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Of wars, and memories, and starlight
by Aliette de Bodard
A major first collection from a writer fast becoming one of the stars of the genre. Aliette de Bodard, multiple award winner and author of The Tea Master and the Detective, now brings readers fourteen dazzling tales that showcase the richly textured worldbuilding and beloved characters that have brought her so much acclaim.Come discover the breadth and endless invention of her universes, ranging from a dark Gothic Paris devastated by a magical war; to the multiple award-winning Xuya, a far-future space opera inspired by Vietnamese culture where scholars administrate planets and sentient spaceships are part of families.
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Secrets of the chocolate house
by Paula Brackston
A sequel to The Little Shop of Found Things. After her adventures in the seventeenth century, Xanthe does her best to settle back into the rhythm of life in Marlborough. She tells herself she must forget about Samuel and leave him in the past where he belongs. With the help of her new friends, she does her best to move on, focusing instead on the success of her and Flora's antique shop.
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| Highfire by Eoin ColferIntroducing: 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." |
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| Lady Hotspur by Tessa GrattonWhat it is: an inventive, gender-swapped take on Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, featuring an LGBTQIA cast and set in the world of the author's The Queens of Innis Lear.
Starring: "Lion Prince" Hal Bolinbroke, sudden heir to the throne of Aremoria following her mother's successful coup; Isarna Perseria, Lady Hotspur, Hal's fellow knight and lover; and the desposed Banna Mora, Hal's former best friend who plots from exile to take back her throne. |
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| The Vanished Birds by Simon JimenezWhat 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." |
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| Zed by Joanna KavennaIn 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. |
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| Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuireWhat it is: book 5 of the Wayward Children series, set several months after the events of Every Heart a Doorway and featuring many of the students from Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children.
Starring: twins Jack and Jill Wolcott, whose backstories were revealed in Down Among the Sticks and Bones.
Want a taste? "Once a wayward child, always a wayward child. The school's doors would always be open; the lost and the lonely would always be welcome, whenever they wanted to come home." |
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Dead astronauts
by Jeff VanderMeer
Lives human and otherwise, from a demon-haunted homeless woman to a messianic blue fox, converge in terrifying and miraculous ways in a nameless city that is overshadowed by a brutally powerful company.
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| Life After Life by Kate AtkinsonStarring: 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. |
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| Recursion by Blake CrouchWhat 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. |
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How to stop time
by Matt Haig
A man with a secret rare condition that has enabled him to survive for centuries moves to London to become a high-school history teacher and considers defying his protective guardians' rule against falling in love when he becomes entranced by a captivating colleague. By the best-selling author of Reasons to Stay Alive.
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The first fifteen lives of Harry August
by Claire North
Forced to relive his life over and over again, Harry August receives a message on his eleventh death bed, from a little girl who tells him that the world is about to end, and it is up to him to stop it.
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Hindsight : a novel
by Mindy Tarquini
"Tarquini's innovative concept is paired with realistic characters and sparkling wit, making this enjoyable novel a keeper."-- Publishers Weekly , Starred Review USA Best Book Awards: General Fiction - Finalist EUGENIA PANISPORCHI LIVES WITH HER MOTHER, TEACHES CHAUCER, AND REMEMBERS ALL HER PAST LIVES. SHE IS DESPERATE TO CHANGE HER FUTURE. Born this time around into a South Philadelphia Italian-American family so traditional, she and her siblings are expected to marry in birth order, Eugenia lives a simple life-no love connection, no controversy, no complications. Her hope is that the Blessed Virgin Mary (who oversees her soul's progress) will grant her heart's desire, the option to choose the circumstances of her next life. But when a student reveals he shares her ability, Eugenia suddenly finds herself setting up a Facebook page and sponsoring a support group for others like her, an oddball odyssey, during which she discovers she must confront her current shortcomings before she can break the cycle and finally live the life of her dreams. A layered contemporary fable, Hindsight reminds us to live this life like it's the only one we'll have
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| How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles YuIntroducing: Charles Yu, a time travel technician in Minor Universe 31, who's determined to find his missing time-traveler father. And the answers he seeks may be found in a book called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, written (and given to him) by his future self.
Why you might like it: This metafictional, pop-culture savvy novel by the author of the recent Interior Chinatown places a poignant meditation on love, loss, and memory inside a puzzle box of a plot. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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