A Little This, A Little That

TRAILER PARK FAE

Dark fantasy appeals to readers of paranormal romance and urban fantasy, but the genre is a toe closer to horror than the others. The allure of violence and gritty situations that often cause the hero/heroine a ton of pain before they triumph is my admitted guilty pleasure. TRAILER PARK FAE sounds like a joyous painfest: a plague, deep secrets, and the forbidden world of Fae. Gotta have it!

About: New York Times bestselling author Lilith Saintcrow returns to dark fantasy with a new series where the faery world inhabits diners, dive bars and trailer parks.

Jeremiah Gallow is just another construction worker, and that's the way he likes it. He's left his past behind, but some things cannot be erased. Like the tattoos on his arms that transform into a weapon, or that he was once closer to the Queen of Summer than any half-human should be. Now the half-sidhe all in Summer once feared is dragged back into the world of enchantment, danger, and fickle fae - by a woman who looks uncannily like his dead wife. Her name is Robin, and her secrets are more than enough to get them both killed. A plague has come, the fullborn-fae are dying, and the dark answer to Summer's Court is breaking loose.

Be afraid, for Unwinter is riding...

WITCHES BE CRAZY

Fantasy humor provides a break from doom and destruction, but only enough to give a reader several chuckles with their conflict. This novel appears to cover just about everything I'd find in an epic like GAME OF THRONES, but I'll have to read it to learn whether or not characters end up dead, nearly dead, or on their way to death. Should be a blast!

About: Real heroes never die. But they do get grouchy in middle age.

The beloved King Ik is dead, and there was barely time to check his pulse before the royal throne was supporting the suspiciously shapely backside of an impostor pretending to be Ik’s beautiful long-lost daughter. With the land’s heroic hunks busy drooling all over themselves, there’s only one man left who can save the kingdom of Jenair. His name is Dungar Loloth, a rural blacksmith turned innkeeper, a surly hermit and an all-around nobody oozing toward middle age, compensating for a lack of height, looks, charm, and tact with guts and an attitude.

Normally politics are the least of his concerns, but after everyone in the neighboring kingdom of Farrawee comes down with a severe case of being dead, Dungar learns that the masquerading princess not only is behind the carnage but also has similar plans for his own hometown. Together with the only person senseless enough to tag along, an eccentric and arguably insane hobo named Jimminy, he journeys out into the world he’s so pointedly tried to avoid as the only hope of defeating the most powerful person in it. That is, if he can survive the pirates, cultists, radical Amazonians, and assorted other dangers lying in wait along the way.

Logan J. Hunder’s hilarious debut blows up the fantasy genre with its wry juxtaposition of the fantastic and the mundane, proving that the best and brightest heroes aren’t always the best for the job.

SEVENEVES

I'm also ready to stretch my mind, and one of the best science fiction writers I know is Neal Stephenson. The hook with his latest work is after 5,000 years the offspring of a devastated Earth decide to return to their ancestral planet. What will they find? Why was it necessary for their forefathers to flee? I enjoy a solid space saga.

About: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of ANATHEM, REAMDE, and CRYPTONOMICON comes an exciting and thought-provoking science fiction epic—a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning five thousand years.

What would happen if the world were ending?

A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . .

Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in ANATHEM, CRYPTONOMICON, the Baroque Cycle, and REAMDE, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.