Top 5 Classic Sci-Fi Titles Our Patrons Love

Our patrons love Sci-Fi! Here are the top five novels that have been checked out from our science fiction/fantasy collection:

Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

This book was so well read that it's worn out. Don't worry, a replacement is on its way! Dune Messiah is the second in the popular Dune series and, according to Galaxy Magazine, is "brilliant...it is all that Dune was, and maybe a little bit more." Dune Messiah continues the story of Paul Atreides, better known-and feared-as the man christened Muad'Dib. As Emperor of the Known Universe, he possesses more power than a single man was ever meant to wield. Worshipped as a religious icon by the fanatical Fremens, Paul faces the enmity of the political houses he displaced when he assumed the throne-and a conspiracy conducted within his own sphere of influence. And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover and the unborn heir to his family's dynasty.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

This cult classic, the Boston Globe called "Irrisitible" and Publishers Weekly describes as "[A] whimical odyssey...characters frolic through the galaxy with infectious joy,"was first published in 1979 and went on to become a television show, a radio show and a series of five more books.  For those unfamiliar with this book, here is a summary: Escaping Earth just before it is demolished to make way for a new galactic highway, reluctant galactic traveler Arthur Dent embarks on a series of off-beat and occasionally extraterrestrial journeys, accompanied by a variety of unusual companions.

The Seeress of Kell by David Eddingings

Time was running out for Garion and his companions in their quest to recover Garion's infant son and heir. If they could not locate the Place Which Is No More, then Zandramas, the Child of Dark, would use Garion's son in a rite that would raise the Dark Prophecy to eternal dominion over the universe. Only the Seeress of Kell could reveal the site of that mysterious place--and that she could do only once Garion and Polgara had fulfilled an ancient prophecy in the mountain fastness of the Seers. The Seeress of Kell is the fifth and final installment in Eddings Mallorean series. It is recommended to read this series in order. Start with Guardians of the West, followed by King of Murgos, Demon Lord of Karanda and The Sorceress of Darshiva.

First and Only: Gaunt's Ghost by Dan Abnett

One of the Warhammer 40,000 series based on the Warhammer 40,000 wargame which is set in a dystopian science fiction/fantasy universe, First and Only: Gaunt's Ghost is the first of the Warhammer 40,000 Gaunt's Ghost Founding Series and revisits the early adventures of Commisar Gaunt and the Tanith First-and-Only as they fight for survival in their war-torn homeworld. 

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Hired to break into the virtually inaccessible computer network of a large corporation, Case, the world's finest interface cowboy, and Molly, a street-smart samurai, venture deep into cyberspace only to discover that they have become pawns in a deadly game. With Neormancer, William Gibson launched the "cyberpunk" genre and won three coveted science fiction awards for best novel: the Nebula, the Hugo, and the Philip K. Dick awards.

New Sci-Fi Series

Looking for a new sci-fi series to sink your teeth into? Look no further than the brand new Blackthorn and Grim series written by award winning author, Juliet Marillier! The first book, Dreamer's Pool, has been released and promises to transport the reader to a magical vision of ancient Ireland...

After escaping her wrongful imprisonment, magical healer Blackthorn, living on the fringe of a mysterious forest with a former prison mate named Grim, is duty bound to assist anyone who asks for her help and must call upon her courage, ingenuity and magic when Prince Oran calls upon her. 

"The best thing about this novel (and there are many good components) is that it's the opener for a series featuring the taciturn Blackthorn and mysterious Grim. Typical for Marillier (Daughter of the Forest) is the evocative setting of an ancient Ireland that echoes with fairy tales and just a hint of magic." (Library Journal Reviews)

New Installment in Sci-Fi Bone Season Series

In The Bone Season, author Shannon Smith gave us a fantasy/sci-fi epic dystopian tale set in the near future London where major world cities are controlled by a formidable security force, Scion, and where clairvoyant underworld cell member Paige (a rare dreamwalker) is captured by an otherworldly race that would make her a part of their supernatural army.

The action continues in the second installment of Shannon's seven book Bone Season series with The Mime Order where Paige flees Scion while Jaxon Hall and his Seven Seals prepare for a rare assembly of the clairvoyant community that is clouded by dark secrets.

"A Clockwork Orange meets A Tale of Two Cities meets Harry Potter in this clever, caring, and spellbinding tale, which promises more to come." (Booklist Reviews)

Think this sounds like the making of a great summer movie? You're in luck - Fox Studios has already purchased the rights to develop this series into a possible movie franchise. Read about it here. The movie is listed at IMDB.com as "in production" with no further details as of yet. In the meantime stop by the library to pick up this book series.

Start a New Sci-Fi Series

Calling all Science Fiction fans! This fall is big for brand new Sci-Fi series including:

The Bullet Catchers Daughter by Rod Duncan

The Fall of the Gas Lit Empire Series (Alternate  History/Steampunk)

Elizabeth Barnabus, who leads a double life as herself and her private detective brother, sets out to locate a missing aristocrat but runs into trouble with the Patent Office, which is intent on keeping new technologies from being introduced into society. "Nonstop adventure, danger, and a plucky heroine who consistently saves herself from peril make this new series . . . one to watch for steampunk fans." (Library Journal Reviews)

The House of the Four Winds by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

One Dozen Daughters Series (Fantasy Fiction)

The rulers of tiny, impoverished Swansgaard have twelve daughters and one son. While the prince's future is assured, his twelve sisters must find their own fortunes. Disguising herself as Clarence, a sailor, Princess Clarice joins a pirate crew before her love for her captain is challenged by an evil sorceress. "Mixing a fairy-tale feel with a few elements of fantasy, this series launch will delight fans of light romances and of Lackey's "Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms" books." (Library Journal Reviews)

The Falcon Throne by Karen Miller

Tarnished Crown Series (Fantasy Fiction)

A royal son, falsely believed to be dead, fights for his father's stolen throne against a bastard-born lord and a duke's widow. ". . .Miller presents traditional fantasy pieces (warring kingdoms, misplaced heirs, a witch pulling the strings of an ambitious lord) that still manage to entertain and prepare readers for the next volume. The author's gritty fantasy of dynastic politics will appeal to fans of Game of Thrones." (Library Journal Reviews) 

The Godless by Ben Peck

Children Series (Epic/Fantasy Fiction)

This epic fantasy from Peek (Black Sheep) is big in scope, with absorbing characters, especially Ayae, Zaifyr, and the mercenary Bueralan, who spies on the approaching enemy to uncover their secrets. "While this is a solid if not groundbreaking series opener, its presentation of the mythology of the gods and a battle among their offspring will appeal to fans of Brent Weeks and Steven Erickson." (Library Journal Reviews)

The Hawley Book of the Dead by Chrysler Szarlan

Revelations Quartet (Magic/Fantasy Fiction)

When an intruder sabotages a stunt weapon used in her family's Las Vegas magic act, igniting a devastating tragedy, Reve fears for the safety of her children and flees to a Massachusetts forest where she learns about her family's mysterious past. "Szarlan's enthralling debut, a magic-fueled tale of contemporary romantic suspense, skillfully draws in elements of Celtic myth. Readers who like Juliet Dark's Fairwick trilogy or Tanya Huff's Gale Women series will enjoy this." (*Starred Review* from Booklist Reviews)

The Top Ten . . .

Want to know which new books librarian's across the country love? According to the August issue of Library Journal, here are the top ten:

1. One Kick: A Kick Lannigan Novel by Chelsea Cain (Mystery/Suspense): A debut installment in a new series by the author of the Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell best-sellers introduces Kick Lannigan, a famous kidnapping survivor who as an adult uses her martial-arts mastery and affiliation with a wealthy patron to find and rescue missing children.
2. Lucky Us by Amy Bloom (Historical Fiction): Forging a life together after being abandoned by their parents, half sisters Eva and Iris share decades in and out of the spotlight in golden-era Hollywood and mid-twentieth-century Long Island.
3. Heroes Are My Weakness by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Contemporary Romance): A down-on-her-luck actress reduced to staging kids' puppet shows finds herself trapped on a remote island off the coast of Maine with a sexy horror novelist who knows a dozen ways to kill with his bare hands.
4. Lock In by John Scalzi (Science Fiction): When a new virus causes one percent of the population to become completely paralyzed in body but not in mind, the United States pursues a scientific initiative to develop a virtual-reality world for victims, with unexpected consequences.
5. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton (Historical Fiction): Engaging the services of a miniaturist to furnish a cabinet-sized replica of her hew home, Nella Oortman, the wife of a merchant in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, discovers that the artist's tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways.
6. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (Mystery/Suspense): Follows three mothers, each at a crossroads, and their potential involvement in a riot at a school trivia night that leaves one parent dead in what appears to be a tragic accident, but which evidence shows might have been premeditated.
7. The Truth About Leo by Katie MacAlister (Historical Romance): When she finds English spy Leopold Ernst George Mortimer left for dead and without his memory, Dagmar Marie Sophie, an impoverished Danish princess, marries him in order to escape the country and avoid an arranged marriage.
8. An Unwilling Accomplice by Charles Todd (Mystery/Historical Fiction): While home on leave, World War I battlefield nurse Bess Crawford finds her career, honor, and life in jeopardy when the wounded soldier she is supposed to accompany to Buckingham Palace commits murder and then disappears.
9. The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman (Fantasy Fiction): Visiting his magical college after being cast out of the land of Fillory, Quentin Coldwater, accompanied by Plum, encounters practitioners of gray magic before discovering a spell that could dissolve the boundaries between Fillory and Earth. (Third in the Magician's Trilogy. Start with The Magicians)
10. The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar (Psychological Fiction): Befriending a young Indian woman named Lakshmi--who is suicidal, lonely, and trapped in a loveless marriage--psychologist Maggie finds their relationship warped by conflicting expectations and threatened by the revelation of long-buried secrets.

The New York Times Best Sellers - August 3, 2014

Click here to view The New York Times Best Sellers List from Sunday, August 3, 2014.

Top Fiction Book This Week: The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

After traveling through time in Shadow of Night, the second book in Deborah Harkness's enchanting series, historian and witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont return to the present to face new crises and old enemies. At Matthew's ancestral home at Sept-Tours, they reunite with the cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches--with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency. In the trilogy's final volume, Harkness deepens her themes of power and passion, family and caring, past deeds and their present consequences. In ancestral homes and university laboratories, using ancient knowledge and modern science, from the hills of the Auvergne to the palaces of Venice and beyond, the couple at last learn what the witches discovered so many centuries ago. (Publisher's Summary)

Book to Movie Alert!

Magic, adventure, mystery, and romance combine in Erika Johansen's debut fantasy novel The Queen of the Tearling.

 

Coming out of exile to ascend her rightful throne, Princess Kelsea Raleigh Glynn, with a cadre of soldiers and the magical Tearling sapphire to protect her, makes a daring decision that evokes the wrath of the evil Red Witch, forcing her to embark on a quest to save her kingdom and fulfill her destiny.

 

"In an impressive start to a series, Johansen expertly incorporates magic necklaces, political intrigue, questions of honor, well-drawn characters, and a bit of mystery into a compelling and empowering story." (Booklist Reviews - Starred Review)

 

Variety reported last year that Warner Brothers has already purchased the rights to the movie adaptation of this book starring Emma Watson and produced by Harry Potter producer David Heyman. (Read the article here.)

Summer Reading Recommendations

Are you looking for a few books to read this summer? Check out our shelves dedicated just to the Summer Reading Club. Here are a few of the many books you'll find there today:

Starter House by Sonja Condit (Mystery/Suspense/Ghost Story)

A pregnant woman who moves into her dream home discovers she must solve the mystery of a decades-old murder to rid herself of a ghostly little boy and save her unborn child.

The Lion's Game by Nelson Demille (Murder Mystery)

Detective John Corey, last seen in Plum Island, now faces his toughest assignment yet: the pursuit and capture of the world's most dangerous terrorist -- a young Arab known as "The Lion" who has baffled a federal task force and shows no sign of stopping in his quest for revenge against the American pilots who bombed Libya and killed his family.

River of Dreams by Lynn Kurland (Fantasy Fiction, Book 9 in The Nine Kingdom Series) 
Aisling of Bruadair discovers that her quest to save her country is far from over as she, with the help of expert swordsman Runach of Ceangail, must solve a great mystery to stop the Nine Kingdoms from being plunged into eternal darkness.

A Life Apart by L. Y. Marlow (Lydia Y.) (Historical Fiction)

Surviving the Pearl Harbor attack with the help of a black sailor he doesn't know, navy soldier Morris Sullivan tracks down the man's sister, with whom he embarks on a decades-long interracial affair against a backdrop of World War II and the Civil Rights era.

Before I Wake by C. L. Taylor (Psychological thriller)

This secret is killing me. It's only one line from her fifteen-year-old daughter's diary, but Susan knows it means everything. Charlotte is smart, popular, and beautiful. She is also in a coma following what looks like a desperate suicide attempt. What's more, Susan has no idea what compelled her daughter to step out in front of a city bus. Did she really know her daughter at all? In her hunt for the truth, Susan begins to mistrust everyone close to Charlotte, and she's forced to look further, into the depths of her own past. The secrets hidden there may destroy them both.

Sci-Fi Debut Series

Author Samantha Shanon makes her debut with The Bone Season, the first book a seven-part series of dizzying imagination.

It is the year 2059. Several major world cities are under the control of a security force called Scion. Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of Scion London, part of a secret cell known as the Seven Seals. The work she does is unusual: scouting for information by breaking into others’ minds. Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant, and in this world, the voyants commit treason simply by breathing. 

But when Paige is captured and arrested, she encounters a power more sinister even than Scion.  Enlisted in an army against her will, Paige is assigned to her enemy in charge of her care and training. And if she wants to regain her freedom, Paige will have to learn something of his mind and his own mysterious motives.

"The first of a projected set of seven novels, this book is for those who like their dystopian science fiction multilayered, philosophical and complex" - Kirkus Reviews

Missing Sookie Stackhouse? Try Ms. Harris' New Trilogy

From Charlaine Harris, the bestselling author who created Sookie Stackhouse and her world of Bon Temps, Louisiana, comes a darker locale populated by more strangers than friends. But then, that’s how the locals prefer it.

Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town.

There’s a pawnshop (someone lives in the basement and is seen only at night). There’s a diner (people who are just passing through tend not to linger). And there’s new resident Manfred Bernardo, who thinks he’s found the perfect place to work in private (and who has secrets of his own).

Stop at the one traffic light in town, and everything looks normal. Stay awhile, and learn the truth...

Pick up Midnight Crossroad on the new book shelf section on the main floor of the library.

Book to Movie Alert - 'Winter's Tale'

The 1983 book Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin has been made into a movie with the same title starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly and arrives in theaters just in time for Valentine's Day on February 14, 2014.

Winter's Tale tells the story of Peter Lake, a master mechanic who attempts to rob a mansion on the Upper West Side but is caught by young Beverly Penn, the terminally ill daughter of the house. Their subsequent love sends Peter on a desperate personal journey through time.

"Set in a fairy tale version of New York City, the novel is about a great many things and meanders through vast amounts of time, but it is notable in large part for its lush blend of fantasy and romance, vibrant and lyrically imaginative sensibility, and gorgeous and atmospheric prose. As the story develops, Helprin's portraits of the city suffering apocalyptic winters and the fantastical icy climes of other locations become dreamlike in their intensity." (Library Journal Reviews)

Want to read the book before seeing the movie? Click here to place your hold.

Watch the movie trailer below (or click here for trailer):

New Noir Detective Story

Ian Tregillis's Something More Than Night is a Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler inspired murder mystery set in Thomas Aquinas’s vision of Heaven.

Somebody has murdered the angel Gabriel. Worse, the Jericho Trumpet has gone missing, putting Heaven on the brink of a truly cosmic crisis. But the twisty plot that unfolds from the murder investigation leads to something much bigger: a con job one billion years in the making. Because this is no mere murder. A small band of angels has decided to break out of heaven, but they need a human patsy to make their plan work.

Much of the story is told from the point of view of Bayliss, a cynical fallen angel who has modeled himself on Philip Marlowe. The yarn he spins follows the progression of a Marlowe novel—the mysterious dame who needs his help, getting grilled by the bulls, finding a stiff, getting slipped a mickey. Angels and gunsels, dames with eyes like fire, and a grand maguffin, Something More Than Night is a murder mystery for the cosmos.

Fall Into Fantasy Fiction

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a fairy tale type story for adults, narrated by a man who has returned home to England for a funeral. He feels compelled to visit his childhood home and visit the Hempstock family home which is located just down the lane from where he grew up.  As the man takes in his surroundings, he is flooded with memories of childhood and his friend Lettie Hempstock.  The reader is then taken on a magical, sometimes terrifying, journey back when the man was just a seven year old child and inadvertently helped a demonic predator from another world enter into ours. 

"Gaiman (Anansi Boys) has crafted a fresh story of magic, humanity, loyalty, and memories "waiting at the edges of things," where lost innocence can still be restored as long as someone is willing to bear the cost." - Publishers Weekly 

For more information, click here to view Neil Gaiman's website.