June releases

Weird. I'm used to dig a little every month to find the books that will be released in the coming weeks but in May, my search came up with absolutely nothing (as far as the "niche" in which I usually choose is concerned). This is not a problem since I don't need to add new books to my reading pile every month but nevertheless...

Anyway, if you follow the blog you probably know something about the kind of novels that usually catch my eye, so if I've missed something released in May, poke me!

This bring me to June 2010. Here we go :

City of Ruin
Mark Charan Newton
June 4th (UK)

Mark Charan Newton was my favorite debut author last year with Nights of Villjamur. I have great expectation for the follow-up, could be one of the best novel of the year. As I said for the first one, noire fantasy is a bliss! Here's the blurb :

Villiren: a city of sin that is being torn apart from the inside. Hybrid creatures shamble through shadows and barely human gangs fight turf wars for control of the streets. Amidst this chaos, Commander Brynd Lathraea, commander of the Night Guard, must plan the defence of Viliren against a race that has broken through from some other realm and already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of the Empire's people. When a Night Guard soldier goes missing, Brynd requests help from the recently arrived Inqusitor Jeryd. He discovers this is not the only disappearance the streets of Villiren. It seems that a serial killer of the most horrific kind is on the loose, taking hundreds of people from their own homes. A killer that cannot possibly be human. The entire population of Villiren must unite to face an impossible surge of violent and unnatural enemies or the city will fall. But how can anyone save a city that is already a ruin?

***

Shadow's Son
Jon Sprunk
June First

An assassin in a book titled with the word shadow, and a hooded one! Could be way too generic or looking too much like Brent Week' work but make no mistake, from what the early reviewers are saying, Sprunk first fantasy series (The Shadow Saga) is worth picking up. Well see soon enough. Here's what we're looking at :

In the holy city of Othir, treachery and corruption lurk at the end of every street, just the place for a freelance assassin with no loyalties and few scruples.

Caim makes his living on the edge of a blade, but when a routine job goes south, he is thrust into the middle of an insidious plot. Pitted against crooked lawmen, rival killers, and sorcery from the Other Side, his only allies are Josephine, the socialite daughter of his last victim, and Kit, a guardian spirit no one else can see. But in this fight for his life, Caim only trusts his knives and his instincts, but they won't be enough when his quest for justice leads him from Othir's hazardous back alleys to its shining corridors of power. To unmask a conspiracy at the heart of the empire, he must claim his birthright as the Shadow's Son . . .

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Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword And Sorcery
Jonathan Stratam & Lou Anders
June 22nd

I have already posted the content of this appealing anthology and the two different covers... so without much need for introduction :

Check Your Dark Lord at the Door" — Lou Anders & Jonathan Strahan
Goats of Glory — Steven Erikson
Tides Elba: A Tale of the Black Company — Glen Cook
Bloodsport — Gene Wolfe
The Singing Spear — James Enge
A Wizard of Wiscezan — C.J. Cherryh
A Rich Full Week — K. J. Parker
A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet — Garth Nix
Red Pearls: An Elric Story — Michael Moorcock
The Deification of Dal Bamore — Tim Lebbon
Dark Times at the Midnight Market — Robert Silverberg
The Undefiled — Greg Keyes
Dapple Hew the Tint Master — Michael Shea
In the Stacks — Scott Lynch
Two Lions, A Witch, and the War-Robe — Tanith Lee
The Sea Troll's Daughter — Caitlin R Kiernan
Thieves of Daring — Bill Willingham
The Fool Jobs — Joe Abercrombie

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Kraken
China Miéville
May in hardback and June 4th in paperback

Reviews are raving and even though it's been a while since I read speculative fiction aside from the epic style, I don't think I could forgive myself to pass on this one (and taking into account the fact that I never anything by Miéville...). Here's the blurb :

Deep in the research wing of the Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears? For curator Billy Harrow it's the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates and assassins. It might just be that the creature he's been preserving is more than a biological rarity: there are those who are sure it's a god. A god that someone is hoping will end the world.