Well the New Year is here and we are ready with a brand new and very long list of great new fantasy books! I am happy to see many familiar names here amongst the authors including giants of the industry like Michael Bishop and Tanith Lee and of course a whole bunch of great new authors we are always happy to welcome to the family. So cruise on through and find yourself some great new fantasy novels to curl up with this winter. No matter what the weather is outside, in here it is always the best time for reading a great bit of fantasy!

Title: The Door Gunner and Other Perilous Flights of Fancy
Author: Michael Bishop

This anthology of one of the most amazing fantasy and science fiction writers had to be the one to start off this year’s book reviews. Bishop is now going into his fifth decade as an award-winning writer of sophisticated and intelligent fiction and this book is a great collection to celebrate the man’s virtuosity. It includes a preface from Editor Michael Hutchins, one of the foremost scholars on Bishop’s work, and an introduction from the ever-shrewd Jack McDevitt. One of the real treats in this volume is the notes that accompany each story or novella, giving detail and background that just make the reading that much more of a treasure.

The stories are in chronological order beginning with his very first published story, moving through his Nebula-award winning “The Quickening” and the classic “Blooded on Arachne” with the volume ending with his recent collaboration with Steven Utley “The City Quiet as Death”. These are stories that will illuminate, educate, illustrate and enhance. Bishop’s writing never fails to amaze me that he can write a short story that is both enlightening and entertaining at the same time. If you have never read his work, you are in for a real treat. If you have, then you know what treasures these stories are and how lucky we are that Hutchins went through the effort to collect them here.

Title: The Package: Nove’s Curse
Author: Naraine Lisa

Emersheen is a world that has only seen war, for as long as anyone can remember. When the mage Lya and the retrieval team find the scattered bodies of an entire army in the lands that surround the forbidden East, they are introduced to yet another mystery. For amongst the bodies is one who lives, the bloodied and almost-dead young captain and The Package, half-hidden in the sand beside him. Captain Nove is so unnerved by his experiences that he cannot even explain them to the team nor confirm if The Package is that which they have sought.

Can it be the weapon that will end wars forever? Soon we find Nove and Lya accompanied by the retrieval team on a journey to King Relegus in the Kingdom of Naris. The King is anxious to discover if they have found the one thing that can end the ceaseless wars and bring his people peace. As an angel tells the tale of the journey while watching from above, we see the eternal battle of good and evil, where wizards, mages and kings must fight the final struggle and compete for the final victory.

Title: Dark Victory
Author: Michele Lang

It is Germany during the time of the rise of the Nazis and Magda Lazaras is a witch, though a reluctant one. But the rise of axis powers convinced her to take on the gift of her family and fight the SS werewolves that would destroy her and her people. Soon she is convinced that she must find a way to destroy the demon that controls Hitler, though she is unable to stop the beginning of World War II.

With her guardian angel Raziel beside her, she hopes to end the threat of Holocaust to her and her family as they struggle to find a way to battle the supernatural and human threats and forces of evil that surround them.  Soon they watch in horror as Poland is invaded and they must create their own supernatural army if they have any hope of defeating the grim evil army of Hitler’s minions.

Title: Poor Richards Lament: A Most Timely Tale
Author: Tom Fitzgerald

It is long known that Benjamin Franklin had said he wished he could find a way to be brought back to life a hundred years from his death to see what had become of his beloved America. He had always held that if left to his own devices, he would have been drowned in a casket of Medeira wine, and revived to witness the changes wrote in the last hundred years. What if he had been granted his wish?

In Poor Richards Lament we find him confined to an apartment in the Plantation of the Unrepentant for just over two hundred years. It appears that his petition for final processing may have just been approved. His court of examiners consists of three who in life were a constant thorn in his side: John Adams, Reverend William Smith and Alexander Wedderburn. Even with his sins fully exposed he is invited to come and bear witness to America, and he does. From the beginning of the journey where he upsets more than a few apple carts at the Waldorf-Astoria to the final scene where he confronts his own grave, we behold a story of redemption and revelation. Interwoven with our journey is a second tale that starts in the West Wing and ends in the back alleys of Philly. Eventually the stories collide, with shocking results that most readers could not predict. Few could have pulled off this kind of story in quite the way that Fitzgerald has, nor ended the tale with such style.

Title: Sword of the Apocalypse
Author: Flint Dille, David Liss

It is the Third Century and a great battle rages for control of the holy city, Jerusalem. All around the most unlikely of alliances are formed in an effort to find that final strategic edge. In the midst of this confusion and chaos comes the rumor of a mysterious sword. It is a sword that once held will give to the owner unbelievable and devastating power.

A group of the most unlikely of companions is formed to search for the sword. It includes such legends as Richard the Lionhearted, Robin Hood, Saladin, Genghis Khan and even Morgiana. Together they must face unbelievable hardships and in addition fight off the assassins of the great Hassan-i-Sabbah. For as a group they must strive to always protect and eventually discover the secrets hidden within the Al-Batar, also known as the Sword of the Apocalypse.

Title: The Desert of Souls
Author: Howard Andrew Jones

This is an Arabian Nights tale of mystery, adventure and intrigue with just enough romance to keep it dashing. Asim is the Captain of Master Jaffar’s guards, a master swordsman, pious Moslem and intensely loyal friend to scholar Dabir.  When the two are sent on a quest from ancient Babylon to find a golden artifact in the sands of the fabled lost city of Ubar, they uncover secrets best left forgotten.

The third member of the cast is Sabirah, the daughter of Master Jaffar and the target of Dabir’s bittersweet love and devotion. Together the three must find a way to defeat the wily sorcerer Firouz without losing their souls, or each other. A miracle of a tale, with characters that will keep you spell-bound and a story that is set expertly in a time of magic, djinns and mystery.

Title: The Witch’s Daughter
Author: Paula Brackston

For over three hundred and fifty years Bess Hawksmith has lived her life as quietly as she can. For she knows that she will pay a price beyond counting, she will pay with her soul, if she is found. But her story goes back further then this, goes back to the early 1600s when she went seeking sanctuary from Warlock Gideon Masters after seeing her mother swing from the Witches Tree in Wessex. Although she did indeed gain what she needed to survive, for the Warlock taught her how to unleash all the powers locked within her, she knew one day he would come to claim his price: her soul.

But the years have been hard on Bess, forced to live in solitude forsaking any relationships that would reveal her immortality. When she is befriended by the teenage Tegan, she opens up her heart to her and finds herself, against her better judgment, teaching Tegan the ways of the Hedge Witch. But she knows that Gideon is looking for her, and is worried that in showing Tegan the old ways she has placed the daughter she never had in the path of danger.

Title: To Walk the Night
Author: E.S. Moore

The one thing that separates Kat Redding from all the others who like her thirst for blood and are very ready to destroy anyone who gets in their way is that she makes it her business to destroy vampires. Kat hunts down and kills her own kind in order to protect the human Purebloods, and she is good at it – very good. In fact, she has even been given a nickname by those she hunts – she is called Lady Death.

But she may have met her match with Count, a ruthless vampire who intends to combine his vampire house with that of a nearby werewolf den to create a powerful new entity. With this combination he will have unbelievable power and Kat is out to stop him and at all costs. She knows she has the skills to take him down and the weapons to make it happen – but will it be at the cost of her humanity?

Title: Among Others
Author: Jo Walton

Morwenna grew up in Wales, where her closest companions were the science fiction novels that set her mind free. But she also loved to play among the spirits who lived in the industrial ruins near her home. All of this changed one day when her mother, a half-mad woman, tried to take over and bend the spirits to her own evil ways. Soon they are gripped in a deadly battle between them that leaves Morwenna crippled and her twin sister dead.

Mori, only fifteen, soon finds herself fleeing to live with a father she barely knows, who sends her to a boarding school. Not exactly a place filled with magic, but Mori soon finds her magic of her own and uses it to help her find other friends like her. Her journal lets us into her journey as she uses the magic of the science fiction novels she devours to build a place for her energy and imagination. But the magic she has also learned to master has a back side to it, for it draws her mother back and soon Mori must pull upon all her new-found skills to defeat her or die trying.

Title: The Plain Man
Author: Steve Englehart

For over thirty years Steve Englehart has been giving us great stories of heroes who leap from the page and into our hearts and minds. Max August, the immortal gypsy, is another of these heroes. He may not be invulnerable, but he is immortal for he never ages. While studying under the legendary alchemist Cornelius Agrippa he was given the gift by the mage himself. Now, in our own century, August himself is an alchemist, and is in the midst of a battle against the FRC. They are a right-wing super-secret society whose main aim is to control society itself by controlling all the various aspects of it such as media, politics and science.

Max travels to Wickr, a burning-man type festival when he learns that two members of FRC are heading for it, planning to gather information from them. His plan is to set them against their fellow members. As he nears his destination he soon learns that even with all his careful plans to cover his tracks, the cabal know he is coming and intend to create an “accident” at a nearby nuclear waste facility to send him a message. Can Max, even as timeless as he is, find a way to stop time and prevent the holocaust from happening?

Title: Undone Deeds (Conner Grey)
Author: Mark del Franco

Conner Grey is used to being the one consulted on the “strange cases” that come by every once in a while for the Boston Police Department. As a druid that is a consultant for them, he frequently is called to help out when a case drifts into that kind of category. What he never expected to have happen is be the person on the other end of that particular kind of investigation. But that is exactly what happens when terrorists attack the city and Grey is accused, making his world a strange place indeed.

Forced to go underground to survive the accusations and determined to get to the bottom of this, Grey is soon embroiled in a different kind of war. It is one between tribes of the fey. Soon it looks like the war between the Celtic and the Teutonic may have reached epic proportions. With unease Grey realizes that unless he does something to stop it, this could easily spill out into Boston itself.

Title: Carousel Tides
Author: Sharon Lee

Kate walked away from her old life in the tiny seaside town of Maine, and thought she would never return. But never is a long time, and now she is back because her grandmother Bonny seems to be missing, and someone needs to care for the family carousel that is more than it seems. But then, so is her family. The carousel is fae, and the creatures on it are criminals from that world, sent here in exile. Her family’s job has always been to care for the carousel, but now it has been left to Kate.

But no sooner does Kate arrive then she somehow causes problems for their drug smuggling neighbor Joe who doesn’t need her around making trouble. Then Kate learns from the local earth spirits that Bonnie may have been captured because she found out where Kate’s long missing mother was. Soon things get even more complicated, if that is even possible and come to a spectacular head as only fantasy writer Sharon Lee can do.

Title: Tamed
Author: Douglas R. Brown

In Los Angeles there is always a new craze, and this one is no exception to the rule. In the City of Angels you have arrived if you have as your pet a werewolf, one certified to be tame and safe to keep by WereHouse.  How can you miss if you own as a pet a creature that is so legendary? And they are safe, WereHouse guarantees that they are 100% safe and docile. But what if they are wrong?

Christine Alt is used to seeing everything under the sun and more as a paramedic in LA. She thought she had seen it all until a call came in that night. What began as a routine EMS call became the event that changed her life when she finds herself attacked by a rogue werepet and barely escapes with her life! She soon discovers that she got more than a bunch of new scars from the encounter, as her body begins to go through changes that she must keep secret. And through these changes she finds out that the WereHouse is hiding something, something so terrible that it can never be revealed. And they will do anything to prevent themselves from being exposed.

Title: Nameless
Author: Kyle Chais

Where the nameless exist, there is nothing. For they are nothing, neither saved nor one of the fallen. And they cannot have names, for only masters have names, and they have none. And so they wait in the endless in between for a decision to be made.

In the boredom of endless waiting is one of the nameless who spends his time watching humans, in New York City. He watches a drunk named Aurick Pantera, who amongst his many vices is a gambler of the reckless variety. One day he sees that Pantera is about to be killed by a gangster that he owes money to, and in a sudden surge of pity takes over his body to save the man’s life. But the ability to taste and touch and live is too sweet to leave behind, and so the nameless stays. Soon he is helping Pantera to achieve his wildest goals – but in the process achieves notice of other nameless who decide to start a war to end their boredom. Can the drunk who has become a famous star and found the love of his life choose sides? If he does will he be cast down to the Null or rise up and save humanity?

Title: Labyrinth (Rogue Angel)
Author: Alex Archer

When archeologist Annja Creed is abducted she hardly expects it is to face a captured book dealer and be tasked with the recovery of a long lost manuscript. But the man that the desperate criminals hold has been poisoned and has only 36 hours to live. He also knows that Annja is the key to the location of a treasure somewhere in the mansion where he is held.

The treasure is a rare and very much valued treatise Tome of Prossos, a manuscript that could hold the salvation of the world, or so the captors believe. Somewhere deep within the mansion, hidden amongst a very complicated maze of passageways and secret doors, is the manuscript they need to find. She needs to find, to survive. She knows she can find it given enough time, but is that even going to be possible. And when she does, will the secret to the maze also spell her doom?

Title: Three Messages and A Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic
Author: Eduardo Jimenez Mayo (Editor), Chris N. Brown (Editor), Bruce Sterling (Introduction)

This is an ambitious undertaking of some of the most energetic and imaginative speculative fiction to come out of Mexico. The collection covers both emerging new authors and established giants in the field of Mexican Fantasy. They have included everything in here from supernatural folktales to ghost stories and alien incursions all the way to the most explosive apocalyptic tales.

Inside these pages you will discover that there are all kinds of stereotypes of Mexican traditional identities that can be transcended in the modern tale of Mexico and magic. For in this amazing collection we have a chance to get a glimpse of the new order of Mexican fantastic storytelling.

Title: Tempting the Gods: The Selected Stories of Tanith Lee
Author: Tanith Lee

There are few authors that can compare to Tanith Lee for sheer range of storytelling. This collection shows off some of her best short stories from a wide variety of sources including Asimov’s, Weird Tales and Realms of Fantasy. You will be treated to stories that are both dark (“Cain”) and Arthurian Legend (“The Kingdoms of Air”) and even a few that could be said to be just a bit on the weird side (“Tiger I”). As with all of Lee’s stories, the beautifully crafted language and vivid imagination comes with the package. My favorite of the bunch is a quirky and very fun piece called “God and the Pig”, but any of these stories will make a perfect capper to any evening’s reading. And I can’t think of a better book to end our presentation of new and amazing fantasy writings.

So dip into one or dip into all of them, there are so many varied styles and imaginings here, it is hard to imagine anyone ever getting bored with this month’s selection of great fantasy stories. We are lucky to have scholars of so many of the old masters around to treat us to new collections, let alone new stories from many of the long running authors in fantasy and science fiction here for the enjoying. And there are several books here that are the first efforts of what we hope will be many more to come.

So I hope you enjoy our selection, and will let us know if there is one author here who particularly stands out for you as we begin our new feature, our monthly spotlight on a fantasy author. Stay tuned for this month’s spotlight on Diana Rowland and more to come!