Today is the official publication day for Endurance by Jay Lake.
Assassin and ex-courtesan Green has saved a city and birthed a god (in 2009’s Green). Now she wants to move on—but she’s hunted by enemies from her past, the city council is mired in a power struggle and can’t provide much aid, and something is stalking goddesses, including the one Green serves. Lake deftly weaves complicated, stubborn characters into a plot that reaches the grandest and most personal scales without ever straining credulity. Green’s basically solitary nature, expressed in extensive internal monologue, is balanced by her feelings of tenderness, responsibility, and exasperation toward her fellow humans, the catlike Pardines, and the gods. Her pragmatic acceptance of killing is likewise mitigated by her refusal to trivialize death and her emotional reactions to pregnancy’s effects on her body, self-control, and expectations. This complex, lonesome, haunting novel will appeal to fans of Valente, Monette, and Miéville. –Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
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Due to last week’s early winter storm, I was unable to post about these other books, released on November 1st:
Now available in paperback: The Sea Thy Mistress by Elizabeth Bear
This direct sequel to Elizabeth Bear’s highly acclaimed All the Windwracked Stars picks up the story some fifty years after Muire went into the sea and became the new Bearer of Burdens. Beautiful Cathoair, now an immortal warrior angel, has been called back to the city of Eiledon to raise his son–Muire’s son as well, cast up on shore as an infant. It is seemingly a quiet life. But deadly danger approaches…the evil goddess Heythe, who engineered the death of Valdyrgard, has travelled forward in time on her rainbow steed. She came expecting to gloat over a dead world, the proof of her revenge, but instead she finds a Rekindled land, renewed by Muire’s sacrifice. She will have her revenge by forcing this new Bearer of Burdens to violate her oaths and break her bounds and thus bring about the true and final end of Valdyrgard. She will do it by tormenting both Cathoair and his son Cathmar. But Mingan, the gray wolf, sees his old enemy Heythe’s return. He will not allow it to happen again.
“Bear’s willingness to let her characters bleed gives this post-post-apocalyptic tale its melodramatic edge.” — Publishers Weekly
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The Ninth Circle by R.M. Meluch
Fifth in “The Tour of the Merrimack” military science-fiction series.
On the distant world of Zoe, an expedition finds DNA-based life. When alien invaders are also discovered, Glenn Hamilton calls on the U.S.S. Merrimack for help. But the Ninth Circle and the Palatine Empire have also found Zoe. Soon everyone will be on a collision course to determine the fate of this planet.
Book 1: The Myriad
Book 2: Wolf Star
Book 3: The Sagittarius Command
Book 4: Strength and Honor
Hey, happy birthday!
I appreciate you doing so many of these book release posts. I loved ALL THE WINDWRACKED STARS and read a good deal of your clients, so they’re useful!