Up for Review: Bones & All

I don’t read a lot of YA, but my interest tends to be piqued when I get offered things like a book about a young cannibal who wants to eat the people she cares about.

Bones & All by Camille DeAngelis

Camille DeAngelis will take you on a haunting journey of self-discovery in her debut novel, Bones & All.

Maren Yearly doesn’t just break hearts, she devours them.

Since she was a baby, Maren has had serious trouble accepting affection. Any time someone gets too close to her, she’s overcome by the desire to eat them.  Abandoned by her mother the day after her sixteenth birthday, Maren goes looking for the father she has never known, but finds much more than she bargained for along the way.

Faced with a world of fellow eaters, potential enemies, and the prospect of love, Maren realizes she isn’t only looking for her father, she is looking for herself. The real question is, will she like who she finds?

 

Bones & All will be published on 10 March 2015 by St. Martin’s Press.

Links
Camille DeAngelis: Website l Twitter (@cometparty) l Facebook
Bones & All on Goodreads
Read an excerpt
St. Martin’s Press

Up for Review: The Rabbit Back Literature Society

Hmm, creepy bookish mystery, yes please.

The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen

Only nine people have ever been chosen by renowned children’s author Laura White to join “The Rabbit Back Literature Society,” an elite group of writers in the small town of Rabbit Back. Now a tenth member has been selected: Ella, a young literature teacher. Soon Ella discovers that the Society is not what it seems. What is its mysterious ritual known as “The Game”? What explains the strange disappearance that occurs at Laura White’s winter party? Why are the words inside books starting to rearrange themselves? Was there once another tenth member, before her? Slowly, as Ella explores the Society and its history, disturbing secrets that had been buried start to come to light… In Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen’s chilling, witty novel, The Rabbit Back Literature Society, the uncanny brushes up against the everyday in the most beguiling and unexpected of ways.

Originally published in Finnish in 2006, then in English in 2014 by Pushkin Press, The Rabbit Back Literature Society will now be published by Thomas Dunne Books on 20 January 2015.

Links
Author and Book website
Twitter
Facebook
Thomas Dunne Books

Up for Review: The Just City by Jo Walton

I’m really looking forward to this philosophical fantasy novel.

The Just City by Jo Walton (Tor Books)

“Here in the Just City you will become your best selves. You will learn and grow and strive to be excellent.”

Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community, populated by over ten thousand children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future—all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past.

The student Simmea, born an Egyptian farmer’s daughter sometime between 500 and 1000 A.D, is a brilliant child, eager for knowledge,  ready to strive to be her best self. The teacher Maia was once Ethel, a young Victorian lady of much learning and few prospects, who prayed to Pallas Athene in an unguarded moment during a trip to Rome—and, in an instant, found herself in the Just City with grey-eyed Athene standing unmistakably before her.

Meanwhile, Apollo—stunned by the realization that there are things mortals understand better than he does—has arranged to live a human life, and has come to the City as one of the children. He knows his true identity, and conceals it from his peers. For this lifetime, he is prone to all the troubles of being human.

Then, a few years in, Sokrates arrives—the same Sokrates recorded by Plato himself—to ask all the troublesome questions you would expect. What happens next is a tale only the brilliant Jo Walton could tell.

 

The Just City will be published on 13 January 2015 by Tor Books

Links
Publisher’s website
Author’s website

Up for Review: The Republic of Thieves

I’ve read The Lies of Locke Lamora and I just finished Red Seas Under Red Skies. I am so ready to join the Gentleman Bastards in The Republic of Thieves, where I can finally meet the Locke’s mysterious love, Sabetha.

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch (Del Rey)

NetGalley blurb (slight spoilers for book 2):

With what should have been the greatest heist of their career gone spectacularly sour, Locke and his trusted partner, Jean, have barely escaped with their lives. Or at least Jean has. But Locke is slowly succumbing to a deadly poison that no alchemist or physiker can cure. Yet just as the end is near, a mysterious Bondsmage offers Locke an opportunity that will either save him or finish him off once and for all.

Magi political elections are imminent, and the factions are in need of a pawn. If Locke agrees to play the role, sorcery will be used to purge the venom from his body—though the process will be so excruciating he may well wish for death. Locke is opposed, but two factors cause his will to crumble: Jean’s imploring—and the Bondsmage’s mention of a woman from Locke’s past: Sabetha. She is the love of his life, his equal in skill and wit, and now, his greatest rival.

Locke was smitten with Sabetha from his first glimpse of her as a young fellow orphan and thief-in-training. But after a tumultuous courtship, Sabetha broke away. Now they will reunite in yet another clash of wills. For faced with his one and only match in both love and trickery, Locke must choose whether to fight Sabetha—or to woo her. It is a decision on which both their lives may depend.

The Republic of Thieves will be published on 8 October by Del Rey in the USA and 10 October by Gollancz in the UK.

Links
The novel on Goodreads
The Gentleman Bastard series on Goodreads
Del Rey (Random House)
Gollancz (Orion)

About the Author
I was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on April 2, 1978. I’ve lived in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area my entire life.
The Lies of Locke Lamora, my first novel, was bought by Simon Spanton at Orion Books in August, 2004. Prior to that I had just about every job you usually see in this sort of author bio– dishwasher, busboy, waiter, web designer, office manager, prep cook, and freelance writer. I trained in basic firefighting at Anoka Technical College in 2005, and became a volunteer firefighter in June of that year.
In 2007 The Lies of Locke Lamora was a World Fantasy Award finalist.
In 2008 I received the Sydney J. Bounds Best Newcomer Award from the British Fantasy Society.
In 2010, I lost a marriage but gained a cat, a charming ball of ego and fuzz known as Muse (Musicus Maximus Butthead Rex I).
My partner, the lovely and critically acclaimed SF/F writer Elizabeth Bear, lives in Massachusetts. – nicked from Goodreads with slight edits.
Website
Blog
Twitter
LiveJournal
Interviews: Fantasy Faction | Mythic Scribes | Orbit

Up for Review: Kabu Kabu

I’ve been meaning to read Nnedi Okorafor for a while, and so far I’ve only read a few of her short stories. Luckily, Prime Books is releasing a whole anthology of them 🙂

Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor (Prime Books)

NetGalley Blurb:

Kabu kabu—unregistered illegal Nigerian taxis—generally get you where you need to go. Nnedi Okorafor’s Kabu Kabu, however, takes the reader to exciting, fantastic, magical, occasionally dangerous, and always imaginative locations you didn’t know you needed. This debut short story collection by an award-winning author includes notable previously  published material, a new novella co-written with New York Times-bestselling author Alan Dean Foster, six additional original stories, and a brief foreword by Whoopi Goldberg.

Kabu Kabu will be published on 2 October 2013 by Prime Books.

Links
Goodreads
Prime Books

About the Author
Nnedi Okorafor was born in the United States to two Igbo (Nigerian) immigrant parents. She holds a PhD in English and is a tenured professor at Chicago State University. She resides in the suburbs of Chicago with her daughter Anyaugo.
Though American-born, Nnedi’s muse is Nigeria. Her parents began taking her and her siblings to visit relatives there when she was very young. Because Nigeria is her muse, this is where many of her stories take place, either literally or figuratively.
Because she grew up wanting to be an entomologist and even after becoming a writer maintained that love of insects and nature, her work is always filled with startlingly vivid flora and fauna.
And because Octavia Butler, Stephen King, Philip Pullman, Tove Jansson, Hayao Miyazaki, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o are her greatest influences, her work tends to be…on the creative side. – from the author’s website
Website
Twitter
Blog
Goodreads

Up for Review: The Best of Connie Willis

Another exciting short story collection and a chance to acquaint myself with one of the principal names in sf.

The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories (Del Rey)

NetGalley Blurb:

Few authors have had careers as successful as that of Connie Willis. Inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and recently awarded the title of Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Willis is still going strong. Her smart, heartfelt fiction runs the gamut from screwball comedy to profound tragedy, combining dazzling plot twists, cutting-edge science, and unforgettable characters.

From a near future mourning the extinction of dogs to an alternate history in which invading aliens were defeated by none other than Emily Dickinson; from a madcap convention of bumbling quantum physicists in Hollywood to a London whose Underground has become a storehouse of intangible memories both foul and fair—here are the greatest stories of one of the greatest writers working in any genre today.

All ten of the stories gathered here are Hugo or Nebula award winners—some even have the distinction of winning both. With a new Introduction by the author and personal afterwords to each story—plus a special look at three of Willis’s unique public speeches—this is unquestionably the collection of the season, a book that every Connie Willis fan will treasure, and, to those unfamiliar with her work, the perfect introduction to one of the most accomplished and best-loved writers of our time.

The Best of Connie Willis will be published on 9 July by Del Rey.

Links
Goodreads
Random House
Connie Willis and the Spooky Magic of Shirley Jackson: an interview at Suvudu

About the Author
Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis is an American science fiction writer. She is one of the most honored science fiction writers of the 1980s and 1990s.
She has won, among other awards, ten Hugo Awards and six Nebula Awards. Willis most recently won a Hugo Award for All Seated on the Ground (August 2008). She was the 2011 recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA).
Willis is known for her accessible prose and likable characters. She has written several pieces involving time travel by history students and faculty of the future University of Oxford. These pieces include her Hugo Award-winning novels Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog and the short story “Fire Watch“, found in the short story collection of the same name. – excerpt taken from Goodreads

There is no shortage of online content about Willis and her writing, but here are some basics:
Website
Blog
Goodreads
Wikipedia

Up for Review: The Classic Horror Stories

I think it’s time I learned what the term ‘Lovecraftian’ means.

The Classic Horror Stories by H.P. Lovecraft, edited by Roger Luckhurst

NetGalley Blurb

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a reclusive scribbler of horror stories for the American pulp magazines that specialized in Gothic and science fiction in the interwar years. He often published in Weird Tales and has since become the key figure in the slippery genre of “weird fiction.” Lovecraft developed an extraordinary vision of feeble men driven to the edge of sanity by glimpses of malign beings that have survived from human prehistory or by malevolent extra-terrestrial visitations. The ornate language of his stories builds towards grotesque moments of revelation, quite unlike any other writer.

This new selection brings together nine of his classic tales, focusing on the “Cthulhu Mythos,” a cycle of stories that develops the mythology of the Old Ones, the monstrous creatures who predate human life on earth. The stories collected here include some of Lovecraft’s finest, including “The Call of Cthulhu,” “At the Mountains of Madness,” “The Dunwich Horror,” “The Colour Out of Space,” “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” and “The Shadow out of Time.” The volume also includes vital extracts from Lovecraft’s critical essay, “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” in which he gave his own important definition of “weird fiction.” In a fascinating introduction, Roger Luckhurst gives Lovecraft the attention he deserves as a writer who used pulp fiction to explore a remarkable philosophy that shockingly dethrones the mastery of man.

Featuring a chronology, bibliography, and informative notes, this is a must-have critical edition for Lovecraft aficionados, and the best introduction to his work for first-time visitors to his strange fictional world.

The Classic Horror Stories will be published on 1 July 2013 by Oxford University Press.

Links
Goodreads
Oxford University Press

About the Editor
Roger Luckhurst (editor) is the Professor in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birbeck University of London. He specialises in Gothic fiction, science fiction and literature in cinema.
You can find contact details and links to research, teaching and publication info on his profile page at the university.
Twitter @TheProfRog
Goodreads

About the Author
There’s not much point giving you any links here – there’s so much about Lovecraft online that you’re better off just googling him. While derided for his racist beliefs and bad writing, he’s so influential in the sff and horror scene that I’m curious. Much of his fiction is available for free online, so check that out. When I review the collection I will also post links to whatever is available for free.