|
|
As You Wake, Break the Shell
by Becky Chambers
Life on the resource-poor planet of Fortune is challenging, but for its inhabitants, it's home. For two of them, Signy and Cora, this home might no longer be enough.Signy is a brilliant but reclusive botanist who bio-prints medicine from her small plant shop, often bending the rules to help those the system leaves behind. Her life is filled with the green of her store, the warmth of her one elderly friend, and the quiet determination to help others without putting herself in danger.Cora is a rorqual pilot, one of the few with the unique ability to navigate the massive, living ships that connect the scattered settlements of their solar system. Her bond with her rorqual, Colibri, is profound--a connection that is both her greatest gift and a threat to her career.It is that threat--the mindbleed, a dangerous side effect of her piloting--that brings her to Signy's shop, and her appearance puts Signy in the danger she so fears. But it's soon apparent it's not just about losing her license--this delicate balance between risk and trust has the potential to change everything for them.Told in an alternating timeline of their initial coming together and a not-so-distant future where they have found domestic bliss, this is a story harrowing and haunting, heartfelt and hopeful. Through a love story centered around survival, we are given a glimpse into the very best of what Becky Chambers does in her writing: explore what it means to be human, and what it means to come together.
|
|
| Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul TremblayJulia Flang may be estranged from her CFO mother, but she has an offer Julia can't refuse: assume control of a comatose man with an AI implant to transport him across the country. Split between Julie's perspective and the disoriented surreal dreamscape of the remains of "Bernie's" consciousness, Paul Tremblay's latest "is injected with a squirming worm of fear that forces readers to take a critical look at AI's encroachment" (Library Journal). |
|
|
|
The Strangers
by Naomi Alderman
They came from nowhere, and now they are everywhere. A few months after her mother dies, the novelist Naomi Alderman sets up a wildlife camera in the back garden of her parents' home. It captures the first image of a strange new animal. Low to the ground, about the size of a badger, flat face, long, trunk-like nose. Suddenly these mimmoths are as common as foxes or dogs. And no one knows where they've come from. As Alderman negotiates the territory of grief--a place with its own logic and rhythms--the mimmoths spread. From the UK east and west, to the United States, to Russia, to India. They seem harmless, but oddly intelligent. They cannot be captured, they will not take food from humans, they have their own purposes. Alderman cannot shake the feeling that she has a particular connection to the creatures. Or is she just succumbing to 'mimmoth psychosis'? As the impact of the mimmoths increases, she is pulled into the cross currents of conspiracy theories and global power struggles. Have her deeply personal forms of mourning lent recent events a surreal air, or is our reality changing drastically and irrevocably? From the award-winning author of the international bestseller, The Power, The Strangers is a thrillingly original and devastatingly moving novel that blurs the lines between fiction and reality, inviting us to reconsider what it means to be human. It's like nothing you'll have read before.
|
|
|
|
The Slantwise Histories: Collected Stories
by Alix E. Harrow
These are stories about the past as it wasn't quite, but might have been--or could still be. These are stories about dreamers and liars and lovers and ghosts; people just like you. These are stories about places the world has seen, and some that hide just beyond the periphery of possibility. Most of all, these are stories for anyone who ever wanted more. What's a legend, except a history told slantwise? The Slantwise Histories: Collected Stories presents the best known short fiction of Alix. E. Harrow, including the Hugo-award winning A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies as well as five all-new stories. The collection also includes the author's preferred text of previously published stories The Long Way Up, Roadside Attraction, Mr. Death, The Ransom of Miss Coraline Connelly, The Sycamore and the Sybil, Do Not Look Back, My Lion, The Whisper in the Weld, Dustbaby, and Amazon Original short stories, The Six Deaths of the Saint and The Knight and the Butcherbird.
|
|
|
|
What Happens at Nightfall
by Lauren Willig
In the sprawling Gothic expanse of Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery, some secrets refuse to stay buried.Recently laid off and searching for purpose, Jess reluctantly joins her best friend on a supposedly fun nighttime cemetery tour. Separated from her group by accident, she discovers a bunch of terrified boys and a strange, ancient key. Both lead to Green-Wood's surprisingly handsome resident arborist, Adam Chervinsky.Recently widowed, Adam has more to protect than the leafy residents of Green-Wood. His children, still dealing with the loss of their mother, are acting strangely. A haunting is afoot, and Jess seems to know more than she's letting on. Sparks fly between Jess and Adam--and the unquiet spirits of Green-Wood rise from their century-long slumber.As Jess and Adam delve deeper into the cemetery's haunted history, they uncover a Gilded Age curse, a ghostly socialite, and a demonic pact that stretches across generations. What lies hidden in the Green-Wood's splendid Vanderwilt mausoleum? As the line between the living and the dead blurs, and the shadows of Green-Wood begin to stir with malevolent intent, Jess must confront not only the supernatural forces but a shocking connection to the past if she and Adam truly want to live happily ever after.
|
|
|
|
Life Out of Order (Deluxe Limited Edition)
by Audrey Niffenegger
Alba DeTamble has never lived a life in order. Born with the same rare Chrono-Displacement Disorder as her father Henry, she slips unpredictably through decades, haunted by the secrets of a future she can witness but cannot change. As Alba strives to maintain a normal life with Zach, her safe, supportive anchor, she forms a tight-knit community of artists and activists who fight to take care of each other in an increasingly unstable world. At once intimate and expansive, Life Out of Order plunges readers into a world of Niffenegger's dazzling imagination: from the riot-torn streets of a dystopian Chicago, to a digital museum for forgotten memories and lost artifacts. Curating this ever-expanding museum is Isadora, Alba's mysterious stepsister and an unsettling presence in their family - whose fate may be intertwined with Alba's in more dangerous ways than she knows.Told through a kaleidoscope of perspectives, the story moves through a boundless, unfolding universe of virtual reality, skimming the wildest reaches of technology and our natural world. The result is a testament to the power of art and community to sustain us in these fractured times--and an epic tale that's set to define an entirely new genre in a way only Niffenegger can.
|
|
Spotlight on Graphic Novels |
|
|
|
D'Orc Volume 1: The Book of Certain Doom
by Brett Bean
The perfect mix of Bone, The Dark Crystal, Discworld, and Monty Python, D'ORC is destined to be a new fan-favorite for years to come. D'orc, the half dwarf/ half orc is fated to end the world because of some inconvenient doomsday prophecy from the Book of Certain Doom. Armed with nothing but a magical yet ambitiously violent shield and a chicken with its head cut off, D'orc is caught dead center into Sunderaine's never-ending war between the Light and Dark. Elves vs. Orcs. Wizards vs. Common Sense. Dragons vs. Literally Everyone. Can he survive being hunted, blamed, and beaten by every human, elf, goblin, dwarf, Witch, Timelord, Ice Giant, three headed Dog, and at least three other unpronounceable magical creatures?
|
|
|
|
Forevr
by Brian Brown
Why say goodbye? Death is only a temporary glitch in this eerily plausible future from award-winning graphic novelist Brian Box Brown. Brenda's mom is dying--but not for long. Like millions of others, she's uploaded her consciousness to the groundbreaking new app Forevr, which allows the surviving family members to chat with her on their screens for a very reasonable monthly fee. Now Brenda's dad doesn't have to be alone...while Brenda and her girlfriend focus on building their careers as wilderness survival influencers. But when this very modern family sets out on a camping trip, their tensions and tech addictions build to an explosive climax whose consequences may last...forever.
|
|
|
|
Assorted Crisis Events Volume 1
by Deniz Camp
Time is having a crisis. Mingling in the red-light district, you can find actual cavemen, medieval knights, and cyborg soldiers on leave from World War IV. Victorian debutantes amble their way into cell phone stores, confused and bewildered (what is a data plan?). On their way to work, bleary-eyed commuters get trapped in time-loops, assaulted by alternate-reality versions of themselves, and try to avoid post-apocalyptic wastelands. And look: the 3:15 bus just took a wrong turn...into the neolithic era. Assorted Crisis Events is an ongoing, zig-zagging anthology series about the compromised clicks of our clocks--full of one-shot stories both beautiful and ugly, tragic and redemptive, surreal and somehow all too familiar. Stories of people (and reality) in crisis--trying to keep it together while the world is falling apart, second by twisted second... Collects the first arc, issues #1-5.
|
|
|
|
Miss Truesdale and the Rise of Man
by Mike Mignola
Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and artist Jesse Lonergan continue their acclaimed Miss Truesdale saga in this new comics miniseries. Finally at peace with her past lives, Anum Yassa now must fight to protect the future as a dark force endeavors destroy it. The fate of mankind rests in her hands. The secretary Miss Truesale turned gladiator Anum Yassa wanders the forest to learn about her lives--past, present, and future. Monster after monster, foe after foe, Anum Yassa fights them off--but something or someone is behind them all. The gladiator-secretary must protect the future of man before a powerful evil can stop mankind's destiny and replace it with a darker fate--and the evil forces will not be stopped so easily. Collects Miss Truesdale and the Rise of Man #1-#4 and bonus material.
|
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|