November Top Picks

Waking Hell by Al Robertson
Release Date:  Early Nov
I must admit that hearing about this book was a bit of a surprise. Al Robertson’s first book Crashing Heaven was a terrific science fiction / cyberpunk mash-up, but it had a pretty conclusive ending and there was nothing to suggest that it needed or was going to have a sequel. I did really like the setting though, with a space residing humanity in orbit over a dead earth and a society that is like the bastard child of William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Facebook. This book is a return to that world, but appears to be unrelated to the first book and features a new protagonist. Crashing Heaven was about the war with the AI’s, but this one is about the stations themselves and the lives of the people in them. It’s also about what death means in a culture where memories, and what appears to be consciousness itself, can be downloaded into virtual space. The ghost-like entities that result from this are called ‘fetches’ and frequently creep into shared virtual spaces to ‘haunt’ the living. It’s this grey area where the living and the dead co-exist that Leila Fennech is searching for the Fetch of her dead brother, Dieter. There is something deeply suspicious about his death and she’s hoping that he can help her find the answer. She knows he’s uploaded, but she can’t find him anywhere. She’s also dogged at every step by other, dangerous looking people who want to talk to Dieter too. What kind of thing was he mixed up in anyway? Did it get him killed? Leila’s got more questions than answers, but when it comes to fetches she knows what she’s doing. After all, she’s one too. 

Fellside by M R Carey
Release Date:  Early Nov
M R Carey‘s previous book The Girl With All the Gifts has been store best seller, and while he has been writing for years it was that book that put him firmly in a lot of readers minds. We’ve been eagerly looking forward to what he was going to do next, and this month readers will get to find out.  The short description of Fellside is that it is a ghost story set in a women’s prison. But much like The Girl With All the Gifts, the short description doesn’t really tell you what the book is actually about. Carey continues his trend of presenting the familiar in new ways in this book, and while it’s very different to his earlier work his fans will not be disappointed. The protagonist, Jess, is in prison for her part in the death of a young boy. At first she is haunted by the horror of what she has done, and later by the ghost of the dead boy. Fellside prison is a place full of people with dark pasts on both sides of the bars and an observer could be forgiven for struggling to figure out where the inmates stop and the warders begin. Into this dangerous and corrupt environment Jess must learn quickly to survive while also coming to grips with what she has done. Strange otherworldly forces torment her and drive her toward action. Punishment or absolution? She has no idea where she is headed, only that her deeds are not the only ones that cry out for justice and that some otherworldly force has chosen her as its instrument.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor 
Release Date:  Early Nov
I’ve been expecting this one for a few months, but it looks like the various delays have been sorted and I can expect my copies soon. Firstly, this is a novella rather than a novel and so is only ninety six pages long. It’s also the won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for that category, so it may be short but it’s definitely good.  It begins when a girl from the Himba people called Binti is offered a scholarship to the Oozma University, the most prestigious in the galaxy. The offer carries with it all sorts of opportunities, but also challenges. If she accepts she will have to leave her family, her land and even her planet and travel among strangers who do not know or respect her customs. Along the way there is danger too as she must pass near the territory of the Medusae, a frightening alien race. The Medusae have, for good reason, no fondness for the university and its people. Nevertheless she will go because there is so much to gain and she is the first of the Himba to have such this chance. She is something unique in this part of space and that very quality may end up changing everything.

Arcanum Unbounded by Brandon Sanderson
Release Date:  Early Nov
Brandon Sanderson is one of the most popular and prolific of the current crop of fantasy writers. His Cosmere milieu is made up for more than a dozen books spread across four different but connected settings. He’s also written a successful super-hero inspired series as well as several novellas, one of which The Emperor’s Soul won the 2013 Hugo Award. This month Sanderson fans get a peek behind the curtain with the release of the Arcanum Unbounded collection. Inside, in addition the award-winning novella mentioned, fans will find short stories from a variety of his created worlds that offer insights into old mysteries or even create new ones. Also included are excerpts from graphic novels he’s worked on as well as essays about his work and worlds and even some illustrations. Some of the contents of this book have been offered before, either in print or as e-book or in limited collectors editions, but if you’re not the sort to hunt down all the meta stuff that many modern writers produce, then here it is all together with some new stuff never seen before. If you’re a fan of one of Sanderson’s series then you’re on your way to becoming a fan of all of them. In any event you’ll want a copy of this.

Invisible Planets by Ken Liu
Release Date:  Late Nov
Since Cixin Liu’s 2015 Hugo Award win for The Three Body Problem there has been a tremendous interest in Chinese science fiction. Unfortunately, outside of smaller specialty press, and stories in mixed anthologies there has not been as much work available as readers would like. That’s why the release of Invisible Planets this month is such great news. Inside are thirteen Chinese science fiction stories, many from the current crop of ‘new’ writers. In addition, the collection closes with three essays, the first is by Cixin Liu and gives an overview of the history of science fiction in China. The second by Chen Quifan offers the position of the younger generation of writers and the effect that recent social and political transformations in the country have had on them and their work. Finally Xia Jia, who holds the first Ph.D ever given for the study of Chinese science fiction asks the question what makes Chinese science fiction Chinese? Given the popularity of The Three Body Problem, I’m expecting lots of interest in this one.

Horrorology by Stephen Jones
Release Date:  Late Nov
The hardback version of this collection came out late last year and did very well for us at the store. That’s not really much of a surprise since Stephen Jones is a very good anthologist and this has a pretty impressive author line-up. I like horror fiction, and to be honest I prefer the short sharp shock of the horror short story to novels. And there’s plenty of those in this collection. With contributors like Clive Barker, Michael Marshall Smith and Ramsey Campbell, some of the stories are pretty confronting since these are writers that like to push boundaries. But it’s not all like that and other authors like Pat Cadigan, Kim Newman, Joanne Harris and Australian writer Angela Slatter, bring their own strange and macabre tales. What is consistent is that all the stories are designed to frighten and disturb, so make sure that’s what you’re in the mood for. On another note, I should mention that some of the stories in Horrorology have also appeared in another book edited by Jones called Fearie Tales, so if you’ve got that you’ll really only be getting about half a book of new stories with this one.

The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch
Release Date:  Early Nov
The journey of this book to the shelves is a tale all by itself. It’s been scheduled, delayed then rescheduled and delayed again, but will finally be here in early November. The P.C. Grant books are a staff and customer favourite, so we’re very glad to finally be getting it. This is the sixth book in the series sees Peter, after the mixed success of his recent adventures, back in London and with a new case. Normally, a death at an exclusive party for London’s elite would not involve Peter or The Folly, but one of the guests was the daughter of the River Goddess Lady Ty. Peter owes Ty a favour or two and she is insisting he investigate. Along the way he’ll get an insight into the world of the ultra rich and their connections to the city’s magical beings and history. He’ll also get the chance the offend some friends and make some powerful and ruthless enemies. So, business as usual then.

Witches by Stacy Schiff
Release Date:  Early Nov
I don’t normally carry a lot of non-fiction, but this new one caught my eye. Since the folk-lore books I’ve been getting in have proven popular with fantasy readers, I thought I’d give this one a go. Most people know of the Salem Witch trials but I don’t think many know the actual details. I certainly don’t. Often when this sort of commonly known even is really researched, it turns out to be quite different from what is generally said about it. That’s what makes this such an interesting book. Heavily referenced with primary sources by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Stacy Schiff, this book goes through the events that began in Salem in 1692, when a Minister’s daughter started to scream and convulse and ended less than a year later after claiming the lives of nineteen men an women. The horror of those events have fallen into legend, but as Stacy Schiff shows in this detailed and readable book, the truth is even worse.

Game of Thrones 20^th Anniversary Illustrated Ed
Release Date:  Early Nov
There’s not much anyone can say about George R R Martin’s A Game of Thrones  that has not already been said, so I’m going to assume that everyone knows what this book is about and just tell you why this one is special. As befits a twentieth anniversary edition, this is a very nice hard cover, and when they say illustrated the mean it! There are dozens of greyscale images and colour plates through the book that have look to have been commissioned just for this edition. It is a hard cove but doesn’t have a dust jacket, the cover art is printed and embossed directly onto the cardboard covers. Over all it’s a very pretty edition, but all that pretty comes at a price and in this case it’s $69.99. We’ve got a few copies in the store, so if you’d like to come in and have a look at one before deciding we’re happy to accommodate you.

Writings from Ancient Egypt
This is a bit of a side interest that I’ve been playing with over the last year or so. I noticed that there were some interesting and unusual collections of folk-lore being published, so I decided to get a few to see if anyone was interested. People were, and I’ve kept an eye out for that sort of thing ever since. This is a mixed collection of Ancient Egyptian writings that includes fanciful stories and eye witness accounts of natural disasters, hymns and songs from tomb walls and pillars, tales of shipwrecks and battles, and a Pharoah’s advice on life to his son. Compiled and translated by Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson, the contents of this collection span more than a thousand years and offer an insight into a fascinating lost world.