Category: Swords and Spaceships

Melanie is fragile and dying and seemingly destined to die; Harry doesn’t want to believe that destiny exists because it means he will lose the person who means the most to him in the world. But destiny has a very different plan for them both, a road that–if they can make it through alive–will lead them to a possible lifetime together.

King Rao was the precocious child of Dalit coconut farmers, who rose to become the most powerful tech CEO in the world–and then the leader of a global, corporate government. His daughter Athena must reckon with his legacy in a world still run by the Board of Corporations–in a very literal sense, as he has insisted on giving her access to his memories. With climate change ravaging the world, Athena must commit a radical act of communion if she’s to convince the Shareholders to save the planet.

The Architects have returned after eighty years of peace, consuming entire planets and wreaking havoc across the galaxy–because this time, they have found a way to circumvent the Originator relics that once kept worlds safe. The Human Colonies, threatened with extinction, are casting about for any solution, looking for allies and arguing amongst themselves. An Intermediary named Idris, who would just like to run from his past, may be the one to save humanity–if he finds a weapon strong enough to do it.

Tala and Alex might have survived their brush with the Snow Queen, but she’s still out there, and she’ll be back to attack them again. The friends have a chance to make this confrontation on their own terms… but the world around them is only getting messier even before the Snow Queen returns.

Angus has tried to get his life back on the straight and narrow as he eagerly awaits the birth of his first child… but then he gets murdered by a man who’s in love with his wife, Gracie. Freshly dead, he finds himself in the afterlife despite never having believed in much of anything until now. And the afterlife is getting very crowded, thanks to a pandemic. But Angus still has a chance to reconnect to Gracie–and maybe get revenge.

For millennia, nature spirits have caused massive destruction throughout the world with storms and other disasters. Rika has lived on the streets for eight years and is one of the few people in the world who can see these spirits. She’s maintained a truce with them, but then a powerful storm sprite named Erlking attacks Berlin and she finds herself drawn into the Spirit Seekers, an elite force that battles the spirits.

Remezov is the best earthquake predictor in the world; he’s the youngest inductee the powerful Guild of Geographers has chosen in decades. But as he travels to the city of Hanemark to receive this honor, he finds the diary of a dead scientist, which warns of a coming invasion and explains some otherwise quite inexplicable recent occurrences. Remezov must decide if he will hand the diary over and face possible accusations of being the murderer… or keep it and try to use it to add to his fame.

Alongside the societal sins of bootleg gin and jazz, black magic is having a major comeback, much to the delight of Doctor Vincent Temple, who makes his living dealing with demons and cultists who trouble others. With even the Mafia finding themselves subject to magical issues, Vincent is happy to take the case because money is money. But it turns out the cult the dons are clashing with has a personal connection to Vincent–maybe too personal.

In a future where plants have saved us from a poisoned atmosphere and resource hoarders are the favorite marks of bounty hunters, Orfeus has relatively small goals–she just wants to be a traveling musician, though fame and adoration would be a nice bonus. Despite the fact that she’s never done anything wrong, she finds herself pursued by the Wolf, the most feared bounty hunter of the Vengeful Wild–and even as she tries to escape her hunter, there are greater monsters waiting for her on the road.

After Jena’s mother, father, and siblings were killed in a barn fire, her grandmother, Rose, banished her from the farm. Twenty years later, Rose is dying and it’s Jena’s last chance to find out what really happened the night of the fire. Rose’s live-in caregiver, Will, is a hunter of the supernatural, and he has his own questions. There’s something dark lurking on the homestead, and as Will and Jena search for answers, they unwittingly release a far darker evil into the world.

There has been no marriage between mortal and faerie since the Iron Law was revoked… until now. Maybe. If Hetta and Wyn actually manage to have their wedding. They’ve received permission from the mortal queen, but now they need the blessing of the fae high king. Hetta and Wyn both have deeply personal reasons for wanting to get hitched as quickly as possible… but what are personal desires next to politics and haywire magic?

Kaikeyi is the only daughter to the kingdom of Kekaya, and she watches as her mother is banished and her own worth is set at whatever her marriage can secure. She prays to the gods whose stories she was raised on, but none seem to hear. So instead she turns her efforts inward, taking up the books she once read with her mother and using them to unlock a magic that is hers alone, one that lets her transform herself into a warrior, diplomat, and queen… and perhaps make herself strong enough to vanquish her own destiny.

Nick Prasad is the last survivor of Earth; seven years ago, he crashed through uncountable dimensions to the strange new world in which he lives–and became the prophet to the ruling family in the process. The ruling family, who serves the Ancient Ones who destroyed Earth. But now Nick has a chance to destroy the Ancient Ones for good, and all it will take is a little bit of betrayal…

Five sentient digital beings have been given the unpleasant task of crewing a small survey ship for 300 years by the Company, and their mission yields excellent results–a mysterious black sphere that, once its coordinates are delivered to the home office, will no doubt earn them a lot of praise. But the ship immediately malfunctions and the digital crew must explore their find themselves… and discover something that will change all of existence.

The Key Corporation has kept the city of Westfall safe–from pandemics, from crime, from freedom–for almost fifty years. But a nurse named Elodie and a misfit named Aiden have discovered a terrible truth behind the company that everyone trusts, and they have made their escape from Westfall, searching for the Eos resistance movement. But the world is no more trustworthy outside of Westfall, and the corporation has a long, long arm…

Marra is the third-born royal daughter, so she was able to escape the traditional fate of a princess, sent away to a convent to be raised there. But her older sister wasn’t so fortunate, and Marra has decided to rescue her from the abusive prince she’s been given to. For her quest to have a hope of succeeding, Marra has three tasks before her: build a dog of bones, sew a cloak of nettles, and capture moonlight in a jar.

After 100 years of a peaceful partnership between corporations and governments to colonize the solar system, a terrorist attack destroys the biggest solar array on Earth and alters the world’s economic balance. Soon Mars, Ceres, and Europa are facing their own problems with insurgents, with runaway and deeply unethical science experiments, with mutinies raging and alliances strained to the breaking point.

Another wayward child finds her way to a magical doorway that takes her to a land of centaurs, kelpies, and unicorns–a land where she’s expected to be a hero, though heroism comes in many forms. And is her path to heroism ordained, necessary, or even right?

The fourth daughter of a queen tries to save her people from a demon by asking for help from the Elder sorcerer who has always watched over her people from a massive tower. But the tower isn’t quite a tower, and the sorcerer isn’t actually a sorcerer–he’s an anthropologist, and a junior one at that–and he’s forbidden from interfering with the people he’s supposed to be observing. He’s also fairly certain that this demon is no demon at all.

Princess Thanh spent most of her childhood as a hostage in the kingdom of Ephteria, which hasn’t moved to colonize her homeland… though it’s only a matter of time. While there, she had her first romance–with the daughter of Ephteria’s ruler–and survived a devastating fire that destroyed much of the royal palace. Now back home, she must navigate between that first love, her conflicted relationship with her disapproving mother, and her loyalty to her home country–and herself.

The world has drowned, left hot and terrible by the fossil-fuel guzzlers of the past. There is now just floating patches of refuse on the water that humans call home, one of which is Garbagetown. Tetley is one resident of Garbagetown, its secretly most beloved resident, and she’s about to find out a terrible secret–and make a new friend.

Centuries ago, the robots used as mindless workers in Panga became self-aware and walked out into the wilderness, never to be seen again. Until one day, a tea monk having a crisis of purpose meets one of the robots who has returned. The robot has a very specific mission: to find out the answer to the question, “What do people need?”

Zinnia’s twenty-first birthday is rapidly approaching, and it’s going to be her last. While no one understands the nature of the medical condition a strange industrial accident left her with, no one in her situation has ever lived to see their twenty-second birthday. When her best friend decides to throw her a Sleeping Beauty-themed party, Zinnia pricks her finger and finds herself falling through worlds, where she meets another sleeping beauty who also needs to escape her unlucky fate.

This is a collection of stories by Janelle Monáe and collaborators expanding upon her landmark album Dirty Computer, telling the stories of a world where thoughts and memories can be controlled or erased by a few elites who believe they have the right to control the fate of everyone.

After Virgil stumbled into the center of Merritt claiming he’d been attacked by a monster, everyone is sure he’d been drinking and gotten in a fight with a wild animal. As the new kid in town, he’s extremely easy to dismiss. But Virgil knows what he saw, and he holds on to that truth even as he tries to keep a low profile, afraid that he’ll be attacked again… or maybe he’ll turn into the monster next.

This is the sequel to Black Sun. After the Crow God’s eclipse, the great city of Tova has been shattered, and a comet that heralds death is about to make its appearance in the skies. Ordinary people and living avatars struggle for survival and self as enemies no longer held by empire prepare for war.

Two best friends since high school are finally splitting up, pulled apart by adult life and jobs. Bertie, a failed cartoonist who hates her job, doesn’t want Katie to move away. Eventually she suggests a final hurrah trip to Paris; there, a stranger offers them an after-hours private tour of the Louvre that is not all that it seems. Soon, they are trapped in a time loop… but even that cannot stop them from being separated.

Shizuka made a literal deal with the devil to escape damnation. The price? She has to convince seven of her fellow violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She’s managed to swindle sixth, but in her pursuit of the final soul, she runs into complications she could have never imagined: a retried starship captain who she can’t help but love and a runaway with a wild talent who all too quickly feels like family.

The sequel to A Memory Called Empire sees Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass leaving the heart of the Teixcalaanli empire to go to the edge of space, where an alien species that no one knows how to communicate with has begun slaughtering Teixcalaanli colonies. Together, they must figure out how to talk to a species whose language quite literally makes them ill… and also how to talk to each other.

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.

The planet Gora doesn’t have anything going for it–not even an atmosphere–but it is relatively close to a lot of other, more popular worlds, which makes it basically the truck stop of the galaxy. The Five-Hop One-Top is one truck stop on the planet of truck stops, but when a freak accident halts all traffic through the planet, three strangers find it to be their new, temporary home.

When a bandit attack leaves an eighth-born son destined for greatness and his second-born sister destined for nothing orphaned, it’s another trick of fate that the son dies. The daughter takes on her brother’s name, Zhu, and in an attempt to escape her own fate, enters a monastery masquerading as a male novice. But when the monastery, too, is destroyed, Zhu must fully take her brother’s fate of greatness and make it her own.

Ryland Grace doesn’t remember who he is or why he’s hurtling through space, having just woken up with two corpses for company. This is a problem, since he’s actually the only survivor of a last-ditch attempt to save humanity, and if he doesn’t complete his mission, that’s curtains for us all. He’s got to figure out who he is and what he’s doing and fast, without help… or maybe there is someone out there for him.

A short story collection where all of the stories are interconnected, this follows the Dominican diaspora Beléns family across multiple generations. Stylistically realist but also magical, this mosaic story explores mental health, identity, machismo… and of course family

Lanie Stones has a complicated life, to say the least. As the daughter of the Royal Assassin and Chief Executioner of Liriat, her career path should seem clear… except she has an unusual gift for necromancy and an even more unusual, quite literal allergy to violence that has kept her isolated to her family’s manor. When her parents are murdered, she might be about to lose that crumbling wreck of a home as well… and that’s just the beginning of her problems.

Lydia longs to try nearly every food under the sun, but particularly the ones her Japanese father liked to eat. Unfortunately for her, she inherited her British mother’s vampirism and can only digest blood… and trying to source fresh pig’s blood in London is proving to be more of a challenge than she expected. She wants to be an artist, not a hunter of men, but she is lonely in her windowless flat… and always hungry.

A plague has swept over the world, one that affects how its victims perceive reality itself. To them, the world has monsters lurking around every corner, and packs of armed survivors roam… and those things may or may not be true. Spencer has been cured of the disease, but he would rather stay inside the rehabilitation facility than face how the world has changed. But when a fellow inmate wants help finding her old crew, he has a chance at redemption… or finding out that he’s just made things worse.

While Hunter Yee’s aim is perfect when he has a bow in his hands, everything else in his life is decidedly not, thanks to the past mistakes of his family. He longs to run away, but stays for his little brother… and the new girl at his high school–Luna Chang. Struggling against her parents’ expectations, Luna falls for Hunter hard, though their families are bitter enemies, and magic is afoot…

Eddie Morales is a low-level R&D guy at an agricultural biotech form based in Boise, Idaho. The last thing he’s expecting is to be dispatched to a tiny town in South America because the press is claiming that the experimental potatoes they’ve developed are causing some very weird medical issues. Eddie’s hopes for a quick and simple resolution are quickly dashed, and soon he stumbles across a conspiracy that reveals the dark side of his company and what they’ll do to make their potato supreme…

So, I cannot actually tell you how mermaids (or more broadly, magical sea-ladies) are involved in this series without it being a giant spoiler, so you’re just going to have to read it and trust me. It’s an awesome epic fantasy with a unique world!

And also, the second book is coming very soon: Fevered Star.

Mermaids, but what if they were truly monstrous and they liked eating people? A film crew trying to shoot a documentary is about to find out how rough the seas can get when they go searching for the last ship these murderous beings took down.

Though if you want something less horror-adjacent from the same author, check out Where the Drowned Girls Go.

Based on an amazing song of the same name by the experimental hip-hop group clipping.–which if you haven’t listened to it, you should–this tells the story of a race of mermaids descended from enslaved African women who were thrown overboard by their abductors during the middle passage. They live a life without memory… except for one of their number who remembers all of their traumas.

This book isn’t solely about mermaids–it’s a short story collection–but one of the tales within is about Caribbean mermaids and it’s a good one! Also, the other sixteen stories are really good as well.

Mermaids are the servants of the gods, traveling the seas to collect the souls of those who die on the water and making sure they make it home. When one mermaid saves the life of a boy who was thrown overboard, she faces a punishment from the gods if she doesn’t make amends. But the boy she rescued isn’t just anyone…

And a sequel is coming! Soul of the Deep

Sirens exist, but they have to keep their powers hidden if they want to continue to live among normal humans. But a siren is accused of murder and her trial becomes a public, horrifying circus… and while that’s going on, a high school junior named Tavia loses control of her magical voice at the worst possible moment.

And there’s a sequel! A Chorus Rises