Harper Voyager Books

Margaret Ronald review round-up

We're nuts for Margaret Ronald's Evie Scelan series . . . but we're not the only ones!  In case you've missed all the terrific reviews Margaret's been getting, here they all are, in one place:

Elizabeth Bear reviews Spiral Hunt in Realms of Fantasy, and Wild Hunt on tor.com. 

Two John Scalzi Big Ideas: Spiral Hunt and Wild Hunt

Strange Horizons reviews Wild Hunt and Spiral Hunt

Charles de Lint reviews Spiral Hunt in Fantasy & Science Fiction

As a reminder: Spiral Hunt is the first book in the series, Wild Hunt is the second.  You can Browse Inside the first 60-ish pages of each by clicking on the links just above.

SONG OF SCARABAEUS, Sara Creasy

Sara Creasy's fabulous debut novel, SONG OF SCARABAEUS, is out now!

Trained since childhood in advanced biocyph seed technology by the all-powerful Crib empire, Edie's mission is to terraform alien worlds while her masters bleed the outlawed Fringe populations dry. When renegade mercenaries kidnap Edie, she's not entirely sure it's a bad thing . . . until they leash her to a bodyguard, Finn—a former freedom fighter-turned-slave, beaten down but never broken. If Edie strays from Finn's side, he dies. If she doesn't cooperate, the pirates will kill them both.

But Edie's abilities far surpass anything her enemies imagine. And now, with Finn as her only ally as the merciless Crib closes in, she'll have to prove it or die on the site of her only failure . . . a world called Scarabaeus.

We're not the only ones excited about this new sf debut:

“This brilliantly conceived debut heralds a significant new talent....Creasy’s convincing scientific speculation, appealing characterizations, and eerie alien landscapes make this science fiction romance deeply satisfying.”   — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A powerful debut…gripping characterization, non-stop action, fascinating biological speculation, and a dash of romance. Don’t miss it!”   — Linnea Sinclair “Traditionally, readers of fantasy are looking for well-developed characters while SF fans want plot and action. Song of Scarabaeus definitely has both going for it.”   — Robin Hobb “The tension never lets up, both in the action and between the characters, from the first page to the last.”  — Trudi Canavan “Sara Creasy is a new writer to watch, and Song of Scarabaeus is a novel to read and enjoy. ... The biological speculation rings with truth and possibility, the terraforming-gone-wrong creates an environment of delicious creepiness, and Creasy’s imaginatively-constructed universe draws the reader in, to follow Edie and Finn’s quest for freedom.”   — Vonda N. McIntyre Browse inside SONG OF SCARABAEUS here.   -- Diana

Out Now--Kim Harrison's ONCE DEAD, TWICE SHY in pb!

Kim Harrison's bestselling YA debut, ONCE DEAD, TWICE SHY is out now in paperback!

My name is Madison Avery, and I'm here to tell you that there's more out there than you can see, hear, or touch. Because I'm there. Seeing it. Touching it. Living it.

Madison's prom was killer—literally. Now, thanks to a mysterious amulet, she's stuck on Earth: dead but not gone. She has no idea why the dark reaper who did her in was after her, but she's not about to just sit around and let fate take its course. With a little skilled light-bending, the help of a light reaper (one of the good guys . . . maybe), her cute crush, and oh yeah, her guardian angel, Madison's ready to take control of her own destiny once and for all, before it takes control of her.

Well, if she believed in that stuff.

Read some of ONCE DEAD, TWICE SHY here. 

The second Madison Avery book, EARLY TO DEAD, EARLY TO RISE, will be out 5/25/10. Kim, Kelley Armstrong, Aprilynne Pike, Kimberly Derting and Ellen Schreiber hit the road for a fantastic 6-city tour. Check out the Supernatural Summer  tour here.

-- Diana

SANDMAN SLIM now in paperback!

The mass market edition of Richard Kadrey's SANDMAN SLIM is out today!

We could gush about how much we love this snarky, violent, and absolutely captivating urban fantasy, but we'll let the reviews talk for us instead:

“A sharp-edged urban fantasy, drenched in blood and cynicism, tipping its hat to Sam Peckinpah, Raymond Chandler and the anti-heroes of Hong Kong cinema. Kadrey brings it off through the propulsive force of Stark’s in-your-face, first-person, present-tense narration. It’s a bravura performance.”   — San Francisco Chronicle

“If Simon R. Green wrote an episode of Dog the Bounty Hunter, it would read much like Sandman Slim – violent, vivid, non-stop action of the supernatural kind. I couldn’t put it down.”  — Charlaine Harris

“The best B movie I’ve read in at least twenty years. An addictively satisfying, deeply amusing, dirty-ass masterpiece, Sandman Slim swerves hell-bent through our culture’s impacted gridlock of genres, sideswiping so many, so brilliantly, so constantly, that it’s like watching Sergio Leone and Clive Barker co-direct from a script by Jim Thompson and S. Clay Wilson: an LA noir spaghetti western grudge-war apocalypse, fought with magic, shotguns, occult artifacts, and (at one point) the broken wooden handle of a toilet plunger. Sweet.”   — William Gibson

(The raves continue after the jump)

Vicki Pettersson interviews CHRISTOPHER MOORE about BITE ME

Romantic Times has a brand-new website, and one of the cool new features is a blog. Here, Vicki Pettersson interviews New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore about his new book, BITE ME.

"Vicki Pettersson: First off, I gotta take a page from Abby Normal’s journal to tell you: Chris Moore, you rock my stripy socks. Yet, I’m looking at your author photo trying to find out where you’re hiding a complex and mysterious goth girl in that fairly straightforward (yet obscenely masculine) writer-boy frame. I mean, Abby really took over this book. Were you at all concerned about diving into a teen girl’s mind for much of this narrative?

Christopher Moore: I was a bit concerned, but the key, I’ve found, to do characters like Abby is to completely construct a new dialect, rather an try to approximate a real one. So basically, if the reader should think, 'nobody talks like that', your explanation is, 'of course not'. There’s a bit of 'Method Acting' in writing any character that isn’t like yourself. You just have to get into character and try to stay there."

Lots of fascinating information follows about the new adventures of Abby Normal, Chet the hairless vampire cat, and more! Don't miss the full interview, and then read some of the side-splittingly funny BITE ME.

-- Diana

Locus Awards nominees

The 2010 Locus Award nominees were announced yesterday, and we are thrilled to have two nominees:

UNSEEN ACADEMICALS, by Terry Pratchett, for Best Fantasy Novel

THE NEW SPACE OPERA 2, edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, for Best Anthology

Plus, Peter Watts's short story "The Island" , from THE NEW SPACE OPERA 2, is nominated for both the Hugo & the Locus Awards! Read it here: http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm

The Locus Award winners will be announced during the Science Fiction Awards weekend in Seattle, June 25-27th. The full list of nominees is here.

-- Diana

The return of a Zelazny classic!

“He was a poet, first, last, always. His words sang. He was a storyteller without peer. He created worlds as colorful and exotic and memorable as any our genre has ever seen.” - George R.R. Martin

On-sale now is a brand new paperback edition of Roger Zelazny's classic CREATURES OF LIGHT AN DARKNESS, his triumphant recreation of the Egyptian myths, in a far-flung adventure of time, space, and legend.

In a world both like and unlike our own, powerful, mythic beings—Thoth, Anubis, Osiris-- oversee the planets, as Angels rule the House of the Dead, the House of Life, and everything in between. But when a dark force, The Thing That Cries In the Night, is awoke, even life and death themselves become the battleground for a war across galaxies.

Funny, wise, and far-reaching, CREATURES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS is another dazzling blend of mythology and imagination from the master storyteller of LORD OF LIGHT and the Amber Chronicles, now reissued for a new generation.

For fans of classic SF and Zelazny this is a must read!

Advance Reader Reviews: SONG OF SCARABAEUS

We're very excited about Sara Creasy's fabulous science fiction debut novel, SONG OF SCARABAEUS, which we will publish in May, and we're not the only ones (check out the fabulous quotes below). Trained since childhood by the oppressive Crib government to program advanced terraforming technology called biocyph seeds, Edie is kidnapped for her valuable skills, assigned a reluctant bodyguard, a former freedom fighter named Finn, and coerced into working for mercenaries who sell biocyph to the outlawed Fringe worlds. When Edie and Finn are taken to Scarabaeus, the planet she first terraformed--the site of her public failure and private rebellion--they must join forces to survive and win their freedom. We've got three galleys to give away for Advance Reader Reviews--send us an e-mail with your name and address at [email protected] for your chance at an early read. Early Praise for SONG OF SCARABAEUS: “This brilliantly conceived debut heralds a significant new talent....Creasy’s convincing scientific speculation, appealing characterizations, and eerie alien landscapes make this science fiction romance deeply satisfying.”   — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) “The tension never lets up, both in the action and between the characters, from the first page to the last.”    — Trudi Canavan, New York Times bestselling author “Sara Creasy is a new writer to watch, and Song of Scarabaeus is a novel to read and enjoy. ... The biological speculation rings with truth and possibility, the terraforming-gone-wrong creates an environment of delicious creepiness, and Creasy’s imaginatively-constructed universe draws the reader in, to follow Edie and Finn’s quest for freedom."    — Vonda N. McIntyre “A powerful debut…gripping characterization, non-stop action, fascinating biological speculation, and a dash of romance. Don’t miss it!”   — Linnea Sinclair   (Necessary legalese: Your address will only be used to send the galley. Unfortunately, we can only send to US or Canadian readers.)

-- Diana

NEW SPACE OPERA 2 out now!

We recently released a new edition of this fantastic collection of all-new short stories. For fans of SF it's not to be missed.

The list of contributors is astounding:

Neal Asher
John Barnes
Cory Doctorow
John Kessel
Jay Lake
John Meaney
Elizabeth Moon
Garth Nix
Mike Resnick
Justina Robson
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
John Scalzi
Bruce Sterling
Peter Watts
Sean Williams
Tad Williams
Bill Willingham
Robert Charles Wilson
John C. Wright

Now Available + Giveaway: DESCENT INTO DUST

 March, 1862.  The misty, moody, rain-lashed moors. A young widow with an uncertain blood inheritance. A manor house with Latin inscriptions carved over every door. An inscrutable handsome stranger whose motives are unclear. A fraught relationship between sisters. A crazy mother locked in the attic. An elderly uncle from Eastern Europe. A mysterious clergyman. An emergency journey to France. A child in peril.

Plus: vampires.  A bunch of them.  And a hint of that most powerful vampire of all: The Dracula.

 

May we introduce you to DESCENT INTO DUST, the first installment of a new historical gothic series by debut author Jacqueline Lepore?

 

We've got five copies to give away; just e-mail [email protected] with your mailing address.  (US residents only, please.)