De Charles de Lint, autor extensamente nomeado para prémios no género fantástico e premiado com o World Fantasy Award, foi publicada recentemente uma nova edição de Medicine Road, pela Tachyon.

Lançado pela primeira vez há vários anos pela Subterranean Press, este é um livro de histórias curtas ilustradas por Charles Vess (o responsável pelas ilustrações em Stardust ou The Ladies of Grace Adieu). O poema que abre Medicine Road pode ser lido no site da Subterranean Press , e aqui deixo a sinopse:

Laurel and Bess Dillard are charismatic bluegrass musicians enjoying the success of their first Southwestern tour. But the Dillard girls know that magical adventures are always at hand. Upon meeting two mysterious strangers at a gig, the red-headed twins are drawn into a age-old, mystical wager along the Medicine Road.

One day, seeing a red dog chasing a jackalope, Coyote Woman gave them human forms. They became Jim Changing Dog and Alice Corn Hair. In return, both of them must find true love within a hundred years or their “five-fingered” forms will be forfeit. Alice has found her soul mate, but trickster Jim is unwilling to settle down — until he sets eyes upon free-spirited Bess Dillard.

Yet time is running out for the red dog and the jackalope. In just two weeks they will journey to their reckoning at the Medicine Wheel. Meanwhile, a motorcycle-riding seductress and a vengeful rattlesnake woman are eager to meddle, and Bess and Laurel, caught in a web of love and lies, must find their own paths into the spirit world.

Wireless é o mais recente livro do autor de Accelerando, Glass House ou The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross. É também uma colectânea de histórias curtas onde se incluem Missile Gap(premiado com o prémio Locus), Rogue Farm (onde se baseou uma animação com o mesmo nome):

The Hugo Award-winning author of such groundbreaking and innovative novels as Accelerando, Halting State, and Saturn’s Children delivers a rich selection of speculative fiction— including a novella original to this volume— brought together for the first time in one collection, showcasing the limitless imagination of one of the twenty-first century’s most daring visionaries.

The Ask and the Answer é a contiunação de The Knife of Never Letting Go, um dos livros mais referenciados este ano, e vencedor de inúmeros prémios, entre os quais, o Guardian Award e o James Tiptree Jr. A história decorre num planeta colonizado por seres humanos, um grupo de colonizadores cristãos. Ainda que estes tenham acesso a alguma alta tecnologia, vivem num meio rural onde substistem trabalhando a terra.

Aqui fica o resumo:

We were in the square, in the square where I’d run, holding her, carrying her, telling her to stay alive, stay alive till we got safe, till we got to Haven so I could save her – But there weren’t no safety, no safety at all, there was just him and his men. Fleeing before a relentless army, Todd has carried a desperately wounded Viola right into the hands of their worst enemy, Mayor Prentiss. Immediately separated from Viola and imprisoned, Todd is forced t learn the ways of the Mayor’s new order. But what secrets are hiding just outside of town? And where is Viola? Is she even still alive? And who are the mysterious Answer? And then, one day, the bombs begin to explode. “The Ask and the Answer” is a tense, shocking and deeply moving novel of resistance under the most extreme pressure.

Markus Heitz é já um nome conhecido no fantástico alemão, conhecendo agora tradução para inglês do primeiro volume da sua trilogia, Dwarves. O resumo recorda fantasia do género tolkiano, um épico que parece centrar-se numa personagem:

For countless millennia, the dwarves of the Fifthling Kingdom have defended the stone gateway into Girdlegard. Many and varied foes have hurled themselves against the portal and died attempting to breach it. No man or beast has ever succeeded. Until now…Abandoned as a child, Tungdil the blacksmith labours contentedly in the land of Ionandar, the only dwarf in a kingdom of men. Although he does not want for friends, Tungdil is very much aware that he is alone ? indeed, he has not so much as set eyes on another dwarf. But all that is about to change. Sent out into the world to deliver a message and reacquaint himself with his people, the young foundling finds himself thrust into a battle for which he has not been trained. Not only his own safety, but the life of every man, woman and child in Girdlegard depends upon his ability to embrace his heritage. Although he has many unanswered questions, Tungdil is certain of one thing: no matter where he was raised, he is a true dwarf. And no one has ever questioned the courage of the Dwarves.

The Windup Girl é a primeira novela de Paolo Bacigalupi, o autor de Pump Six and Other Stories. Neste livro retorna-se ao mesmo mundo de duas das suas histórias premiadas, The Calorie Man e Yellow Card Man. O resumo é simples e directo:

What Happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits? And what happens when said bio-terrorism forces humanity to the cusp of post-human evolution?