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Fantasy and Science Fiction November 2020
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| Over the Woodward Wall by A. Deborah BakerIntroducing: Avery and Zib, two very different children from the same "very safe, very ordinary town" whose separate lives intersect when they find their way to a strange place known as the Up and Under.
Want a taste? "[E]verything had been decided for them. This is so often the case with children, and few of them will come to resent it, for few of them will ever know."
Metafiction alert: Fans of Seanan McGuire's novel Middlegame may recall the children's book Over the Woodward Wall by A. Deborah Baker; now, using the Baker pseudonym, McGuire has made this fictional book a reality. |
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Peace Talks: a novel of the Dresden files
by Jim Butcher
Joining the White Council’s security team to help facilitate peace among hostile supernatural nations, wizard Harry Dresden is confronted by manipulative political forces that threaten all of Chicago. By the best-selling author of the Codex Alera series.
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Crossings: consisting of three manuscripts
by Alex Landragin
A debut in three parts designed to be read straight through or in alternating chapters finds a Jewish-German bookbinder in occupied Paris discovering links between poet Charles Baudelaire, a Walter Benjamin-like exile and a seven-generation woman monarch.
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| A Deadly Education by Naomi NovikWhat it's about: Galadriel "El" Higgins, a loner with an affinity for dark magic, just wants to survive until graduation, but the heroics of her classmate, golden boy Orion Lake, may prove more lethal than the maleficaria that infest the school.
Is it for you? This 1st book in the Scholomance series has garnered controversy over the inclusion of racial stereotypes, for which the author has apologized and pledged to remove from subsequent editions.
For fans of: Marina and Sergey Dyachenko's Vita Nostra, Lev Grossman's The Magicians, or Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House. |
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| Black Sun by Rebecca RoanhorseThe setting: the continent of Meridian, and the Holy City of Tova, the site of a religious observance called the Convergence -- which, this year, coincides with an eclipse.
The characters: Xiala, the Teek ship's captain tasked with escorting a "harmless" passenger to Tova; Serapio, a blind Obregi man destined to become a god; idealistic Sun Priest Naranpa; and Okoa, who has a crucial role to play in the events that unfold.
Series alert: Black Sun is the opening volume of the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, which draws inspiration from the many pre-contact Indigenous cultures of the Americas. |
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| The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. SchwabFrance, 1714: Addie Larue makes a Faustian bargain with capricious Luc, one of the old gods. The downside of "time without limit" and "freedom without rule"? No one will remember her.
New York City, 2014: Addie discovers that one person, bookstore owner Henry, may be the exception. But is it enough?
For fans of: other time-focused tales of loss, love, and loneliness such as Kate Atkinson's Life After Life or Laura Barnett's The Versions of Us. |
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Karen Memory
by Elizabeth Bear
A tale set in late 19th-century steampunk Seattle finds orphaned Karen working in a high-quality bordello, where she confronts a powerful man who owns a dangerous mind-control machine. By the Hugo Award-winning author of Shattered Pillars.
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| Void Star by Zachary MasonWhat it is: a descriptive and stylistically complex cyberpunk novel by the author of The Lost Books of the Odyssey.
Featuring: hacker Irina, whose cranial implant gives her flawless recall; refugee and computer savant Kern, who learned everything he knows from first-person shooter games; and Thales, who deals with memory loss in the aftermath of his politician father's assassination.
For fans of: William Gibson's Neuromancer, Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. |
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| Mem by Bethany C. MorrowWhat it’s about: In 1925 Montreal, the wealthy deposit their memories in “Mems,” people who exist only to relive them. Unbeknownst to everyone, the Mem known as Dolores Extract No. 1 possesses the unique ability to create memories of her own.
Why you should read it: If you liked the movie Blade Runner and enjoy philosophical explorations of topics like memory, mortality, wealth, and what it means to be human, don’t miss this haunting speculative fiction debut. |
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Artificial Condition
by Martha Wells
Starring: Murderbot, the sardonic rogue SecUnit that just wants to be left alone to binge-watch shows while doing a bare minimum of work; ART, the underemployed transport AI who becomes Murderbot's unlikely ally.
What happens: Disguised as an augmented human, Murderbot returns to the mining facility that may hold the key to Murderbot's forgotten past.
Series alert: Although this 2nd installment of the Murderbot Diaries can be enjoyed on its own, it does reference events from All Systems Red.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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