Seed to Harvest of the Parable Series
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Women of Sci Fi

R.A. Salvatore’s The Hunter’s Blades trilogy gets a collector’s edition facelift, the Time Spiral Cycle wrenches out another installment with Planar Chaos, and two notable female SF authors get some well-deserved credit for their contributions to the genre on this Tuesday’s Weekly Book Buzz. 

Happy Tuesday everybody. The January 9th buzz, although a little slim on the overall number of new releases, makes up for it with sheer quality of content. Let’s get to it! 

After defying high society and battling his way above the petty squabbling of ruling dukes and lords, Sir Jaymes Markham has rebuilt the army of Solamnic Knights and braces himself for the final onslaught of barbarian hordes in The Measure and the Truth, out on paperback today. 

Authors Jim Harrison and Kevin Brocmeier share insights on mortality and the afterlife in two highly disparate, undeniably unique novels. A middle-aged man battles Lou Gehrig’s Disease in Harrison’s hardcover Returning to Earth while the tale of a stranded woman in Antarctica is woven between the lives (?) of the deceased in a post-mortem city in Brocmeier’s paperback The Brief History of the Dead. 

In a genre that’s largely thought to be written for males by males (I confess I’m not exempt from this preconception) it’s nice to take a step back and honor those who have defied stigma and stereotype to break their way into science fiction. 

Octavia Estelle Butler and Joanna Russ are two such authors that shouldered their way into the genre and paved the road for many more female writers. Most noted for her first series, the brilliant Patternist set, Octavia Butler was one of the first successful female writers and one of the very few African-American women in the SF field. Later in her career she would earn the Hugo Award for Best Short Story with Bloodchild (1983), the Nebula Award for Best Novel with Parable of the Talents (1998), and become the very first science fiction writer to be awarded the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant in 1995. Now approaching the one year anniversary of her death last February, Warner Books Incorporated brings back her most recent foray into sci fi with a new edition of the Parable series, Seed to Harvest, on paperback. 

Joanna Russ, one of the most outspoken authors to challenge the sexist slant in sci fi, began her career in 1959 at the age of 22. Her essays on feminism and her distinct approach to science fiction in such works as The Female Man (1975) and We Who Are About To (1977) showed us the pliability of human identity and shed light on the societies that mold them. This week Liverpool University Press brings us The Country You Have Never Seen, a hardback collection of her essays and reviews that reflects the 45 years of her career thus far.     

Another book to check out: Timothy: or Notes on an Abject Reptile 
 

New in Hardcover: 
 

The Hunter's Blades Collector's Edition

© Wizards of the Coast Publishing

The Thousand Orcs: It’s been a long time since Drizzt Do’Urden has had to fight alone, but when a ravaging horde of vicious orcs invades the North and his friends are washed away in its evil tide, he has no choice. The Citadel of Many Arrows, once a dwarven fortress, now the home of savage humanoids, is the center of a new assault on the North. Barbaric hordes of blood-hungry marauders sweep across the Spine of the World and the fate of thousands of humans and dwarves hangs in the balance. The Lone Drow: It’s war in the frozen wastelands of the Spine of the World, and the ravaged forces of civilization are running out of places to hide. No one’s sure who’s alive, who’s dead, and who might be hiding behind the next boulder, the next corner, the next fork in the road. Forces for good and evil gather and settle in for a war that will be as long as it is bloody… and Drizzt Do’Urden walks alone among the bones of the fallen. The Two Swords: The orc king Obould has surprised his enemies at every turn, and may just have changed the face of the Spine of the World forever. As heroes fall, kingdoms gasp for a last breath, and battle-hungry hordes leave no safe haven, the lone drow finds the fate of thousands once more in the palms of his black-skinned hands. And the only one who doubts his ability to save them all is Drizzt himself. A 1,056 page hardcover edition featuring one of Salvatore’s best literary creations, what more can I say? 
 

The Country You Have Never Seen

© Liverpool University Press

In 1959, at the age of 22, Joanna Russ published her first science fiction story, "Nor Custom Stale," in The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy. In the 45 years since, Russ has continued to write some of the most popular, creative, and important novels and stories in science fiction. She was a central figure, along with contemporaries Ursula K. Le Guin and James Tiptree, in revolutionizing science fiction in the 1960s and 1970s, and her 1970 novel, The Female Man, is widely regarded as one of the most successful and influential depictions of a feminist utopia in the entire genre. The Country You Have Never Seen gathers Joanna Russ's most important essays and reviews, revealing the vital part she played over the years in the never-ending conversation among writers and fans about the roles, boundaries, and potential of science fiction. Spanning her entire career, the collection shines a light on Russ's role in the development of new wave science fiction and feminist science fiction, while at the same time providing fascinating insight into her own development as a writer. 
 

The Blue Djinn of Babylon, P.B. Kerr (Scholastic Inc.) 

John and Philippa Gaunt, twelve-year-old twins who have recently discovered themselves to be descended from a long line of djinn and in possession of magical powers, continue on their extraordinary adventures in this sequel to THE AKHENATEN ADVENTURE. When a powerful book of djinn magic goes missing, John and Philippa are called upon to retrieve it. Only, the book isn't really missing. The trap was set and Philippa is abducted by the Blue Djinn. In this latest installment of the twins' magical adventures, John and his uncle Nimrod must find Philippa before it's too late. The second novel in the Children of the Lamp series. 
 

Returning to Earth, James Harrison (Grove / Atlantic Inc.) 

Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "a master … who makes the ordinary extraordinary, the unnamable unforgettable," beloved author Jim Harrison returns with a masterpiece--a tender, profound, and magnificent novel about life, death, and finding redemption in unlikely places. Slowly dying of Lou Gehrig's Disease, Donald, a middle-aged Chippewa-Finnish man, begins dictating family stories he has never shared with anyone, hoping to preserve history for his children. The dignity of Donald's death and his legacy encourages his loved ones to find a way to redeem--and let go of--the past, whether through his daughter's emersion in Chippewa religious ideas or his mourning wife's attempt to escape the malevolent influence of her own father. A deeply moving book about origins and endings, and how to live with honor for the dead, Returning to Earth is one of the finest novels of Harrison's long, storied career, and will confirm his standing as one of the most important American writers now working. 
 

New in Paperback: 
 

Planar Chaos of the Time Spiral Cycle Series

© Wizards of the Coast Publishing

Teferi Planeswalker sacrificed his powers to mend the splintering Multiverse, but it was too little and too late. An unnatural cold has taken root in Dominaria and is spreading. Now powerless, Teferi tries to find a way to finish what he started before the world is destroyed by the havoc he unintentionally wrought. Book two of the Magic The Gathering: Time Spiral Cycle, Planar Chaos follows last September’s Time Spiral. The third installment, Future Sight, is due out this April. 
 

Timothy: or Notes on an Abject Reptile, Verlyn Klinkenborg (Knopf Publishing Group) 

Few writers have attempted to explore the natural history of a particular animal by adopting the animal's own sensibility. But Verlyn Klinkenborg, with his deeply empathetic relation to the world around him, has done just that, and done it brilliantly, in Timothy. This is the story of a tortoise whose real life was observed by the eighteenth-century English curate Gilbert White, author of The Natural History of Selborne. For thirteen years, Timothy lived in White's garden, making an occasional appearance in his journals. Now Klinkenborg gives the tortoise an unforgettable voice and powers of observation as keen as those of any bipedal naturalist. The happy result: Timothy regales us with an account of a gracefully paced (no unseemly hurry!) eight-day adventure outside the gate and entertains us with shrewd observations about the curious habits and habitations of humanity. "To humans," Timothy says with doleful understanding, "in and out are matters of life and death. Not to me. Warm earth waits just beneath me. . . . The humans' own heat keeps them from sensing it." Wry and wise, unexpectedly moving, and enchanting at every careful, turn, Timothy will surprise and delight readers of all ages. I must say this book’s premise is as intriguing as it is utterly different from anything else currently on the shelves. Great reviews, including one from Publisher’s Weekly describing it as a “wholly unexpected and astonishing book,” suggest that this title may be worth more than a mere glance. 
 

The Measure and the Truth of The Rise of Solamnia Series

© Wizards of the Coast Publishing

During the dark years after the War of Souls, chaos threatens the once-mighty empire of Solamnia. Goblins raid even fortified cities, and bandits rule great sections of the countryside. The ruling dukes, lords, and knights bicker and backstab. Through this dangerous landscape a shadowy warrior makes his way. Jaymes Markham is a fugitive with powerful enemies and a price on his head, and he has a score to settle with the Knights of Solamnia. Evading the authorities at every turn, he searches for a secret power. The third and final volume in the Dragonlance: The Rise of Solamnia series, The Measure and the Truth follows 2005’s The Lord of the Rose and last June’s The Crown and the Sword. 
 

Seed to Harvest, Octavia E. Butler (Warner Books, Inc.) 

In her classic Patternist series, multiple Hugo and Nebula award-winner Octavia E. Butler established the themes of identity and transformation that echo throughout her distinguished career. Now collected for the first time in one volume, these novels of the Parable series take readers on a wondrous odyssey from a mythic, primordial past to a fantastic far future. In ancient Africa, a female demigod of nurture and fertility mates with a powerful, destructive male entity. Together they birth a race of madmen, visionaries, and psychics who cling to civilization's margins and back alleys for millennia, coming together in a telepathic Pattern just as Earth is consumed by a cosmic invasion. Now these new beings, no longer merely human, will battle to rule the transfigured world... Contains the four Parable novels Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay’s Ark, and Patternmaster. Although you won’t find any new material in this collection, the snazzy new paperback of the Parable series is definitely worth checking out if you’re new to Butler or have never had the chance to read this ambitious series before. 
 

The Brief History of the Dead, Kevin Brocmeier (Knopf Publishing Group) 

"Remember me when I'm gone" just took on a whole new meaning. The City is inhabited by the recently departed, who reside there only as long as they remain in the memories of the living. Among the current residents of this afterlife are Luka Sims, who prints the only newspaper in the City with news from the other side; Coleman Kinzler, a vagrant who speaks the cautionary words of God; and Marion and Phillip Byrd, who find themselves falling in love again after decades of marriage. On Earth, Laura Byrd is trapped by extreme weather in an Antarctic research station. She's alone and unable to contact the outside world: her radio is down and the power is failing. She's running out of supplies as quickly as she's running out of time. Kevin Brockmeier interweaves these two stories in a spellbinding tale of human connections across boundaries of all kinds. 
 

The Chosen, Alex Archer (Gold Eagle Publishers) 

Archaeologist Annja Creed believes there's more to the apparitions of Santo Niño—the Holy Child—luring thousands of pilgrims to Santa Fe. Other sightings of strange and anomalous creatures in the area indicate a mystery more profane than sacred, with links, perhaps, to Annja's own fate. But she is not alone in her quest to separate reliquaries from unholy minds who dare to harness sinister power. A dangerous yet enigmatic Jesuit, sworn to protect the Vatican at any cost, a brilliant young artist whose genius portrays a truth too potent for words, and a famed monster hunter with a terrifying agenda are the keys to the secrets that lie in the heart of Los Alamos—and unlocking the door to the very fabric of time itself… The fourth novel in the Rogue Angel series. 
 

The Empire At War

© Games Workshop Publishing

Empire at War is a lavish book detailing famous battles in Warhammer. Each battle is examined, discussed and dissected: it's historical context, the main players, opposing tactics with illustrative maps, armies and equipment, important events and how the battles panned out. The writer concludes with lessons to be learned, digresses the aftermath of the battle and pontificates on what may have happened had the battle gone the other way. Accompanying the words is loads of fabulous art and battle maps. Jesus this sounds like an awesome concept, Ralphs should seriously consider using the real world for his next treatment of epic battles. 
 

Decipher, Stel Pavlou (St. Martin’s Press) 

Mankind has had 12,000 years to decipher the message, we have one week left… There is a signal emanating from deep within the ice of Antarctica. Atlantis has awoken. Ancient monuments all over the worlds from the Pyramids of Giza to Mexico to the ancient sites of China are reacting...to a brewing crisis not of this earth, but somewhere out in the solar system; connecting to each other through the oceans using low frequency sound waves to create an ancient network. The earth is thrown into panic stations, for it seems that the signals emanating from Atlantis are a prelude to something much greater. Could it be that the entire city is in fact one giant ancient machine? And to what end? For what purpose? It is the year 2012, the same year Mayan belief prophesized the end of the world. Two armies, American and Chinese stand on the brink of war for the control of the most potent force ever known to man: the secrets of Atlantis. Secrets which are encoded in crystal shards retrieved from the sunken city. Secrets which Mankind has had twelve thousand years to decipher...but which will now destroy it within one week. 
 

And that concludes this week’s Book Buzz of sci-fi, horror, and fantasy fiction. Check back next Tuesday for all the latest on new genre literature. Questions or comments? Light up the message board or hit me up at PFerrara.mania@gmail.com.