First up is Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl
, which is I think the first David Barnett novel to be published in the US. It's a steampunk tale, as you might guess from the title, in which a callow young man goes to his world's London (capital of the usual Victorian even-larger-and-more-impressive-empire of steampunk) to find the thrilling adventurer of the cheap press, only to find that his hero does not exactly live up to his billing. It's out from Tor in the US, as a trade paperback on September 10th.
, the latest from Terry Goodkind. As I understand it, he's essentially continuing the series that used to be called "The Sword of Truth" -- or, at least, telling more stories of that series's main characters -- with 2011's The Omen Machine and this new novel. There's very little supporting material here to judge by -- the front flap copy just has a few paragraphs from the book, in which what I presume will be the Big Bad shows no effects from having several swords run through him; and the back flap is entirely quotes about how awesome Goodkind is. I'm pretty sure Richard Rahl and Kahlan Amnell are in massive danger from said unaffected-by-swords-guy -- they seem to be captives of cannibals on page 1, though that might be an unrelated danger -- but I'm also fairly sure that they will manage to save the world eventually. This is a Tor hardcover, officially publishing in August.
is an older manga than we usually see; Satoshi Kon's story was originally serialized in Young Magazine in 1990. A small seaside town has a tradition -- their local shrine holds a "mermaid's egg," a large pearl-like ball, changing its sea water every week and returning it to the sea after sixty years of gestation, to get a new egg soon after. And, of course, old traditions that come in conflict with an energetic modern society -- this is Japan in 1990, remember, before the crash and the lost decade; a society on the crest of a wave that looked to make it the most powerful economy in the world -- are likely to get crushed by the forces of modernity.Caught in the middle is the family that runs the shrine: the old traditionalist grandfather, the middle-aged modern father, and the teenage son who must choose a direction.
was serialized from 1995 to 1996 and published in book from in 2003 -- delayed by the author's serious injury (according to Wikipedia, she was hit by a drunk driver while walking) and subsequent long recovery. Helter Skelter is a fashion manga -- drawn in a quick, impressionistic style like classic fashion illustration -- about a top model who underwent years of rigorous treatments and surgery to be perfect...and is now sliding down the other side of that height.
. (It's the second book in a spin-off from Campbell's Lost Fleet series, after Tarnished Knight -- looking at Campbell's list of previous books, he has so many lost things that he might want to invest in some of those little Bluetooth dongles and attach them to all of his fleets and stars.) The villains of this series seem to be evil spacefaring CEOs, which is a bit out of the ordinary for military SF -- that sub-genre is more likely to go the other way and focus on blowing up nasty alien collectivists. (There do also seem to be mysterious aliens lurking in the background of this series -- or sending huge battle fleets in to help with the endings of each book, more likely -- so those might end up being the evil collectivists that force the honor-bound space navy heroes and the rapacious space capitalists to work together to save each other. Perilous Shield is an Ace hardcover, and hits stores at the beginning of October.
is the second in a contemporary fantasy series by Edward Lazellari, after Awakenings. It's a Tor hardcover that published on August 20, and, unlike the standard urban fantasy, it's not about a single main character. (Old habits die hard; I looked at the cover and was mentally composing a sentence along the lines of "XX is not just an NYPD cop, but also a paladin/werewolf/vampire/faerie/boggart/demon/angel/troll" -- but that's not what's going on here.) This series is actually a reverse portal fantasy: a group of protectors came through a gate from a fantasy world, Aandor, thirteen years ago, to protect an infant prince against the usual evil forces that wanted to kill him. But things went wrong, and the supposed protectors were scattered with no memories of their mission. So if any of you are looking for portal fantasies, derring-do, large casts, lost princes, and stakes involving the fates of multiple worlds, The Lost Prince is looking back at you, pointing at itself.
by Stephen Hunt. (I do hope there's an author out there named Jack Cloudie to complete the Nick Lowe/David Bowie echo.) This is the fifth novel in Hunt's loosely-linked steampunk world centered on the Kingdom of Jackals, in which a young not-British man is impressed into Somebody's Majesty's Steam-ship Navy, and travels to "Cassarabia," where a religious sect has been outlawed and a the true villains are "the sickness at the heart of the caliph's court: the mysterious cult that hides the deadly secret to the origins of the gas being used to float Cassarabia's new aerial navy?" I'm sure there's no parallels to any modern wars in this book, no sir. This also is a Tor hardcover, and is available now.
, coming from Tor as a mass-market original (yes, they still exist) in August. I've 
is...um...a hard to describe thing. The subtitle is "at the centre of the inside of the human brain's mind;" it's written by David Shrigley, who is some kind of deliberately outsider artist-as-media-personality; and it's either a self-help book or a parody of one. (Or, possibly, both at once.) Norton is publishing this thing as a small hardcover on September 23rd, as the perfect gift book for that friend you don't understand at all. It's crudely drawn on purpose, and is alternately deliberately trite and deliberately weird -- I suspect I am too cynical and jaded to give it an honest chance. Perhaps you are not.
, the third of his "Books of the Elements" series, about a city which is not precisely 1st century Rome and a world in which magic works (which is, after all, traditional in a fantasy novel). No one in genre fiction knows Rome better than Drake, and the fact that he often writes about men at war often obscures the fact that he's a supple and deeply thoughtful writer. This one is a Tor hardcover in September.
, second in his "Tournament of Shadows" series, which is a prequel to his earlier books about Morlock Ambrosius. I like this book's title because my house has a wrath-bearing tree, or at least we thought it did when we moved in. We gave it fruit spikes every summer, and it produced small hard lumps, dropped all its leaves in August, and keened a song of terror and loathing in the quiet mornings. Sadly, it turned out to be a quince tree, so we've given up trying for wrath-fruit. Enge's book, though, is the real deal -- modern sword & sorcery by a fine writer (I've only read his 
, in which the team from the Carnacki Institute face a famously haunted inn in a small English country village.
begins a new series for Ann Aguirre, "The Dred Chonicles," about one of those unlikely SFnal prisons. This one is a derelict spaceship orbiting a barren asteroid, somewhere off in the seedier reaches of space. Dred is her heroine, queen of one of the current six territories jockeying to control Perdition, which, as you might expect, is not in the best shape. I imagine the series will get more complicated as it goes on, but this is the beginning, so it's a great place to jump on -- particularly if you find yourself complaining that there's no SF by women out there.
, fourth in an urban fantasy series about Alex Verus, mage and diviner. This time out, Verus's old master -- a particularly nasty Dark mage, naturally -- is rumored to be returning, which will not be pleasant for our hero.
, the third in a near-future post-apocalyptic SF series by John Barnes, following Directive 51 and Daybreak Zero. I have to admit that I'm no fan of near-future apocalypses -- I have an unreasoning prejudice against books that kill me and my family -- but Barnes is a smart, sneaky author who's always writing at least two levels at once, so I might have to take a look at it. It hits stores on September 3rd.
. (See above for my opinion on apocalypses; I haven't read any of this series.) From the book's own description of itself -- with suspiciously capitalized Powers, for example -- I wonder if this series wandered into fantasy somewhere along the way (which would be a reverse of Terry Brooks's Shannara series, come to think of it). Anyway, it's a popular series, and this is the last in at least this chunk of it, so go forth and grab it if this is your kind of thing.
by Mickey Zucker Reichert, which followed last year's To Protect. (And, if I know anything about this field's tropism towards trilogies, a book called something like To Survive is on its way for next year.) These are novels about Susan Calvin, set in a version of Asimov's timeline that puts US Robots and Mechanical Men about twenty years in our future (which, after all, is where it has always been, since the 1940s).
, billed as a "stand-alone sequel" to his classic Infernal Devices (one of the major contenders for the title of first steampunk novel, back when steampunk was a weird little subgenre of written SF and not a fashion statement). I never managed to read Infernal -- and my copy disappeared in the flood two years back -- but Jeter is a fearless, exciting writer, and it's good to see him doing something ambitious. Fiendish is a Tor hardcover, coming in October.
, an anthology edited by the team of J.E. Mooney and Bill Fawcett and published by Tor in hardcover on August 27. (Yes, that does seem like an odd team to head up this project, though "Mooney" is a bit mysterious -- the copyright page credits "Mooney's" introduction to tie-in writer, anthologist, and erstwhile SFWA Bulletin editor Jean Rabe.) All of the stories in Shadows are written in homage to Wolfe, one way or another -- some are direct pastiches set in versions of Wolfe's fictional worlds, some have looser connections, and two stories (to begin and end the book) by Wolfe himself. Some of the names here are obvious -- Neil Gaiman, Nancy Kress, Michael Swanwick -- and some are less obvious but apropos, including David Drake, Jack Dann, and Joe Haldeman. Among the other authors featured here are Aaron Allston, Todd McCaffrey, Jody Lynn Nye, Timothy Zahn, Judi Rohrig, Michael A. Stackpole, David Brin, and the team of Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg. So this may be an interesting mix of stories, is what I'm saying.
, a magic realist novel about Christopher Robin Milne (turned into a world-famous Winnie-the-Pooh character by his father before the age of ten and stuck in the public's mind as such thereafter) and the Paris riots of 1968. It has adoring quotes from Rudy Rucker, James Morrow, Eileen Gunn, and Jack Womack, all to the effect that this odd idea has turned into a wonderful, moving book. If you like your fantasy closer to the literary side -- if, for example, you're a devoted reader of Gene Wolfe, of whom we were just speaking -- Billy Moon should be on your radar.
is the second book in an epic fantasy series by Philippa Ballantine, after Hunter and Fox. It's a trade paperback from Pyr on August 6th, and the back cover is full of updates on the characters of the first book -- Finn the Fox is traveling the world via dragon-back, Talyn the Hunter is doing a semester at the halls of the Last Believer -- that puts me in mind of a Christmas letter from a family I don't actually know. So this is not the place to begin: go back to Hunter and Fox instead.
, with story by the Magica Quartet and art by Mura Kuroe, and then there's 
, which has an original story by the Magica Quartet, story by Masaki Hiramatsu, and art by Takashi Tensugi. (The single different word in the titles identifies the particular middle-school girl saving the world in that particular sub-series -- I'm pretty sure of that at this point.) I suspect the Madoka books are the best place to start, but this was probably an anime first anyway, so you might just be able to grab whatever character that you like best.
continues Junya Inoue's Battle Royale-esque story of a bunch of strangers shanghaied to a remote island to play a deadly, live-action version of a popular FPS game that uses different kinds of explosives -- see my review of the first volume (in the middle of 
of the manga with that arch title, I'd reply, by the team of Sacchi, Shinichi Kimura, Kobuichi, and Muririn, which is some kind of fan-service-y (rated "M" and sealed in plastic" harem manga with a supernatural adversary lurking about in the background. I am also informed that the story began in a series of light novels, though I'm not sure if the novels are easily available in English or on my side of the Pacific. Still, I'm certain the book I'm holding is not a zombie. You're welcome.
, in which a little-boy Earl and his demon butler continue their Edwardian adventures, doing things that I really don't know the importance or significance of.
, by Yuhki Kamatani. It's the final volume of this series -- which I have to admit that I've never read -- and I couldn't even begin to explain what genre it's in.
-- I've read several of the volumes, and both of my sons are big fans of this demon-fighting series. Still, if you haven't read it, you definitely don't want to start here.
. This originally was a sideways take on The Wizard of Oz, but that was about 3000 pages ago, so your guess is as good as mine about what's going on now.
, 
) -- the comics are by Shiro Amano, and the "original concept" is credited to Tetsuya Nomura. (That always sounds like a really weak credit -- hey, I have the idea that Wolverine should fight Doctor Doom! -- though I suspect it means something like "original writer" or "supervising producer" or even "head of the company that owns the property.") The story? Well, this kid wanders through various Disney-esque alternate worlds to save Mickey Mouse, and I am not even kidding.
, by Kakifly, the creator of the series. The original K-On! was a 4-koma -- each strip was four panels long, much like a US newspaper comic printed vertically -- but I don't think this is meant to be read that way, even if most of the pages have exactly eight identically-sized panels organized in a grid. (Though some pages don't make much sense to me any direction I read them -- possibly because I'm trying to read a middle page without any context.)
is fully into the plot twist that many of the fans found creepy -- the series started off when bachelor Daikichi started raising the baby girl Rin, but the series has jumped ahead to Rin's teen years and the plots started focusing on their respective love-lives -- in case anyone was anxiously tapping her feet and waiting for that. The series, as always, is by Yumi Unita.
is billed as the conclusion of its story. The first volume set up the premise -- it's another child of Battle Royale, crossed with those live-action murder mystery games, in which a bunch of online friends are stuck in a warehouse and forced to play a game in which one of them tries to kill all of the others before he's found out.
. The big difference is that, on the covers of the Doubt books, everyone is wearing rabbit masks, but the characters on the cover of Judge are wearing different animal-head masks. It sounds like another carefully contrived blood-fest, with a back cover promising "a group of sinners who bear the guilt of the seven deadly sins" who were abducted to the obligatory un-escapable location to decide which one of them will die for their collective sins. Pardon me: I'm certainly I should have said "which of them will die first."
is another big slab of Hiroshi Takashige and DOUBLE-S's story -- seriously, each volume is 400+ pages and in a larger format than the usual manga volume -- which is probably still about the precognitive girl and her blind swordsman protector, as various yakuza and other unsavory types try to use her powers to enrich themselves.
. It's written by Ryukishi07 and drawn by Jiro Suzuki, from the long-running series of atmospheric horror story-games. The main characters are called Battler and Beatrice, but, as far as I can see, it's meant to be utterly serious.
by Isuna Hasekura, continuing the story of an itinerant merchant and the slumming goddess who acts as his assistant. This time out, there's still in a town with a lot of strife.
, the seventh of the original eight books in the series. (As is usual with a popular Japanese media entity, there are as many side-stories and ancillaries as there are books in the main sequence.) It's the love story of what seems to be the Japanese high-school answer to Nicholas Sparks and a paper-eating demon in the form of a cute girl (because all Japanese demons have the ability to appear as cute girls, of course!)
is based on, not the movie from last year, but the TV soap opera from three decades ago. (Sometimes you get the license you deserve, not the license you want.) Or maybe this exists simply because Lara Parker -- an actress on that original TV show -- wanted to write it, and that would create enough buzz among whatever Dark Shadows fans are still out there. Anyway, "Angelique" has written a novel about a teenage member of the Collins family who gets swept back in time (from what period, the back-cover copy sayeth not) to the 1920s with his girlfriend, there to encounter supernatural troubles, I expect.
