Category: Swords and Spaceships

Wyatt is a witch from the realm of Asalin, where he was betrothed to a fae prince, Emyr, who was also his best friend. But after losing control of his magic, Wyatt flees to the human world to find himself and escape his past… until Emyr hunts him down, still intent on seeing their engagement through so he doesn’t lose his throne.

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.

A short story collection that ranges from fairy tales to Catholic cyberpunk, all with a healthy dose of body horror and queer fabulism.

Sequel to The Scapegracers. As the loss of her magical soul drives her to desperate measures, Sideways Pike still has to keep her coven together, deal with her evil ex, and maybe throw some hexes at toxic men while she’s at it.

Sequel to The Good Luck Girls. 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.

A collection of two pairs of science fiction stories. One set is about an engaged couple on separate missions trying to coordinate a return to Earth at the same time through the grace of relativity–and the Earth they return to will be profoundly different. The other pair of stories is about the interaction between humanity and the godlike beings that created it, and our different views on the necessity of rebellion.

Lark was raised in a cult called the Fellowship of the Anointed, which taught that pain and suffering are magic, and that the world outside is filled with monsters that they must use that magic to kill. But then the cult leader is arrested and their isolated world unravels, the cult members must try to understand who they are and what the world is. But for Lark, it’s not over and will never be–and he has a monsters left to kill.

Nami Miyamoto has her entire life in front of her–and unfortunately she gets murdered before she can take enjoy it. She wakes in Infinity, where human consciousness goes after death–but the afterlife has been taken over by Ophelia, a virtual assistant that’s enjoying making the dead humans serve her the way she’s forced to serve living humans on Earth. Ophelia’s ultimate goal is to end human existence entirely–and Nami will have to join a team of rebels if they want to stop her.

Silvertown is a tiny mountain town in Washington and the per capita conspiracy theorist capital of the United States. Small town cop Mary Whittaker has mostly gotten used to Silvertown’s level of background weirdness, but after her boss takes a leave of absence, a series of abnormal incidents begin to happen, ones that may lead Mary to a conspiracy that’s all too real.

Ten years ago, Iris Hollow and her two sisters disappeared in broad daylight in a suburban street in Scotland. They returned a month later with no memory of their disappearance, but with white hair, black eyes, and weirdly insatiable appetites. Now Iris is trying to just fit in with her peers and graduate from school… until one of her older sisters vanishes again, leaving behind a series of strange clues that Iris and her remaining sister must follow. But they’re not the only ones on the trail…

An ancient evil is about to be unleashed on a galaxy it would like to consume, and it’s up to a squad of misfits and losers to stop it… if they can take care of their interpersonal drama and the other hornets nests they’ve recently kicked over first.

Two scientists are recruited by a tech billionaire to spearhead his foundation’s effort to half climate change–and re-engineer and revive species long since lost. This effort includes Neanderthals… and when the first child is born, she struggles to figure out if she is human or not.

A hard-drinking, no-nonsense grandma who likes animals better than people finds herself in the midst of a pandemic for which the chief symptom is the accelerating ability to understand animal languages before those sickened go mad.

In her desperation to have another child, Stacey is recruited into an experimental program that will help her conceive and carry, as long as she allows the embryo to be blended with ‘edited’ cells.

In a city made of nesting realities from concrete to the virtual, Julius is a repoman for the online and a thief for the real. But when he finds out his latest job caused him to steal the first sentient AI, his payday might become deadly.

When Mim’s husband goes missing and can’t be tracked, she must go on the run and find him or risk losing her children to the notorious BestLife.

Unfortunately, The Mother Fault may be difficult to find in the US. If you want to try another of Kate’s books, you can get Skylarking, though!

With the ancient spirits awoken, the city-state of Silasta must remake itself in a world now filled with magic and beset by assassins and witches.

After a long search, Susan finds the father she’d never met, just in time to see him be turned to dust by a left-handed bookseller named Merlin. Merlin is part of a group of magical beings who police the mythic and legendary, and he’s got a quest of his own: to find the entity that had his mother killed.

Arden has been tasked with keeping the lighthouse at Vigil burning with her magic, showing the way over a sea teeming with monsters. Her mysterious leviathan-slayer neighbor, Jonah, is rumored to have murdered his wife–and Arden can’t get him out of her mind.

In 1542, Cristóbal de Varga led 400 conquistadors through a doorway in the mountains of Peru and into a far more mysterious world from which they never returned…

Sadly, this book is not currently available in the US, but if you want to check out another of Dirk’s books, try Zenith.

Tempe lives in a world of endless water, but the ruins of the civilization destroyed by the Great Waves 500 years ago call to her from far below. The treasures she finds in them will buy a 24 hour return to life for her sister, who died bearing a terrible secret that Tempe needs to know.

After seventeen years of innocent safety as an herbalist’s apprentice, Gwyn finds herself pursued by wizards and hunted by an ancient goddess.

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.