Given the choice between a one-way trip to Mars and life imprisonment, what would you choose? For Frank, who committed murder in order to save his son, he knows that whatever happens he will be getting a raw deal. But rather than rot in jail for the rest of his life, he figures that maybe, just maybe, he can accomplish something before he dies that will help him be remembered, something that will make his kid be proud of his old man. So, when the representatives of a company contracted to build a new Martian base approaches Frank with the offer to send him to space, he said yes. But just because he’s an astronaut, doesn’t mean he’s not still a prisoner. Frank had known that he and his fellow inmates recruited for the mission would be watched and guarded at all times, but the situation turns out to be much worse than he thought. The construction company in charge of the project has been cutting corners, and using convicts to build their Martian base is just one of a number of shady practices they don’t want anyone to find out about. Mars is already dangerous enough without having to…

In 2017 I placed the first volume of this trilogy, Age of Assassins, among the best debuts of the year and also my favorite reads, so I had great expectations for this follow-up novel: let me say up front that those expectations were more than exceeded by Blood of Assassins, that is not only a worthy sequel but also an amazing story on its own. Five years have elapsed since the end of the first book, and they have not been easy years either for the world or for assassin-in-training Girton Clubfoot: the political situation has degenerated into all-out war between the three pretenders to the throne of the Tired Lands – Aydor, the former queen’s son, ousted by young Rufra, Girton’s friend, and finally pretender Tomas.  War is never good news, but in a land still suffering from the sorcerer-enhanced conflicts of the past, that brought great devastations with them, this new war is adding a further layer of misery to an already grim situation.  Girton and his master, Merela Karn, have fared no better: to escape from the bounty hunters set on their tracks, they have been forced to abandon their trade and attach themselves to mercenary bands,…

  I’m embarrassed to tell you that it took me nearly a month to read this book. But wait, before you laugh at me, a book review blogger, for not being able to read a mere 544 pages in a timely fashion, the truth is, I got myself into a scheduling bind and had to abandon Kings of the Wyld and read several books for some scheduled reviews, before I could finally get back to it. And it is perhaps because of the talent of the author that I had no trouble whatsoever picking up right where I left off. Reading Eame’s debut was one of the most fun times I’ve had in a long while, and I honestly cannot wait to see what he’s going to write next. Eames uses the tried-and-true plot of the reluctant traveler—think The Hobbit with an aging mercenary and you’ll have an idea of what to expect—well, sort of. Clay Cooper is a guard and lives in the small town of Coverdale with his wife Ginny and his young daughter Tally. He used to be part of a group of mercenaries called Saga, back in the days when merc bands swept through the Heartwyld,…

I had so much fun last year with The Immortals, the first of the Olympus Bound series, and I was hoping for more of the same. I wasn’t disappointed. Brodsky gives us a very strong sequel that builds on the world-building of the first book and introduces a new threat to our present-day Greek gods and goddesses. Even better, she moves along the romance between Selene and Theo and makes it feel realistic, even though we’re dealing with a millennia-old goddess and a present-day history professor/geek/authority on all things Greek. I think I enjoyed the first book slightly more, since this seemed to take ages to get through. (Not that I was bored, but it felt longer than the first book and it literally took me two weeks to read.) Still, if you love puzzles and enjoy finding hidden meanings in historical places and objects, you’ll love this series. I will even go so far as to say Winter of the Gods can be read without having read The Immortals first. It has a self-contained plot, and although the first book introduces you to the characters and their relationships, Brodsky does a great job of jogging our memories and subtly…

I loved the premise for Six Wakes when it first made its way onto my radar, but I had no idea what I was in for when I started reading. This is one of those happy occurrences where the book was way better than I thought it would be. Mur Lafferty, welcome to my “must read” author list! I had so much fun with this story, and there were so many twists and turns, secrets and lies, and characters who didn’t even know whether they were lying or not. The entire story takes place on the generation spaceship Dormire, in very tight quarters, and revolves around seven key characters. Not only is this a top-notch science fiction story about cloning, space travel and a group of people forging their way into the future, but it’s a damn fine “locked room” murder mystery as well. This isn’t the first story I’ve read where a group of characters wakes up from some unknown event, only to discover they’ve lost their memories, but it’s definitely the best. Lafferty takes the idea of cloning in a new direction and adds a political layer to her story that deals with clones versus humans. In the…

I picked up Feedback completely fresh to the Newsflesh series. So fresh, I didn’t even realize it was a series and started reading completely innocent of Mira Grant’s universe of bloggers fighting for life, liberty and the American way against a backdrop of the zombie apocalypse. The minimal zombie action in the beginning was a bit surprising, but I did not lose interest before the biting and moaning got underway, and now I understand why the book was structured that way. Grant was reorienting audiences of other books in her series to the perspectives of her new central characters. Zombie action blogger Aislinn “Ash” North is the central character providing POV for the band of bloggers we follow throughout. Ash is Irish, loud and lovely. In this frightened America people are still reeling from a zombie rising that decimated society some 25 plus years before, Ash makes her living by filming and writing about her own zombie-baiting adventures in the great outdoors. Her partners include Ben North, her news blogging husband, Audrey Wen, fiction writer and Ash’s lover, and Mat Newson, a genderfluid person who does makeup tutorials and handles IT. While all the central characters are fully developed with…

The Fifth Season was one of my top ten books of 2015, and so I was beyond excited to start reading the second book in the series, The Obelisk Gate. I’m happy to say it was a more than worthy follow-up and I enjoyed it immensely. I have to admit I enjoyed The Fifth Season just a touch more, due to the slower pace of The Obelisk Gate and a slightly more confusing story structure. But overall this is a wonderfully intricate story with multilayered characters, a story that demands you pay attention and savor every new revelation. As she did in the first book, Jemisin treats her readers as intelligent beings and forces you to make many of the connections without spelling everything out. Be warned: this is a series you must read in order. Do not attempt to read The Obelisk Gate without reading The Fifth Season first. You will be lost, I guarantee. Also, there are some mild spoilers ahead if you haven’t read the first book. Jemisin’s story alternates between two main points of view, with a third (and even a fourth, if you count the “interludes”) thrown in at times just to shake things up….

Here’s a rundown of the books we think you should look out for in coming in the week. See any that you are really looking forward to? Find any you had not heard of yet? Know of books we missed? We know we don’t have everything and would love to hear what you feel we may have overlooked.   FANTASY          URBAN FANTASY           SCIENCE FICTION           HORROR   FANTASY           URBAN FANTASY     SCIENCE FICTION         HORROR       FANTASY          URBAN FANTASY           SCIENCE FICTION           HORROR   Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator Christian, Claudia 6/28/2016 Tor Books The Seascape Tattoo Niven, Larry 6/28/2016 Tor Books The Dark Side Anthony O’Neill 6/28/2016 Simon & Schuster Wasteland King Lilith Saintcrow 6/28/2016 Orbit Hope & Red Jon Skovron 6/28/2016 Orbit The Perdition Score Richard Kadrey 6/28/2016 Harper Voyager Age of Myth Michael J. Sullivan 6/28/2016 Del Rey Icon Genevieve Valentine 6/28/2016 Saga Tracer Rob Boffard 6/28/2016 Redhook The Big Sheep Robert Kroese 6/28/2016 Thomas Dunne The Binding Nicolas Wolff 6/28/2016 Gallery Down and Out In…