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Fantasy and Science Fiction October 2020
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| Piranesi by Susanna ClarkeThe only people in the world: "Piranesi," the narrator, and his mysterious mentor, known as "the Other," who dwell in the House, a surreal labyrinthine building full of impossible things.
Why you might like it: This long-awaited novel by the author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell offers a puzzle box of a plot and metafictional magical realism wrapped up in lyrical prose.
Reviewers say: "a tenebrous study in solitude" (The Guardian). |
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False Value by Ben AaronovitchTaking a job with the Serious Cybernetics Company (SCC), detective and apprentice wizard Peter Grant, as he prepares for fatherhood, tries to fit in with his co-workers while uncovering a shocking secret at the very heart of SCC that is part magic, part technology and all danger.
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Things in Jars by Jess KiddWoman detective Bridie Devine investigates the kidnapping of a nobleman’s illegitimate daughter, whose reputed supernatural powers have captured the attention of sinister collectors in the underworld’s curiosities trade.
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A Beginning at the Endby Mike ChenFour survivors try to rebuild their personal lives six years after a global pandemic brings about a literal apocalypse.
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Qualityland by Marc-Uwe KlingA U.S. release of an international best-seller imagines a country where a universal ranking system determines its citizens’ statuses, careers and romantic partners, where a machine scrapper becomes the unwitting leader of a band of misfit robots
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Riot Baby by Tochi OnyebuchiWhat it's about: Siblings Ella and Kev Jackson possess supernatural powers that, so far, have failed to protect them from the brutal consequences of being Black in America. But now Ella is plotting a revolution...
About the author: Tochi Onyebuchi is well known to YA readers as the author of Beasts Made of Night and its sequel, Crown of Thunder.
For fans of: Ayize Jama-Everett's The Liminal People.
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| The Girl in Red by Christina HenryWhat it is: a post-apocalyptic retelling of Little Red Riding Hood that's more Walking Dead than Brothers Grimm.
Starring: Red, an axe-wielding biracial woman with a prosthetic leg who's determined to avoid the government's quarantine camps and seek sanctuary at her grandmother's off-the-grid house.
Is it for you? Parallel "Before" and "After" storylines explore the viral pandemic that destroyed Red's world as well as her present-day attempts to survive the wilderness and its "wolves." |
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| The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan by Caitlín R. KiernanWhat's inside: 20 previously published horror and dark fantasy stories written by two-time Bram Stoker Award winner Caitlín R. Kiernan.
Is it for you? Fans of weird fiction will find much to savor in this lyrical Lovecraftian collection.
Don't miss: "Houses Under the Sea," featuring a sinister cult that will be familiar to readers of Kiernan's The Drowning Girl; the squirm-inducing body modification tale "A Season of Broken Dolls." |
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Lovecraft Countryby Matt Ruff Chicago, 1954: Black army veteran Atticus Turner sets out on a road trip across the segregated United States to find his missing father, encountering both racism and eldritch horrors along the way. Media buzz: Lovecraft Country is now a critically acclaimed HBO series. For fans of: dark fantasy that employs Lovecraftian themes to examine racism, such as Victor LaValle's The Ballad of Black Tom, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic, or N.K. Jemisin's The City We Became.
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Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeerWhat happens: A biologist, a psychologist, a surveyor, and an anthropologist set out on a scientific expedition to Area X, a quarantined zone that defies all attempts to map its terrain. Eleven previous missions have failed; is the 12th time the charm?Read it for: the palpable sense of menace that permeates the dreamlike narrative; embedded homages to works of classic SF (such as the Strugatsky Brothers' Roadside Picnic). Series alert: This Nebula and Shirley Jackson Award winner kicks of the Southern Reach trilogy, followed by Authority and Acceptance.
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Contact your library for more great books!
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