood magic practitioners. In the Free Democratic City-State of Qilwa, they have a good job in a healing clinic, with a nice employer and a precocious apprentice. But when a deadly new disease with symptoms of mysterious bruises begins burning through Qilwa, Firuz finds themself under suspicion as a practitioner of blood magic… and they must find a way to free themself of this prejudice if they truly want a fresh start.

There is a prophecy of a chosen one, who will defeat the Eternal Khan…but the prophecy is wrong. The anointed hero, Jian, raised in luxury, is startlingly useless. Instead, a ban of unlikely heroes has to come together to accomplish this momentous task…and Jian has to figure out how to be a hero in his own way rather than how prophecy dictates.

Alabine Rivers, a young woman who discovers that she has terminal cancer, decides to take her shot at survival using cryogenics. It works, and she’s brought back a century later, into a world where the resurrection of the dead like her has become a violent philosophical battle. Awoken like Alabine are declared illegal and can be shot on sight, and the Resurrectionists are a secret militia fighting for their rights.

A secret family that can literally eat books — and once having eaten them, retain all the knowledge within — lives out in the Yorkshire Moors. But not all books are treated equally, and not all members of the family; Devon, as a woman, is allowed to eat only fairytales and cautionary stories, unlike her brothers, who feast on adventure tales. And when her son is born and consumes not books but human minds, she realizes that happy endings are not as guaranteed as books would imply.

After her father dies in the War of the Lance, Destina Rosethorn loses both her family and her lands. She decides that she will go back in time to save his life. To do so, she must track down the kender Tasslehoff Burrfoot, last known possessor of the Device of Time Journeying. And if she succeeds in altering her past, she will change the future and perhaps even divert the course of the River of Time.

The perfect face is the key to riches and power; Schuyler and Madeleine Burroughs are lucky enough to have been engineered to have just that look. But their outer perfection hides a household that’s beginning to come apart at the seams, boredom and unhappiness taking a toll on both while they desperately try to maintain appearances.

The Novae Terrae are a fundamentalist faction that have have started a civil war in a future America ravaged by disasters and political unrest. Mazzy Goodwin is a young soldier searching for her little sister until one day she wakes up in a crater left behind by a bomb and finds she has wings emerging from her back. She chooses to become an angelic figurehead of revolution for the Novae in exchange for finding her sister.

Haelewise is a strange, weak little girl, whose black eyes and fainting spells leave her shunned by her village, with only her overprotective mother to care about her and tell her stories of an ancient tower where women can find shelter if they are sufficiently brave. When her mother dies, Haelewise sets out to find this legendary tower, which is named Gothel, and there she finds shelter under the tutelage of a wise woman. But she isn’t the only woman to seek shelter there…

Schuyler wakes up in New York safe and sound… but at the price of having sacrificed the love of her life in order to defeat Lucifer. Worse, she quickly realizes that she’s not actually in her own body… and this is not her life she’s walking around in. Because somehow, she’s ended up in an alternate reality, one where Lucifer is stubbornly undefeated… and the mayor of New York City.

Violet is a witch who has gotten herself a position in the royal court with clever phrased and selectively truthful prophecies and divinations. But Prince Cyrus is onto her and plans to eject her from the court as soon as he’s crowned. Violet takes her opportunity to strike back at him when the king asks her to prophecy Cyrus’s love story for a ball… and the false tale she weaves awakens a curse that could destroy or save the kingdom.

Sigrid was born an ordinary girl with an ordinary fate — she was even paired with the plainest possible horse instead of the winged mare of a valkyrie. She had nothing to look forward to but life as a stablehand… until Vanaheim is invaded and she sees a vision of herself leading the valkyries into battle. But to find this new destiny, the must face a fallen valkyrie who has allied herself with Vanaheim’s enemies.

When Sol disappears, their wife Lumi, who was born on Earth, sets out to find them. Through letters and other extracts, Lumi chronicles her journey from the affluent colony of Mars to the environmentally devastated Earth, which takes her deep into Sol’s past among underground environmental groups — and her own.

Raqi’s parents died when she was just four years old, and she was sent to be raised by her uncle, Dodge, a drug addict who is a member of an all-white, racist motorcycle club call the Lawless. Raqi leaves that world behind as soon as she can and eventually becomes a partner at an LA law firm. Then she gets a call from the leader of the Lawless with the news that Dodge is dead, and she’s expected to come on the Grieving Ride for him — and if she does go, she will finally receive the address of her long-lost Mexican grandfather. But the Grieving Ride is nothing like she expected, a cross-country journey into herself and her family.

Carlota Moreau is the daughter of a researcher who might be a brilliant scientist or an utter madman… or perhaps both, operating under the patronage of the wealthy Lizalde family. She knows only the hybrids, part-animal, part-human monstrosities created by her father, and the alcoholic overseer Laughton, but her life is peaceful enough. But when the charming — and careless — son of the Lizalde family, Eduardo, arrives, that peace quickly begins to unravel.

On a remote island at the edge of the Northern Atlantic, an outwardly harmonious community is infected by a strange disorder–and the infection causes the secrets of the islanders, from the banal to the dark, to come to light. When the island loses contact with the mainland, the inconvenience quickly becomes a nightmare and the community begins to unravel — and it becomes a real question of who will even survive.

In Seri’s world, the beasts prowl the forests and the valiant kill them to protect the People who live in trees. She’s the assistant to Eshai Unbroken, a famous commander who tries to keep the People safe… until she meets Tsana, a stranger from a world unknown who can communicate with the beasts. As she grows closer to Tsana, Seri begins to doubt everything she’s ever known… and she’ll have to find a way to craft a new peace.

The Tea Monk Sibling Dex and their friend Mosscap, a robot on a quest to discover what humanity needs, continue to travel to the villages of their home moon. It’s a peaceful journey of making friends, learning many new things, and… exploring the entropic nature of the universe.

A series of interconnected short stories by acclaimed writer and poet Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, which ranges from past to future, from living to dead, and covers robot assassins, a group of friends stalked by the bones of extinct animals, a world where the rain can kill, and a woman who turns into a man-eating monster when she returns to her repressive hometown.

A collection of science fiction short stories by eight Chinese authors, newly published in English. The stories are by Shuang Chimu 双翅目, Liu Xiao 刘啸, Yang Wanqing 杨晚晴, Hui Hu 灰狐, Congyun “Mu Ming” Gu 慕明, Liang Qingsan 梁清散, Shi Heiyao 石黑曜, and Liao Shubo 廖舒波.