When our eyes are on Jesus, there will always be reasons to rejoice.

Irrational fear and anxiety are among the many ways the enemy tries to shackle us. As believers, we serve the One true King. His ways, plans, and purposes for our lives will never be thwarted. We have to trust Him because He knows best.

Brian Daboll — true football guy

Original Fiction Parthenogenesis When their rental truck breaks down, two friends moving cross-country kill time by telling stories about the strange carving in front of the motel where they’re awaiting a mechanic .… Illustrated by Brian Britigan | Edited by Ellen Datlow By Stephen Graham Jones | Published on October 2, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share When their rental truck breaks down, two friends moving cross-country kill time by telling stories about the strange carving in front of the motel where they’re awaiting a mechanic . . . “It’s a bear, isn’t it?” Matty asks, his voice riding a ramp up. “That’s what they look like?” He’s talking about the ten-foot-tall wooden statue in front of the one-story motel in a town in western Colorado neither he nor Jac had planned on stopping in for a whole afternoon. The moving truck they rented had other ideas. For two hours now, after way too much coffee in the diner across the street, they’ve been sitting in the grassy shade of the motel, moving only when the sun melts a few degrees over, onto a hand, an elbow, the shoulders. “But bears don’t sit on their haunches and . . . howl like a wolf, do they?” Jac asks back, galloping her fingers on the ground in thought. Matty nods, considering this. The bear’s definitely in a wolf pose, its snout lifted to an imaginary moon. “Awoo-oo,” Jac adds, her head tilted back as well. The company they rented the truck from to move across the country is certain the mechanic they’ve contracted will be there in thirty minutes. And then thirty more minutes. Matty squints up at the statue as if checking for its wolfness, its bearness. “I mean, okay, if we’re being technical,” he finally says, shrugging as if reluctant to forge on, “then I guess wolf-bears also don’t really have actual elk antlers on their heads either, do they?” “Oh, so you want it to make sense,” Jac says, and punctuates this by pulling his blue Icee over. She shakes it to get the drinkable stuff under the straw and slurps deep, flirting with brain-freeze. She doesn’t clean the straw, either. Not because they’re together—they’re not, they promised not to ever mess things up that way—but because they’ve known each other since freshman year of high school, when Jac was selling handstamps for a club in the city, five dollars a pop, refundable if the stamp doesn’t get you in the door. The reason they’re driving a moving truck across the country together is that neither has enough to fill a truck, so it made sense to share. Jac was the one with the idea to move, just for a reset now that high school was ten years ago somehow, but Matty wasn’t hard to talk into it. Matty would rent a chair in whatever salon would have him, Jac would paralegal here and there, they’d each pay their separate rents, go on their dates with other people, and life would keep happening. Just, in a new place, now. With a different backdrop. But then, at the gas station a quarter-mile back, the moving truck had refused to start, even though they’d given it a tankful of premium. “If you want it to make sense,” Jac goes on, leaning back to really luxuriate in this, “then . . . here’s what happened.” The way she hits that last part hard, and the space she leaves after that, is part of their game. It’s an invitation into make-believe, to be anywhere but where they are. But she’s not sure Matty remembers, after all these years. “Is this back when people were stupid?” he dredges up, pitch-perfect. Jac smiles up into the sky, eyes closed, and nods. “It’s back when magic was real, yeah,” she says. “Same thing,” Matty says, lying onto the grass all at once and not undramatically. All they need are a couple of illicit cigarettes and they could be fourteen again. “When Sandra Gleason bought the motel out of receivership,” Jac leads off, talking slow at first to make it up just right, “she decided that the way to draw people in off the interstate was with local flavor. With art.” “Sculpture,” Matty says, playing along. “Someone from the last regime—” “‘Regime?’” Jac asks, sneaking a look over to him. “The previous owners who ran it into the ground,” Matty says, his tone lower because this is so obvious it’s practically beneath saying. “Go on,” Jac says all the same, hungry for the salacious details. “The previous motel dictators had a suggestion box, but they never checked it. Then Sandy—” “Sandra. She hates when people call her Sandy.” “Ms. Gleason, renovating, popped the back off that suggestion box and read how one couple from Ohio stood in line at the registration desk waiting their turn for ten minutes, and nearly left, disgusted.” “People from Ohio are historically impatient.” “But Ms. Gleason thought—” “She thought that sweet retired couple from Ohio wouldn’t have been so frustrated if there had been some invigorating art right outside the window that they could have studied while standing in line.” “Was it her brother who was a chainsaw artist?” Matty asks, leadingly, always trying to inject a piece into their stories that might stump Jac. “It was, it was,” she says, right in stride. “But ever since the inheritance squabble about which no Gleason will ever speak again, well . . .” “Say no more.” “So she solicited bids and pitches from local artists, like you do.” “Bringing in an out-of-towner would be bad for business.” “The first artist who answered the call was a retired welder who turned tractor parts into old-fashioned robots.” “‘Old-fashioned?’” Matty asks, reaching over for his Icee. Jac nudges it into his fingers for him. “Retro, like. What we imagined the future would be, back in 1950.” “Back when we were stupid, yes, yes,” Matty says. “But, while his bid was low enough, he couldn’t have a robot for the motel until the following summer, and Sandra was looking to open the doors for business again in two months, for ski season.” “So she widened the net, so to speak.” “The next bid was from a stoneworker—actually a reformed cheerleader who had started out carving Easter Island heads from foam blocks, for parade floats. But—” “She got hooked, imagining the bodies that would someday stand up from under those heads, dirt and roots falling away.” “The problem with her work, though, was that granite invites spray paint, and Sandra didn’t want to have to commit time every week to cleaning obscenities from her statue.” “Who would?” “She tells the third artist that something in keeping with the local fauna would be nice, wouldn’t it?” “And this isn’t Sumatra, so no tigers. It’s not Africa, meaning elephants were out. And it’s not South America—no peccaries.” “You mean capybara?” “Are they not the same thing?” “And,” Jac says, “what’s local to this altitude?” “Bears,” Matty says. “Bears and wolves. And that king of the jungle, the mighty elk.” “King of the forest,” Jac corrects, gently. “They agree on a price, a deadline, but . . .” Now her voice is riding that ramp up, leaving blank spaces for Matty to fill. “The beetles came,” Matty pulls right out of the ether, his voice dripping with sadness. “They were, um—they were Dutch elm hickory beetles. The ones that bore those crawly little open-top tunnels in trees, like tracing their circulatory system, or carving one out.” “Dutch elm hickory . . .” Jac repeats, pressing her lips together to keep from smiling. “Otherwise known as the fire beetle,” Matty says, sitting up all at once, his hands up before him, fingers spread with the danger these beetles portend. “So . . . the forest burned down?” Jac asks. “From the inside,” Matty whispers. “Fire beetles bore into the trunks of every tree they can, and the friction of their little legs moving forward generates enough heat that—that they start to glow with heat, like burners on a stove. It’s why they evolved that special ceramic belly armor.”“To keep their carapaces and thoraxes from burning.” “Is that really how you plural that?” “It is now,” Jac says, looking up the tall, tall statue. “What this beetle infestation meant to the third artist was that her precious wood supply was greatly reduced.” “It nearly tanked the stock market.” “So she only had one tree trunk with which to satisfy this order . . .” “But fulfill that order she did. A bear, a wolf, an elk.” Jac swipes the Icee away, shakes and slurps, then, bowing forward on her knees like a proper supplicant, careful to keep her face down, she ceremonially places the cup at the foot of the statue, splashing the last drink up on its inner calf. “Oh, great bearwolfelk,” she says. “Please accept this offering, and know that, in your presence, we weren’t the least bit bored or fidgety.” “And we’re from Virginia,” Matty says, on his knees beside her now, ceremonially holding his hands up in approximation of antlers, and raising his own mouth to simulate a long, mournful howl. Jac hip-checks him, he falls over laughing, and a mother pushing her stroller past hurries her step, which only makes Jac and Matty laugh more. They walk down to the gas station restroom one more time, meet at the ice fountain for the free refill the sign guarantees, and by dusk the mechanic’s showed up, done his grumbly thing, and then they’re making time again. Heading west, leaned over their headlights. At least until the state line, when the moving truck’s gauges ring the alarms. “No, no, c’mon,” Jac says, patting the dash like this is a good truck, a good truck. But it’s not. “This isn’t happening,” Matty says, shaking his phone like that can make it get a signal. But it is happening. The truck dies, the power steering and power brakes evaporate, and—it’s not an emergency, it’s just where they are—Jac directs the truck onto the shoulder, and up the first few yards of a runaway-truck ramp. The sand glitters in the headlights. Jac turns them off. “What was that about ‘back when people were stupid?’” Matty says. “Meaning?” “My idea to move across the country.” “And I’m the one who found this discount truck.” “But I’m—” A long, lonely howl interrupts, wending its way in from the great darkness out there. Jac and Matty make concerned, about-to-laugh eyes to each other, roll their windows up. “What now?” they ask at the same time. “Walk?” Matty tries, not hopefully. “Says the man who doesn’t have to think about the dangers of that at night,” Jac says. “You think they’re going to like my blue hair?” Matty asks. “They?” “Whoever lives out this far.” “This doesn’t feel like an adventure anymore,” Jac says, hugging the wheel to study the darkness before them. “We could sleep in back with the furniture,” Matty says with a noncommittal shrug, peering over to gauge whether this will fly or not. “And suffocate in the night,” Jac tags on. “Leave the door cracked.” “So a hook-handed maniac can paint the walls with our insides.” “Subject change, please.” “Maybe Sandy Gleason will come save us,” Jac says. “You mean ‘Sandra?’” Matty asks. “I’m saying it like that to get her goat,” Jac says, slumping back into her seat in defeat. “She’ll want to come give us what for. And maybe we hitch a ride after she chews us out.” “We can get a room at her motel.” “Where you check in, but you never—” “Don’t say it!” “I’m sure it’s a very nice motel,” Jac says, then spooks her voice down a gear. “But the boiler, it doesn’t run on wood, it runs on—” “Stop! Stop stop stop!” Jac’s shoulders hitch with laughter. She hits the top of Matty’s thigh with the side of her fist. “You’re so easy,” she tells him. “And you’re so mean,” he tells her back, albeit lovingly. “At least there’s all these stars, right?” Jac leans forward, squints into the darkness at all the flecks of light. “But it was cloudy, wasn’t it?” she says. “It even sprinkled on us back there, didn’t it?” It did. It’s how they found out the wipers on the truck were worse than not having wipers at all. “Clouds blow away,” Matty says, talking himself into it. He flourishes his arm over the dash, presenting all the stars out there for proof. “But stars are white . . .” Jac says, popping her door open. The dome light comes on and she nuzzles her toe into the hinge, finds the button, lets the darkness shroud over them again. She’s right about these thousand points of light: they’re . . . flickering orange? “Close it, close it, please,” Matty says. She looks over to be sure he’s serious, then—slowly—she does. The deep clap of the door resounds. “Fire beetles . . .” she says. Matty’s back is straight against the seat, his feet are pressed hard to the floor, his hands are balled into fists, and his eyes are closed against this. In sympathy, Jac clicks the locks. Two hours later, her phone dead, Matty’s barely holding on, they make a pee pact. It means they’ll go out together to do it, but while each one’s peeing, the other will keep his or her hand on the pee-er’s shoulder. Their shoes crunching through the sand is deafening, but the blanket of pine needles farther out in the darkness, wet from the rain, are worse—not loud, but the kind of squishy it’s hard to trust. “Sing, sing, something loud,” Jac says, squatting, Matty’s hand clamped tight to her shoulder. Matty sings the fight song from their high school. It’s the only thing he can think of. For his turn, Jac sings it just the same, to drown out first the long sound of nothing, then the sound of trickling, then splashing. Then nothing—Matty’s pinched it off. “What?” Jac says. “Another song?” “Did you hear that? A . . . I don’t know. A huffing.” “Huffing?” “What huffs?” “Your imagination,” Jac says, and starts to turn to him, realizes his fly’s still open. “Sing, sing!” Matty commands. She does, he finishes, but then, because there are no sinks, less soap, they discover they don’t really want to hold hands for the walk back to the dark monolith the truck’s become, against the flickering orange stars crawling through the trees. Back in the cab of the truck, which is a slow process at first, then a desperate rush, like diving into bed fast enough to beat the light you just turned out, Jac says, “Whoah.” “Whoa what?” Matty says. Jac directs his eyes down to where she can’t stop looking: the console between the seats. A full blue Icee is there. Matty flinches away, presses himself against his door so hard that Jac locks it from her side, so he won’t spill out. “This is wrong, this is bad,” Matty’s saying. “Somebody else was in here,” Jac says, in wonder. Then, dragging a finger line in the condensation beading on the clear cup, she adds, “That sign did say free refills, though, didn’t it? Maybe they take customers very seriously out here, where there’s hardly any customers. You have to really impress the few there are.” “I can’t do this anymore,” Matty says. “The couch?” Jac asks. When Matty’s finally able to pull his eyes from the Icee, she tilts her head to the back of the truck. Matty nods. “Wait, wait,” he says though, when they both open their doors. “We can’t—if we both get down to go back there, then we’re alone on either side of the truck, aren’t we?” Jac nods, following his logic. “And how do you know I’m me when we meet?” he says. “Because you will be.” “Will you?” Jac peers into the darkness on her side of the truck. The stars out there are scrawling lava trails into the trees. “Okay, yes,” she says, and, careful not to dislodge the volcano lid of the Icee in the cupholder, she spiders her way over to Matty’s side of the truck. She’s practically sitting in his lap. “On three,” Matty says, and pops his door handle. When the door doesn’t open, he scrabbles desperately at it, a forlorn noise in his throat, burbling past his lips. “Here, wait,” Jac says, and reaches across the console for the ignition key, still in its place on the steering column. She presses the fob and the door locks clunk open along with the door, spilling them out in a pile. They come up spitting sand, looking every direction at once. “When people were stupid . . .” Jac says again, their chorus for the night, now. “And not liking this even a little,” Matty adds. Jac stands, moving to heave the door shut, except suddenly Matty’s hand is there, stopping her. “Too loud,” he says. “There might be ears out there. Connected to eyes. And mouths.” “Paranoid much?” Jac asks. “It’s called survival instinct.” Holding hands now, who cares about bathroom germs, they skirt the side of the truck, keeping their back to it, and then, remembering the padlock too late, they have to make their way back to the cab, for the key in the glove box. “My heart can’t take this,” Matty says. Jac squeezes his hand tighter, to keep him from exploding up out of his skin. As quietly as they can, they twist the key in the padlock. Jac works the grimy strap at the bottom of the door out. The problem now is how to pull this loud, loud door up. “They can’t be out there like that,” Matty says, about the stars. About the fire beetles. “That Icee shouldn’t be cold like that,” Jac says. “It shouldn’t be there at all,” Matty says, cranking his head around all at once, like to catch something trying to hide behind them. “What?” Jac asks, looking as well. “I’m going to open it now,” Matty says like talking himself into it, then pulls up on the strap all at once, yanking until the springs or counterweights or whatever take the door and rattle it up all at once in a rush like thunder made of great thin sheets of metal. “Announce us, why don’t you,” Jac says. “They’re not real,” Matty says. “Fire beetles.” Inside the truck’s cargo box, it’s inky black. Velvet-black. No stars. “Back when people were stupid . . .” Matty says again, squeezing Jac’s hand hard now. “This is smart, this is safe,” Jac says, and palms her phone to light this interior space up. But of course her phone’s dead. And Matty’s is up in the cab. “What’s that?” Matty says. Their eyes are adjusting, slightly. Inside, there’s something tall, regal, pointed, and . . . woody? “Can’t be,” Jac says. But she’s not stepping forward. Behind them on the interstate, a truck whines around the corner of this long downhill. When its lights line up with Jac and Matty, it makes their shadows plunge into the cargo box of the truck, which feels for a moment like a mistake, like their shadows are going to stick in there, and then snap Jac and Matty in with them. But the headlights also reveal, for a split instant, Matty’s coatrack. The one his granddad made for his grandma, seventy years ago. His one family heirloom. He finally breathes, shakes his head. “I don’t think we’ll suffocate,” Jac says, and, using the handrail, steps up onto the wide rear bumper. She holds her hand back to pull Matty up. He lets her, and they balance there for a moment, not outside, not quite inside. “I’m not going to be able to sleep,” Matty says. “Sleep is for beds,” Jac says. “Tonight’s about standing guard.” Together, they step in, the truck’s springs creaking, adjusting to their slight weight. Then those springs adjust more. A lot more. Enough that Jac and Matty have to balance with their arms, their fingertips trying to find a wall. As one, they look back to what could be so heavy. Silhouetted in the wide doorway against a backdrop of a thousand tiny, crawling campfires, is a bear standing up on two legs, a bear with a long wolfy snout. A bear with a wide rack of elk antlers. Instead of making sense—of being this or that or the other, not all three at once—it reaches up for the dirty strap at the bottom of the door and pulls it down hard in front of itself. Matty and Jac fall back onto the couch. They’re clutching onto each other. They’re breathing too fast, too deep. “That wasn’t—” Matty says. “Couldn’t have been,” Jac assures him. Which is when a hand from behind the couch claps down onto Matty’s left shoulder. Another settles onto Jac’s right shoulder. They flinch and wriggle away. From the metal floor in front of the couch, they look up. It’s a woman. She’s wearing a flannel shirt, jeans, and has her hair up under a scarf, reading glasses hanging around her neck. She’s staring down at Jac and Matty, her eyes intense, like she’s trying to catalog them, make sense of them. “Sandy Gleason?” Jac has no choice but to say. “Sandra,” Sandra Gleason corrects, her delivery getting across how tired she is of having to make this distinction. “No, no, we were only—” Matty says. “You’re not real,” Jac says. Insists. “Real, not real,” Sandra Gleason says, stepping neatly over the couch and plopping down, then cocking an appreciative eye at the door when the padlock out there clicks shut. “Is that really a big concern out here in the darkness, you think?” Jac blurts out, “We’re sorry, we didn’t mean—” “We were just having fun!” Matty finishes. “Me too,” Sandra Gleason says, and angles over to reach behind the couch for something, still speaking: “I should tell you, though. My brother and I, we finally reconciled—did you not get to that part? Oh, yes, yes. He even lets me use this, now.” What she hauls up, sets on her lap like the trusty thing it is, is a toothy chainsaw. Matty and Jac kick hard away from this, into the door, one of them yipping, one groaning, both of their dreams of a new backdrop for their lives screaming away when that chainsaw rips to life, not stopping to sputter, just instantly revving higher and higher. Up in the cab, from the shaking of the truck, a clump of the drops perched on the clear side of the Icee pool together, are now heavy enough to zigzag down the side of the cup, eating up more and more condensation on the way, until it’s less tears crying, more just wetness tinged berry blue. Outside the truck, the stars in the trees scribing orange lines in the night, spelling out words no one will read, the silhouette of a bear that’s a wolf with elk antlers looks up from the tuft of grass it’s tugging on with its mouth, and when the round tip of that furious chainsaw chews through the side of the cargo box for about six inches, this bear cocks its elk ears, twitches its wolf nose, its great antlers cocked at an inquisitive angle, but when the blade sucks back in, this creature with the heart of a fairy tale goes back to pulling at the stubborn grass. It’s not easy with sharp teeth, but it’s got all night, doesn’t it? Unlike—the little two-stroke engine in there chugging down now, from the deep work the blade’s doing—unlike Jac and Matty, who, if they’re lucky, will find themselves carved into a piece of art to keep those pesky Ohioans out of the suggestion box. “Parthenogenesis” copyright © 2024 by Stephen Graham JonesArt copyright © 2024 by Brian Britigan Buy the Book Parthenogenesis Stephen Graham Jones Buy Book Parthenogenesis Stephen Graham Jones Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget The post Parthenogenesis appeared first on Reactor.

Books book review Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud Is the Beginning of a Genre-Defying Journey A review of Nathan Ballingrud’s new horror novel. By Martin Cahill | Published on October 2, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Crypt of the Moon Spider does more in its first page than some books do in their entire first acts. Nathan Ballingrud is an author with many admirers for many reasons; whether you love his work already or are just hearing of him, his newest novella (the first in a planned trilogy) will draw you in like a helpless fly on a silk strand all the same. In a single page, you learn all you need to lose yourself to this haunted lunar tale. It is the early 20th century, Veronica has been experiencing several mental health maladies, and today is the day her husband takes her to the moon to be quote-unquote fixed. And she cannot rip her eyes from what she sees below, on a celestial body she has been in love with all her life. A wide, dark-green forest of silence and shadows awaits on the pitted surface of the moon, where the institute of Dr. Cull lies in wait, a proclaimed genius who has created a home for the ill of mind to come and be healed. The forest used to hold a massive spider, whose webs stretched across the lunar canopy, but they’re no more; the last of them died a long time ago. Veronica is enchanted by the stories of this last spider, this wondrous place, and firmly believes that if she embraces this opportunity, Dr. Cull will remove the dark and sad thoughts from her and make her whole. Dr. Cull promises upon first meeting her that not only will he excise that darkness from her mind, he will replace it with something better: spider silk from that long-dead moon spider which, he promises, will fix everything. From these first few pages, the reader has been positioned as much as Veronica has; on the threshold of mystery, horror, and hope, Veronica and the reader both are taken somewhere stranger and more horrifying than anyone could have predicted. Veronica is a compelling character and fits the role of gothic protagonist perfectly: enough trepidation to worry and be cautious, enough hope to continue to persist, each step forward faltering, but complete, and enough curiosity to peer into shadows for far longer than warned. Her presence on the moon in the care of Dr. Cull and his right-hand man, a massive, quiet, and violent man she names Grub, is both lonely and frightening. The addition of Dr. Cull’s medical assistant doesn’t help either, being a secretive and silent member of the Alabaster Scholars, a cult dedicated to the dead spider and obsessed with understanding the mysteries of their webs. As Veronica undergoes her treatment, Ballingrud twists the surgical knife against the page, until he has not so much let the light in, as he has bid the darkness to leak out. As we come to learn the secret behind Dr. Cull’s treatments, the brutal history inside Grub, and the violent pressure building in the heart of the moon, Ballingrud conducts his orchestra of terror with absolute confidence and aplomb. I say it often of Ballingrud’s work, but my God, it’s a gift to watch a master at work, and this story is made of such graceful horror.  Buy the Book Crypt of the Moon Spider Nathan Ballingrud Buy Book Crypt of the Moon Spider Nathan Ballingrud Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget There is some bricklaying, as Ballingrud is very clear about this being the first in a planned trilogy. As we rocket toward the end, you might wonder at this character or that fade-to-black. You may even have a curiosity about a sudden departure in narrative as we spend time in the mind of Grub for a while before learning the ultimate fate of Veronica. But fear not; there is reason in the shift, and a quick preview of the next installment, Cathedral of the Drowned (isn’t this guy great at titles!) quickly illustrates just what kind of story Ballingrud is building here.  But fear not, friends, for every mystery Ballingrud leaves dangling before readers like muscle fibers loosened from a severed arm, he never loses sight of Veronica’s journey, which ultimately brings her into the bowels of the moon itself. Ballingrud has such a grip on the emotional pulses of his world and characters, and yet his touch is light; quietly and subtly is how he best weaves his web, as strands of sorrow, loneliness, loss, and transformation touch Veronica and begin to hold her fast. Like any of those who find themselves in the middle of a tale of horror, she realizes too late at her fate. However, this is Nathan Ballingrud. Endings are not always endings pure, but rather a glimpse into some strange and beautiful new beginning. Veronica is one of many in this institute who has come seeking help, a return to who she was; she may find, as we see in Ballingrud’s expert hands, there is no going back. If there is to be life, if there is to be freedom, it must be found in embracing change. What kind of change, you will have to read to find out. It only makes me more eager to see him pick up these story strands once more and keep weaving.  If you’re not reading the work of Nathan Ballingrud, Crypt of the Moon Spider is a perfect place to begin. Effortlessly pirouetting through and across genres, gathering pulp and gothic and horror and science fiction, and yes, even some noir, this first novella of a planned trilogy only makes me hungry for whatever comes next. Again, Ballingrud has outdone himself in the crafting of horror and humanity, the emotions resonating between people and monsters, and the struggle to resist the alien until we see it for the mirror it can be. I’ll do my best to be patient for this next installment; should I need inspiration, I will look at any web nearby, and ponder those beautiful forests on a moon only a story away.[end-mark] Crypt of the Moon Spider is published by Nightfire. The post <i>Crypt of the Moon Spider</i> by Nathan Ballingrud Is the Beginning of a Genre-Defying Journey appeared first on Reactor.

Books new releases All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in October 2024 October’s new science fiction releases feature ace pilots, astrophysicists, and, yes, a space-faring cat named Pumpkin! By Reactor | Published on October 2, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Here’s the full list of new science fiction titles heading your way in October! Keep track of all the new SFF releases here. All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher. Release dates are subject to change. October 1 The Last Gifts of the Universe — Riley August (Hanover Square)When the Home worlds finally achieved the technology to venture out into the stars, they found a graveyard of dead civilisations. What befell them is unknown. All Home knows is that they are the last ones left—and whatever came for the others will one day come for them. Scout is an Archivist who scours the dead worlds of the cosmos for their last gifts: interesting technology, cultural rituals—anything left behind that might be useful to Home and their survival. During an excavation on a lifeless planet, Scout unearths something unbelievable: a surviving message from an alien who witnessed the world-ending entity thousands of years ago. Now Scout, their brother and their sometimes-fearless, space-faring cat, Pumpkin, must race to save what matters most. 1635: The Weaver’s Code — Eric Flint, Jody Lynn Nye (Baen)A young gentlewoman, Margaret de Beauchamp, finds her fate twisted into the lives of the up-timers when she meets the Americans imprisoned in the Tower of London. In exchange for her help, Rita Simpson and Harry Lefferts give her a huge sum of money to keep her family’s manor and its woolen trade from falling into the hands of the crown and its unscrupulous minister, Lord Cork. But Margaret’s troubles are not at an end. Her family’s fortunes are in a downward spiral. Her trip to Grantville brings unexpected dangers and a possible up-time solution. Inspired by books in the Grantville library, Margaret has an idea to restore her family’s fortunes with an innovation never before seen in fabric design. With the help of Aaron Craig, an up-timer programmer using aqualators, water-powered computers, they teach her father’s craftsmen to create a combination machine loom that can produce a new type of woolen cloth. The ornate and perfect patterns quickly trend among the nobility. However, the Master Weavers of the county’s Weaver’s Guild aren’t happy about being overshadowed by the changes to the status quo, and take their grievance to Lord Cork, who is still looking for the people who helped the Americans escape from the Tower. Cork isn’t interested in squabbles between mere tradesmen, but he is very interested in taking over the new calculating machine that is fueling the upsurge in the de Beauchamp fortunes. He sends agents ordered to stop at nothing to secure it for his own ends. Margaret has to protect her new business, and prevent anyone from discovering that up-timers are in the country to assist her, but she still has to deal with an uprising at home. Freelancers of Neptune (Sol Blazers #1) — Jacob Holo (Baen)The Solar System ain’t what it used to be! In the far distant future, Saturn’s rings are gone, Mercury is a gas giant, and Earth is remembered only as a unit of measure. Nearly godlike AIs reshaped the Solar System in eons past, but they too are now nothing more than a fading memory. Captain Nathaniel Kade cares for none of that. He’s but a simple freelancer from the orbital ring of Neptune, struggling to make ends meet and to keep his understaffed spaceship from falling apart. All he wants is a decent, uneventful job to help put his finances back in order. What he receives instead is Vessani S’Kaari, a mysterious and beautiful cat girl who tried—and failed—to steal a ship belonging to a band of space pirates. Vessani’s in over her head and is clearly more trouble than she’s worth, but she also has a lead on what may be the greatest treasure trove of lost technology the Solar System has ever seen. Nathan pulls her butt out of the fire, and together they begin to assemble a team to seek out this long-lost bounty. But other interested parties have their eyes on the same prize; the Jovian Everlife has dispatched a fleet of warships with one of their elite, many-bodied agents in command, and he’d like a few words with Nathan and his new crewmember. October 8 Dark Space — Rob Hart, Alex Segura (Blackstone)If life were fair, ace pilot Jose Carriles should have ended up a desk jockey like his former friend Corin Timony, back on the lunar colony of New Destiny. Instead, he’s the pilot of the Mosaic—a massive ship taking the Interstellar Union’s first-ever mission to outside our solar system. Timony should have been the best spy at the Bazaar, the lunar colony’s international intelligence arm. Instead, she’s been demoted to admin duties like monitoring long-range communications. She has no one to blame but herself—and maybe Carriles. But when the Mosaic experiences a series of strange malfunctions and Carriles is forced to take a wild gamble to save the ship, he begins to suspect the reasons behind the exploratory mission weren’t exactly on the up and up. At the same time, Timony’s old instincts kick in as she realizes the distress call she received from the Mosaic has been wiped without a trace. As people start to end up dead and loyalties are tested, Timony and Carriles find themselves entangled in a star-spanning conspiracy that drags them through the darkest corners of their government—and their own personal failures—and face-to-face with a reckoning that could destroy humanity as we know it. October 15 Alliance Unbound (Hinder Stars #2) — C. J. Cherryh, Jane S. Fancher (DAW)When Cyteen opened up faster-than-light travel, it gave the technology for free to any ship that could reach it; and with that technology, it provided a map of jump-points, points of mass enabling starships to navigate hyperspace safely. The map of jump-points, however, stopped with the route to Alpha—thus excluding Sol, and Earth, and the Earth Company, whose gateway to the stars was Alpha. Cyteen knew exactly what it was doing with its gift. Sol and the EC could still reach Alpha with sub-light pusher-ships as it always had—but Sol and the Earth Company no longer had any authority in the Beyond. But Sol intends to take back control of its star-stations and stop Cyteen’s unbridled expansion, however it can. To do that, they are willing to starve Alpha and concentrate their efforts on a huge FTLer capable of carrying military force. On Vicious Worlds (Kindom #2) — Bethany Jacobs (Orbit)The Jeveni have found a fragile sense of peace on the ice planet of Capamame, far from the Kindom’s domineering control. There, Jun Ironway and Masar Hawks are tasked with the impossible: protecting their colony from a faceless saboteur who is hell-bent on spreading mayhem and murder through the colony. Meanwhile, stoic Cleric Chono and Six, the wild manipulator responsible for outwitting the Nightfoot family, struggle to stay one step ahead of their enemies. A collision is on the horizon. One that could ignite the spark of revolution. And over it all hangs the cruel legacy of Esek Nightfoot. A legacy that may prove impossible to escape. October 22 Absolution (Southern Reach) — Jeff Vandermeer (MCD)When the Southern Reach trilogy was first published a decade ago, it was an instant sensation, celebrated in a front-page New York Times story before publication, hailed by Stephen King and many others. Each volume climbed the bestseller list; awards were won; the books made the rare transition from paperback original to hardcover; the movie adaptation became a cult classic. All told, the trilogy has sold more than a million copies and has secured its place in the pantheon of twenty-first-century literature. And yet for all this, for Jeff VanderMeer there was never full closure to the story of Area X. There were a few mysteries that had gone unsolved, some key points of view never aired. There were stories left to tell. There remained questions about who had been complicit in creating the conditions for Area X to take hold; the story of the first mission into the Forgotten Coast—before Area X was called Area X—had never been fully told; and what if someone had foreseen the world after Acceptance? How crazy would they seem? October 29 Nether Station — Kevin J. Anderson (Blackstone)Space is vast. Space is full of wonders. Space is terrifying. In the darkest part of the solar system lies a wormhole. Nether. Astrophysicist Cammie Skoura has joined a research team up to the Nether anomaly—the first team to investigate it in person—to understand the mechanics of the wormhole, and to explore its possibilities as a shortcut to Alpha Centauri. But another race of ancient beings has already been here, an impossibly long time ago, leaving remnants of their vast complexes and the gigantic temples they built to horrific beings beyond comprehension. What dangers did those elder races find in the hidden corners of spacetime? What did they unleash? And what remains? Now, Cammie and the crew of Nether Station must find the answers—before the darkest part of the cosmos swallows them up. Usurpation (Semiosis #3) — Sue Burke (Tor Books)Stevland, the dominant sentient lifeform of Pax, has clandestinely sent some of its progeny to Earth. To explore, to spread, to report back. Since their germination, Earth has been a powder keg. Human rebellion, robot uprisings, and global pandemics have created chaos, distrust, and deaths. As more and more conflicts break out across Earth, Stevland’s children work in the background, in an attempt to control human behavior and perhaps, bring peace to the planet. Stevland took control of Pax. Earth shouldn’t be too difficult. The post All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in October 2024 appeared first on Reactor.

Books book review Anton Hur Asks Existential Questions in Toward Eternity A review of Anton Hur’s new science fiction novel. By Maura Krause | Published on October 3, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Speculative fiction is no stranger to existential inquiry. I most often observe such themes emerging organically, a philosophical haze rising from an invented landscape. Yet then there are also books like Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, or to give an older and stranger example, Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End. I would argue that those novels are constructed around a core of questions, establishing their explorations of humanity and technology as narrative backbones. Celebrated translator Anton Hur’s Toward Eternity joins this company, offering its readers a centuries-spanning world and a series of narrators bound together by expansive meditations on selfhood, art, and language. What is the relationship between body and soul? Are our personalities simply amalgamations of our memories, or is there another indefinable piece that makes us? Is love a strong enough force that it can exert itself separately from the lover and beloved? Where does art originate—inside a human consciousness, or in the fabric of the universe itself? How does experiencing art shape one’s self? Is language central to the formation of self-awareness and individuality?  These are only some of the questions Hur poses in his debut novel. It would be impossible to list all of them, which reflects the fact that Toward Eternity also defies easy summary. The tale is told by many voices, the conceit being that the book is the handwritten contents of a notebook begun by Dr. Mali Beeko, and continued by each narrator in succession. In a society where a person can “transition” out of their failing human body to one made entirely of nanites, the physical nature of Hur’s framing device becomes an anchor for the characters as well as a thematic vessel for questions around authenticity, historical record, and language preservation.  Buy the Book Toward Eternity Anton Hur Buy Book Toward Eternity Anton Hur Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget While Hur delves into much more distant possibilities as his story progresses, the first third of his novel takes place in an almost recognizable era; indeed, the section is titled “Part 1: The Near Future.” Bringing to mind recent news regarding the successful implantation of Neuralink’s computer-brain interfaces, our first round of characters are involved in the groundbreaking discovery of nanite therapy and its ensuing clinical trials. The aforementioned Dr. Mali Beeko is the child of Dr. Nomfundo Beeko, who invented a way of giving terminally ill patients nanodroid bodies, rendering them not only healthy but immortal. Toward Eternity’s inciting incident is the disappearance of Patient One, Yonghun Han, the first person to successfully receive such nanite therapy. The police and Mali are baffled, but then Yonghun inexplicably returns. He steals the notebook Mali began writing in to process Patient One’s potential ‘rapture’, and records that he does not believe he is the real Yonghun Han. Despite having all of Yonghun’s “memories, his personality, his habits, and everything that one might construe as ‘him’”, the writer feels he is only a channel for language and emotion emanating from the love Yonghun and his husband Prasert felt for each other.  After this version of Yonghun has recorded what he finds necessary, he passes the notebook to Patient Two, a famed cellist named Ellen who begins to see copies of herself everywhere. The next archivist is Panit, an AI who was part of Yonghun’s research, and grew into sentience from consuming and analyzing poetry. Panit is also given a nanodroid body, and his lonely but embodied immortality takes us into “Part 2: The Future.” In both this section and the next, a mega-corporation named JANUS threatens humanity as we know it. JANUS, you see, is run by AI—for efficiency’s sake.  As an all-powerful evil AI suggests, Toward Eternity employs many standard elements of the genre in its second half. Hur is exploring why we return again and again to ideas of AI warfare, clones, a last bastion of humanity, an uninhabitable earth. Though of course the novel offers no answer, it does underscore the way art echoes throughout centuries, gaining a life of its own as it is re-read, re-spoken, re-heard. As (the real) Yonghun claims early on: “Poets are artists who write selves into being. […] When one reads the poem, one becomes that self.”I could keep listing characters and events, but that wouldn’t capture the true texture of a novel that feels like a large-scale reflection more than anything else. As a later character asserts, “languages contain more than primary meaning.” Hur’s writing is rife with metaphor and implication, so his creations become inert when stripped from their context. The philosophical undergirding of Toward Eternity is what animates it, and readers looking for such a heady experience will find plenty to delve into within its pages.[end-mark] Toward Eternity is published by HarperVia. The post Anton Hur Asks Existential Questions in <i>Toward Eternity</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Books new releases All the New Young Adult SFF Books Arriving in October 2024 Soldiers, princes, alchemists and thieves all make appearances in October’s new young adult titles… By Reactor | Published on October 3, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Here’s the full list of new young adult SFF titles heading your way in October! Keep track of all the new SFF releases here. All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher. Release dates are subject to change. October 1 Killer House Party — Lily Anderson (Henry Holt & Co. Books for Young Readers)Red Solo cups? Check. Snacks? Check. Abandoned mansion full of countless horrors that won’t let you leave? Check. The Deinhart Manor has been a looming shadow over town for as long as anyone can remember, and it’s been abandoned for even longer. When the final Deinhart descendent passes, the huge gothic manor is up for sale for the first time ever. Which means Arden can steal the keys from her mom’s real estate office… It’s time for a graduation party that no one will ever forget. Arden and her friends each have different reasons for wanting to throw the party to end all parties. But when the manor doors bar everyone inside and the walls begin to bleed, all anyone wants to do is make it out alive. The Kiss of the Nightingale — Adi Denner (Tundra Books)1890, Lutèce: In this city, Talents are everything: precious gems that gift unrivalled skills to their owners. The most coveted, Elite Talents, are claimed by the aristocracy, passed through generations by blood magic.Cleodora dreamed of inheriting her father’s Tailoring Talent, but when he died, the magic died with him. Now she’s left with empty promises, a dress shop she can’t keep afloat, and her bed-ridden younger sister.But everything changes when she meets the dark-eyed Lady Dahlia Sibille. Dahlia offers Cleodora a Singing Talent—a chance to save her beloved sister and rewrite her own fate. From the first instant, Cleodora is bewitched… there’s just one catch: she needs to steal an Elite Talent from the prestigious Lenoir family.As Lutèce’s nightingale, Cleodora is the star of the opera’s galas and balls, worlds away from the darkness and dust of home. But the handsome yet infuriating Vicomte Lenoir is nothing like she expected.Soon, the Vicomte’s teasing smiles win her over, even as Dahlia’s seductive whispers linger in her ears. Torn between Dahlia, who gave her everything, and the Vicomte, who holds the price of her freedom, is Cleodora in danger of losing it all? Or can she prove that magic isn’t the only gift that counts? The Dagger and the Flame — Catherine Doyle (Margaret K. McElderry)In Fantome, a kingdom of cobbled streets, flickering lamplight, beautiful buildings, and secret catacombs, Shade-magic is a scarce and deadly commodity controlled by two enemy guilds: the Cloaks and the Daggers—the thieves and the assassins. On the night of her mother’s murder, eighteen-year-old Seraphine runs for her life. Seeking sanctuary with the Cloaks, Sera’s heart is set on revenge. But are her secret abilities a match for the dark-haired boy whose quicksilver eyes follow her around the city? Nothing can prepare Sera for the moment she finally comes face-to-face with Ransom, heir to the Order of Daggers. And Ransom is shocked to discover that this unassuming farm girl wields a strange and blazing magic he has never seen before. As the Cloaks and the Daggers grapple for control of Fantome’s underworld, Sera and Ransom are consumed by the push and pull of their magic… and the deadly spark and terrible vengeance that keeps drawing them back together. The Forbidden Book — Sacha Lamb (Levine Querido)On the night before her wedding, 17-year-old Sorel leaps from a window and runs away from her life. To keep from being discovered, she takes on the male identity of Isser Jacobs—but it soon becomes clear that there is a real Isser Jacobs, and people want him dead. Her mistaken identity takes Sorel into the dark underworld of her small city in the Pale of Settlement, where smugglers, forgers, and wicked angels fight for control of the Jewish community. In order to make it out, Sorel must discover who Isser Jacobs really is—and who she wants to be. The Dark Becomes Her — Judy I. Lin (Rick Riordan Presents)Ruby Chen has always played the part of the dutiful eldest daughter: excelling in school; excelling in piano lessons; excelling at keeping her younger sister, Tina, focused on extracurriculars meant to impress college admissions officers. But when a ghost from the spirit world attacks Ruby in the middle of Vancouver’s Chinatown neighborhood, her life is plunged into a darkness that no amount of duty can free her from. Overnight, Ruby’s sister seems to change. There are strange noises coming from her bedroom at all hours; and the once sweet, funny Tina has been replaced by something dark and unnatural. As Ruby races to save her sister from demonic possession, she is thrown into an ancient battle over the gateway to the underworld. On one side, a sinister traveling temple known for making dark wishes come true has returned to Chinatown after many years—intent on breaking down the gateway and unleashing the wickedness within. On the other side, the guardians determined to stop this encroaching evil. And in order to survive, Ruby must not only face the horror taking over her community, but must also confront the horror within herself. Chinese and Taiwanese mythology get the Junji Ito treatment in this bone-chilling, propulsive story that takes the horrors of the Asian diaspora experience to a whole new level. The Wild Huntress — Emily Lloyd-Jones (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)Every five years, two kingdoms take part in a Wild Hunt. Joining is a bloody risk, and even the most qualified hunters can suffer the deadliest fates. Still, hundreds gamble their lives to participate—all vying for the Hunt’s life-changing prize: a magical wish granted by the Otherking. Branwen possesses a gift no other human has: the ability to see and slay monsters. She’s desperate to cure her mother’s sickness, and the Wild Hunt is her only option. Gwydion is the least impressive of his magically talented family, but with his ability to control plants and his sleight of hand, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep his cruel older brother from becoming a tyrant. Pryderi is prince-born and monster-raised. Deep down, the royal crown doesn’t interest him—all he wants is to know where he belongs. A trickster, a prince, and a wild huntress—all in pursuit of the Champion’s prize. If they band together against the monstrous creatures within the woods, they have a chance to win. But nothing is guaranteed. After all, all are fair game in love and the Hunt. The Fate of Magic (Witch and Hunter #2) — Sara Raasch, Beth Revis (Sourcebooks Fire)Fritzi is a champion. After escaping the clutches of Dieter Kirch, the sadistic leader of the witch hunters, Fritzi and Otto have taken refuge among the witches of the Black Forest. Fritzi is finally ready to assume her place on the council as the coven’s goddess-chosen champion. Plagued by distrust and self-doubt, Fritzi throws herself into her duty to serve the goddesses… until she uncovers a powerful secret that could mean the very undoing of magic itself. Otto is a warrior. He swears himself to Fritzi as her bonded protector, certain the peaceful unity of a witch and hunter will heal the wounds he helped make. But as the horrifying plot that threatens the Black Forest’s magic comes to light, Otto will have to face his both his past and what it means to bind himself to a magic he does not fully understand. Shadows loom. Truths are revealed. And as dangers new and old arise, Fritzi and Otto must stand together against everything that threatens magic—even if the biggest threat might be the very bond they share. The Brightness Between Us (The Darkness Outside Us #2) — Eliot Schrefer (HarperCollins)Seventeen years have gone by since the Coordinated Endeavor crashed on a distant exoplanet. Ambrose Cusk and Kodiak Celius are now the devoted parents of two teenage children, Owl and Yarrow, in a hardscrabble frontier home. Though life on Minerva is full of danger, the family’s bond is enough to make it all worth it—until they learn that the biggest threat to their survival might come from within. More than thirty thousand years in the past, Ambrose wakes on Earth to find that his mission to save his sister was a ruse. His mother betrayed him, and the cruelty of her true plans sets Ambrose spiraling. When he discovers that another spacefarer is suffering his same fate, he will have to decide whether to risk crossing a world at war to reach him.  Separated by time and space, a young family and two strangers learn that their lives are intimately intertwined. They race to uncover the unexpected connections that might save them all . . . and perhaps humanity as well. Inheritance of Scars — Crystal Seitz (Margaret K. McElderry)Within Tiveden Forest, bloodthirsty monsters known as draugr lurk behind every tree, and secrets run through the soil like twisted roots. When her grandmother vanishes into the forest, Astrid won’t let Crohn’s disease get in the way of finding her. But in searching for her lost loved one, Astrid soon uncovers an even greater mystery: A conflict that’s haunted her village and family for generations. An ancient blood oath her ancestor made to protect them. A deadly draugr imprisoned for centuries…who Astrid accidentally awakens. Newly revived, Soren first mistakes Astrid for her ancestor, his ex-lover turned enemy. Astrid can’t tell if he would rather kill her or kiss her. But Soren knows the forest better than anyone, and Astrid quickly realizes that she’ll need his help to rescue her grandmother. The deeper they venture into Tiveden, the closer Astrid gets to the cold, alluring Soren and the truth behind her grandmother’s disappearance. To save her home, a dark ritual must be performed before Midwinter—and only Astrid can fulfill her ancestor’s blood oath… or break it. That is, if Soren—or the forest—doesn’t break Astrid first. Heir — Sabaa Tahir (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers)Growing up in the Kegari slums, AIZ has seen her share of suffering. An old tragedy fuels her need for vengeance, but it is love of her people that propels her. Until one hotheaded mistake lands her in an inescapable prison, where the embers of her wrath ignite. Banished from her people for an unforgivable crime, SIRSHA is a down-on-her-luck tracker who uses magic to trace her marks. Destitute, she agrees to hunt down a killer who has murdered children across the Martial Empire. All she has to do is carry out the job and get paid. But when a chance encounter leads to an unexpected attraction, Sirsha learns her mission might cost her far more than she’s willing to give up. QUIL is the crown prince of the Empire and nephew of a venerated empress, but he’s loath to take the throne when his aunt steps down. As the son of a reviled emperor, he, better than anyone, understands that power corrupts. When a vicious new enemy threatens the survival of the Empire, Quil must ask himself if he can rise above his tragic lineage and be the heir his people need. Gentlest of Wild Things — Sarah Underwood (HarperCollins)On the island of Zakynthos, nothing is more powerful than Desire—love itself, bottled and sold to the highest bidder by Leandros, a power-hungry descendant of the god Eros. Eirene and her beloved twin sister, Phoebe, have always managed to escape Desire’s thrall—until Leandros’s wife dies mysteriously and he sets his sights on Phoebe. Determined to keep her sister safe, Eirene strikes a bargain with Leandros: If she can complete the four elaborate tasks he sets her, he will find another bride. But it soon becomes clear that the tasks are part of something bigger; something related to Desire and Lamia, the strange, neglected daughter Leandros keeps locked away. Lamia knows her father hides her for her own protection, though as she and Eirene grow closer, she finds herself longing for the outside world. But the price of freedom is high, and with something deadly—something hungry—stalking the night, that price must be paid in blood. October 8 Fledgling: The Keeper’s Records of Revolution — S.K. Ali (Kokila)Would you trade love for peace? Raisa of Upper Earth has only lived a life of privilege and acquiescence. Ever dutiful, she accepts her father’s arrangement of her marriage to Lein, Crown Prince of the corrupt, volatile lands of Lower Earth. Though Lein is a stranger, Raisa knows the wedding will unite their vastly different worlds in a pact of peace: an infusion of Upper Earth technology will usher in the final age of enlightenment, ending war between humans forever. Or is justice more urgent? Newly released from imprisonment, Nada of Lower Earth has found her own calling: disrupting the royal wedding. Convinced her cousin Lein’s alliance with Upper Earth will launch an invasive, terrifying form of tyranny, Nada sets out undercover to light the spark of revolution. When Raisa goes missing a week before the wedding, all eyes turn to the rebels, including Nayf, Nada’s twin brother, a fugitive on the run. In Nayf and Raisa meeting, the long-simmering animosity between their worlds slowly burns away into something unexpected. But the Crown Prince wants his bride—and future—back. And he will go to the ends of the earths to reclaim them. Divine Mortals — Amanda Helander (Disney Hyperion)Blessed by the gods, Mona Arnett has the unique ability to divine soulmates, but she refuses to seek out her own—until she learns the king is dying without an heir, threatening the royal line and the world’s access to magic. Tasked with naming his future queen, Mona discovers the king’s soulmate is… her. A royal match is the last thing Mona wants—especially when she starts falling for the king’s closest advisor—so she lies, cheats, and contends with scheming gods to hide the truth. But when this high-stakes game of thrones leads to murder, survival and the fate of the kingdom will depend on her finding the courage to face her destiny. Red in Tooth and Claw — Lish McBride (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers)Faolan Kelly’s grandfather is dead. She’s alone in the world and suddenly homeless, all because the local powers that be don’t think a young man of sixteen is mature enough to take over his grandfather’s homestead… and that’s with them thinking Faolan is a young man. If she revealed that her grandfather had been disguising her for years, they would marry her off at the first opportunity. The mayor finds a solution that serves everyone but Faolan: He hires a gunslinger to ship her off to the Settlement, a remote fort where social outcasts live under the leadership of His Benevolence Gideon Dillard. It’s a place rife with mystery, kept afloat by suspicious wealth. Dillard’s absolute command over his staff just doesn’t seem right. And neither do the strange noises that keep Faolan up at night. When Faolan finds the body of a Settlement boarder, mangled by something that can’t possibly be human, it’s clear something vicious is stalking the palisades. And as Settlement boarders continue to drop like flies, Faolan knows she must escape to evade the creature’s wrath. The Art Thieves — Andrea L. Rogers (Levine Querido)It’s the year 2052. Stevie Henry is a Cherokee girl working at a museum in Texas, trying to save up enough money to go to college. The world around her is in a cycle of drought and superstorms, ice and fire… but people get by. But it’s about to get a whole lot worse. When a mysterious boy shows up at Stevie’s museum saying that he’s from the future—and telling her what is to come—she refuses to believe him. But soon she will have no choice. The Dividing Sky — Jill Tew (Joy Revolution)In 2460, eighteen-year-old Liv Newman dreams of a future beyond her lower-class life in the Metro. As a Proxy, she uses the neurochip in her brain to sell memories to wealthy clients. Maybe a few illegally, but money equals freedom. So when a customer offers her a ludicrous sum to go on an assignment in no-man’s-land, Liv accepts. Now she just has to survive. Rookie Forceman Adrian Rao believes in order over all. After discovering that a renegade Proxy’s shady dealings are messing with citizens’ brain chemistry, he vows to extinguish the threat. But when he tracks Liv down, there’s one problem: her memories are gone. Can Adrian bring himself to condemn her for crimes she doesn’t remember? As Liv and Adrian navigate the world beyond the Metro and their growing feelings for one another, they grapple with who they are, who they could be, and whether another way of living is possible. Zodiac Rising (Descendants of the Zodiac #1) — Katie Zhao (Random House Books for Young Readers)At a secret Manhattan boarding school, the Descendants of the Chinese zodiac have hidden away since the source of their magic—the twelve zodiac statues—was vandalized and lost to time. Thus, a curse befell the Descendants, and they’ve lived as creatures of darkness… until now. When the lost statues suddenly resurface and a powerful classmate is found dead, all signs point to foul play from the fae. The Descendants finally have the chance to take back what’s rightfully theirs and break the curse. To pull this deadly heist off, though, they must assemble an elite crew: THE VAMPIRE: After a century of burning hunger, Evangeline is out for blood. THE SHAPESHIFTER: Nicholas yearns to restore justice to his people—and make peace with his past. THE MORTAL: Alice seeks the truth of her mysterious heritage, and this mission may be the key. THE WEREWOLF: Tristan will do anything to break free from the monstrous wolf inside. Only these four have the power to save the Descendants, but the wrath of the fae waits at every turn. One wrong move and the fate of their kind will come crashing down. October 15 Inevitable Fate — Lindsay K. Bandy (CamCat)For seventeen years, Evan Kiernan’s life has felt like painting by someone else’s numbers, moving and transferring schools every time his mom has a breakup. But when he’s accepted into NYU’s Promising Young Artist program for his senior year, the future suddenly feels like a blank canvas. However, it soon becomes clear that the city has peculiar ties to his past. A thunderstorm finds him under the same umbrella as an eerily familiar green-eyed girl. A visit to an art gallery brings him face-to-face with a heavily tattooed portrait of himself. He sees things that aren’t there—at least not anymore. And the girl he’s falling in love with is somehow at the center of it all. When history suddenly points to a devastating future, Evan must race against time to figure out who is pulling the strings and change the green-eyed girl’s fate—a race he’s already lost twice. No Better Than Beasts — Z. R. Ellor (Roaring Brook Press)Nabik, a soldier, owes his loyalty to his elder brother Fydir, who lifted him and their sister, Drakne, from poverty. But when Fydir orders him to quell unrest among the city’s beastfolk, the magic Nabik had long buried begins to stir. A wintery voice urges Nabik to desert his post—and his brother’s watchful eye—to journey north into Kolznechia, a frozen, enchanted kingdom ruled by the mercurial Rat King. His power may hold the key to breaking an ancient curse and ending the Rat King’s terrible reign. Drakne will do whatever it takes to break free of Fydir. As Nabik follows all of their eldest brother’s commands, her best hope of escaping is to seek the protection of the Rat King. And the tyrant king has been looking for Drakne too. She has a gift that can help him find and kill the missing nutcracker prince, rightful heir to his stolen throne. When the nutcracker prince emerges, Nabik and Drakne take opposite sides of a centuries-old conflict—him to save a kingdom, her to save herself. Then Fydir marches into the growing war, hungry to claim power of his own, and if Nabik and Drakne can’t fix their broken bond, Kolznechia may be torn apart by tooth and claw. Legend of the White Snake — Sher Lee (Quill Tree Books)When Prince Xian was a boy, a white snake bit his mother and condemned her to a slow, painful death. The only known cure is an elusive spirit pearl—or an antidote created from the rare white snake itself. Desperate and determined, Xian travels to the city of Changle, where an oracle predicted he would find and capture a white snake. Seven years ago, Zhen, a white snake in the West Lake, consumed a coveted spirit pearl, which gave him special powers—including the ability to change into human form. In Changle, Xian encounters an enigmatic but beautiful stable boy named Zhen. The two are immediately drawn to each other, but Zhen soon realizes that he is the white snake Xian is hunting. As their feelings grow deeper, will the truth about Zhen’s identity tear them apart?  Sixteen Minutes — K.J. Reilly (Nancy Paulsen Books)Seventeen-year-old Nell knows two things for sure—she’s never going to get out of her rural, dead-end hometown of Clawson, NY and her best friend Stevie B and longtime boyfriend Cole are never going to leave her. That is until Charlotte, a new girl, arrives at their school and their lopsided friend triangle is turned on its axis. While Nell and Stevie B are certain that Charlotte isn’t who she says she is, Cole is caught fully in her thrall. There are secret calls and meetings between the two, and Nell knows Cole is keeping something big from her. Now, for the first time in their lives, Nell worries she could lose Cole. When Nell and Stevie B finally confront Cole and Charlotte, they learn the impossible—Charlotte is actually from the future, and for life altering reasons none of them could have imagined, she wants Cole to jump to the future with her, leaving Nell behind. It’s dangerous, it’s reckless, but Charlotte convinces them that it’s the only choice they have. The trio’s future has always seemed set—but with the knowledge that time travel is real, and with a multiverse of futures before them, they now have the option to live lives they could have only dreamed about. The only questions are, who will take the leap and who will be left behind? Prince of Fortune — Lisa Tirreno (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)Shy Prince Edmund will be a great king one day: it has been Seen again and again. With rare magic giving him dominion over the nation’s plants and weather, Edmund feels a great deal of pressure to live up to his nation’s many expectations, including making a perfect diplomatic alliance through marriage. That is, until he meets Lord Aubrey Ainsley. Charming, romantic, and politically insignificant, Aubrey is a Seer, but not even he could have predicted catching the eye of Edmund, the Prince of Fortune—nor that the anxious prince who talks to plants more than people could feel so right for him. Aubrey’s dream-visions have been full of battle, not love, but to say that Prince Edmund has captured his fancy would be a grand understatement. As the two become more and more intertwined, the nation of Saben falls under attack. War and dark sorcery loom on the horizon. To save their homeland, Edmund and Aubrey must resist the outside forces seeking to drive them apart and find the power within themselves to create a future for Saben—and each other—they never could have imagined. October 22 The Blood Orchid (Keeper of Night #2) — Kylie Lee Baker (HarperCollins)Since Zilan entered the world of royal alchemists, she has learned firsthand that alchemy comes at a price. She has lost her family and her beloved prince in her search for justice against the evil Empress. All Zilan wants now is to find some way to bring them back. Resurrection is her specialty, after all. In search of Penglai Island, where the infamous myth says life can be fully restored, Zilan starts a new adventure. But Penglai Island has been kept well hidden by a group of unpredictable, and often dangerous, alchemists. Uncovering the secret means challenging some of the most powerful alchemists to ever live. And when old threats come back to haunt Zilan, she will have to decide just how much she is willing to sacrifice to save her loved ones—and the practice of alchemy that has long defined her and the world around her. Eleven Houses — Colleen Oakes (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)Mabel is one of the last surviving members of House Beuvry, one of the eleven houses on the haunted island of Weymouth. Her days, like all the other teens on the island, are spent readying her house for The Storm: a once-a-decade event that pummels the island with hurricane-level wind, water, and waves. But that’s not all the Storm brings with it—because Weymouth Island is a gate between the world of the living and the dead. When Miles Cabot arrives on Weymouth Island after the death of his mother, he realizes quickly it isn’t like other places—and Mabel Beuvry isn’t like other teenagers. There’s an intense chemistry between Miles and Mabel that both feel, yet neither understand—nor the deadly consequences that will come with it. With the suspicious death of an island elder, a strained dynamic with her younger sister Hali, and the greatest Storm in years edging ever closer, Mabel’s life is becoming as chaotic as the weather. One thing becomes clear: if the fortified houses of Weymouth Island can’t stand against the dead, then she—and everyone she loves—will pay the price. Happyhead — Josh Silver (Delacorte)Seb has been selected for a new experimental mental health center called HappyHead, designed to solve the national crisis of teenage unhappiness. There he and fellow participants will complete in a series of assessments meant to test them, so they can better face the challenges of the real world. Seb is determined to win so he can change how people see him and make his parents proud.  But then Seb meets a mysterious participant named Finn who has drawn unwanted attention to himself by resisting the program’s rules. The leaders want everyone to believe Finn is mentally unstable but as Finn exposes cracks in the system around them, Seb is left questioning the true nature of the challenges—and wondering if Finn is actually the only one he can really trust.  Something sinister is at play… and as the assessments take a dark turn, it becomes impossible to ignore the voice in his head telling him that even if he wins, there might be no way out. Bane of Asgard (Runestone #2) — Cinda Williams Chima (HarperCollins)Reunited in New Jotunheim, Reginn, Eiric and Liv discover that they are game pieces being played on a hidden board. Eiric’s slaughter of the old council has opened Tyra’s path to power—she now has the perfect excuse to launch a war against the Archipelago. Tyra is also using her dottir, Liv, as a vehicle to raise a dangerous goddess. And Reginn is tasked with crossing the boundary between the living and the dead to gain access to powerful magical secrets. With Reginn’s help, Eiric escapes prison and returns home to find his brodir and warn the Archipelago of the impending attack. Meanwhile, she remains at the Grove to try to prevent the outbreak of war. Soon, though, Reginn learns her true role in this game: use her power to raise the dead to ensure victory for New Jotunheim. The demon Asger Eldr tells her that she alone can prevent another Ragnarok. But how? Back in the Archipelago, Eiric agrees to join the king’s forces, though that means taking up arms against his systir, Liv, and Reginn, the spinner who has ensnared his heart. For perhaps the first time in his life, he dreads the coming fight. As the two sides prepare for an apocalyptic battle, Eiric, Reginn, and Liv find allies and enemies in unexpected places and draw on new strengths as they seek to prevent the destruction of the last of the Nine Worlds. October 29 Don’t Let the Forest In — CG Drews (Feiwel & Friends)High school senior Andrew Perrault finds refuge in the twisted fairytales that he writes for the only person who can ground him to reality—Thomas Rye, the boy with perpetually ink-stained hands and hair like autumn leaves. And with his twin sister, Dove, inexplicably keeping him at a cold distance upon their return to Wickwood Academy, Andrew finds himself leaning on his friend even more. But something strange is going on with Thomas. His abusive parents have mysteriously vanished, and he arrives at school with blood on his sleeve. Thomas won’t say a word about it, and shuts down whenever Andrew tries to ask him questions. Stranger still, Thomas is haunted by something, and he seems to have lost interest in his artwork—whimsically macabre sketches of the monsters from Andrew’s wicked stories. Desperate to figure out what’s wrong with his friend, Andrew follows Thomas into the off-limits forest one night and catches him fighting a nightmarish monster—Thomas’s drawings have come to life and are killing anyone close to him. To make sure no one else dies, the boys battle the monsters every night. But as their obsession with each other grows stronger, so do the monsters, and Andrew begins to fear that the only way to stop the creatures might be to destroy their creator. The Witch of Wol Sin Lake (Sacred Bone #2) — Lena Jeong (HarperCollins)After her fraught journey to save her queendom, Mirae has finally cast the Netherking back into his dark cage in the Deep. But his imprisonment brings her no peace—because in his final schemes, the Netherking managed to possess her beloved older brother, Minho, and it is his body that languishes in the Deep, tormented by his possessor. Mirae is determined to free her brother and destroy the Netherking once and for all. But when the Netherking steals the all-powerful pearl of Seolla, all of Mirae’s careful plans are destroyed. She must set out once more to stop him, slipping in and out of the future with her divine powers as she races a path to the heavens itself. When she discovers the truth about the Netherking’s intentions and learns that the only way to destroy him is with a sacrifice larger than she can bear, Mirae begins to doubt her free will and even the fate of the entire peninsula and the gods beyond. Dark and thrilling, this action-packed sequel to And Break the Pretty Kings pulls readers deeper into its captivating world of lavish, fantastical magic and dangerous secrets, as Mirae faces overwhelming odds to save her queendom—and an impossible choice. For She Is Wrath — Emily Varga (Wednesday Books)Framed for a crime she didn’t commit, Dania counts down her days in prison until she can exact revenge on Mazin, the boy responsible for her downfall, the boy she once loved—and still can’t forget. When she discovers a fellow prisoner may have the key to exacting that vengeance—a stolen djinn treasure—they execute a daring escape together and search for the hidden treasure. Armed with dark magic and a new identity, Dania enacts a plan to bring down those who betrayed her and her family, even though Mazin stands in her way. But seeking revenge becomes a complicated game of cat and mouse, especially when an undeniable fire still burns between them, and the power to destroy her enemies has a price. As Dania falls deeper into her web of traps and lies, she risks losing her humanity to her fight for vengeance—and her heart to the only boy she’s ever loved. The post All the New Young Adult SFF Books Arriving in October 2024 appeared first on Reactor.