Author: Alex Acks

The elder beings tried to force their way into the world a year and a half ago, and now Nick Prasad is trying to rebuild his life. He’s joined the Ssarati Society and helps them monitor threats against humanity–including his former best friend Johnny. And once again, Johnny has a brilliant idea for an invention… that serves the purpose of Them even though she claims it’s all an accident.

The first short fiction collection from Nebula Award-winning writer Kelly Robson. This volume includes both previously published stories and new work, ranging from horror to science fiction, heartbreak to humor.

Riley has long since forgotten her real name, or any other life she had before she began protecting the supply caravans that cross the wasteland. Her face is the last thing many a thief has seen. But then she gets sent out to look at a supply caravan that went down too easily, and the bodies left behind her rotting away after only a few hours. And in the wreckage, Riley finds a girl who has no business being there, one with violently blue eyes, just like the ones Riley sees every time she happens to look in a mirror.

Two low-level assassins get a surprise field promotion in a war where things aren’t going too well, a promotion that sends them sailing off on a luxury cruise liner and leaving their son Peter at boarding school. For Peter, the school is nothing like he expects, and he’s soon trying to uncover the mysteries of the school in between double dates and encounters with ginger vodka. Little does he know another assassin is hanging around the school, looking for revenge on her cousin by posing as a teacher.

Facing down an invasion by Fjerda, King Nikolai Lantsov must summon every tool at his disposal if he wants to win, including the demon within. Standing with him are a stormwitch who must embrace her powers and become a weapon for the king if she doesn’t wish to bury another friend, and a spy whose desire for revenge may cost her homeland its freedom but heal her broken heart.

Tarisai was raised in strict isolation without the normal warmth of a family by a demanding and distant mother she knows only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to compete to join the Crown Prince’s Council of Eleven, a body that is joined through the magic powers of the Ray in a bond deeper than blood. But what seems like a dream for lonely Tarisai becomes a nightmare when The Lady demands that she murder the Crown Prince, and she must choose between loyalty and her own deepest wishes.

Mona is a fourteen-year-old wizard who can’t control lightning or shoot firebolts but instead has a way with bread and pastries. Her familiar is a sourdough starter, and she’ll need all of her magic and baking skills when the victim of an assassin ends up dead on the floor of her bakery–and Mona’s the next target.

Elatsoe (but you can call her Ellie) is a Lipan Apache teenager who can raise the spirits of dead animals–including her dog, Kirby, her best friend for life. She lives in an America just a little stranger than ours, where the paranormal is every day, and her goal is to someday be an investigator. When her cousin dies in an apparent car accident, she knows it was murder–because his ghost told her. This is her first case to solve, and it puts her up against an entire town of wealthy white people in Texas.

Sisters Samantha and Caitlin are sent to live in rural Oregon with an aunt they’ve never met after their family life is shattered by the revelation of abuse. Their aunt gives Sam a card game called “A Game of Fox & Squirrels” and it seems like innocent, delightful fun until one day the trickster fox of the game shows up with an offer: if Sam finds the Golden Acorn, she can have anything she desires.

Sheetal is the daughter of a human and a star, and she spends her life trying very hard to pretend she’s a normal mortal. But when she accidentally loses control of her starfire and puts her father in the hospital, only the power of a star—like her mother, who left long ago—can save him. Sheetal must journey into the heavens if she wants to save her father, but she’s not prepared for the magic or the politics she’ll find there.

2019 winner. Sisters Eleanor and Mike hide in a secret place under Eleanor’s bed when things are going wrong in their house and their father is angry. When their father breaks a glass witch ball that is a fairy heirloom, they are swept into a river that appears under Eleanor’s bed and must find a way to fix the fantastic world they find themselves in, where nightmares are trying to break into the real world.

2018 winner. Zélie comes from a people who were slaughtered by a ruthless king who feared their magic and wanted it suppressed. Now she has one chance to bring the magic back with the aid of a rogue princess. Together they must outwit the crown prince, who would eradicate all magic for good.

2017 winner. Matt is surrounded by food and always hungry, because he’s discovered the longer he deprives himself of sustenance, the more powers he seems to gain. And he needs those powers if he’s going to figure out how a band of high school bullies drove his sister away.

Touraine is a soldier who was conscripted as a child. She’s now been sent back to her homeland with her company to stop a rebellion, where she discovers that some of her blood ties might still bind. There, she also meets Luca, who is looking for a turncoat to help her depose her uncle.

Salo has won permission to pursue his dream of being a mystic despite the taboo concerning the use of magic by men. Disguised by his queen, he attempts the pilgrimage to the Red Temple, only to be stopped by a magical barrier. He cannot return home without completing his pilgrimage, but city politics and the machinations of his own queen stand in his way.

Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods five years ago, and that time has mostly been forgotten. But with children newly going missing, her mysterious disappearance (and equally mysterious reappearance) are gaining fresh scrutiny. Then Wendy finds an unconscious boy in the middle of the road, a boy named Peter, and he asks for her help.

For twenty years now, the only way people can have children is via a painful fertility treatment. Children born in this time are monitored strictly, with government controls that allow the removal of children from parents deemed unfit. Kit is a woman who didn’t initially want children, but changed her mind after meeting Thomas. But soon their baby girl, Mimi, is in the government’s sights for removal due to a series of mistakes.

When Lara Barnes’s fiancé disappears on their wedding day, she embarks on a desperate search for answers that leads her to her great-grandmother’s diaries. In those pages, she reads of the dark and magical Secret Circus 80 years ago in Paris, where a daughter of the circus’ owners embarks on a passionate affair and may have set off a curse that will haunt her family for generations.

Amraeya ni Ansarim has lived in a kingdom rife with child disappearances as long as she can remember, but when her friend’s sister is taken, she must seek answers in the royal court. While her rural upbringing and physical disability invite the ridicule of some, she finds an unexpected ally in a foreign princess. With that aid, she turns to the dark streets of the city and uncovers a treachery that endangers the entire kingdom.

Novella finalist. With the release of Birth of a Nation in 1915, demons rose, fueled by the darkest thoughts of white people, and swelled the ranks of the KKK across the nation. Only resistance fighters are willing to take them down, with bullet, blade, and bomb, sending the demons of the Klan back to Hell.

Novella finalist. A customer goes missing in a Swedish big box store and it’s up to two minimum wage retail employees to find her in the depths of the infinite retail universe where all stores across all realities are interconnected. (Full disclosure: Nino and I have the same agent.)

Novella finalist. A small group has survived nuclear war in Africa and develop otherworldly powers. They’re expected to lead and save their people, but one woman, Imade, refuses to bend to destiny or be a mere vessel for her people.

Novella finalist. After refusing to gas a crowd of protestors, a minister is banished to the border of his country to oversee the construction of the largest anti-aircraft tower ever made. He can only reclaim his life if the construction succeeds, but there are many forces–including from within himself–that want the tower to fall.

Novella finalist. A Black girl with psychic abilities so powerful that she could level a city watches as her younger brother is incarcerated–and must decide what she will and won’t do about it as she watches him suffer through their connection.

Novella finalist. In order to defeat an evil ruler, two trans elders must learn the final weave from Death itself.

Novel finalist. At the eave of a solstice that coincides with a solar eclipse, the reincarnation of a god travels to the holy city in order to usurp power from the Sun priest.

Novel finalist. As the city of New York awakens, it embodies itself in six people instead of the more traditional one–one for each borough and one for the city itself. If the city is to survive its metaphysical birth, these people must find each other and defend the city itself from the otherworldly force that would destroy it.

Novel finalist. Noemi heads into the Mexican countryside after receiving a frantic letter from her cousin, who has just married a handsome Englishman who lives in a remote country estate belonging to a family that has fallen into ruin. This book is a love letter to classic gothic novels with an unflinching twist.

Novel finalist. Murderbot’s human associates have been captured. When someone else who is totally-not-a-friend desperately calls for assistance, Murderbot swings into action. Of course things get shot and blown up.

Novel finalist. Women with magic in Beatrice’s world have two options: remain forever alone and be allowed to pursue their magic on the margins, or get married and have their magic locked away with a collar that is totally under their husband’s control. Beatrice’s family demands she marry to save their fortune; she wants only to learn magic. And then she meets someone she actually might be able to fall in love with… but it’s a choice she doesn’t want to face.

Novel finalist. Piranesi lives in an infinite house filled with thousands of statues, which imprisons an ocean that sometimes floods up through rooms. The Other visits Piranesi twice a week and asks him to help him with his research, but soon Piranesi realizes there might be another person in there with him.

Roma and Leviathan are young people trapped in a system of caste and colonization. Roma is the sacred slave of a goddess who desperately hopes to save her younger brother from the same fate; Leviathan is the casteless bastard son of an immortal tyrant, and his only allowable purpose is to kill. Their destinies become intertwined as Leviathan’s father hunts for a living treasure that will doom humankind–and for which together they are the key.

Celeste lives in a world where the future of a woman is predicted based on the markings they bear in childhood, the constellations of freckles, moles, and birthmarks. Puberty will bring a second set of auguries that will set her fate in stone, and she fears that the future will be one she doesn’t want–or worse, that she won’t make it through her ‘changeling period’ when girls are often abducted. Her brother, Miles, can interpret the future, an unusual thing for men, and he sees her fate as the only hint he’ll have of his own. But Celeste’s change reveals a secret about Miles that may destroy her family and puts her on the path to fighting the societal belief in the fates of women.

The Skyward Inn is a refuge where veterans and civilians alike come together to tell stories of what life was like before the war with Qita. But Qita surrendered immediately to the invasion of Earth; the veterans of that war might have their regrets, but they have few scars or tales of loss. The arrival of a visitor, searching for help, brings a reminder of this past and forces all present to ask themselves a disturb question: Did Earth actually win the war?

Ev can feel the emotions people have imbued in the objects they once owned. Most items that cross her path should be destroyed, in her estimation, but she sells the few she feels are safe in order to survive. Harriet hoards these items to the point that the concentrated emotions begin to seep through her apartment walls and sicken her neighbors. Harriet hopes that Ev can help her make this collection into a museum of memory that can help and heal–but they both know the dark fate of the only other person like them, and that darkness is rising again.

Graciela and Lock were both assaulted at the same party, and the effect on them both is devastating in different ways. Graciela loses her culinary magic and finds the trees in her neighborhood have vanished, to be replaced with mirrors. Lock has lost his memory of that night, but his life is being destroyed by a single piece of mirrored glass. Graciela decides to help him, but it means hiding the truth–because for the sake of their mutual survival, no one can know what happened.

Jitsu is a world that was once dominated by corporate ownership until its worker population rose up and gained independence. Corporate rule was replaced with fundamentalist theocracy. Now, Jitsu has reached out to rejoin the rest of humanity. A religious reformer named Tenshi meets Brando, who has come from Earth to accept a teaching position. They fall in love, with Brando accepting Tenshi’s reformist teachings; together they must face the cruelty of Tenshi’s enemies and help Jitsu reforge itself anew once more.

Naomi is a single mother and a brilliant scientist in the field of biology. Her son, Colt, is socially awkward and finds his best escape in a virtual reality game world where he stands out as someone with excellent coding skills. When Colt secretly releases the data about his mother’s latest scientific breakthrough, he brings his estranged father back into their lives–with the power of a secret security agency behind him. Colt must grapple with the world outside his game, while Naomi has to decide how far she’ll go to protect both her son and her research.

When a woman goes missing, the twins Mae and Rossa know the truth of what happened to her. But it’s a secret they’ll keep forever, along with their knowledge of the uncanny cat, the owl in the wall, and the creatures that eat both love and fear. (Full disclosure: Sarah and I have the same agent.)

A satire set in a fictional suburb of Dublin, this book involves genetic engineering in the search for immortality, a chemical agent that makes people docile, and an order of warrior nuns that is quite Charlie’s Angels-esque.

The alien invasion is over and the earthlings lost. But life goes on, people survive, and John Dray now works for the local hard man in Belfast to try to keep his younger siblings safe and alive. Unfortunately, he gets sent to Innish Carraig, an alien prison, and there he discovers a new plot which threatens to destroy the earth entirely.

The Irish mainland has fallen to a flesh-eating evil known as the skrake. Orpen has known only the small island she was raised on, safe from its depredations but training always to fight. But when disaster strikes, her only hope is to abandon the island and head to the mainland in the hopes of joining the legendary Banshee, an all-female fighting force that battles the skrake.

Twenty-five years ago, a group of five heroes defeated a corrupt magician and his army of animal-bone creatures. One of the heroes made the ultimate sacrifice. Kreya, the group’s leader, has lived in self-imposed exile since, searching for the magic that will resurrect her dead husband. The price of his return to life will be time taken from hers, and she’s willing to pay it–but more difficult is finding the human bones required by the spell. She returns to the battlefield where he died, and the story of five heroes begins again… because defying the laws of land and magic open new doors for old evil.

Leviathan is an aging nuclear submarine, the last of its kind, lurking beneath the waves. Its mission is to trigger the Second Coming when the time is right. Remy is taken from the surface world and added to the choir of young boys in the sub. But Remy has a secret–she’s a girl, and she was given the missile launch key by the old caplain as he lay dying. The new caplain has his own view on the mission and the timing of the Second Coming, and it’s up to Remy to judge for herself the ultimate fate of the world.

Salka is a Striga, a child born with two hearts. Rather than abandon her in the woods, her mother Miriat chose to hide with her in a remote village where she continues to risk everything to keep her daughter safe from the urgings of her second heart. But Salka is headstrong and adventurous, and soon she’ll have no choice but to plumb the depths of her hidden nature if she wants to save herself and her mother.

Isda was thrown into a well at birth for her ability to manipulate memories when someone is singing. She was saved by Cyril, the owner of the nearby opera house. All he’s ever asked in return for his protection is that she keep out of sight and make sure the customer keep buying tickets. But then Isda meets a charming boy who has the voice of an angel–and memories that hint how she could break free and live her own life.

The O’Malley family has long prospered from a deal they made with a mer. Their ships are guaranteed safe passage; the price is one child from each generation. But the O’Malleys have gone into decline, unable to keep up their end of the bargain… until Miren’s grandmother decides that she will pay the price, with her granddaughter’s freedom.

Azaro is a spirit child, constantly harassed by spirits from another world who want him to rejoin them in the land of spirits. Azaro refuses out of love for his parents. Around him, the city he lives in undergoes political turmoil as his family tries to better their condition.

The story of how Cordelia Vorkosigan went from being the dismissed, foreign wife of the Regent of Barrayar to one of the most feared and respected women in the empire by way of defeating a coup and saving her infant son.

Shira Shipman returns to Tikva, the Jewish free town in which she grew up, after her marriage falls apart and a corporation takes her young son from her. Her brilliant adopted grandmother welcomes her home with open arms and introduces her to a cyborg that has intelligence and emotions… and is very capable of killing.

A crew of human explorers arrives at a planet circling Sigma Draconis determined to not disturb or influence the life on that world. But an internal conflict on the ship begins to influence the ground crew in unexpected ways, endangering their goal of observing without touching this world that is not theirs.

This is actually the sequel to The Snow Queen but I had to include it because I love the covers on these books SO MUCH. This book spans thousands of years on the world of Tiamat, where its dolphin-like native people are harvested to make a serum that prolongs youth. Under its capital, a forgotten technology continues to influence the data bank that the universe runs on. And the ruler of Tiamat, the Summer Queen, will create a new future for her people, no matter the cost.

Maybe you’ve heard of it?

Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass travel out to the edge of Teixcalaanli space to take on a new impossible task even as they reel from the upheaval of the empire. An alien armada waits for them, one that no one has been able to communicate with. Failure will guarantee the death of billions. Success will save Teixcalaan, and in so doing allow it to continue its aggressive expansion. (Full disclosure: Arkady and I have the same agent.)

Hester Marley is far from home, stranded injured and indebted on a mining station in the asteroid belt. Her only chance to survive is taking a dead-end security job from the company that owns the station. Then she receives a message from an old friend who claims to have new information about the terrorist attack that injured her… and he winds up dead before they can meet. As she investigates his brutal murder, she soon realizes that finding his killer will unearth secrets about him, her, and the outpost that has been her home–one that very dangerous and powerful people will kill to keep hidden.

A bodyguard witnesses her client being murdered in front of her, and it seems the culprits were the mysterious Machinehood, a terrorist group whose members seem to be part human, part machine. And what the Machinehood wants is an end to the production of the pills humans depend on to allow them to compete with AI in the worldwide gig economy. As pill production slows down, frightened people turn on their bots… and the US government turns to the bodyguard in need of redemption to take the Machinehood down permanently.

When time warriors break time, the end result is a Causality War that no one remembers anything of–not who started it, not who fought in it, and not who ended it. Or maybe almost no one. Because the one who ended it is the lone survivor, and they’ve taken up a new mission: to make sure it never happens again.

Hetty and her husband were Conductors on the Underground Railroad, rescuing countless people from enslavement with their wits, skill, and the magic of the constellations. Now with the Civil War at an end, they use those skills to investigate crimes ignored by the white authorities; this time, it’s the murder of an old friend that promises to unearth long-buried secrets.

Nima, the daughter of an immigrant, feels both too much like an outsider and not enough in her home in the suburbs. As she grapples with social upheaval, she meets the phantom of another life, that of Yasmeen, the name her parents almost gave her—but Yasmeen is far more real than she seems. This is also a novel in verse, and it looks gorgeous.

Touraine is a soldier who was conscripted as a child. She’s now been sent back to her homeland with her company to stop a rebellion, and there she meets Luca, who just needs a turncoat to get her uncle off her throne.

Two witches–one imprisoned since birth, the other the daughter of the queen–make an alliance to take down a common enemy, ensuring revenge for one and survival for the other. But the chase is long and the violence intoxicating, and each will go to extreme lengths to get what she wants.

Danso is a disillusioned scholar in the city of Bassa who wants only to escape his social and political obligations as one of the elite. He gets his wish when a skin-changing warrior named Lilong shows up wounded in his barn, claiming she’s from lands that everyone knows don’t exist and quickly dragging him into a world of magic and conspiracy.

A pregnant woman escapes from a religious compound to give birth to her twins in the woods. But cults don’t let go easily, and she’s forced to fight against that community and the outside world to defend her family–a battle that begins an uncanny metamorphosis of her body that can only be understood by facing the past.

Fatma is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities in 1912 Cairo, and she’s already prevented the destruction of the universe once. Now she’s called on to investigate a mysterious murder, one committed by someone who claims to be the famous al-Jahiz, who pierced the veil between magical and mundane realms 40 years ago, now returned to judge the world for its societal sins.

Jake Livingston has two major problems as a 16-year-old: he’s a medium who sees ghosts everywhere, and he’s surrounded by racist teachers at the private school in which he’s one of the few Black students. But when a new Black student named Allister arrives, at least he might have a shot at romance. Too bad the ghosts are getting more insistent, and one of them, the spirit of a school shooter, has his own plans for Jake.

Now that the Good Luck Girls are free, most have crossed the border to pursue new lives, while Aster tries to help more girls escape. But when she finds out about a new welcome house opening, she decides that helping individuals isn’t enough. She hatches an ambitious and dangerous plan to free all dustbloods, and calls upon her friends to make it a reality.