From the deep, dark depths of the mine shaft, we emerge with this week’s sparkly book highlights – new books, cool books, see if any catch your eye. They sure caught ours.
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A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Book 14 of the Wheel of Time
Epic Fantasy
This book needs no introduction. After 23 years, the epic Wheel of Time series is finally at an end. A Memory of Light doesn’t even appear to have an official blurb – just a reminder of the fact that Brandon Sanderson took on the series after Robert Jordan passed away. Oh, and this poem:
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass.
What was, what will be, and what is,
May yet fall under the Shadow.
Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.
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The Fat Years by Chan Koonchung
Science Fiction
This book was banned in China, and given this blurb, that ban is probably not all that surprising:
Beijing, sometime in the near future: a month has gone missing from official records. No one has any memory of it, and no one could care less—except for a small circle of friends, who will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the sinister cheerfulness and amnesia that have possessed the Chinese nation. When they kidnap a high-ranking official and force him to reveal all, what they learn—not only about their leaders, but also about their own people—stuns them to the core. It is a message that will astound the world.
For those who like classic science fiction tales like Brave New World and 1984, this book looks like it’ll fit right in on your bookshelf.
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The Hedgewitch Queen & The Bandit King by Lilith Saintcrow
Fantasy Romance
You know when you read a new book and you go into a rage fit when you can’t get your paws on the sequel immediately? You won’t have to worry here, because Lilith Saintcrow’s first two books of the Romances of Arquitaine Series are coming out at the same time today. The series looks to be full of political intrigue and mysteries, as heroine Vianne fights to protect the country after her Princesse (and employer) is murdered. But Tristan d’Arcenne, Captain of the King’s Guard, stands in her way – or maybe helps her? I’ll be honest, the blurbs are as confusing as they are enthralling.
In fact, these books deserve to be read solely based on this conversation they spawned:
Meg: So, I’m looking at new fantasy scifi releases and one of them has this in the blurb: Her Princesse murdered and her own life in jeopardy, Vianne must flee, carrying the fate of her land with her—the Great Seal of Arquitaine, awake after its long sleep.
But, they never explain what the seal is (a person? a thing?), so I have to assume she’s actually toting around an aquatic mammal with her.
My friend Jenn: Best. Disney. Princess. Ever.
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The Kassa Gambit by M.C. Plank
Science Fiction
This story looks a bit like Firefly reincarnated with some heavy Halo-like battletroopers. In a galaxy where Earth has collapsed and humanity has spread to other planets, Prudence Falling – a freighter scallywag – and her crew have been living on monetary tightropes, hopping from job to job. But when the colony planet of Kassa is brutally attacked, she finds herself working to rescue the survivors off the planet alongside Lt. Kyle Daspar, a double agent of a cop who has been working undercover long enough to start going a little sideways himself.
But on the scorched remains of Kassa, they discover something that might throw the whole galaxy into disaster.
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The Book Canaries 