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           SCIENCE FICTION   FANTASY               SCIENCE FICTION         FANTASY          SCIENCE FICTION  

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 FANTASY             URBAN FANTASY       SCIENCE FICTION     FANTASY          URBAN FANTASY           SCIENCE FICTION   All the Birds in the Sky Charlie Jane Anders Tor 1/26/2016 Bands of Mourning Brandon Sanderson Tor 1/26/2016 The Brimstone Deception Lisa Shearin Ace 1/26/2016 Roadside Magic Lillith Saintcrow Orbit 1/26/2016 Staked Kevin Hearne Del Rey 1/26/2016 Graveyard William C. Dietz Ace 1/26/2016 City of Blades Robert Jackson Bennett Broadway 1/26/2016 Night Study Maria V. Snyder Harlequin 1/26/2016 Lustlocked Matt Wallace Tor.com 1/26/2016

2016 is another big year for Brandon Sanderson with a whole slew of new book releases and re-issues coming out, and he’s kicking it all off in late January with The Bands of Mourning. This is the sixth Mistborn novel and third volume of Waxillium Ladrian’s saga following on the heels of Shadows of Self, and according to Sanderson one is an intentional counterpoint to the other, which explains why there were only a few months to wait between the books. For readers like myself, that decision to publish them so close together was much appreciated, since I don’t think I could have waited until the end of the year to find out what happens, especially after that shocking ending in Shadows of Self. Things come to a head in The Bands of Mourning, continuing the adventures of Waxillium and his companions. It has been six months since the events of Shadows of Self and our heroes are still recovering from the ordeal. Wax himself is still trying to come to terms with what happened but is also determined to move on with his life, and one of the first orders of business is his forthcoming marriage to Steris. But…

Sometimes all your expectations go flying out the window when you actually sit down to read a book, and my experience with All the Birds in the Sky was just like that. This book isn’t so much about plot as it is about the relationships between the characters and how that relationship is constantly changing. I’m not sure everyone will love this book as much as I did, because it’s different from every other SFF book out there, and “different” is often misunderstood. But Anders’ fascinating ideas and lovable characters have earned her a place on my “must read” list. This is also a thoughtful story that explores themes such as preserving life on Earth no matter what the cost, nature versus technology, and the delicate balance of friendship. Throw in the fact that this was just so much fun to read, and I came to care about Patricia and Laurence so much that I was fully invested in how things would turn out for them. Patricia and Laurence meet in middle school, a bad time for both of them, as they are bullied terribly by their peers. They also have less than ideal home lives, but in different ways….

A very thought provoking and insightful book that makes you question the way things are in the world, as well as how they could be (and if that “other way” would really be better or worse). The Just City is an experiment carried out with by a Goddess. Her goal was to create perfectly balanced society where its citizens are judged solely on their own merits and abilities. There is to be no preferential treatment, people there should want to be their best selves and strive to do right by the city. If everyone lives by this code, then the city should thrive. The adults (or “masters”) in the city were all prayed to Pallas Athene for exactly this opportunity. They expressed a desire and interest to come to this. Many of them are people famous for their ideas and efforts during their times in history. The children however, were brought to the city under different circumstances. The city needed children for the experiment to work, but there was controversy over how to best do this. How can you best populate a new city with over ten thousand 10 year olds? It makes for an interesting dynamic. Since the masters…

So amidst all the lists at the end of the year, we wanted to focus on some of the books we’ve read that we really think need a bit more love and attention. I asked each of our contributors to highlight a few of their favorite reads of the year that they feel fell under the radar. Some of these rated high enough to make our Best of 2015 list, and some of them were nominated/ranked in the list we used for the Best Of list, but just didn’t quite make the final cut. Books that only one of us read were at a bit of a disadvantage. So this is a great chance for each of us to highlight books we felt were wonderful reads and deserve another mention as the year draws to a close.   BOB’S PICKS         LISA’S PICKS           LYNN’S PICKS             STEPHENIE’S PICKS           TAMMY’S PICKS   .  

We’re just about nearing the end of the year, but apparently 2015 had one last big surprise for me. It came in the form of Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen. I confess, I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I started this book because I dove in blind, and that’s actually the way I wanted it. When I first looked upon this novel in my hands, I was struck by this feeling that the less I knew about it, the more I would enjoy the experience. So I swore off reading any previews or early reviews and simply let go. I wanted this story to take me where it would. Well, what an amazing adventure it turned out to be! Barsk was a mysterious and captivating journey from the very first page to the last, featuring a puzzle that begins with the novel’s title itself. According to a well-known myth, an elephants’ graveyard is a place where aged and dying elephants instinctively know to go when they reach the end of their days. There, they stay until they die, alone and far away from the herd. This is how the story begins, in a distant…

I loved the first two books in Rod Belcher’s Golgotha series, and I was curious to see what else he could do. And boy am I glad I picked up this book! I was blown away by his fascinating magic system, not to mention the characters. Best of all, Belcher has some mad writing skills, in case you appreciate that sort of thing, which I do. While his Golgotha books contain multiple points of view, this story is told in first person from the perspective of Laytham Ballard, a powerful wizard with an attitude problem, who blazes through his friends and enemies—often killing them in the process—in order to get what he wants. Belcher definitely takes a risk with Laytham, because he is not a likeable guy at all. But the fact that he freely admits to everyone around him that he knows he’s an a-hole made him compelling, and yes, I grew to like and even sympathize with him by the end of the book. But there is so much to love about Nightwise besides the characters—and I’ll get to them later, because there wasn’t one in the bunch that I didn’t enjoy. Belcher starts with a simple but strong…

After my exhilarating reading experience with Valente’s novella Six-Gun Snow White, I was excited to dip into something longer, and Radiance promised to be just what I was looking for. But what I got was not quite what I expected. Here are some words to describe Radiance, in case you’re looking for a “nutshell” type of review: weird, strange, wonderful, unexpected, magical, tedious, frustrating. Wait—tedious and frustrating? As much as I loved Valente’s vision, and let’s be honest—her brilliance—there were times when I almost put this book down. Radiance is not going to be for everyone, let’s get that out of the way. This is a tough book, one that requires patience, and a reader who is not afraid of the confusion that comes from an unconventional story format. Valente teases the reader with a mixed-up recounting of the events that lead to the disappearance of one Severin Unck, a documentary film maker who mysteriously disappears while investigating the destruction of a colony on the planet Venus. This is but one of the mysteries in the story, and it’s the main thread that binds everything together. Not only are the events of the story told out of order, but the…

  One of the perks I’ve found with working with several bloggers is that we can cover more books than we have time to read on our own. So, when it came time to make our Best of 2015 list, I decided to ask each of the contributors to submit a ranked list of their favorite books (yep, I’m mean like that. Choosing favorites can be hard, ranking is even harder). I then used a scaled points system to calculate an over all list. So, the end result features a variety of books that either several of us agreed belong in the top 10, or books that perhaps just one reviewer read, but placed in their high on their ranked choices of the year. With so many great choices we had to expand our collaborative list past just 10 books to 25. Since our blog started late in the year, many of these books do not currently have reviews here. But we do plan on adding them, so keep your eye out. So here it is, Speculative Herald’s list of our absolute favorite books from 2015! And because I like to get straight to the good stuff, I am listing them in order starting with…