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Fantasy and Science Fiction October 2020
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| The Memory of Souls by Jenn LyonsWhat it is: the 3rd installment of the Chorus of Dragons series, after The Ruin of Kings and The Name of All Things.
What's at stake: the wards that confine Vol Karoth, king of demons, are weakening and that's bad news.
Read it for: inventive world-building, an intricately plotted story that unfolds from multiple perspectives, and a genderfluid trio of leads whose will-they-won't-they relationship evolves throughout the series. |
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Nine Bar Blues : Stories from an Ancient Future
by Sheree Renée Thomas
What is it? The stories collected in Nine Bar Blues weave emotion, spirit, and music, captivating readers with newfound alchemy and the murmurs of dark gods. Rooted in rhythm, threaded with magic, these tales encompass worlds that begin in river bottoms, pass through spectral gates, and end in distant uncharted worlds.
Nine Bar Blues sings a multiverse of fully realized worlds that readers will remember for ages to come and cherish from page to heart thumping, foot-stomping page.
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Ashes of the Sun
by Django Wexler
Siblings: Gyre and Maya
Torn apart in a magical war and chasing rumors of a fabled city protecting a powerful artifact, Gyre comes face-to-face with his long-lost sister, Maya, who has become a magic-wielding warrior in the twelve intervening years. Standing on opposite sides of a looming civil war, the two siblings will learn that not even the ties of blood will keep them from splitting the world in two.
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Hearts of Oak
by Eddie Robson
The buildings grow, the city expands, and the people of the land are starting to behave abnormally. Or perhaps they’ve always behaved that way, and it’s normality that’s at fault. The king of the land confers with his best friend and his closest advisor, who also happens to be a talking cat. But that’s all perfectly natural and not at all weird.
Iona, close to retirement, finds that the world she has always known is nothing like she always believed it to be. There are forces, mostly slightly odd ones, and they appear to be acting in mysterious ways. It’s about town planning, it’s about cats and it’s about the nature of reality.
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| Piranesi by Susanna ClarkeThe only people in the world: "Piranesi," the narrator, and his mysterious mentor, known as "the Other," who dwell in the House, a surreal labyrinthine building full of impossible things.
Why you might like it: This long-awaited novel by the author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell offers a puzzle box of a plot and metafictional magical realism wrapped up in lyrical prose. |
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The Luminous Dead
by Caitlin Starling
What it's about: Having lied about her credentials to secure a coveted slot on a cavern-mapping expedition, Gyre Price discovers that her employers haven't been entirely honest with her, either.
Nevertheless... Gyre's survival depends on her "topside" handler, Em, who reveals little about herself beyond her ability to control every aspect of Gyre's life-sustaining high-tech caving suit.
Is it for you? Part psychological thriller, part horror-tinged SF, this debut introduces a pair of flawed protagonists whose complicated relationship develops against a creepy, claustrophobic subterranean backdrop.
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Obscura
by Joe Hart
In the near future, an aggressive and terrifying new form of dementia is affecting victims of all ages. The cause is unknown, and the symptoms are disturbing. Dr. Gillian Ryan is on the cutting edge of research and desperately determined to find a cure. She will travel with a NASA team to a space station where the crew has been stricken with symptoms of a similar inexplicable psychosis. With her grip weakening on reality, she’s beginning to question so much more—like the true nature of the mission, the motivations of the crew, and every deadly new secret space has to offer.
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| Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeerWhat happens: A biologist, a psychologist, a surveyor, and an anthropologist set out on a scientific expedition to Area X, a quarantined zone that defies all attempts to map its terrain. Eleven previous missions have failed; is the 12th time the charm?
Read it for: the palpable sense of menace that permeates the dreamlike narrative; embedded homages to works of classic SF (such as the Strugatsky Brothers' Roadside Picnic).
Series alert: This Nebula and Shirley Jackson Award winner kicks of the Southern Reach trilogy, followed by Authority and Acceptance. |
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A perfect resource to create the quick random encounters.
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Join the adventure at the “Edge of the Empire”!
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Contact your library for more great books! |
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