Ainda que, nos últimos meses, tenham sido lançados alguns livros interessantes, a verdade é que várias editoras preparam uma reentrée em grande, com vários lançamentos sonantes. Daggerbound é um dos próximos lançamentos de T. Kingfisher, anunciado para os últimos dias de Agosto. Desconhecia até recentemente, mas a duologia Swordheart / Daggerbound decorre no mesmo Universo que a série Saint of Steel e Clocktaur war. Assim que descobri, peguei no primeiro de Clocktaur war, já que espero ansiosamente pelo próximo volume da série Saint of Steel (teoricamente serão sete volumes, dos quais foram lançados quatro, mas o lançamento do quinto não está entre os anunciados até 2027). Claro que este Daggerbound será adquirido rapidamente, mesmo que só lido depois de Clocktaur War.

Daggerbound não será o único livro de T. Kingfisher a ser lançados nas próximas semanas, com Baldur’s Gate previsto para o final do mês. A história parece ambientada no Universo D&D, centrando-se em Astarion. Seguindo a informação existente sobre o RPG, Astarion seria um magistrado que foi capturado e transformado em escravo por um senhor vampiro sádico que em Baldur’s Gate é infectado por um parasita dos devoradores da mente. Nesta aventura Astarion liberta-se, desenvolvendo-se uma aventura na cidade de Baldur’s Gate, centro de comércio e intrigas.

Tendo adorado The Terraformers e Automatic Noodle, os livros da autora entram automaticamente no meu radar de possíveis aquisições. A premissa é peculiar, centrando-se num alienígena com a capacidade de se transformar

Gardenpath is a graduate student in biology who desperately wants to pass their exams with the highest honor possible: a prize given to scholars who discover something truly novel in the universe. Gardenpath also happens to be an amoeba-a slime mold, to be exact-from an ancient civilization that dwells in a vast network of towers between the stars. Seeking their prize, Gardenpath heads to a remote, dangerous planet that other researchers have dismissed as dead and uninteresting. There, they are surprised to discover a complicated ecosystem unlike anything they’ve ever encountered-including some peculiar, multicellular animals who seem to have language and culture.

To learn more about these animals, Gardenpath changes their shape to resemble one of them. And that’s how they meet a creature named Murtis, who lives in a city she calls Pompeii and works in a brothel known to locals as “the lupanar.” Unfazed by a visitor who says she’s from the stars, Murtis takes Gardenpath into her care, introducing her to the seaside tourist town full of immigrants and shopkeepers who are just trying to get by.
A Wall Is Also a Road is a story about what happens when the alien becomes familiar-and beloved. Gardenpath expected to finish their research, present their discovery, and take their place among the decorated scholars of the floating cities. But when they look at their wild new friend Murtis’s sensor bulb, attached to a bizarre electro-chemical control system, they begin to realize there’s more to life than academic achievement. They’re not sure what it is, but they’re going to use science to find out.

Premee Mohamed, a autora de The Butcher of the Forest ou de The Annual Migration of Clouds, tem previstos, também, dois lançamentos para os próximos meses: Wickhills e From the Library of Jurgen Leitner. Eis a sinopse de Wickhills:

In the dangerous magical city of Wickhills, a streetwise secret agent is tasked with protecting a foreign defector from his pursuers… even at the threat of war.

Looking after a defecting scientist should have been Vycol Ferec’s easiest mission. But now he’s on the run from the intelligence agency he works for, dodging a handler who might have gone rogue and relying on a secret patchwork of illicit resources and dodgy contacts. Turns out his defector might be carrying an apocalypse-level magical weapon — and protecting it requires Ferec and his team to go underground, literally. Down here, the rules are very different… and the tense peace between every city in the world will shatter unless Ferec can drag their darkest secrets into the light.

From the Library of Jurgen Leitner enquadra-se na série The Magnus Archives. Antes de ser uma série de livros, The Magnus Archives é um podcast de ficção de horror existencialista escrito por Jonathan Sims. Este livro lançado com a Premee Mohamed trate-se de uma prequela, pelo que suponho que possa ser lido de forma independente

In the winding, perilous corridors of Jurgen Leitner’s private library, you never know what you’ll find. A starving cookbook. An ancient scroll that casts cool, predatory breezes. A cloth-bound hardback that compels you to DIG, DIG, DIG, DIG. Free, these books are more than simply unnerving―they’re deadly. But the library keeps their dangers in check and their would-be readers safe. . . . Or so Leitner claims.

For two of his employees, the risks are worth it. Hugh Franklin, research assistant, has finally found a place he belongs, where his skill in translation is valued, even if his employer is a bit odd. Sebastian Everett, acquisition specialist, can indulge his arcane ambitions, even if it means pretending to care about Leitner’s mission. Though their tenures at the library were years apart, Hugh and Sebastian’s stories unfold in parallel, and their footsteps echo down the same eerie aisles, caught in a web spun long before either ever heard the name “Jurgen Leitner.” Will they find a way out . . . or will the library consume them before it’s too late?

Enter the library of an enigmatic collector, where occult books are guarded and researched at a fatal cost, with this uncanny eldritch horror novel from Nebula Award–winning author Premee Mohamed and The Magnus Archives’ Jonathan Sims.

O último dos destacados é As You Wake, Break the Shell, o próximo lançamento de Becky Chambers, um livro que não pertence às suas séries de Space Opera, mas que promete uma história aconchegante:

The stars are waiting for you. We hope you will come find us there. Told in alternating timelines, As You Wake, Break the Shell is a heartfelt and hopeful story from the award-winning writer of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, exploring what it means to be human and what it means to come together.

Life on Fortune is hard. The atmosphere is poisonous, the planet hardly fit for life. But for its inhabitants, it’s home. Pilot Cora suffers from a rare and dangerous condition, brought about by her bond with Colibri, the alien animal she pilots to quarry vital water for the colony. If Cora seeks treatment, she risks losing her license – and her connection to Colibri forever.

Then she meets Signy, a brilliant but reclusive botanist, whose bio-printed medicine is the only thing that can save her. But to do so, Signy must break the rules that govern their lives, risking her livelihood and the other colonists who rely on her for survival. As Cora and Signy navigate their balance of risk and trust, they are forced to confront what they owe to each other and to their community – and begin to question whether survival is enough . . .