Books Received, December 7 — December 13
14 Dec, 2024
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New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine: Volume I, Number 3 edited by Oliver Brackenbury (December 2024)
Issue 3 of New Edge Sword & Sorcery
Eight stories and four non-fiction pieces, paired with B&W illustrations.
New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine: Volume I, Number 4 — MMXXIV edited by Oliver Brackenbury (December 2024)
Issue 4 of New Edge Sword & Sorcery
Nine stories and four non-fiction pieces, paired with B&W illustrations.
Overgrowth by Mira Grant (May 2025)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Day of the Triffids in this full-on body horror/alien invasion apocalypse.
This is just a story. It can’t hurt you anymore.
Since she was three years old, Anastasia Miller has been telling anyone who would listen that she’s an alien disguised as a human being, and that the armada that left her on Earth is coming for her. Since she was three years old, no one has believed her.
Now, with an alien signal from the stars being broadcast around the world, humanity is finally starting to realize that it’s already been warned, and it may be too late. The invasion is coming, Stasia’s biological family is on the way to bring her home, and very few family reunions are willing to cross the gulf of space for just one misplaced child.
What happens when you know what’s coming, and just refuse to listen?
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (July 2024)
Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.
“Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches”: That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva — stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.
In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.
Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.
Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata (April 2025)
From the author of the bestselling literary sensations Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings comes a surprising and highly imaginative story set in a version of Japan where sex between married couples has vanished and all children are born by artificial insemination
Sayaka Murata has proven herself to be one of the most exciting chroniclers of the strangeness of society, x‑raying our contemporary world to bizarre and troubling effect. Her depictions of a happily unmarried retail worker in Convenience Store Woman and a young woman convinced she is an alien in Earthlings have endeared her to millions of readers worldwide. Vanishing World takes Murata’s universe to a bold new level, imagining an alternative Japan where attitudes to sex and procreation are wildly different to our own.
As a girl, Amane realizes with horror that her parents “copulated” in order to bring her into the world, rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. Amane strives to get away from what she considers an indoctrination in this strange “system” by her mother, but her infatuations with both anime characters and real people have a sexual force that is undeniable. As an adult in an appropriately sexless marriage — sex between married couples is now considered as taboo as incest — Amane and her husband Saku decide to go and live in a mysterious new town called Experiment City or Paradise-Eden, where all children are raised communally, and every person is considered a Mother to all children. Men are beginning to become pregnant using artificial wombs that sit outside of their bodies like balloons, and children are nameless, called only “Kodomo-chan.” Is this the new world that will purify Amane of her strangeness once and for all?
The Sea Eternal by Emery Robin (March 2025)
Matheus Ceirran, commander of half the known world, is dead. For the past year, his loyal captain Anita has hunted down his assassins — that is, when she can pull herself from the bed of Altagracia Caviro Patramata, queen and oracle of the client planet of Szayet. But when Anita’s quest for revenge takes her across the borders of an enigmatic neighboring empire, she uncovers a dangerous secret that could upend the fragile balance of the galaxy.
Meanwhile, Ceirran’s heir apparent Otávio Julhan grows more and more powerful in the capital that Anita has left behind. Caught between home, Szayet, and a new and greater threat, Anita finds herself at the center of a war that threatens to collapse her world.
The fate of empires dances on the tip of a knife, and history will be written by the victors in this sweeping tale of myth, imperial legacy, and the love affair of a lifetime.
The Moon the Sun Forgot by B.J. Wagner (March 2025)
In the vast, lawless ocean beneath the thick surface ice of Jupiter’s moon Europa, independent undersea miners compete against megacorporations for natural resources, and pirates hunt for unwary prey.
Kassia McCullough will stop at nothing to enact revenge on Pretorious Grant, the man she holds responsible for her father’s suicide. When Grant’s half-brother escapes from prison, Kassia may just have her chance to capture her elusive and powerful enemy.
Earth Detective Max Danzig has his own reasons for pursuing the nefarious siblings. The newly escaped convict, Somerled Rhone, murdered his partner, and Max is determined to bring him in alive.
Brought together by their mutual quest for vengeance, Kassia, Max, and an outlawed AI named Alex embark on a perilous journey, dodging bounty hunters, corporate mercenaries, and dangerous undersea creatures along the way.
Perfect for fans of expansive sci-fi adventures, The Moon the Sun Forgot is an immersive tale of love and retribution, set in the mysterious and gorgeously imagined depths of Europa’s subsurface ocean.