Happy Halloween!

Shout-Out: The Art of Eating Through the Zombie Apocalypse by Lauren Wilson and Kristian Bauthus

Just because the undead’s taste buds are atrophying doesn’t mean yours have to!

You duck into the safest-looking abandoned house you can find and hold your breath as you listen for the approaching zombie horde you’ve been running from all day. You hear a gurgling sound. Is it the undead? No—it’s your stomach.

When the zombie apocalypse tears down life and society as we know it, it will mean no more take out, no more brightly lit, immaculately organized aisles of food just waiting to be plucked effortlessly off the shelves. No more trips down to the local farmers’ market. No more microwaved meals in front of the TV or intimate dinner parties. No, when the undead rise, eating will be hard, and doing it successfully will become an art.

The Art of Eating through the Zombie Apocalypse is a cookbook and culinary field guide for the busy zpoc survivor. With more than 80 recipes (from Overnight of the Living Dead French Toast and It’s Not Easy Growing Greens Salad to Down & Out Sauerkraut, Honey & Blackberry Mead, and Twinkie Trifle), scads of gastronomic survival tips, and dozens of diagrams and illustrations that help you scavenge, forage, and improvise your way to an artful post-apocalypse meal. The Art of Eating is the ideal handbook for efficient food sourcing and inventive meal preparation in the event of an undead uprising.

Whether you decide to hole up in your own home or bug out into the wilderness, whether you prefer to scavenge the dregs of society or try your hand at apocalyptic agriculture, and regardless of your level of skill or preparation, The Art of Eating will help you navigate the wasteland and make the most of what you eat.

Video: Ambition

This is a SF short created by Platige Image and the European Space Agency to explain the Rosetta mission to rendezvous with a comet on November 12th.

The film was directed by Tomek Bagiński and stars Aiden Gillen and Aisling Franciosi.  If you want to know more about Rosetta, check out ESA's website.

Book Review: Waistcoats & Weaponry by Gail Carriger

Pros: fun, quirky characters

Cons: more action than plot

Sophronia and her friends are enjoying school a year after their last adventure when Sidheag receives a distressing letter.  She disappears and when Dimity and Sophronia attend Sophronia’s brother’s engagement ball, they rejoin her and stumble upon several plots.

This is the third book in the Finishing School series, and it is best read in order as plot points from the previous books, specifically several direct consequences from book two, are important to what’s happening here.  

As with the other books, the girls are all quirky and fun to read about.  We see them apply their talents in different ways as they rise to the challenges they face.  The book is a quick and enjoyable read.

Unlike in the earlier books where the girls come across something strange and decide to investigate it, actively looking for new clues, in this volume they’re helping their friend and stumble across the mystery purely by chance.  They find out more of what’s going on in the wider political world and several of them have to make decisions that will greatly affect their futures.

Sophronia has several major decisions to make in this book regarding her future: whether she likes Felix Mersey, whose father is a pickleman (a political position Sophronia abhors) enough to form an attachment with him; what kind of future relationship she wants with Soap, whose social standing is far beneath hers but whose advice and friendship she greatly appreciates; and what patron she wants when she graduates, as Lord Akeldama’s been sending her gifts in an attempt to sway her in his direction.  

I personally found the action on the train less interesting than what happened before it.  I love the school and the dynamic there, and was a bit sad that so much of the book took place off of it.  Having said that, the train did show off the girls’ prowess and contained some fun action sequences.  

I’m really looking forward to book 4, Manners & Mutiny, which I believe will conclude the series.

Movie Review: Psycho II

Directed by: Richard Franklin, 1983

IMDb listing

Pros: interesting story

Cons: some overacting

Norman Bates is released, cured, from psychiatric care.  He meets a young woman at his new job at a diner who’s having boy trouble and invites her to stay with him.  Meanwhile, he starts getting phone calls and notes from his dead mother, making him question whether he really is sane now.

This is a film about how to drive someone mad, and it’s terrifying to watch.  Because you’re seeing the film from Norman’s perspective, you know the notes and calls are real, but it’s easy to see why Norman questions his sanity when things start going wrong.

It’s the sort of film that makes you wonder what could have happened had the people tormenting Norman left him alone.  Would he have stayed sane and been a good citizen or would he have slowly fallen into madness anyway?

Anthony Perkins, reprising his role as Norman Bates, does a brilliant job, though some of the other actors tried too hard, especially towards the end.

Like the original, it’s not a terribly scary film, the interest is in the humanity of the characters, and their madnesses.

Shout-Out: Spark by John Twelve Hawks

THE MOST DANGEROUS ASSASSIN IS THE ONE WHO BELIEVES HE IS ALREADY DEAD.

Jacob Underwood is a contract employee of the Special Services Section, a small shadow department buried within the multinational corporation DBG, headquartered in New York City. Jacob is not a businessman . . . he is a hired assassin . . . and his job is to neutralize problems deemed unacceptable by the corporation. But Jacob is not like other employees, nor is he like other people. After a catastrophic motorcycle accident leaves him with Cotard's syndrome-an actual condition that causes those afflicted to believe they are dead-Jacob perceives himself as nothing but a "Shell," with no emotions and no tether to the concept of right and wrong.

Emily Buchanan is a bright young second-year associate for DBG, and she has disappeared without a trace. Suspecting that Emily has stolen either vast sums of money or valuable information from the company, Ms. Holquist, Jacob's handler at DBG, assigns him the task of tracking down the young woman and neutralizing her. Jacob's condition allows him to carry out assignments with ruthless, logical precision, devoid of guilt, fear, or dishonor. But as his new assignment draws him inside a labyrinthine network of dark dealings, Jacob finds himself up against something he is completely incapable of understanding.

Shifting with riveting precision from New York to London, Paris to New Delhi, Spark is a thriller that delves into the surveillance state we prognosticate today . . . and will live in tomorrow. In the hands of master storyteller John Twelve Hawks, a unique character's startling transformation comes to life, making Spark a thriller that resonates and satisfies on many levels.

Kickstarter Movie: The Hades Pit

Got an email about a kickstarter project to make an independent film, The Hades Pit, that sounds kind of interesting.  Here's the synopsis (which doesn't quite grab me) and the introduction video (which, I think, does a better job of creating enthusiasm for the project).  The director, Tony Sebastian Ukpo, has made several films already and has some ambitious goals for this one if it's funded.

The story starts with a young woman and her dog on their way to the countryside with her father, on a regular annual father/daughter retreat where he works as a Park Ranger. On this trip however, something is not right, signalled by the smoke coming from behind the abandoned factory on the way to their home. They pay no heed to it, and things slowly start to get stranger and stranger in a suspenseful build up to the fathers abduction from their home in broad daylight by large masked figures. With all the communication posts down, and the nearby service station now manned by a fresh corpse, the daughter emerging from where she was hidden away by her father during the carnage, eventually takes matters into her own hands, heading with her dog towards the one place they must have taken him. She finds an underground facility filled with weird sinister scientists, experimental creatures and an unlikely ally in one of the test subjects, and is forced to put a lot of her gaming instincts (She's a gamer) to use in a real world situation.

More Interesting Mockingjay Promotions

Rather out of character for me, I planned a very last minute trip to New York City that I recently got back from.  While I was there, I saw this amazing poster set for Mockingjay, part 1 near Times Square.

Then I got an email about some new marketing they're doing for the film.  The following excerpts are quoted from the email:

DISTRICT VOICES is a five episode series on YouTube that brings to life Panem, the fictional world of The Hunger Games, through videos featuring popular YouTube creators. Each episode of the series was created with a different creator, whose channel content aligns with a specific industry from one of the districts of Panem.

 

The videos were concepted and developed with the team from the YouTube Space LA and filmed on location there, and around Los Angeles. They provide a window into an expanded world of The Hunger Games and deliver original content to the passionate fan bases of both the films and the individual YouTube creators. Presented as programming from CAPITOL TV, the government-sanctioned television network of The Hunger Games,...

...

View the DISTRICT VOICES trailer now and tune-in to Capitol TV each day this week starting at 4pm ET/ 1pm PT:

 

Monday, October 20 - District 8:  Rob Czar & Corinne Leigh, co-helmers of the ‘Threadbanger’ YouTube channel, show how to best make use of excess Peacekeeper armor.

 

Tuesday, October 21 - District 2: Shane Fazen, of the ‘fightTIPS’ YouTube channel, showcases the training and techniques required to be a Peacekeeper in Panem.

 

Wednesday, October 22 - District 5: Derek Muller, known for the mind-blowing experiments and scientific discussions on his YouTube channel ‘Veritasium’, demonstrates new ways in which the Capitol may generate its electricity in the future.

 

Thursday, October 23 - District 9: Jimmy Wong & Ashley Adams, best known for their ‘Feast of Fiction’ YouTube channel, demonstrate baking techniques from Panem’s Grain District.

 

Friday, October 24 - District 6: iJustine’s Justine Ezarik, gives a glimpse at the driving force that proudly supports the transportation needs of Panem’s vaunted Peacekeepers.

 

 

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 opens in theatres everywhere on November 21. 

Book Review: Of Bone and Thunder by Chris Evans

Pros: real war feel, lots of slang and specialized vocabulary, superb world-building, varied characters

Cons: tough read, slow beginning

Join the Kingdom’s ‘finest’ as they fight to keep their colony, Luitox, free from the Forest Collective.  But the FnC are hard to fight, hiding deep in the jungle and, though their arrows snipe the troops, they’re never there when the troops arrive.  Manned dragons fly overhead, ferrying troops and flaming suspected hotspots.  Some newly freed dwarves have enlisted but still bear hatred for their former slavers.  New technologies are invented as soldiers face a mostly faceless enemy.  The army must deal with privations and problems galore, even as the war finally rushes towards a conclusion.

This is a fantasy retelling of the Vietnam war.  I don’t know much about the war, but this makes me want to learn more.  If even a portion of what happens in this book is true it was a truly horrific event.  The book touches on all sorts of issues - racism, demonizing the enemy, lack of communication, the incorporation of new and barely understood technology, the horrors of battle, losing friends, those back home not understanding the realities of what’s happening, and more.

It’s a difficult read in that no punches are pulled.  War isn’t noble or heroic, it’s dirty, full of pain and desperation.  You’ll be seeing blood, puke and all other bodily fluids.  Don’t get too attached to any of the characters as the ones that make it to the end do so greatly changed by their experiences.

There’s a fair amount of slang to master, but aside from ‘rag’, short for dragon, which took me a while to figure out as there was no context for it the first time it was used, I picked it up pretty fast.  The book jumps ahead frequently, allowing it to cover more time and give a broader look at the perceptions and realities of the war.  You’re also getting several points of view: a grunt soldier, two thaums (a cross between a magic worker and a scientist), a dragon rider, people in different levels of command, a journalist, etc.  This also helps give a more varied view of the war.

The opening is a bit slow.  There’s an atmospheric prologue and some scenes with soldiers followed by a chapter that consists of a much needed info dump that explains the purpose of the war.  Things pick up fast though and draw you into the lives of the characters.

It’s a compelling read, and sometimes its easier to come to grips with the horrors of reality when they’re presented as somewhat removed from it.  History retelling aside, it’s a great book that will have you wishing that real wars were a thing of the past.

Regular posting starts again this coming week

Sorry for the lack of posts these past 2 weeks.  I was on a trip the past week and had intended to prepare the posts for it in advance, but a death in the family meant I was preparing for a funeral instead.

I'll be returning to my regular posting schedule this coming week.

Brief Hiatus

Due to a death in the family I'll be taking a brief hiatus from my blog.  I apologize that some of my reviews will be out later than intended because of it.

Shout-Out: Good House by Peyton Marshall

At the end of the twenty-first century-in a transformed America-the sons of convicted felons are tested for a set of genetic markers. Boys who test positive become compulsory wards of the state-removed from their homes and raised on "Goodhouse" campuses, where they learn to reform their darkest thoughts and impulses. Goodhouse is a savage place-part prison, part boarding school-and now a radical religious group, the Holy Redeemer's Church of Purity, is intent on destroying each campus and purifying every child with fire.

We see all this through the eyes of James, a transfer student who watched as the radicals set fire to his old Goodhouse and killed nearly everyone he'd ever known. In addition to adjusting to a new campus with new rules, James now has to contend with Bethany, a brilliant, medically fragile girl who wants to save him, and with her father, the school's sinister director of medical studies. Soon, however, James realizes that the biggest threat might already be there, inside the fortified walls of Goodhouse itself.

Blast From the Past: The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist

Before I started reviewing books online I loved rereading my favourite SF/Fantasy books.  Since I don’t have time to do that anymore, this column is a trip down memory lane, where I’ll rave about books I love to read.  And then read again.  These aren’t reviews, as I won’t necessarily mention criticisms, they’re my chance to fan girl about books I love and hopefully garner some interest in some older titles.

-----------------------------------------------------

After The Sword of Shannara trilogy, the Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist, was the series that cemented my love of fantasy.  While it uses a lot of what have now become common tropes, this series is well written and fun, with a lot of great battles and characters.

The series starts with an orphan boy, Pug, who's discovered to have magical abilities and is apprenticed to the duke's wizard.  But while he struggles to learn magic, beings from another world have opened a rift to his, and plan to invade.

My synopsis barely scratches the surface of what you'll find, and though the story starts with a fairly narrow focus, it opens up to cover numerous cities over two worlds as well as following a small group of influential people in a variety of circumstances.  There are elves, forgotten creatures with godlike power lost in the rift, magic, a thieves guild, warfare, politics, and a touch of romance.  As the books progress, so does time and new characters come into the books as the older characters increase or lose their powers and influence.

You've got to read them in order to understand everything that's going on, but my favourite book is Silverthorn, mainly because it focuses on Jimmy the Hand, a thief turned squire, whose street smarts and backtalk make him one of my favourite fantasy characters of all time.  He's clever and handsome and was my first book crush. ;)

The books have had numerous covers over their publication history, though the ones above are the ones I read and own.  I know that Feist re-edited them a few years back but haven't read what he changed/added.  I couldn't bear to see books that meant so much to me change.

And while I read several of the books that came after these, I can't really recommend all of them.  Some I enjoyed (like the Krondor trilogy and the Empire trilogy that he wrote with Janny Wurts), but none reached the same level of careful planning as the original trilogy (the publisher split Magician into 2 books due to its size, hence why there are 4 covers above).  In a few cases, the sequels directly contradicted or rewrote the history told in these books or had deus ex machina endings that ticked me off.

But the original saga is definitely worth reading.  And reading again.

Sunburst Award Winners

Congratulations to the winners of the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic:

Adult category

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

On a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, a Hello Kitty lunchbox washes up on the beach. Tucked inside is a collection of curious items, including the diary of a sixteen year-old Japanese girl named Nao Yasutani. Ruth, who finds the lunchbox, suspects that it is debris from Japan's devastating 2011 tsunami. Once Ruth starts to read the diary, she quickly finds herself drawn into the mystery of the young girl's fate.

In a manga café in Tokyo's Electric Town, Nao has decided there's only one escape from the loneliness and pain of her life, as she's uprooted from her U.S. home, bullied at school, and watching her parents spiral deeper into disaster. But before she ends it all, she wants to accomplish one thing: to recount the story of her great-grandmother, a 104-year-old Zen Buddhist nun, in the pages of her diary. The diary, Nao's only solace, is her cry for help to a reader she can only imagine.

Young Adult category

The Cats of Tanglewood Forest by Charles de Lint

Lillian Kindred spends her days exploring the Tanglewood Forest, a magical, rolling wilderness that she imagines to be full of fairies. The trouble is, Lillian has never seen a wisp of magic in her hills--until the day the cats of the forest save her life by transforming her into a kitten. Now she must set out on a perilous adventure that will lead her through untamed lands of fabled creates--from Old Mother Possum to the fearsome Bear People--to find a way to make things right.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Coming in November, 2014

It's another long list compiled from Amazon Canada's website.  Because these take so long to put together I've not been adding the YA stuff.  There are a bunch of reprints coming out again, some in print and some (like more of William Shatner's Tek books) in ebook format.  If you liked Jason Hough's Dire Earth novels (starting with The Darwin Elevator), he's got a prequel e-novella coming out.  And for Assassin's Creed fans, there's the Abstergo Employee Handbook to look forward to.

Hardcover:

Proxima – Stephen Baxter

Messenger’s Legacy: A Demon Cycle Novella – Peter Brett

Skin Game – Jim Butcher

Out of This World – Charles de Lint

Elite: Wanted – Gavin Deas

Elite: Docking is Difficult – Gideon Defoe

Warhammer 40k: The Talon of Horus – Aaron Dembski-Bowden

Willful Child – Steven Erikson

Assassin’s Creed Unity: Abstergo Entertainment: Employee Handbook – Christie Golden

1636: The Viennese Waltz – Eric Flint, Paula Goodlett & Gorg Huff

Symbiont – Mira Grant
The Winter Boy – Sally Wiener Grotta

The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert – Frank Herbert

The Rats – James Herbert

The Future Falls – Tanya Huff

A Mountain Walked – S. T. Joshi, Ed.

Endsinger – Jay Kristoff

The Collected Short Stories of R. A. Lafferty v2: The Man with the Aura – R. A. Lafferty

The Fatal Tree – Stephen Lawhead

Arcana – Jessica Leake

The Three-Body Problem – Cixin Liu

Star Wars: Tarkin – James Luceno

Homefront – Scott James Magner

Dreamer’s Pool – Juliet Marillier

Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel – George Martin & Melinda Snedgrass, Ed.

Coming Home – Jack McDevitt

Warhammer 40k: Gods of Mars – Graham McNeill

Heritage of Cyador – L. E. Modessit, Jr. 

The Dark Defiles – Richard Morgan

Charm – Sarah Pinborough (reprint)

Poison – Sarah Pinborough (reprint)

Mrs. Bradshaw’s Handbook: To Travelling Upon the Ankh-Morport & Sto Plains Hygienic Railway – Terry Pratchett

King of Assassins – Jenna Rhodes

Legion: Skin Deep – Brandon Sanderson

The Turning Season – Sharon Shinn

Steampunk Soldiers: Uniforms and Weapons from the Age of Steam – Philip Smith & Joseph McCullough

Elite: Nemorensis – Simon Spurrier

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil – J. R. R. Tolkien (reprint, pocket edition)

Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy Omnibus – Jeff VanderMeer

The Short Victorious War Leather Bound Edition – David Weber

The Guardian – Jack Whyte

Trade Paperback:

Warhammer 40k: The Damnation of Pythos – David Annandale

Line War – Neal Asher

Orbus – Neal Asher

Cold Hillside – Nancy Baker

Ultima – Stephen Baxter

Doctor Who: 12 Doctors, 12 Stories – BBC

Tripe Word Score – Frank Cottrell Boyce

Shattered Shields – Jennifer Brozek & Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Ed.

Ecotopia – Ernest Callenbach (reprint)

The House of War and Witness – Mike, Linda & Louise Carey

Iron Horsemen – Brad Cook

Richard Cowper Omnibus: The Road to Corlay, A Dream of Kinship, A Tapestry of Time, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn – Richard Cowper

The Relic Guild – Edward Cox

A Play of Shadows – Julie Czerneda

A Dance of Ghosts – David Dalglish

Myths and Legends: Theseus and the Minotaur – Graeme Davis

The Incredible Star Portal – John Donald

A Fish Dinner in Memison – E. R. Eddison (reprint)

Mistress of Misstresses – E. R. Eddison (reprint)

The Mezentian Gate – E. R. Eddison (reprint)

The Worm Ouroboros – E. R. Eddison (reprint)

Axiomatic: Short Stories of Science Fiction – Greg Egan

Quarantine – Greg Egan

Hypocritic Days – David Fiore

Hope Reformed – David Drake, Eric Flint & S. M. Stirling

Bloodstone – David Gemmell (reprint)

The Last Guardian – David Gemmell (reprint)

Wolf in Shadow – David Gemmell (reprint)

Redemption – Jon Grahame

The Circus of the Damned – Cornelia Grey

Jala’s Mask – Mike Grinti & Rachel Grinti

Star Bridge – James Gunn & Jack Williamson

Dead Ever After – Charlaine Harris

The Winter of Discontent – T. S. Harvey

Motherless – Erin Healy

Philosophy and Terry Pratchett – Jacob Held & James South

Our Dried Voices – Greg Hickey

The Void – J. D. Horn

21st Century Robot: The Dr. Simon Egerton Stories – Brian David Johnson

Metrophage – Richard Kadrey (reprint)

Timefall – James Kahn

The Tears of the Rose – Jeffe Kennedy

The Maggot People – Henning Koch

Innocence – Dean Koontz

The Former Hero – Jeffrey Allen Mays

The Soprano Sorceress – L. E. Modesitt, Jr. (reprint)

Phoenix in Obsidian – Michael Moorcock (reprint)

The Dragon in the Sword – Michael Moorcock (reprint)

The Eternal Champion – Michael Moorcock (reprint)

Bad Dreams – Kim Newman

Yamada Monogatari: To Break the Demon Gate – Richard Parks

Jinn and Juice – Nicole Peeler

The Knight – Pierre Pevel

On the Steel Breeze – Alastair Reynolds

The First King – R. A. Salvatore

Butterfly – David Saperstein

Limit – Frank Schatzing

Halo: Broken Circle – John Shirley

The Book of Heaven – Patricia Storace

The Traders’ War: A Merchant Princes Omnibus – Charles Stross

Rudolph!: He is the Reason for the Season – Mark Teppo

Arcadia – James Treadwell

Path of the Gods – James Val’Rose

The Heart Does Not Grow Back – Fred Venturini

Mammoth Book of Warriors and Wizardry – Sean Wallace

Olympus Confidential – Robert Warren

The Wayward Eight: A Contract to Die For – Robert Waters

The Boar Stone – Jules Watson

Prophecies, Libels & Dreams: Stories of Califa – Ysabeau Wilce

Binding – Carol Wolf

Mass Market Paperback:

Rogue Angel: The Pretender’s Gambit – Alex Archer

Deathlands: Polestar Omega – James Axler

Outlanders: Judgment Plague – James Axler

Iron Winter – Stephen Baxter

Empire of Dust – Jacey Bedford

Masks – E. C. Blake

Box Office Poison – Phillipa Bornikova

Tainted Blood – M. L. Brennan

Reap the Wind – Karen Chance

Trackman – Catriona Child

Warhammer 40K: Galaxy in Flames – Ben Counter

Star Trek: Foul Deeds Will Rise – Greg Cox

Death Defying – Nina Croft 

Andromeda’s Choice – William Dietz

Monsters of the Earth – David Drake

Superheroes Anonymous – Lexie Dunne

Black Widow – Jennifer Estep

Method for Madness – David Gerrold

Alien: River of Pain – Christopher Golden

Another One Bites the Dust – Chris Marie Green 

The Man Who Sold the Moon & Orphans of the Sky – Robert Heinlein (reprint)

Firestorm – Nancy Holzner

Damnation – Jean Johnson

The Clone Apocalypse – Steven Kent

Interstellar – Greg Keyes

Trade Secret – Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Let Me In – John Ajvide Lindqvist

Dangerous Women 3 – George Martin & Gardner Dozois, Ed.

Pathfinder Tales: Nightblade – Liane Merciel

Robert Asprin’s Dragons Run – Jody Lynn Nye

Abracadaver – Laura Resnick

To Sail a Darkling Sea – John Ringo

Night Shift – Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Lisa Shearin & Milla Vane

Dreams of the Golden Age – Carrie Vaughn

eBook:

Riding on Whispers – Jillian Ashe

Shattered – Emily Asimov

The Wilder – B. J. Beach

Crossover – Bob Blink

Illusion – S. M. Boyce

Nine Planets – Greg Byrne

Turner: Bitter Change – Bea Cannon

Alien Assault – Bryan Cassiday

Dust – Sarah Daltry

Empires: Extraction – Gavin Deas

Empires: Infiltration – Gavin Deas

Empires: The First Battle – Gavin Deas

Second Chance – Dhaun Dowdall

The Beacon Thrones – Naomi Eccles-Smith

Journey of the Hunted – Tracy Falbe

Karma Mars – Jude Fawley

The Labyrinth of Time – T. W. Fendley

Who Else Might Be? – Francisco Figueira

Tyal, the Daughter of Flames – Odellia Firebird

Erosions – Ashlyn Forge

Quozl – Alan Dean Foster (reprint)

Tears for a World – Alexander Fernandez

The Spacefarers: To See it All – Anthony Gillett

Zyklon X – Zhanna Hamilton

Champion – Ian Thomas Healy

Happily Never After – Jack Heckel

The Legend of the Winterking – J. Kent Holloway

The Dire Earth: A Novella – Jason Hough

The Griever’s Mark – Katherine Hurley

The Stakeout – Rose Jones

Vecto: Vengeance – Reid Kemper

We, the People of the Clouds – Simon Kewin

Exiled From Blackwing City – Carson Kicklighter

The Iron-Jawed Boy and the Seige of Sol – Nikolas Lee

Platinum Compass – Raven Lumier

The Daimones Trilogy Omnibus – Massimo Marino

Division 8 – Scott Marmorstein

Into the Heart of Varste – Ged Maybury 

Time: Star of Izon – Jonathan McFerran

The God Organ – Anthony Melchiorri

Kingdomfall – James Pearson

The Enchantment of Hostel 2121 – B. Michael Peterson

Sceadu – Prashant Pinge

The Prophets’ Guild – Kristen Reed

Raine – M. M. Roethig

Reversion – Amy Rogers

Tek Kill – William Shatner (reprint)

Tek Money – William Shatner (reprint)

Tek Net – William Shatner (reprint)

Tek Power – William Shatner (reprint)

The Walls Have Ears – Desmond Shepherd

Young Woman in a Garden: Stories – Delia Sherman

Moonbase: D.U.M.Bs – David Sloma

Love Pain – Brianna Somersham

Shadows of the Unseen – Christine Steendam

Golden Daughter – Anne Elisabeth Stengl

Universe Bound – Patricia Williams, Kenneth Strickland & J. Carrell Jones

Into the Dark – J. A. Sutherland

The Enigma Stain – Nick Thacker

Changed Souls – Harriet Truscott

Tears of the Sea – MaryLu Tyndall

Sons of the Starfarers Omnibus – Joe Vasicek

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress 29 – Elisabeth Waters, Ed.

The Retro War – Dietmar Wehr

The Snake People – Hunter Welles

Renaria – J. L. Wilson

Baxter’s Bot and Other Short Stories – Joshua Wright

Vengeance – A. Wrighton

The Thought Readers – Dima Zales