See Upcoming Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Releases
See Upcoming Mystery Releases
Previous Staff Picks
Staff Picks for
May/June 2008
Andrew's Staff Picks
Signal To Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean
"Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean present their masterpiece in a completely remastered and redesigned edition overflowing with bonus material! Somewhere in London, a film director is dying of cancer. His life's crowning achievement, his greatest film, would have told the story of a European village as the last hour of 999 A.D. approached - the midnight that the villagers were convinced would bring with it Armageddon. Now that story will never be told. But he's still working it out in his head, making a film that no one will ever see. No one but us. Serialized in The Face in 1989, expanded and revised into a graphic novel in 1992, and adapted for radio in 2000, Signal to Noise has never stopped evolving. The bonus material in this first-time hardcover edition captures every leg of the journey, including three related short stories unseen in nearly two decades, an additional chapter created for the CD release of the radio drama, and a new introduction by Dave McKean along with the original by Jonathan Carrol and the radio drama introduction by Neil Gaiman."
$24.95
Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson
"Bestselling, award-winning, author Kim Stanley Robinson continues his groundbreaking trilogy of eco-thrillers-and propels us deeper into the awesome whirlwind of climatic change. Set in our nation's capital, here is a chillingly realistic tale of people caught in the collision of science, technology, and the consequences of global warming-which could trigger another phenomenon: abrupt climate change, resulting in temperatures 50 degrees below zero. When the storm got bad, scientist Frank Vanderwal was at work, formalizing his return to the National Science Foundation for another year. He'd left the building just in time to help sandbag at Arlington Cemetery. Now that the torrent was over, large chunks of San Diego had eroded into the sea, and D.C. was underwater. Shallow lakes occupied the most famous parts of the city. Reagan Airport was awash and the Potomac had spilled beyond its banks. Rescue boats dotted the saturated cityscape. Everything Frank and his colleagues in the halls of science and politics feared had culminated in this massive disaster. And now the world looked to them to fix it. Whatever Frank can do, now that he is homeless, he'll have to do from his car. He's not averse to sleeping outdoors. Years of research have made him hyperaware of his status as just another primate. That plus his encounter with a Tibetan Buddhist has left him resolved to live a more authentic life. Hopefully, this will prepare him for whatever is to come.... For even as D.C. bails out from the flood, a more extreme climate change looms. With the melting of the polar ice caps shutting down the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, another Ice Age could be imminent. The last time it happened, eleven thousand years ago, it took just three years to start."
$7.99
King Rat by China Mieville
"Something is stirring in London's dark, stamping out its territory in brickdust and blood. Something has murdered Saul Garamond's father, and left Saul to pay for the crime.
But a shadow from the urban waste breaks into Saul's prison cell and leads him to freedom. A shadow called King Rat, who reveals Saul's royal heritage, a heritage that opens a new world to Saul, the world below London's streets--a heritage that also drags Saul into King Rat's plan for revenge against his ancient enemy. With drum 'n' bass pounding the backstreets, Saul must confront the forces that would use him, the forces that would destroy him, and the forces that shape his own bizarre identity."
$15.95
The Player Of Games by Iain M. Banks
"The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game...a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death."
$12.99
The Power Of The Dog by Don Winslow
An explosive novel of the drug trade, "The Power of the Dog," takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge. Art Montana is an obsessive DEA agent. The Barrera brothers are heirs to a drug empire. Nora Hayden is a jaded teenager who becomes a high-class hooker. Father Parada is a powerful and uncorruptable Catholic priest. Callan is an Irish kid from Hell's kitchen who grows up to be a merciless hitman. And they are all trapped in the world of the Mexican drug "Federacion". From the streets of New York City to Mexico City and Tiajuana to the jungles of Central America, this is the war on drugs like you've never seen it.
$14.95
Lelia's Staff Picks
The Hades Project by Lynn Sholes & Joe Moore
"Forged by the seventh generation grandson of Adam, used to pierce the side of Christ at the Crucifixion, and possessed by some of history's most powerful men--Constantine, Attila the Hun, Adolf Hitler, Harry Truman--the Holy Lance is about to be used again. The Forces of Evil intend to use the ancient relic to launch the Hades Project and bring humankind to its knees. From the Kremlin to the Vatican to an Ethiopian church housing the Ark of the Covenant, Cotten Stone races to find the Holy Lance. Time is running out as Cotten confronts the man who holds in his hand the destiny of the world, a man who died more than 85 years earlier."
$14.95
The Mist by Stephen King
"The day after a strange and mysterious storm, the citizens of a small town find themselves besieged by throngs of strange, horrifying, and deadly creatures."
$6.99
Warriors #1: The Lost Warrior by Erin Hunter
"When the Twolegs destroy the warrior Clans' forest home, Graystripe--second in command of ThunderClan--is captured trying to help his comrades escape! Trapped in the pampered life of a kittypet, Graystripe has all the food and shelter he needs from his affectionate Twoleg family, but this is not the way he wants to live. The forest is calling him, and he never stops longing to go home. When he makes friends with a feisty kittypet named Millie, she encourages him to go in search of his lost friends. But will Graystripe ever find his way back to the Clan?"
$6.99 (graphic novel)
The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz
"Meet Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to "Get Smart" reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors -- but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people's privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman.
Part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry, Izzy walks an indistinguishable line between Spellman family member and Spellman employee. Duties include: completing assignments from the bosses, aka Mom and Dad (preferably without scrutiny); appeasing her chronically perfect lawyer brother (often under duress); setting an example for her fourteen-year-old sister, Rae (who's become addicted to "recreational surveillance"); and tracking down her uncle (who randomly disappears on benders dubbed "Lost Weekends"). But when Izzy's parents hire Rae to follow her (for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of Izzy's new boyfriend), Izzy snaps and decides that the only way she will ever be normal is if she gets out of the family business. But there's a hitch: she must take one last job before they'll let her go -- a fifteen-year-old, ice-cold missing person case. She accepts, only to experience a disappearance far closer to home, which becomes the most important case of her life."
$14.00
Six of One by Rita Mae Brown
"Perched right on the Mason-Dixon line, tiny Runnymede, Maryland, is ripe with a history almost as colorful as the women who live there--from Celeste Chalfonte, headstrong and aristocratic, who murders for principle and steals her brother's wife, to Fannie Jump Creighton, who runs a speakeasy right in her own home when hard times come knocking. Then of course, there're Louise and Julia, the boldly eccentric Hunsenmeir sisters. Wheezie and Juts spend their whole lives in Runnymede, cheerfully quibbling about everything from men to child-rearing to how to drive a car. But they "never" let small-town life keep them from chasing their biggest dreams--or from being true to who they really are."
$14.00
Sam's Staff Picks
Falling Up by Shel Silverstein
"Silverstein's magical tradition continues with this long-awaited companion to "A Light in the Attic" and "Where the Sidewalk Ends." Here are more than 100 new poems and drawings by the master of wit and wisdom, featuring a wealth of wonderfully amusing and lovable characters."
$18.99
Robot Dreams by Isaac Asimov
"Robot Dreams spans the body of Asimov's fiction from the 1940s to the mid-80s, and features classic Asimovian themes, from the scientific puzzle to the extraterrestrial thriller, all introduced in an exclusive essay written especially for this collection."
$7.99
Firebird by Mercedes Lackey
"Ilya, son of a Russian prince, is largely ignored by his father and tormented by his larger, older brothers. His only friends are three old people: a priest, a magician, and a woman who toils in the palace dairy. From them Ilya learns faith, a smattering of magic, and the power of love--all of which he will need desperately, for his life is about to be turned upside-down.
The prince's magnificent cherry orchard is visited at midnight by the legendary Firebird, whose wings are made of flame. Ilya's brothers' attempts capture the magical creature fail. When Ilya tries to catch the Firebird, he sees her as a beautiful woman and earns a magical gift: the speech of animals.
Banished, the young man journeys through a fantastical Russia full of magical mazes, enchanted creatures, and untold dangers. As happens in the best fairy tales, Ilya falls in love with an enchanted princess, but to win her freedom will be no easy task."
$14.95
The Tangle Box by Terry Brooks
"Everything should have been quiet and pleasant for Ben Holiday, the former Chicago lawyer who became sovereign of the Magic Kingdom of Landover. But it wasn't.
Horris Kew, conjurer, confidence-man, and trickster, had returned to Landover from Ben's own world. Alas, Horris had not returned of his own volition--he had been sent by the Gorse, a sorcerer of great evil, whom Horris had unwittingly freed from the magic Tangle Box, where it had long ago been imprisoned by the fairy folk. Now it had returned to enslave those who had once dared condemn it. But first, it would rid Landover of all who could stand in its way...
Soon Ben found himself imprisoned within the gloom of the Tangle Box, lost in its mists and its labyrinthine ways. The only one who could free Ben from the Tangle Box was the lady Willow. But she had disappeared, was gone from Landover on a mysterious mission of her own...."
$7.99
The Book of Bunny Suicides by Andy Riley
"Illustrated in a stark and simple style, this collection of outrageous cartoons follows over 100 bunnies as they find ever more outlandish ways to do themselves in."
$10.00
