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Fantasy and Science Fiction February 2018
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Shroud of Eternity : Sister of Darkness: the Nicci Chronicles, Volume II
by Terry Goodkind
The formidable sorceress Nicci and her companions--the newly powerless Nathan and the youthful Bannon--set out on another quest after driving ruthless Norukai slavers out of Renda Bay. Their mission: restore Nathan's magic and, for Nicci, save the world.
Guided by the witch-woman Red's mysterious prophecy, the trio makes their way south of Kol Adair towards a wondrous city shrouded behind time, Ildakar. But the grotesque omens on their path to Nathan's salvation--severed Norukai heads on pikes, a genetically modified monster, and a petrified army of half a million--are just a taste of the unimaginable horrors that await within the Shroud of Eternity.
Nicci Chronicles #2
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Down and Out in Purgatory : The Collected Stories of Tim Powers
by Tim Powers
Twenty pulse-pounding, mind-bending tales of science fiction, twisted metaphysics, and supernatural wonder from the two-time World Fantasy and Philip K. Dick Award winning author of The Anubis Gates and On Stranger Tides.
A complete palette of story-telling colors from Powers, including acclaimed tale "The Bible Repairman," where a psychic handyman who supernaturally eliminates troublesome passages of the Bible for paying clients finds the remains of his own broken soul on the line when tasked with rescuing the kidnapped ghost of a rich man's daughter. Time travel takes a savage twist in "Salvage and Demolition," where the chance discovery of a long-lost manuscript throws a down-and-out book collector back in time to 1950s San Francisco where he must prevent an ancient Sumeric inscription from dooming millions in the future. Humor and horror mix in "Sufficient unto the Day," when a raucous Thanksgiving feast takes a dark turn as the invited ghosts of relatives past accidentally draw soul-stealing demons into the family television set. And obsession and vengeance survive on the other side of death in "Down and Out in Purgatory," where the soul of a man lusting for revenge attempts to eternally eliminate the killer who murdered the love of his life. Wide-ranging, wonder-inducing, mind-bending--these and other tales make up the complete shorter works of a modern-day master of science fiction and fantasy.
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The Forever Ship
by Francesca Haig
Concludes the story of psychic Omega Cass and her powerful Alpha twin, Zach, on a dystopian world struggling for balance between a backward government and its oppressed people centuries after a nuclear apocalypse.
Fire Sermon #3
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The Will to Battle
by Ada Palmer
The long years of near-utopia have come to an abrupt end.
Peace and order are now figments of the past. Corruption, deception, and insurgency hum within the once steadfast leadership of the Hives, nations without fixed location.
The heartbreaking truth is that for decades, even centuries, the leaders of the great Hives bought the world's stability with a trickle of secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction could ever dominate. So that the balance held.
The Hives' facade of solidity is the only hope they have for maintaining a semblance of order, for preventing the public from succumbing to the savagery and bloodlust of wars past. But as the great secret becomes more and more widely known, that facade is slipping away.
Just days earlier, the world was a pinnacle of human civilization. Now everyone--Hives and hiveless, Utopians and sensayers, emperors and the downtrodden, warriors and saints--scrambles to prepare for the seemingly inevitable war.
Terra Ignota #3
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Pathways
by Mercedes Lackey
The Heralds of Valdemar are the kingdom's ancient order of protectors. They are drawn from all across the land, from all walks of life, and at all ages--and all are Gifted with abilities beyond those of normal men and women. They are Mindspeakers, FarSeers, Empaths, ForeSeers, Firestarters, FarSpeakers, and more. These inborn talents--combined with training as emissaries, spies, judges, diplomats, scouts, counselors, warriors, and more--make them indispensable to their monarch and realm. Sought and Chosen by mysterious horse-like Companions, they are bonded for life to these telepathic, enigmatic creatures. The Heralds of Valdemar and their Companions ride circuit throughout the kingdom, protecting the peace and, when necessary, defending their land and monarch.
Now, twenty-three authors ride with Mercedes Lackey to her magical land of Valdemar, adding their own unique voices to the Heralds, Bards, Healers, and other heroes of this beloved fantasy realm.
Join Janny Wurts, Elisabeth Waters, Michele Lang, Fiona Patton, and others in twenty-four original stories, including a brand-new novella by Mercedes Lackey, all set in Valdemar, where:
A young woman without any of the Heralds' Gifts must see a Companion safely delivered to Haven....
A Herald must revisit the mysteries of his childhood to save his own young family and combat a threat at the very heart of Valdemar....
A Hawkbrother flees for his life, trailed by a mysterious bird that prophesizes a dire future....
A mage must choose whether to steal a priceless artifact and be branded a thief and traitor, or let his country fall to magic that could prove far more deadly....
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A War in Crimson Embers
by Alex Marshall
The final book in Alex Marshall's Crimson Empire trilogy, which began with A Crown for Cold Silver, an outstanding, game-changing fantasy epic featuring an unforgettable warrior. Former warrior queen and now pariah, Cold Zosia wakes in the ashes of a burning city. Her vengeance has brought her to this - her heroic reputation in tatters, her allies scattered far and wide, and her world on the cusp of ruin. General Ji-Hyeon has vanished into the legendary First Dark, leaving her lover Sullen alone to carry out the grim commands of a dead goddess. The barbarian Maroto is held captive by a demonic army hell-bent on the extermination of the Crimson Empire, and only his protaegae Purna believes he can be saved. Zosia must rally her comrades and old enemies one last time, for what will prove the greatest battle of her many legends...if anyone lives to tell it.
Crimson Empire #3
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1636 : the Vatican sanctions
by Eric Flint
SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, 1636
It's spring in Burgundy. The flowers are out and so are the cardinals--of Pope Urban's renegade papacy, now on the run from the Vatican's would-be usurper Borja. Most of the Church's senior leaders have converged upon the city of Besancon, where the Pope plans to offer an ecumenical olive branch to the other Christian denominations with which Rome has been at war.
Fortunately, Urban has up-time help. He can rely upon Cardinal-Protector Larry Mazzare's theological savvy, Sharon Nichols' medical skills, and her husband Ruy Sanchez's keen-eyed experience as a body-guard-in-chief. And even though Urban has a new Papal Guard in the form of Owen Rowe O'Neill's Wild Geese, Mike Stearns has loaned the Pope a small contingent of the Hibernian Battalion--just in case.
Which is prudent, since Urban and his peace initiative are not merely at risk from Borja's assassins. There is another, more deadly, team of professional killers in town, directed by the man who almost killed the Pope before: lethal Spanish mastermind Pedro Dolor.
Dolor hasn't come to confess murder--he's come to commit it.
Ring of Fire #24
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Immortal life : a soon to be true story
by Stanley Bing
An ancient mogul has bought the power to live forever, but the strong young body he plans to inhabit has other ideas. The battle for immortal life begins.
Immortal Life. A fantasy. An impossible dream. For now, maybe. But as we speak the moguls of Big Tech are pouring their mountain of wealth into finding a cure for death. Don't tell them they won't succeed.
None of these titans is richer than Arthur Vogel. This inventor, tech tycoon, and all-round monster has amassed trillions (with a T) and rules over a corporate empire stretching all the way to Mars. The newest--and most expensive--life extension technology has allowed him to live to 127 years, but time is running out. His last hope to escape the inevitable lies with Gene, a human being specifically created for the purpose of housing Arthur's consciousness. The plan is to discard his used-up old carcass and come to a second life in a young, strong body with all appropriate working parts. But there's a problem: Gene. He may be artificial, but he is a person. And he has other ideas.
As Arthur sets off to achieve his goal of world domination, Gene hatches a risky plan of his own. The forces against him are very, very rich, extremely determined, and used to getting what they pay for. The battle between creator and creation is joined as the two minds wrestle for control of one body.
This story is real. The tech is in development. The sponsors are the titans of industry well known to you. Eternal life may very soon be at the fingertips of those who can afford it. Mixing brisk action, humor, and wicked social commentary, Immortal Life imagines a day just around the corner. Welcome to a brave new world that is too familiar for comfort--and watch the struggle for humanity play out to the bitter end.
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Flame in the Dark
by Faith Hunter
Nell Ingram has always known she was different. Since she was a child, she's been able to feel and channel ancient powers from deep within the earth. When she met Jane Yellowrock, her entire life changed, and she was recruited into PsyLED--the Homeland Security division that polices paranormals. But now her newly formed unit is about to take on its toughest case yet.
A powerful senator barely survives an assassination attempt that leaves many others dead--and the house he was visiting burns to the ground. Invisible to security cameras, the assassin literally disappears, and Nell's team is called in. As they track a killer they know is more--or less--than human, they unravel a web of dark intrigue and malevolent motives that tests them to their limits and beyond.
Soulwood Novel #3
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The Order War
by L. E. Modesitt
Two hundred years before The Magic of Recluce, in a perfect entry-point for new readers of the series, the deadly White Wizards of Fairhaven, wielding the forces of chaos, threaten the ancient matriarchy of Sarronnyn, the last bastion of order in Candar. Their ruler appeals to the Black Wizards of Recluce, masters of order, for help.
Despite their success in destroying more than half the White armies, Sarronnyn falls. Justen, a young Black Engineer, must escape the city and fight the highest powers of order and master forbidden technology to harness chaos itself in his efforts to halt the conquest of the White Wizards.
L.E. Modesitt, Jr.'s bestselling fantasy novels set in the magical world of Recluce are among the most popular in contemporary fantasy. Each novel tells an independent story that nevertheless reverberates though all the other books in the series, to deepen and enhance the reading experience. Rich in detail, the Recluce books are a feast of wondrous marvels.
Saga of Recluce #4
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Beneath the Sugar Sky
by Seanan McGuire
When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can't let Reality get in the way of her quest - not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.)
If she can't find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn't have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests...
A tale of friendship, baking, and derring-do.
Warning: May contain nuts.
Wayward Children #3
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Dark state
by Charles Stross
In the near-future, the collision of two nuclear superpowers across timelines, one in the midst of a technological revolution and the other a hyper-police state, is imminent. In Commissioner Miriam Burgeson's timeline, her top level agents run a high risk extraction of a major political player. Meanwhile, a sleeper cell activated in Rita's, the Commissioner's adopted daughter and newly-minted spy, timeline threatens to unravel everything.
With a penchant for intricate world-building and an uncanny ability to realize alternate history and technological speculation, Stross' writing will captivate any reader who's a fan hi-tech thrillers, inter-dimensional political intrigue, and espionage.
Empire Games #2
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Emergence
by C. J. Cherryh
Bren Cameron, acting as the representative of the atevi's political leader, Tabini-aiji, as well as translator between humans and atevi, has undertaken a mission to the human enclave of Mospheira. Both his presence on the island and his absence from the continent have stirred old enemies to realize new opportunities.
Old hatreds. Old grudges. Old ambitions.
The situation has strengthened the determination of power-seekers on both sides of the strait. Bren knows most of them very well, but not all of them well enough. The space station on which the world increasingly relies is desperate to get more supplies up to orbit and to get a critical oversupply of human refugees down to the world below. Rationing is in force on the station, but the overpopulation problem has to be solved quickly--and Bren's mission on Mospheira has expanded to include preparation for that landing.
First down will be the three children to whom Tabini's son has a close connection. But following them will be thousands of humans who have never set foot on a planet, humans descended from colonists and officers who split off from Mospheiran humans two hundred years before in a bitter parting of the ways. There is no way the atevi, native to the world, will cede any more land to these new arrivals: they will have to share the island. But certain Mospheirans are willing to use force to prevent these refugees from settling among them.
Bren's job is as general peacemaker--but old enemies want war. Is Bren's diplomatic acumen enough to prevent a war that both sides are prepared to wage?
Foreigner #19
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The Broken Heavens
by Kameron Hurley
The Dhai nation has broken apart under the onslaught of the Tai Kao, invaders from a parallel world. With the Dhai in retreat, Kirana, leader of the Tai Kao, establishes a base in Oma's temple and instructs her astrologers to discover how they can use the ancient holy place to close the way between worlds. With all the connected worlds ravaged by war and Oma failing, only one world can survive. Who will be sacrificed, and what will the desperate people of these worlds do to protect themselves?
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Gnomon : a novel
by Nick Harkaway
In the world of Gnomon, citizens are constantly observed and democracy has reached a pinnacle of 'transparency.' Every action is seen, every word is recorded, and the System has access to its citizens' thoughts and memories--all in the name of providing the safest society in history.
When suspected dissident Diana Hunter dies in government custody, it marks the first time a citizen has been killed during an interrogation. The System doesn't make mistakes, but something isn't right about the circumstances surrounding Hunter's death. Mielikki Neith, a trusted state inspector and a true believer in the System, is assigned to find out what went wrong. Immersing herself in neural recordings of the interrogation, what she finds isn't Hunter but rather a panorama of characters within Hunter's psyche: a lovelorn financier in Athens who has a mystical experience with a shark; a brilliant alchemist in ancient Carthage confronting the unexpected outcome of her invention; an expat Ethiopian painter in London designing a controversial new video game, and a sociopathic disembodied intelligence from the distant future.
Embedded in the memories of these impossible lives lies a code which Neith must decipher to find out what Hunter is hiding. In the static between these stories, Neith begins to catch glimpses of the real Diana Hunter--and, alarmingly, of herself. The staggering consequences of what she finds will reverberate throughout the world.
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Points of Impact
by Marko Kloos
Humankind may have won the battle, but a new threat looms larger than ever before...
Earth's armed forces have stopped the Lanky advance and chased their ships out of the solar system, but for CDC officer Andrew Grayson, the war feels anything but won. On Mars, the grinding duty of flushing out the twenty-meter-tall alien invaders from their burrows underground is wearing down troops and equipment at an alarming rate. And for the remaining extrasolar colonies, the threat of a Lanky attack is ever present.
Earth's game changer? New advanced ships and weapons, designed to hunt and kill Lankies and place humanity's militaries on equal footing with their formidable foes. Andrew and his wife, Halley, both now burdened with command responsibilities and in charge of more lives than just their own, are once again in humanity's vanguard as they prepare for this new phase in the war. But the Lankies have their own agenda...and in war, the enemy doesn't usually wait until you are prepared. As Andrew is once again plunged into the chaos and violence of war with an unyielding species, he is forced to confront the toll this endless conflict is taking on them all, and the high price of survival...at any cost.
Frontlines #6
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Senlin ascends
by Josiah Bancroft
The Tower of Babel is the greatest marvel in the world. Immense as a mountain, the ancient Tower holds unnumbered ringdoms, warring and peaceful, stacked one on the other like the layers of a cake. It is a world of geniuses and tyrants, of luxury and menace, of unusual animals and mysterious machines.
Soon after arriving for his honeymoon at the Tower, the mild-mannered headmaster of a small village school, Thomas Senlin, gets separated from his wife, Marya, in the overwhelming swarm of tourists, residents, and miscreants.
Senlin is determined to find Marya, but to do so he'll have to navigate madhouses, ballrooms, and burlesque theaters. He must survive betrayal, assassins, and the illusions of the Tower. But if he hopes to find his wife, he will have to do more than just endure.
This quiet man of letters must become a man of action.
Books of Babel #1
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Elysium Fire
by Alastair Reynolds
Ten thousand city-state habitats orbit the planet Yellowstone, forming a near-perfect democratic human paradise. But even utopia needs a police force. For the citizens of the Glitter Band that organization is Panoply, and the prefects are its operatives. Prefect Tom Dreyfus has a new emergency on his hands. Across the habitats and their hundred million citizens, people are dying suddenly and randomly, victims of a bizarre and unprecedented malfunction of their neural implants. And these 'melters' leave no clues behind as to the cause of their deaths. As panic rises in the populace, a charismatic figure is sowing insurrection, convincing a small but growing number of habitats to break away from the Glitter Band and form their own independent colonies.
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Markswoman
by Rati Mehrotra
Kyra is the youngest Markswoman in the Order of Kali, one of a handful of sisterhoods of highly trained elite warriors. Armed with blades whose metal is imbued with magic and guided by a strict code of conduct, the Orders are sworn to keep the peace and protect the people of Asiana. Kyra has pledged to do so--yet she secretly harbors a fierce desire to avenge her murdered family. But to be a Markswoman means disconnecting from one's past completely.
When her beloved mentor dies under mysterious circumstances, and Tamsyn, the powerful and dangerous Mistress of Mental Arts, assumes control of the Order, Kyra is forced on the run. She is certain that Tamsyn committed murder in a twisted bid for power, but she has no proof.
Kyra escapes through one of the strange Transport Hubs that are the remnants of Asiana's long-lost past and finds herself in the unforgiving wilderness of a desert that is home to the Order of Khur, the only Order composed of men. Among them is Rustan, a disillusioned Marksman whose skill with a blade is unmatched. He understands the desperation of Kyra's quest to prove Tamsyn's guilt, and as the two grow closer, training daily on the windswept dunes of Khur, both begin to question their commitment to their Orders. But what they don't yet realize is that the line between justice and vengeance is razor thin . . . as thin as the blade of a knife.
Asiana #1
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Robots vs fairies
by Dominik Parisien
A unique anthology of all-new stories that challenges authors to throw down the gauntlet in an epic genre battle and demands an answer to the age-old question: Who is more awesome--robots or fairies?
Rampaging robots! Tricksy fairies! Facing off for the first time in an epic genre death match!
People love pitting two awesome things against each other. Robots vs. Fairies is an anthology that pitches genre against genre, science fiction against fantasy, through an epic battle of two icons.
On one side, robots continue to be the classic sci-fi phenomenon in literature and media, from Asimov to WALL-E, from Philip K. Dick to Terminator. On the other, fairies are the beloved icons and unquestionable rulers of fantastic fiction, from Tinkerbell to Tam Lin, from True Blood to Once Upon a Time. Both have proven to be infinitely fun, flexible, and challenging. But when you pit them against each other, which side will triumph as the greatest genre symbol of all time?
There can only be one...or can there?
Featuring an incredible line-up of authors including John Scalzi, Catherynne M. Valente, Ken Liu, Max Gladstone, Alyssa Wong, Jonathan Maberry, and many more, Robots vs. Fairies will take you on a glitterbombed journey of a techno-fantasy mash-up across genres.
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The tree : a novel of the wrath & athenaeum
by Na'amen Gobert Tilahun
In Corpiliu, an alternate dimension to our own, a darkness grows, devouring whole cities as it spreads. Robbed of her greatest power, separated from her siblings and thrown among people she does not trust, Lil, a 'dant from the city Zebub, must find a way to turn everything around, to trust in a power she knows nothing about.
Erik travels from San Francisco to Zebub, haunted by the ghost of his ex, still coming to terms with his true identity as a descendant of the gods, and unsure how to fight what seems to have no weakness. Pushing back against taboos meant to keep the true history of Corpiliu secret, he gains many enemies and few allies, and strange visions will make him question his own sanity.
Between Earth and Corpiliu, a war is developing on two fronts, one that might well mean the end of both dimensions. In The Tree, the dynamic follow-up to the exciting fantasy debut The Root, long-held secrets will be revealed, and long-trusted loyalties will be put to the test.
Wrath & Athenaeum #2
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Prince George's County Memorial Library System 9601 Capital Lane Largo, Maryland 20774 301-699-3500www.pgcmls.info/ |
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