in an intergalactic civil war.
Paul and Syl
are trapped in
a place where
time flows
strangely, and
four days for
them become
four years for
everyone else.
During those years, Earth is devastated by
the parasitic Others, and the Illyri Empire
is split by war among its various factions.
All hope for humankind rests on a daring
assault on the Illyri stronghold known as
the Marque, and a strike against the source
of the Others to remove their influence.
Multiple perspectives slow the development of the collective narrative, but as
they combine, the race toward the climax
feels overly hasty, with some of the characters’ sacrifices and actions not given their
proper due. However, the core romance
between the leads and the sense of wonder
remain intact, giving this strong trilogy a
satisfying ending. Agent: Clare Wallace,
Darley Anderson Agency. (May)
Asteroid Made of Dragons
G. Derek Adams. Inkshares/Sword & Laser,
$15 trade paper (260p) ISBN 978-1-941758-73-1
An unlikely band of heroes—some of
whom are trying to kill one another—must
gather together in order to save their world
from the return of an ancient menace in
an excellent, irreverent mix of sword-and-sorcery fantasy and SF. Adams’s flippant
tone recalls Terry Pratchett, taking the
skewering of tropes down a very dark path
as he establishes a fantasy world built from
the ashes of a technological one. Rime, a
mage with nearly unlimited power, will
likely go insane and kill people. Linus,
a knight who wants to stop Rime, is
willing to murder innocents to do it. Only
the scholar Xenon, an archaeologist with
big ideas but no money, is actually free of
malice. These unlikely allies are manipulated into working together when the
titular draconic meteor plummets toward
their planet. This strong, sarcastic combination of spaceships and spell casting
builds on Adams’s previous books, Spell/
Sword and The Riddle Box, while standing
well on its own. (Apr.)
triggering suicides. The locals include
weretigers, fallen angels, mercenaries
with father issues, and a witch with a
broken heart. Fiji Cavanaugh, proprietor
of Midnight’s magical shop, finds herself
discarding notions of romance with the
owner of the local pawnshop as well as
receiving advances from the trapped
demon. At the same time, she is tangled
up with a woman who is being spied on
by her wealthy family and their local
agents. There is less tangible tension
around whether the demon will be
imprisoned by the Halloween love ritual
than in the question of whom Fiji will
choose to perform it with her. Agent:
Joshua Bilmes, JABberwocky Literary.
(May)
Dominion
John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard. Atria/
Bestler, $26 (448p) ISBN 978-1-4767-5718-6
In this ambitious conclusion to the
Chronicles of the Invaders space opera
trilogy (after Empire), Connolly and Ridyard
pick up the myriad dangling plot threads
and push forward with an epic, if somewhat
rushed, story that sees star-crossed lovers
Paul Kerr and Syl Hellais, as well as their
allies and enemies, jockeying for dominance
trio journey to
the unremark-
able rural
community of
Dillon, Okla.,
searching for a
largely unknown
Withered.
John’s attempts
to deal with his
desire to kill,
his contradictory
feelings toward Brooke, and the mundane
struggles of their nomadic existence
make the tale much richer than a simple
monster vs. monster story. Agent: Sara
Crowe, Harvey Klinger. (May)
Night Shift
Charlaine Harris. Ace, $28 (320p) ISBN 978-0-
425-26322-8
Bestseller Harris (the Sookie Stackhouse
books) brings a real sense of community
to the characters she introduced in Midnight
Crossroad and Day Shift, deepening the
reader’s connection to an irresistible
assortment of phone psychics and cow-punching vampires. The small, strange
town of Midnight, Tex., comes complete
with its own demon, whose presence is
; Burned
Benedict Jacka. Ace, $7.99 mass market (336p) ISBN 978-0-425-27576-4
The seventh Alex Verus novel (after Veiled) may be the best so far in a consistently outstanding urban fantasy series. Jacka ruthlessly rips away all the protections that London-based diviner mage Alex
built against his former master, power-hungry Dark
mage Richard Drakh. While trying to reverse a death
sentence engineered by a grudge-holding mage on
Britain’s Light Council, Alex is distracted by a fiery
assassination attempt that destroys his home and livelihood. He is then coerced into taking part in a Light
mission to retrieve a dangerous magical artifact hidden in Aleppo, Syria,
where civil war is as much of a danger as rival mages. And, as always, he must
protect the three young magicians in his care. Alex has been reliably clever
and resourceful while remaining independent of both Dark and Light cabals,
but this novel shows him recognizing his own desperate vulnerability. The
stakes suddenly are much higher for Alex and his friends, putting the complex, sympathetic central characters in real peril and rousing serious concern in
readers. As the action gathers momentum, a dramatic series climax hovers on
the horizon. Fans of Jim Butcher and Ben Aaronovich absolutely should not
miss this deeply intelligent, morally complex, and action-packed series.
Agent: Sophie Hicks, Sophie Hicks Agency (U.K.). (Apr.)
