“Gears of the City” by Felix Gilman. Release Date: December 30, 2008. In this stunning follow-up to his acclaimed steampunk fantasy debut, “Thunderer”, Felix Gilman's brave hero returns from a thrilling and dangerous quest only to confront another. Set against a magical landscape where time is meaningless, reality  precarious, one man must seek a city's truth, and rediscover his own...

In the last days of the once great city of Ararat, Arjun is just another ghost lost in the shadows of The Mountain. To some, The Mountain is a myth; to others, a weapon. Above all, it is a dark presence above the city below. Rescued by two sisters from the mindless Know-Nothings who erode what's left of the city, Arjun volunteers to return their long-lost third sister from a ghost like himself: Brace-Bel, another man out of time.

It will require a perilous trek through ruins to a decadent mansion—one surrounded by traps and devices that could not possibly exist yet. And what awaits Arjun inside is something he could not possibly have imagined. As he struggles to recover the lost girl and piece the fragments of his life back together, Arjun knows he must finally return to the beast to hear the rest of its prophecy…

Bad Things

“Bad Things” by Michael Marshall. UK Release Date: January 5, 2009. The new psychological thriller from the bestselling author of “The Straw Men” and “The Intruders” is a heart-stopping tale of secrets, lies and our culpability in our own misfortunes…

On a beautiful summer's afternoon, four-year-old Scott Henderson walked out onto a jetty over a lake in Black Ridge, Washington. He never came back. John Henderson's world ended that day, but three years later he's still alive. Living a life, of sorts. Getting by. Until one night he receives an email from a stranger who claims to know what happened to his little boy. Against his better judgment, Henderson returns to Black Ridge, unleashing a terrifying sequence of events that threatens to destroy what remains of everything he once held dear.

Bad things don't just happen to other people—they're waiting around the corner for you too. And when they start to make their way in through the cracks in your life, you won't know until it's far too late..

Bones of the Dragon

“Bones of the Dragon” by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman. Release Date: January 6, 2009. First there was Dragonlance, the RPG-based novels that begat a fantasy empire. Then there was Darksword, their first foray into the genre of Tolkien, Donaldson, and Brooks. Soon there came the Death Gate Cycle, seven books strong, every one of them a bestseller. Now the creative minds behind these bestselling worlds launch their new fantasy quest epic…

Skylan Ivorson is a sea-raider of the Vindras and eventually becomes the Chief of Chiefs of all Vindras clans, an honor he truly feels he deserves as one who has been blessed by Skoval, the god of war. But sometimes a blessing is a curse in disguise. Skoval and the other ancient gods are under siege from a new generation of gods who are challenging them for the powers of creation…and the only way to stop these brash interlopers lies within the mysterious and hidden Five Bones of the Vektan Dragons.

It will be up to the Vindras, the dragongoddess’s champion, to undertake the quest to claim all Five. The fate of the Old Gods and the Vindras’s people rests on their recovery—for this is not only a quest to save the world. It is also a quest for redemption. Filled with heroes and heroines young and old and exotic adventure in a magic-forged world, this is a series that fully illustrates the mastery of world-building and storytelling that has made Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman into the bestselling fantasy co-authors of all time.

Poe

“Poe” edited by Ellen Datlow. Release Date: January 6, 2009. Compiled by multiple award-winning editor Ellen Datlow, this collection commemorates the second centenary of Edgar Allan Poe's birth and features eighteen brand new Poe-inspired tales by some of the finest talents in the field, including Kim Newman, Pat Cadigan, Sharyn McCrumb, Lucius Shepard, Laird Barron, Suzy McKee Charnas, Gregory Frost and many others…

Ellen Datlow was the fiction editor of Omni magazine and Omni Online, and edited the ten associated anthologies. She has also edited the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror series and numerous original science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies solo, or with Terri Windling. She was editor of the webzine Event Horizon: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, and was the editor of Sci Fiction. Datlow won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor twice, has received two Bram Stoker Awards, eight World Fantasy Awards, three Locus Awards for Best Editor, and has twice led the Science Fiction Chronicle reader's poll.

Mean Streets

“Mean Streets”. Release Date: January 6, 2009. The best paranormal private investigators have been brought together in a single volume—featuring four all-new original stories of magic, mystery, mayhem and murder—and cases don’t come any harder than this:

New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher delivers a hard-boiled tale in which Harry Dresden’s latest case may be his last… Nightside dweller John Taylor is hired by a woman to find something she lost—her memory—in a thrilling noir tale from New York Times bestselling author Simon R. Green… National bestselling author Kat Richardson’s Greywalker finds herself in too deep when a “simple job” goes bad and Harper Blaine is enmeshed in a tangle of dark secrets and revenge from beyond the grave… For centuries, the being that we know as Noah lived among us. Now he is dead, and fallen-angel turned-detective Remy Chandler has been hired to find out who killed him in a whodunit by national bestselling author Thomas E. Sniegoski…

The Judging Eye

“The Judging Eye” by R. Scott Bakker. Release Date: January 9, 2009. The Darkness That Comes Before, The Warrior Prophet, and The Thousandfold Thought—collectively the Prince of Nothing Saga—were R. Scott Bakker’s magnificent debut into the upper echelon of epic fantasy. In those three books, Bakker created a world that was at once a triumph of the fantastic and an historical epic as real as any that came before.

Widely praised by reviewers and a growing body of fans, Bakker has already established the reputation as one of the smartest writers in the fantasy genre—a writer in the line stretching from Homer to Peake and Tolkien. Now he returns to the world of The Prince of Nothing with the long-awaited “The Judging Eye”, the first book in the all-new Aspect-Emperor series.

Set twenty years after the end of The Thousandfold Thought, Bakker reintroduces us to a world that is at once familiar but also very different than the one readers thought they knew. Delving even further into his richly imagined universe of myth, violence, and sorcery, and fully remolding the fantasy genre to broaden the scope of intricacy and meaning, R. Scott Bakker has once again written a fantasy novel that defies all expectations and rewards the reader with an experience unlike any to be had in the canon of today’s literature…

Daemon

“Daemon” by Daniel Suarez. Release Date: January 8, 2009. Technology controls almost everything in our modern-day world, from remote entry on our cars to access to our homes, from the flight controls of our airplanes to the movements of the entire world economy. Thousands of autonomous computer programs, or daemons, make our networked world possible, running constantly in the background of our lives, trafficking e-mail, transferring money, and monitoring power grids. For the most part, daemons are benign, but the same can’t always be said for the people who design them.

Matthew Sobol was a legendary computer game designer—the architect behind half-a-dozen popular online games. His premature death depressed both gamers and his company’s stock price. But Sobol’s fans aren’t the only ones to note his passing. When his obituary is posted online, a previously dormant daemon activates, initiating a chain of events intended to unravel the fabric of our hyperefficient, interconnected world. With Sobol’s secrets buried along with him, and as new layers of his daemon are unleashed at every turn, it’s up to an unlikely alliance to decipher his intricate plans and wrest the world from the grasp of a nameless, faceless enemy—or learn to live in a society in which we are no longer in control…

Computer technology expert Daniel Suarez blends haunting high-tech realism with gripping suspense in an authentic, complex thriller in the tradition of Michael Crichton, Neal Stephenson, and William Gibson.

The Steel Remains

“The Steel Remains” by Richard K. Morgan. Release Date: January 20, 2009 (US Debut). Ringil Eskiath, the hero of the bloody slaughter at Gallows Gap, is a legend to all who don't know him and a twisted degenerate to those that do. A veteran of the wars against the Scaled Folk, he makes a living from telling credulous travelers of his exploits. Until one day he is pulled away from his life and into the depths of the Empire's slave trade, where he will discover a secret infinitely more frightening than the trade in lives...

Egar Dragonbane, a Majak steppe-nomad and one-time fighter for the Empire, is now the Skaranak clanmaster. Pining for the past, Egar finds himself entangled in a small-town battle between common sense and religious fervor. But perhaps there is some truth behind the tribe’s gods, the Sky Dwellers… Archeth, an abandoned 207-year-old Kiriath half-breed advisor to Jhiral Khimran II of the Yhelteth Empire, is sent to investigate a demonic incursion against the Empire's borders. What she uncovers is evidence of a terrifying new enemy that makes the Scaled Folk seem like children… Anti-social, anti-heroic, and decidedly irritated, all three of these veterans of the War against the Scaled Folk are about to be called upon to fight again for a world that owes them everything and has given them nothing…

NOTE: “The Steel Remains” was originally published August 7, 2008 via Gollancz.

Mind Over Ship

“Mind Over Ship” by David Marusek. Release Date: January 20, 2009. The year is 2135, and the international program to seed the galaxy with human colonies has stalled as greedy, immoral powerbrokers park their starships in Earth’s orbit and begin to convert them into space condos. Ellen Starke’s head, rescued from the fiery crash that killed her mother, struggles to regrow a new body in time to restore her dead mother’s financial empire. And Pre-Singularity AIs conspire to join the human race just as human clones, such as Mary Skarland and her sisters, want nothing more than to leave it.

Welcome to “Mind Over Ship”, the sequel to David Marusek’s stunning debut novel, “Counting Heads”, which Publishers Weekly called “ferociously smart, simultaneously horrific and funny.”

The Map of Moments

“The Map of Moments” by Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon. Release Date: January 27, 2009. Two award-winning masters of dark fantasy team up to explore the hidden heart of one of the world's greatest cities in a poignant tale of loss and redemption set in post-Katrina New Orleans…

With the first Novel of the Hidden Cities, “Mind the Gap”, Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon took us into the heart of a haunted London, an Oliver Twist-like underground kingdom of rogues and thieves. But now they outdo themselves with a personal and wrenching story of one of America's most recent tragedies, told through the eyes of a man struggling to redeem his lost love.

Max Corbett, once a professor at Tulane, broke the cardinal rule—he fell in love with his nineteen-year-old student, Gabrielle. When she ended the affair, he ran all the way back to Boston to escape the pain. And then Katrina hit. Now, Max finds himself back in New Orleans, attending the funeral of the girl he loved so fiercely and knew so little. But Max may yet have a chance to undo the past. With the aid of a tourist map and an old gris-gris man, Max is offered a brief portal to the past and the chance to redeem not only himself and Gabrielle, but maybe the heart of a wounded city as well…

Poignant and stunningly beautiful, “The Map of Moments” is a breakout novel by the talented duo of Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon.

Flight Into Darkness

“Flight Into Darkness” by Sarah Ash. Release Date: January 27, 2009. Publishers Weekly praises Tracing the Shadows, the first novel in the two-part Alchymist's Legacy, as “a compelling saga.” Booklist's starred review says it “introduces myriad characters and plot lines that Ash skillfully weaves into an enticing tapestry of a world reminiscent of eighteenth-century Europe, full of political machinations and rich with music…This challenging, complex fantasy will appeal to readers of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series and Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion books.”

Now, here is the latest novel in a fantasy masterpiece of truly epic proportions. In a clash of kingdoms and rebels, of magicians and inquisitors, a bold quest has begun into a realm where dragons dwell and a terrifying power awaits whoever is courageous and cunning enough to seize it…

It was on the Inquisition's pyre that Celestine's father perished like so many other great mages. Now renowned for her gift as a singer, secretly guided by her own aethyric spirit, she is traveling in the company of the devout warrior-priest Jagu to retrieve a relic of great magical power. This is a mission that will lead them to unexpected danger. For in a glittering court rife with pretenders and assassins, a king harbors the outlaw mage whose betrayal left Celestine an orphan . . . and who would now claim her life.

As Celestine struggles to conceal her power from the Inquisition and master it for the magical war to come, a survivor of a past battle begins his own dreadful journey, from near-death to a place even worse than death. As the last crystal mage, Rieuk Mordiern, grievously scarred in body and spirit, may alone be able to keep the Rift from closing and magic from fading forever from the world. But to do so, he must first pass through the Serpent Gate . . . and into the very center of the dark storm of destruction about to break over the world…

Escape From Hell

“Escape From Hell” by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle. Release Date: February 3, 2009. The long-awaited follow-up to Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s classic science fiction reimagining of Dante’s Inferno…

Allan Carpenter escaped from hell once but remained haunted by what he saw and endured. He has now returned, on a mission to liberate those souls unfairly tortured and confined. Partnering with legendary poet and suicide, Sylvia Plath, Carpenter is a modern-day Christ who intends to harrow hell and free the damned. But now that he’s returned to this Dantesque inferno, can he ever again leave?

“What a romp! Inferno was a fire-breathing journey into the depths of hell, and now here comes Escape from Hell, the journey out. Sort of. You need to be there. Total reading fun. Roll over, Dante!” —Whitley Strieber, New York Times Bestselling author of “2012: The War For Souls”

“Escape from Hell is an iconoclastic, action-packed fantasy thriller from two of the greatest masters of our age: Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. A white-hot plot, as fascinating as it is original, will outrage many and burn even more. A great read. Save this one for the dead of Winter…It’s that hot.” —Douglas Preston, New York Times Bestselling author of “Blasphemy”

NOTE: Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle’s “Inferno” is being reissued on September 2, 2008.

Dragonfly Falling

“Dragonfly Falling” by Adrian Tchaikovsky. UK Release Date: February 6, 2009. Two young companions, Totho and Salma, arrive at Tark to spy on the menacing Wasp army, but are mistakenly apprehended as enemy agents. By the time they are freed, the city is already under siege.

Over in the imperial capital, the young emperor Alvdan, is becoming captivated by a remarkable slave, the vampiric Uctebri who claims to know of magic that can grant eternal life. In Collegium, meanwhile, Stenwold is still trying to persuade the city magnates of the dangerous threat that the Wasp Empire represents.

Full of colorful drama and nonstop action involving mass warfare and personal combat, “Dragonfly Falling” brilliantly continues the Shadows of the Apt epic fantasy series that began in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s remarkable debut novel, “Empire in Black and Gold”…

Drood

“Drood” by Dan Simmons. Release Date: February 9, 2009. On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens—at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world—hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever.

Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the worst slums of London and his deepening obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a hidden subterranean London mere research . . . or something more terrifying?

Just as he did in “The Terror”, Dan Simmons draws impeccably from history to create a gloriously engaging and terrifying narrative. Based on the historical details of Charles Dickens' life and narrated by Wilkie Collins (Dickens' friend, frequent collaborator, and Salieri-style secret rival), “Drood” explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the famous author's last years and may provide the key to Dickens' final, unfinished work: The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Chilling, haunting, and utterly original, “Drood” is Dan Simmons at his powerful best…

Lamentation

“Lamentation” by Ken Scholes. Release Date: February 17, 2009. An ancient weapon has completely destroyed the city of Windwir. From many miles away, Rudolfo, Lord of the Nine Forest Houses, sees the horrifying column of smoke rising. He knows that war is coming to the Named Lands.

Nearer to the Devastation, a young apprentice is the only survivor of the city—he sat waiting for his father outside the walls, and was transformed as he watched everyone he knew die in an instant. Soon all the Kingdoms of the Named Lands will be at each others’ throats, as alliances are challenged and hidden plots are uncovered…

This remarkable first novel from an award-winning short fiction writer will take readers away to a new world—an Earth so far in the distant future that our time is not even a memory; a world where magick is commonplace and great areas of the planet are impassable wastes. But human nature hasn’t changed through the ages: War and faith and love still move princes and nations.

The Magician’s Apprentice

“The Magician’s Apprentice” by Trudi Canavan. Release Date: February 23, 2009. Set hundreds of years before the events of The Magicians' Guild, “The Magician’s Apprentice” is the new novel set in the world of Trudi Canavan's Black Magician Trilogy…

In the remote village of Mandryn, Tessia serves as assistant to her father, the village Healer. Her mother would rather she found a husband, but her life is about to take a very unexpected turn. When the advances of a visiting Sachakan mage get violent, Tessia unconsciously taps unknown reserves of magic to defend herself. Lord Dakon, the local magician, takes Tessia under his wing as an apprentice.

The long hours of study and self-discipline also offer more opportunities than she had ever hoped for and an exciting new world opens up to her. There are fine clothes and servants—and to Tessia's delight—regular trips to the great city of Imardin. But along with the excitement and privilege, Tessia is about to discover that her magical gifts bring with them a great deal of responsibility. For great danger looms on the horizon for Tessia and her world…

The Republic of Thieves

“The Republic of Thieves” by Scott Lynch. Release Date: February 24, 2009. Scott Lynch continues to astound and entertain with his thrillingly inventive, wickedly funny, and suspense-filled adventures featuring con artist extraordinaire Locke Lamora. Now, in his most captivating novel yet, readers reunite with Locke and meet for the first time, Sabetha…

Having pulled off the greatest heist of their career, Locke and his trusted partner in thievery, Jean, have escaped with a tidy fortune. But, poisoned by an enemy from his past, Locke is slowly dying. And no physiker or alchemist can help him. Yet just as the end is near, a mysterious Bondsmagi offers Locke an opportunity that will either save him—or finish him off once and for all. Locke is opposed, but two factors cause his will to crumble: Jean's imploring and the Bondsmagi's mention of a woman from Locke's past—Sabetha. The love of his life. Now they will reunite in yet another clash of wills, and faced with his one and only match in both love and trickery, Locke must choose whether to fight Sabetha, or to woo her. It is a decision on which his life may depend…

The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume III

“The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume III” edited by George Mann. Release Date: February 24, 2009. Following the successful format established by The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volumes One and Two, this new anthology brings together an eclectic selection of all-original stories by some of the genre's best-loved and most popular writers including Daniel Abraham, Stephen Baxter, Ken MacLeod, John Meaney, Alastair Reynolds, Ian Watson and many others…

Cyberabad Days

“Cyberabad Days” by Ian McDonald. Release Date: February 24, 2009. Ian McDonald’s “River of Gods”—called a “masterpiece” by Asimov’s Science Fiction and praised by the Washington Post as “a major achievement from a writer who is becoming one of the best SF novelists of our time”—painted a vivid picture of a near future India, 100 years after independence. It revolutionized SF for a new generation by taking a perspective that was not European or American. Nominated for the Hugo Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and winning the BSFA Award, the rich world of the novel has inspired McDonald to revisit its milieu in a series of short stories, all set in the world of “River of Gods”…

“Cyberabad Days” is a triumphant return to the India of 2047, a new, muscular superpower of one and a half billion people in an age of artificial intelligences, climate-change induced drought, water wars, strange new genders, genetically improved children that age at half the rate of baseline humanity, and a population where males outnumber females four to one. India herself has fractured into a dozen states from Kerala to the headwaters of the Ganges in the Himalayas.

“Cyberabad Days” is a collection of eight stories, one Hugo nominee and one Hugo winner among them, as well as a twenty-five thousand word original novella. As with everything Ian McDonald does, it is sure to be one of the most talked-about books of the year…

City Without End

“City Without End” by Kay Kenyon. Release Date: February 24, 2009. In The Entire and the Rose series, Kay Kenyon has created her most vivid and compelling society yet—the universe Entire. Reviewers have called this “a grand world,” “an enormous stage,” and “a bravura concept.”

On this stage unfolds a mighty struggle for dominance between two universes. Titus Quinn has forged an unstable peace with the Tarig lords. The ruinous capability of the nanotech surge weapon he possesses ensures détente. But it is a sham. In what the godwoman Zhiya calls a fit of moral goodness, he's thrown the weapon into the space-folding waters of the Nigh. This clears the way for an enemy he could have never foreseen: the people of the Rose. A small cadre led by Helice Maki is determined to take the Entire for itself and leave the earth in ruins. The transform of earth will begin deep in a western desert and will sweep over the lives of ordinary people, entangling Quinn’s sister-in-law, Caitlin, in a deepening and ultimate conspiracy.

In the Entire, Quinn stalks Helice to the fabled Rim City, encircling the heart of the Entire. Here he at last finds his daughter, now called Sen Ni, in the Chalin style. Outside of earth-based time, she has grown to adulthood. He hardly knows her, and finds her the mistress of a remarkable dream-time insurgency against the Tarig lords and more, a woman risen high in the Entire's meritocracy. Quinn needs his daughter's help against the woman who would destroy the earth. But Sen Ni has her own plans and allies, among them a boy-navitar unlike any other pilot of the River Nigh, a navitar willing and supremely able to break his vows and bend the world.

Quinn casts his fate with the beautiful and resourceful Ji Anzi who went on a journey to other realms and holds the key to Quinn's heart and his overarching mission. But as he approaches the innermost sanctuary of the Tarig, he is alone. Waiting for him are powerful adversaries, including a lady who both hates and loves him, the high prefect of the dragon court, and Quinn's most implacable enemy, a warrior whose chaotic mind will soon be roused from an eternal slumber…

NOTE: “City Without End” is the third book in Kay Kenyon’s The Entire and the Rose after “Bright of the Sky” and “A World Too Near”.

Black Blood

“Black Blood” by John Meaney. Release Date: February 24, 2009 (US Debut). Lieutenant Donal Riordan is no longer the man he was...but to conspirators who threaten the civic order of Tristopolis and the rights of non-human sentients, he is an enemy who needs to be silenced. Even the most powerful of cities can change its character when the circumstances are filled with enough paranoia and fear. And when the conspiracy's international dimensions become clear, Donal must travel to Illurium, not just to Silvex City, the city that stands on vast glass planes, but further, to places unlike Tristopolis, yet just as strange…

NOTE: “Black Blood” is the sequel to John Meaney’s “Bone Song” and is known as “Dark Blood” in the UK (Released March 2008).

Blood and Ice

“Blood and Ice” by Robert Masello. Release Date: February 24, 2009. Set shortly after the Crimean War and on an expedition to modern-day Antarctica, this epic novel combines two worlds in the midst of a frozen landscape. For when a modern-day photo-journalist discovers two bodies frozen under the Antarctic ice, he opens up a whole new realm of scientific discovery.

Improbably, these two young lovers—one a nurse in Florence Nightingale's hospital and the other an officer in the infamous Light Brigade—carry a deadly curse in their blood, one that enables them to rise from their frozen tomb and live again… Robert Masello’s hardcover debut, “Blood and Ice”, is a tour de force, a dazzling tale of suspense, the supernatural, and romance that spans centuries…

Robert Masello is an award-winning journalist, television writer, and the author of many previous books, most recently the supernatural thrillers Vigil—which appeared on the USA Today bestseller list—and Bestiary. He has published in the Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, People and Parade, and his nonfiction book, Robert's Rules of Writing, is a staple in many college classrooms. His produced television credits include such popular shows as Charmed, Sliders and Early Edition. A longstanding member of the Writers Guild of America, Robert also currently serves as the Visiting Lecturer in Literature at Claremont McKenna College.

The Accord

“The Accord” by Keith Brooke. Release Date: February 24, 2009. The Accord—a virtual utopia where the soul lives on after death and your perceptions are bound only by your imagination. This is the setting for a tale of love, murder and revenge that crosses the boundaries between the real world and virtual reality…

When Noah and Priscilla escape into the Accord to flee Priscilla’s murderous husband, he plots to destroy the whole Accord and them with it. In revenge, they arrange to have him assassinated but their success comes at the price of giving him the keys to the virtual kingdom. How can they hope to escape their stalker when he can become anything or anyone he desires, and where does the pursuit of revenge stop for immortals in an eternal world?

Consultant Editor George Mann said of the deal: “I had the pleasure of publishing Keith’s short story, The Accord, in the first Solaris Book of New Science Fiction. When Keith approached us with his idea to expand it into a novel, we were all incredibly enthused. This is a major breakthrough novel from an author I’ve admired for many years.”

The short story that the novel was based on was chosen for Gardner Dozois’ next Year’s Best Science Fiction.

In the Courts of the Sun

“In the Courts of the Sun” by Brian D’Amato. Release Date: March 5, 2009. December 21, 2012. The day time stops…

Jed DeLanda, a descendant of the Maya living in the year 2012, is a math prodigy who spends his time playing Go against his computer and raking in profits from online trading. His secret weapon? A Mayan divination game—once used for predicting corn-harvest cycles, now proving very useful in predicting corn futures—that his mother taught him. But Jed’s life is thrown into chaos when his former mentor, the game theorist Taro, and a mysterious woman named Marena Park, invite him to give his opinion on a newly discovered Mayan codex.

Marena and Taro are looking for a volunteer to travel back to 664 AD to learn more about a “sacrifice game” described in the codex. Jed leaps at the chance, and soon scientists are replicating his brain waves and sending them through a wormhole, straight into the mind of a Mayan king. Only something goes wrong. Instead of becoming a king, Jed arrives inside a ballplayer named Chacal who is seconds away from throwing himself down the temple steps as a human sacrifice. If Jed can live through the next few minutes, he might just save the world… Bringing to mind Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon and Gary Jennings’ Aztec, yet entirely unique, In the Courts of the Sun takes you from the distant past to the near future in a brilliant kaleidoscope of ideas.

The Best of Gene Wolfe

“The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction” by Gene Wolfe. Release Date: March 17, 2009. From a literary perspective, this will certainly be the best collection of the year in science fiction and fantasy. Gene Wolfe, of whom the Washington Post said, “Of all SF writers currently active none is held in higher esteem,” has selected the short fiction he considers his finest into one volume.

Although Rhennthyl is the son of a leading wool merchant in L’Excelsis, the capital of Solidar, the most powerful nation on Terahnar, he has spent years becoming a journeyman artist and is skilled and diligent enough to be considered for the status of master artisan—in another two years. Then, in a single moment, his entire life is transformed when his master patron is killed in a flash fire, and Rhenn discovers he is an imager—one of the few in the entire world of Terahnar who can visualize things and make them real.

He must leave his family and join the Collegium of Imagisle. Imagers live separately from the rest of society because of their abilities—they can do accidental magic even while asleep—and because they are both feared and vulnerable. In this new life, Rhenn discovers that all too many of the “truths” he knew were nothing of the sort. Every day brings a new threat to his life. He makes a powerful enemy while righting a wrong, and begins to learn to do magic in secret…

The Unincorporated Man

“The Unincorporated Man” by Dani Kollin & Eytan Kollin. Release Date: March 17, 2009. A novel of social transformation in the tradition of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, “The Unincorporated Man” is a provocative social/political/economic novel that takes place in the future, after civilization has fallen into complete economic collapse. This reborn civilization is one in which every individual is incorporated at birth, and spends many years trying to attain control over his or her own life by getting a majority of his or her own shares. Life extension has made life very long indeed.

Now the incredible has happened: a billionaire businessman from our time, frozen in secret in the early twenty-first century, is discovered and resurrected, given health and a vigorous younger body. Justin Cord is the only unincorporated man in the world, a true stranger in this strange land. Justin survived because he is tough and smart. He cannot accept only part ownership of himself, even if that places him in conflict with a civilization that extends outside the solar system to the Oort Cloud… People will be arguing about this novel and this world for decades.

The Temporal Void

“The Temporal Void” by Peter F. Hamilton. Release Date: March 24, 2009 (US Debut). The Intersolar Commonwealth is in turmoil as the Living Dream’s deadline for launching its Pilgrimage into the Void draws closer. Not only is the Ocisen Empire fleet fast approaching on a mission of genocide, but also an internecine war has broken out between the post-human factions over the destiny of humanity.

Countering the various and increasingly desperate agents and factions is Paula Myo, a ruthlessly single-minded investigator, beset by foes from her distant past and colleagues of dubious allegiance...but she is fast losing a race against time.

At the heart of all this is Edeard the Waterwalker, who once lived a long time ago deep inside the Void. He is the messiah of Living Dream, and visions of his life are shared by, and inspire billions of humans. It is his glorious, captivating story that is the driving force behind Living Dream’s Pilgrimage, a force that is too strong to be thwarted. As Edeard nears his final victory the true nature of the Void is finally revealed…

NOTE: “The Temporal Void” is the second volume in Peter F. Hamilton’s Void Trilogy, after “The Dreaming Void”, and will be released in the UK on October 3, 2008 via PanMacmillan.

The Dark Volume

“The Dark Volume” by Gordon Dahlquist. Release Date: March 24, 2009 (US Debut). With old loyalties tested by new and unlikely alliances, Miss Temple, Doctor Svenson, and Cardinal Chang must call on every reserve of courage to face a new and desperate struggle—after all, the integrity of their very minds is at risk.

From palace intrigue and a city in turmoil to wolf-haunted mountains, underground tunnels and a suspicious hidden factory, they must overcome war and heartache to battle old enemies and a host of new villains, all hoping to seize for themselves the power of the blue glass books. Now one glass book in particular drives them all, its deadly contents the key to controlling the secrets of the blue glass, or destroying it forever…

NOTE: “The Dark Volume” is the sequel to Dahlquist’s “The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters” and was released in the UK May 1, 2008 via Viking UK.

This Is Not A Game

“This Is Not A Game” by Walter Jon Williams. Release Date: March 24, 2009. “This Is Not A Game” is a novel built around the coolest phenomenon in the world. That phenomenon is known as the Alternate Reality Game, or ARG. It’s big, and it’s getting bigger. It’s immersive and massively interactive, and it’s spreading through the Internet at the speed of light. To the player, the Alternate Reality Game has no boundaries. You can be standing in a parking lot, or a shopping center. A pay phone near you will ring, and on the other end will be someone demanding information. You’d better have the information handy.

ARGs combine video, text adventure, radio plays, audio, animation, improvisational theater, graphics, and story into an immersive experience. Now, one of science fiction’s most acclaimed writers, Walter Jon Williams, brings this extraordinary phenomenon to life in a pulse-pounding thriller. This is not a game. This is a novel that will blow your mind…

Blood Groove

“Blood Groove” by Alex Bledsoe. Release Date: March 31, 2009. When centuries-old vampire, Baron Rudolfo Zginski, was staked in Wales in 1915, the last thing he expected was to reawaken in Memphis, Tennessee, sixty years later. Reborn into a new world of simmering racial tensions, the cunning nosferatu realizes he must adapt quickly if he is to survive.

Zginski possesses all the powers of the undead, including the ability to sexually enslave anyone he chooses. Finding willing new victims is easy, which gives him the strength to track down a nest of teenage vampires in hopes of learning how his kind cope with this bizarre new era. But these young vampires’ limited knowledge of their true nature comes strictly from movies and paperback novels.

Zginski offers to teach the young vampires the truth about their powers and forms an uneasy alliance with the teenagers. They must learn quickly, for there’s a new drug on the street—a drug created to specifically target and destroy vampires. And as Zginski and his allies track the drug to its source, they may unwittingly be stepping into a fifty-year-old trap that could destroy them all…

Irons in the Fire

“Irons in the Fire” by Juliet E. McKenna. Release Date: March 31, 2009. Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution is an incredible fantasy trilogy that tells of political upheaval born of civil war in the country of Lescar. Carved out of the collapse of the Old Tormalin Empire, the land has long been laid waste by its rival dukes, while bordering nations look on with indifference or exploit its misery. Now a mismatched band of exiles and rebels are agreed that the time has come for change. Can a small group, however determined, put an end to generations of intractable misery? Perhaps… After all, a few stones falling in the right place can set a landslide in motion. But who can predict what the consequences will be, when all the dust has settled?

Full of rich characters and high adventure, this new trilogy marks the next stage in the career of this popular writer. Solaris Publisher Marc Gascoigne said of the deal: “Having long been a fan of Juliet’s wildly imaginative fantasy novels, it’s a genuine delight to sign her new trilogy for Solaris. With our ability to release her work simultaneously into the US and UK markets, we can both satisfy Juliet’s large British fanbase and take her out to a much wider audience.” Irons in the Fire is the first book in the trilogy.

The Stranger

“The Stranger” by Max Frei. Release Date: April 2, 2009. You never know when you’ll luck out. Max lucked out in more ways than one. But as his “reality” gets crazier, can this slacker hold it together?

Max Frei’s novels have been a literary sensation in Russia since their debut in 1996, and have swept the fantasy world over. Presented here in English for the first time, “The Stranger” will strike a chord with readers of all stripes. Part fantasy, part horror, part philosophy, part dark comedy, the writing is united by a sharp wit and a web of clues that will open up the imagination of every reader.

Max Frei was a twenty-something loser—a big sleeper (that is, during the day; at night he can’t sleep a wink), a hardened smoker, and an uncomplicated glutton and loafer. But then he got lucky. He contacts a parallel world in his dreams, where magic is a daily practice. Once a social outcast, he’s now known in his new world as the “unequalled Sir Max.” He’s a member of the Department of Absolute Order, formed by a species of enchanted secret agents; his job is to solve cases more extravagant and unreal than one could imagine—a journey that will take Max down the winding paths of this strange and unhinged universe.

Already a bestseller in Russia and throughout Europe, “The Stranger”—Book One of the Labyrinths of Eho—is a story for fans of Steve Erickson, Susanna Clarke, and Toby Young. This is a fantasy epic for a new century…

Keeper of Light & Dust

“Keeper of Light & Dust” by Natasha Mostert. Release Date: April 2, 2009. Mia Lockheart has a secret. Her mother was a Keeper, as was her grandmother—women who were warriors, healers, and protectors. As Mia practices her craft among the boxers and martial artists of South London, and begins a romance with her childhood friend, the fighter Nick Duffy, she has no idea that a man who calls himself “Dragonfly” is watching from the shadows.

Adrian Ashton is a brilliant scientist, an expert in the breaking field of biophoton emissions from cells within the human body. He is also a skilled martial artist—and a modern-day vampire. With the aid of the enigmatic Book of Life and Death, written in the thirteenth century by the legendary
Chinese physician Zhang Sanfeng, he preys on other martial artists and drains them of their chi—the vital energy that flows through the body.

Mia finds herself drawn to his dark genius, but when he targets Nick as his next victim, she is forced to choose between the two men. It becomes a fight to the death in which love is both the greatest weakness and the biggest prize…

From the author that brought readers “Season of the Witch” comes “Keeper of Light & Dust”, a highly original supernatural thriller blending magic, science, martial arts, and the greatest desire of all—to live forever…

The Wise Man’s Fear

“The Wise Man’s Fear” by Patrick Rothfuss. Release Date: April 7, 2009. “There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.”

An escalating rivalry with a powerful member of the nobility forces Kvothe to leave the University and seek his fortune abroad. Adrift, penniless, and alone, he travels to Vintas, where he quickly becomes entangled in the politics of courtly society. While attempting to curry favor with a powerful noble, Kvothe discovers an assassination attempt, comes into conflict with a rival arcanist, and leads a group of mercenaries into the wild, in an attempt to solve the mystery of who—or what—is waylaying travelers on the King's road.

All the while, Kvothe searches for answers, attempting to uncover the truth about the mysterious Amyr, the Chandrian, and the death of his parents. Along the way, Kvothe is put on trial by the legendary Adem mercenaries, forced to reclaim the honor of the Edema Ruh, and travels into the Fae realm. There he meets Felurian, the faerie woman no man can resist, and who no man has ever survived. Under her tutelage, Kvothe learns much about true magic and the ways of women.

In “The Wise Man's Fear”, Kvothe takes his first steps on the path of the hero and learns how difficult life can be when a man becomes a legend in his own time…

Turn Coat

“Turn Coat” by Jim Butcher. Release Date: April 7, 2009.

The Warden Morgan has been accused of treason against the Wizards of the White Council—and there’s only one, final punishment for that crime. He’s on the run, wants his name cleared, and needs someone with a knack for backing the underdog. Someone like Harry Dresden.

Now, Harry must uncover a traitor within the Council, keep a less-than-agreeable Morgan under wraps, and avoid coming under scrutiny himself. And a single mistake may cost someone his head—someone like Harry. “Turn Coat” is the eleventh and newest novel in the New York Times-bestselling Dresden File series…

Dancing on the Head of a Pin

“Dancing on the Head of a Pin” by Thomas E. Sniegoski. Release Date: April 7, 2009. Still mourning the loss of his wife, fallen angel Remy Chandler has immersed himself in investigating dangerous supernatural cases. His latest: the theft of a cache of ancient weaponry stolen from a collector who deals in antiquities of a dark and dubious nature. The weapons, Remy knows, were forged eons ago and imbued with unimaginable power. And if they fall into the wrong hands, they could be used to destroy not only Heaven, but also Earth…

“Dancing on the Head of a Pin” is the second book in the Remy Chandler series following “A Kiss Before the Apocalypse”, which is set in the same universe as the author’s successful YA book series, The Fallen, which was made into an ABC Family mini-series. A new Remy Chandler novella is featured in the urban fantasy anthology Mean Streets (January 2009), along with original stories from bestselling authors Jim Butcher, Kat Richardson, and Simon R. Green…

Traitors’ Gate

“Traitors’ Gate” by Kate Elliott. Release Date: May 12, 2009. In “Spirit Gate” and “Shadow Gate”, Kate Elliott took readers to the fascinating world of the Hundred, a land teeming with an array of cultures, gods, and conflicts blighted by the shadow of chaos and destruction. Now, with the same intensity and dramatic sweep that has brought this epic to life, Elliott returns to the exquisitely crafted cities and landscapes of the Hundred, in a thunderous conclusion to the saga…

In the darkness of war and destruction, forces gather to reclaim the peace. Those immortal Guardians who are loyal to justice seek a key to end the devastating reign of one of their own. A hired outlander army fights to halt the advance of the horde that has despoiled vast lands and slaughtered countless people in its murderous wake. The eagle reeves who have long been the only law enforcers of the Hundred struggle to reorganize after a devastating massacre has decimated their numbers. But even as these forces give hope to those who would live in peace, a terrible danger looms: a traitor with Imperial ambitions…

In the unfolding drama of political upheaval and violent change, nothing is certain, as alliances dissolve and power shifts with the unpredictability of a desert sandstorm. A satisfying tale with the vast breadth and tumultuous excitement only such a masterful storyteller as Kate Elliott can summon, “Traitors’ Gate” will leave her many readers begging for more…

The Fantasy Book Critic

About the Fantasy Book Critic: After taking a break from the music industry where Robert Thompson was a writer (reviewed albums & concerts, conducted interviews), did publicity (promoted signed & unsigned artists), worked as an A&R scout for Warner Bros. and was the EIC of Kings of A&R, Robert decided to embrace his other passion: books and writing. So, while Fantasy Book Critic was born as a labour of love, he hopes in time that it will become something more. Check The Fantasy Book Critic out over at http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com