Fantasy and Science Fiction February 2020 Recent Releases Highfire by Eoin Colfer Introducing: Wyvern, Lord Highfire -- "Vern" for short. This 3,000-year-old dragon, the last of his kind, spends his days drinking vodka and watching TV in the Louisiana bayou. What happens: a corrupt local cop has designs on Vern, prompting the dragon to enlist the aid of his teenage employee Squib. What follows is a noir-ish series of events that The Guardian describes as "True Detective meets Swamp Thing." Frozen orbit by Patrick Chiles What it's about: While on their long race to the Kuiper Belt, two astronauts unravel a decades-old mystery buried in the pages of a dead cosmonaut’s journal—one that challenges their own beliefs about the nature of humanity and our existence.  Reviewers say: "The story moves quickly with elements of both a spy thriller and a space race, and never seems to drag, though years pass during the telling of it... Frozen Orbit could make for an impressive movie, one that would stand with greats such as Contact or Interstellar." (Booklist) The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez What it's about: Captain Nia Imani guards a child who crash-lands on the colony world of Umbai-V, a mission that links her to aerospace engineer Fumiko Nakajima, creator of the space stations that have allowed humanity to spread across the galaxy. Why you might like it: Spanning a thousand years and multiple shifts in perspective, this haunting debut employs space opera tropes to explore the complexity of human relationships. For fans of: Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Fisherman of the Inland Sea."  Zed by Joanna Kavenna In a world... where AI "Veeps" assist humans with everything (and collect their data), megacorporation Beetle's proprietary "lifechain" system -- a set of predictive algorithms for human behavior -- is under threat from "Zed" events (like murders) that the software fails to spot. For fans of: the darkly humorous explorations of surveillance capitalism found in Rob Hart's The Warehouse, Marc-Uwe Klings's Qualityland, or Nick Harkaway's Gnomon. The last wish : introducing The witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski What it's about: Geralt de Riv, a witcher, uses his vast sorcerous powers to hunt down the monsters that threaten the world, but he soon discovers that not every monstrous-looking creature is evil, and not everything beautiful is good. For fans of: The blockbuster Netflix series based on the book! Why you might like it: "Geralt is a smart and empathic hunter who modifies his code of duty to suit the occasion. When he comes across a man who has fallen in love with a monster, for example, killing the monster is not necessarily his first act." (BookPage) Agency by William Gibson What it is: A sequel to the best-selling The Peripheral finds app-whisperer Verity Jane beta-testing a disturbing AI technology, while a century into the future, an apocalypse survivor discovers his employer meddling in Verity’s influential timeline. Is it for you? "Cyberpunk fans looking to dive into the “what-if’s” of an alternate timeline will be as enraptured as ever by Gibson’s imagination..." (Publishers Weekly)  Focus on: Time Loops Life After Life by Kate Atkinson Starring: Ursula Todd, born on a winter's night in 1910 England -- again and again, as each death brings her back to the same point in time and space. Does Ursula choose her path(s) in life, or do they choose her? You might also like: Jo Walton's My Real Children, which also offers a haunting meditation on life and death, fate and free will, by recounting an ordinary 20th-century British woman's alternate lives.  Recursion by Blake Crouch What it is: an intricately plotted, thought-provoking technothriller about the power of memory and well-intentioned science gone awry. What went wrong: When she invented a way to reintroduce lost memories, neuroscientist Helena Smith was just trying to help Alzheimer's patients. But now someone is using her technology to give people false memories, and the fate of reality itself is on the line. You might also like: Virtual Sabotage by Julie Hyzy; Three Laws Lethal by David Walton. The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton What it is: an unusual take on an Agatha Christie-style country house mystery, in which an unnamed narrator must solve a murder while imprisoned in a time loop. As if that's not difficult enough, each day the protagonist wakes up in the body of a different guest. What's at stake: Failure to identify the killer will reset the entire scenario. Further reading: For another science fictional take on Golden Age detective fiction, try Adam Roberts' Jack Glass. For mysteries involving time loops, check out Sean Ferrell's Man in the Empty Suit.  Contact your librarian for more great books! If you are having trouble unsubscribing to this newsletter, please contactthe Winfield Public Library 630-653-7599, 0S291 Winfield Rd. Winfield, IL 60190