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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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| Hench by Natalie Zina WalschotsIn a world... where supervillains rely on a thriving gig economy to supply them with cheap, expendable minions, freelance "hench" Anna Tromedlov survives an encounter with a superhero and decides to use her data analysis skills to reveal who the real bad guys are.
Reviewers say: "A fiendishly clever novel that fizzes with moxie and malice" (Kirkus Reviews).
For fans of: Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible, V.E. Schwab's Vicious, or the Amazon series The Boys. |
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The Future of Another Timeline
by Annalee Newitz
What it's about: The Daughters of Harriet, a coalition of feminist activists, and the Comstockers, a men's rights group, travel through time, editing history like a Wikipedia page.
Reviewers say: "a matryoshka doll meditation on the pointlessness and necessity of violence...bathed in pop culture references (real and imagined)" (NPR).
For fans of: the LGBTQIA-friendly change wars of Amal El-Mohtar's and Max Gladstone's This is How You Lose the Time War;
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The nightjar
by Deborah Hewitt
"Alice Wyndham has been plagued by visions of birds her whole life... until the mysterious Crowley reveals that Alice is an 'aviarist': capable of seeing nightjars, magical birds that guard human souls. When her best friend is hit by a car, only Alice can find and save her nightjar. With Crowley's help, Alice travels to the Rookery, a hidden, magical alternate London to hone her newfound talents. But a faction intent on annihilating magic users will stop at nothing to destroy the new aviarist. And is Crowley really working with her, or against her? Alice must risk everything to save her best friend--and uncover the strange truth about herself.""--Provided by publisher
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The Book of Dragons : An Anthology
by Jonathan Strahan
From China to Europe, Africa to North America, dragons have long captured our imagination in myth and legend. Whether they are rampaging beasts awaiting a brave hero to slay or benevolent sages who have much to teach humanity, dragons are intrinsically connected to stories of creation, adventure, and struggle beloved for generations. Bringing together nearly thirty stories and poems from some of the greatest science fiction and fantasy writers working today.
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The Ten Thousand Doors of January
by Alix E. Harrow
Introducing: January Scaller, who rebels against her wealthy and eccentric guardian by secretly exploring doorways to other realms with her companion Bad, a very good dog.
Want a taste? "There's only one way to run away from your own story, and that's to sneak into someone else's."
Does the dog die? No! It's all good!
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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 Country: A Novel by Matt RuffChicago, 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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| The Beauty by Aliya WhiteleyWelcome to: The Valley of the Rocks, where a group of men who survived the yellow fungus epidemic that killed all women encounter strange mushroom creatures that resemble their lost loved ones.
Don't miss: the stand-alone bonus short story "Peace, Pipe," which whimsically explores interspecies language barriers.
Book buzz: The Beauty was nominated for both the Shirley Jackson Award and the Saboteur Award. |
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Contact your library for more great books!
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Patchogue-Medford Library 54-60 East Main Street Patchogue, New York 11772 (631) 654-4700www.pmlib.org/ |
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