Kickstarter Shout-out: Evil is a Matter of Perspective anthology

The team at GRIMDARK MAGAZINE want to get fantasy authors into the shoes of their established antagonists and present you with 15+ dark fantasy stories in a beautiful print tome. We've engaged a range of fantasy authors with established worlds including R. Scott Bakker's The Second Apocalypse, Courtney Schafer's Shattered Sigil, Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt, Teresa Frohock's Los Nefilim, Jeff Salyards' Bloodsounder's Arc, and many more.

You can view the Kickstarter page here. 

Eye on New Releases for June 28, 2016

(Graphic novel, volume 1)

(B&N, Amazon, Kindle)

Synopsis:

"On the planet of Taldain, the legendary Sand Masters harness arcane powers to manipulate sand in spectacular ways. But when they are slaughtered in a sinister conspiracy, the weakest of their number, Kenton, believes himself to be the only survivor. With enemies closing in on all sides, Kenton forges an unlikely partnership with Khriss -- a mysterious Darksider who hides secrets of her own.

White Sand brings to life a crucial, unpublished part of Brandon Sanderson’s sprawling Cosmere universe. The story has been adapted by Rik Hoskin (Mercy Thompson), with art by Julius Gopez and colors by Ross Campbell. Employing powerful imagery and Sanderson’s celebrated approach to magical systems, White Sand is a spectacular new saga for lovers of fantasy and adventure."

Eye on New Releases for June 14, 2016

 (Debut novel)

(B&N, Nook, Amazon, Kindle)

Synopsis:

"Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, a shadowy organization that collects important works of fiction from all of the different realities. Most recently, she and her enigmatic assistant Kai have been sent to an alternative London. Their mission: Retrieve a particularly dangerous book. The problem: By the time they arrive, it's already been stolen.

London's underground factions are prepared to fight to the death to find the tome before Irene and Kai do, a problem compounded by the fact that this world is chaos-infested—the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic to run rampant. To make matters worse, Kai is hiding something—secrets that could be just as volatile as the chaos-filled world itself."

(B&N, Nook, Amazon, Kindle)

Synopsis:

"Seventeen-year-old Anglet Sutonga lives repairing the chimneys, towers, and spires of the city of Bar-Selehm. Dramatically different communities live and work alongside each other. The white Feldish command the nation’s higher echelons of society. The native Mahweni are divided between city life and the savannah. And then there’s Ang, part of the Lani community who immigrated over generations ago as servants and now mostly live in poverty on Bar-Selehm’s edges.

 When Ang is supposed to meet her new apprentice Berrit, she instead finds him dead. That same night, the Beacon, an invaluable historical icon, is stolen. The Beacon’s theft commands the headlines, yet no one seems to care about Berrit’s murder—except for Josiah Willinghouse, an enigmatic young politician. When he offers her a job investigating his death, she plunges headlong into new and unexpected dangers.

Meanwhile, crowds gather in protests over the city’s mounting troubles. Rumors surrounding the Beacon’s theft grow. More suspicious deaths occur. With no one to help Ang except Josiah’s haughty younger sister, a savvy newspaper girl, and a kindhearted herder, Ang must rely on her intellect and strength to resolve the mysterious link between Berrit and the missing Beacon before the city descends into chaos."

 (Debut novel)

(B&N, Nook, Amazon, Kindle)

Synopsis:

"When Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for her unconventional tactics, Kel Command gives her a chance to redeem herself, by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles from the heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake: if the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.

Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress. The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own.

As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao–because she might be his next victim."

Note: The short story, "The Battle of Candle Arc" provides some background for the novel.

(Ninth and final book in the Temeraire series)

(B&N, Nook, Amazon, Kindle)

Synopsis:

"Napoleon’s invasion of Russia has been roundly thwarted. But even as Capt. William Laurence and the dragon Temeraire pursue the retreating enemy through an unforgiving winter, Napoleon is raising a new force, and he’ll soon have enough men and dragons to resume the offensive. While the emperor regroups, the allies have an opportunity to strike first and defeat him once and for all—if internal struggles and petty squabbles don’t tear them apart.

Aware of his weakened position, Napoleon has promised the dragons of every country—and the ferals, loyal only to themselves—vast new rights and powers if they fight under his banner. It is an offer eagerly embraced from Asia to Africa—and even by England, whose dragons have long rankled at their disrespectful treatment.

But Laurence and his faithful dragon soon discover that the wily Napoleon has one more gambit at the ready—one that that may win him the war, and the world."

Eye on New Releases for June 7, 2016

 (Anthology)

(B&N, Nook, Amazon, Kindle)

Table of Contents:

“Introduction: A State of the Short SF Field in 2015” by Neil Clarke
“Today I Am Paul” by Martin Shoemaker
“Calved” by Sam J. Miller
“Three Bodies at Mitanni” by Seth Dickinson
“The Smog Society” by Chen Quifan
“In Blue Lily’s Wake” by Aliette de Bodard
“Hello, Hello” by Seanan McGuire
“Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfiang
“Capitalism in the 22nd Century” by Geoff Ryman
“Hold-Time Violations” by John Chu
“Wild Honey” by Paul McAuley
“So Much Cooking” by Naomi Kritzer
“Bannerless” by Carrie Vaughn
“Another Word for World” by Ann Leckie
“The Cold Inequalities” by Yoon Ha Lee
“Iron Pegasus” by Brenda Cooper
“The Audience” by Sean McMullen
“Empty” by Robert Reed
“Gypsy” by Carter Scholz
“Violation of the TrueNet Security Act” by Taiyo Fujii
“Damage” by David D. Levine
“The Tumbledowns of Cleopatra Abyss” by David Brin
“No Placeholder for You, My Love” by Nick Wolven
“Outsider” by An Owomeyla
“The Gods Have Not Died in Vain” by Ken Liu
“Cocoons” by Nancy Kress
“Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World” by Caroline M. Yoachim
“Two-Year Man” by Kelly Robson
“Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer
“Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan” by Ian McDonald
“Meshed” by Rich Larson
“A Murmuration” by Alastair Reynolds

 (Debut novel)

(B&N, Nook, Amazon, Kindle)

Synopsis:

"Set in a world similar to our own, during a war that parallels World War II, A Green and Ancient Light is the stunning story of a boy who is sent to stay with his grandmother for the summer in a serene fishing village. Their tranquility is shattered by the crash of a bullet-riddled enemy plane, the arrival of grandmother’s friend Mr. Girandole—a man who knows the true story of Cinderella’­s slipper—and the discovery of a riddle in the sacred grove of ruins behind grandmother’s house. In a sumptuous idyllic setting and overshadowed by the threat of war, four unlikely allies learn the values of courage and sacrifice."

(Debut novel)

(B&N, Nook, Amazon, Kindle)

Synopsis:

"Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation."

 (Book two of The Tale of Shikanoko)

(B&N, Nook, Amazon, Kindle)

Synopsis:

"Shikanoko has been humbled by failure, and his once clear destiny has become clouded . . .The Autumn Princess and the boy who is the true emperor are fugitives in the forest, alone and unprotected . . .In the mountain sorcerer’s hut a new generation of the Old People is born―the Spider Tribe, not quite human, not quite demons, and quickly coming of age . . .One clan is in retreat, the other holds the capital, and natural disasters follow one upon another. Will Heaven ever be placated?

In Autumn Princess, Dragon Child, the old order has come unsettled and the weave of destiny has become unpredictable as it is pulled tighter, sharper, faster, by the instincts for vengeance and redemption, loyalty and survival. The battle for the Lotus Throne has begun in earnest.
In this medieval Japan of Lian Hearn’s peerless imagination―so full of magic, beauty, violence, love, and sorrow―the only thing truly inevitable is that these forces are building to a brutal climax, though who the players will be and what the stakes will be cannot yet be told."

 (Non-fiction essay collection)

(B&N, Nook, Amazon, Kindle)

Synopsis:

"As broad as our exponentially growing cultural fascination with caped crusaders is, it runs just as deep as this long awaited anthology underscores. Liesa Mignogna the VP, Editorial Director at Simon Pulse and editor of this anthology can expound on the virtues of Batman (her wedding was even Batman-themed) but it's her retelling of incredibly harrowing yet ultimately inspiring encounters with The Dark Knight over the years, as she struggled to coexist with the supervillains in her own family that birthed this collection.

Last Night, A Superhero Saved My Life gives readers the chance to connect to their beloved authors, while those same authors connect to their beloved superheroes, and within that feedback loop of respect and admiration lies a stellar, and phenomenally accessible, anthology full of thrills, chills, and spills.

Contributors include New York Times bestsellers Christopher Golden, Leigh Bardugo, Brad Meltzer, Neil Gaiman, Carrie Vaughn, Jodi Picoult, and Jamie Ford, as well as award-winners and mainstays like Joe R. Lansdale, Karina Cooper, and Ron Currie, Jr among many others. Last Night, A Superhero Saved My Life's authors share their most hilarious and most heart wrenching experiences with their chosen defender to explain why superheroes matter, what they tell us about who we are, and what they mean for our future."

(B&N, Nook, Amazon, Kindle)

Synopsis:

"A sequel to Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s Nebula Award–winning novella “A Meeting with Medusa,” this novel continues the thrilling adventure of astronaut Howard Falcon, humanity’s first explorer of Jupiter from two modern science fiction masters.

Howard Falcon almost lost his life in an accident as the first human astronaut to explore the atmosphere of Jupiter—and a combination of human ingenuity and technical expertise brought him back. But he is no longer himself. Instead, he has been changed into an augmented human: part man, part machine, and exceptionally capable.

With permission from the Clarke Estate, Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds continue this beloved writer’s enduring vision and have created a fresh story for new readers. The Medusa Chronicles charts Falcon’s journey through the centuries granted by his new body, but always back to mysteries of Jupiter and the changing interaction between humanity and the universe."