September releases

This is not a month that will help grow my to-read pile to extreme proportions. Although there is more noteworthy releases in SFF just outside my usual fantasy readings, I have spotted only a few titles. Note that Salute the Dark by Adrian Tchaikovsky will be released in the US in September.

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Antiphon
Ken Scholes
September 14th

I have read the first novel of the Psalms of Isaak (Lamentation review) and quite enjoyed it. Canticle, the second book is waiting in my bookcase. A series and an author to watch. Here's the third volume :

Nothing is as it seems to be.

The ancient past is not dead. The hand of the Wizard Kings still reaches out to challenge the Androfrancine Order, to control the magick and technology that they sought to understand and claim for their own.

Nebios, the boy who watched the destruction of the city of Windwir, now runs the vast deserts of the world, far from his beloved Marsh Queen. He is being hunted by strange women warriors, while his dreams are invaded by warnings from his dead father.

Jin Li Tam, queen of the Ninefold Forest, guards her son as best she can against both murderous threats, and the usurper queen and her evangelists. They bring a message: Jakob is the child of promise of their Gospel, and the Crimson Empress is on her way.

And in hidden places, the remnants of the Androfrancine order formulate their response to the song pouring out of a silver crescent that was found in the wastes.

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The Last Page
Anthony Huso
September 1st (UK, august in the US)

I missed this one last month (at least in term of North American release date). My copy should be shipping right now and I think it will be my next read. The Last Page is another contender for best new fantasy debut in 2010. Good review and a small hype building up. Here you go :

The city of Isca is set like a dark jewel in the crown of the Duchy of Stonehold. In this sprawling landscape, the monsters one sees are nothing compared to what's living in the city's sewers. Twenty-three-year-old Caliph Howl is Stonehold's reluctant High King. Thrust onto the throne, Caliph has inherited Stonehold's dirtiest court secrets. He also faces a brewing civil war that he is unprepared to fight. After months alone amid a swirl of gossip and political machinations, the sudden reappearance of his old lover, Sena, is a welcome bit of relief. But Sena has her own legacy to claim: she has been trained from birth by the Shradnae witchocracy - adept in espionage and the art of magical equations writ in blood - and she has been sent to spy on the High King. Yet there are magics that demand a higher price than blood. Sena secretly plots to unlock the Cisrym Ta, an arcane text whose pages contain the power to destroy worlds. The key to opening the book lies in Caliph's veins, forcing Sena to decide if her obsession for power is greater than her love for Caliph. Meanwhile, a fleet of airships creeps ever closer to Isca. As the final battle in a devastating civil war looms and the last page of the Cisrym Ta waits to be read, Caliph and Sena must face the deadly consequences of their decisions. And the blood of these conflicts will stain this and other worlds forever.