The year keeps going and the books keep getting written and published.
My goal in this post is simply to alert you to what is out there for you to read.
So here are some newly published Speculative Fiction that caught my eye.
They might be worth reading in entirety.
In this list you will see
Anthologies of the Lost and Heroic,
Evil Mothers and Wing Walkers
Habitats for Dinos and Kaiju
Monster Hunters and Flying Space Nuns
Observing Time Traveling Tranquility
of Stories not of This World
Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms (2022)
Edited by John Joseph Adams and several others
HERE BE DRAGONS. That’s what maps used to say when you reached the end of the known world. 1 It’s a phrase that’s fired humanity’s imagination for hundreds of years: What lies beyond the edge of the unknown? One of those things we imagined might lie in that distant beyond were so-called lost worlds or mythological kingdoms. Even if you’re not familiar with those exact terms, you likely have heard legends of such fantastical places that were once thought to be real: Atlantis, Shambhala, El Dorado, Shangri-La, the kingdom of Prester John.
In the present day, of course, there’s very little of our world that can be said to be unexplored. To discover a lost world or mythological kingdom today would be a truly stunning event. And so, is it even possible to tell such stories in the modern era? That was the challenge I put to the writers in this volume, and their response was an enthusiastic and convincing “Yes!”—as was mine when I read their stories.
Read these stories, and I think you’ll agree. So come along with me—your tour guide if you will—as we travel through these magical, fascinating—and extremely perilous—journeys of the imagination.
You’re so evil,” I said to my mother. I was fifteen, the talk-back age.
“I take that as a compliment,” she said. “Yes, I’m evil, as others might define that term. But I use my evil powers only for good.”
“Yeah, tell me another,” I replied. We were having an argument about my new boyfriend, Brian. “Anyway, who gets to say what’s good?”
My mother was in the kitchen, grinding something in her mortar. She often ground things in her mortar, though sometimes she used the Mixmaster.
If I said, “What’s that?” she might say, “Garlic and parsley,” and I’d know she was in Joy of Cooking mode. But if she said, “Look the other way” or “What you don’t know won’t hurt you” or “I’ll tell you when you’re old enough,” I’d realize there was trouble in store for someone. She was ahead of her time with the garlic, I feel compelled to mention: most people in our kind of neighborhood hadn’t found out about it yet.
Wingwalkers(2022)
by Taylor Brown
They were over Georgia somewhere, another nameless hamlet whose dusty streets lay flocked and trembling with the pink handbills they’d rained from the sky that morning, the ones that announced the coming of DELLA THE DARING DEVILETTE, who would DEFY THE HEAVENS, shining like a DAYTIME STAR, a WING-WALKING WONDER borne upon the wings of CAPTAIN ZENO MARIGOLD, a DOUBLE ACE of the GREAT WAR, who had ELEVEN AERIAL VICTORIES over the TRENCHES OF FRANCE.
Zeno dipped the wing toward the field of spectators, their faces sprung round beneath the sun, their mouths stove black with awe, and the devilette watched the shadow of the machine rip across them like something come wicked from the sky, a beast to pluck them bloody and rootless from the fields. She walked farther out on the wing, kinking her silver-clad body through the maze of wire trusses and interplane struts that divided the airfoils.
She was wearing her silver lamé jumpsuit, her show name stitched blood-red between her shoulder blades—DELLA THE DARING—and she wore a leather helmet and knee-high riding boots polished to an arrogant luster. She didn’t wear a parachute. The slipstream slung the metallic fabric of the one-piece suit hard against her, tight against her breasts and hips, streamlining her.
Heroic Hearts (2022)
by Jim Butcher and Kerrie Hughes
In this short story collection of courage, adventure, and magic, heroes—ordinary people who do the right thing—bravely step forward.
But running toward danger might cost them everything. . . .
In #1 New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher’s “Little Things,” the pixie Toot-Toot discovers an invader unbeknownst to the wizard Harry Dresden . . . and in order to defeat it, he’ll have to team up with the dread cat Mister.
In #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Briggs’s “Dating Terrors,” the werewolf Asil finds an online date might just turn into something more—if she can escape the dark magic binding her.
In #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris’s “The Return of the Mage,” the Britlingen mercenaries will discover more than they’ve bargained for when they answer the call of a distress beacon on a strange and remote world.
And in #1 New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong’s “Comfort Zone,” the necromancer Chloe Saunders and the werewolf Derek Souza are just trying to get through college. But they can’t refuse a ghost pleading for help.
ALSO INCLUDES STORIES BY Annie Bellet * Anne Bishop * Jennifer Brozek * Kevin Hearne * Nancy Holder * Kerrie L. Hughes * Chloe Neill * R.R. Virdi
The Observer Effect (2022)
(The Joseph Bridgeman Series Book 3)
by Nick Jones
“The Continuum is a privately funded organization of time travelers and technologists. We monitor the past for change events and, where we can, we alter time for the better. I know that this can be difficult. It may help if you think of time travel as nature’s immune system. If you think of change events as pathogens, as things that need to be corrected, then time travelers are like antibodies, seeking out the damaged parts of time and healing them. It can be complicated, of course, but we work for the greater good. All we’ve really done at The Continuum is leverage the unique opportunity that time has given us to connect lone travelers, like you, to their purpose.”
Sea of Tranquility (2022)
by Emily St. John Mandel
It’s shocking to wake up in one world and find yourself in another by nightfall, but the situation isn’t actually all that unusual. You wake up married, then your spouse dies over the course of the day. You wake up in peacetime and by noon your country is at war; you wake up in ignorance and by the evening it’s clear that a pandemic is already here.
My point is, there’s always something. I think, as a species, we have a desire to believe that we’re living at the climax of the story. It’s a kind of narcissism. We want to believe that we’re uniquely important, that we’re living at the end of history, that now, after all these millennia of false alarms, now is finally the worst that it’s ever been, that finally we have reached the end of the world.
The Children on the Hill (2022)
by Jennifer McMahon
So I was Lizzy Shelley now. I was fifty-three years old, my hair going gray. And I made my living hunting monsters. I had a blog and now a popular podcast, named for my long-ago childhood project: The Book of Monsters. I’d been a member of the team on last season’s series Monsters Among Us and featured in the documentary Shadow People. I’d given lectures at colleges on the role of the monster in contemporary society. I crisscrossed the country hunting Sasquatches, shapeshifters, lake monsters, cave-dwelling goblins, vampires, werewolves— all manner of cryptids and bogeymen. People posted on the forums on my website every day giving me leads, sending photos, telling their own stories of close encounters, begging me to come investigate. Between advertising, sponsors, affiliate links, the TV gigs, book royalties, and the branded merchandise I sold, I made more than enough to cover my expenses and hit the road as often as I liked, moving on to the next town, the next monster. My mission was to do everything I could to get the message out loud and clear:
Monsters are real and living among us.
But the Honey Island monster so far had not provided any proof of that.
Sisters of the Forsaken Stars (2022)
(Our Lady of Endless Worlds Book 2)
Mother Lucia knelt in front of the crucifix, her hands resting on her knees, eyes closed and mouth still. They had purchased it from a little station near a dusty, superstitious moon right after they had launched their newly mature ship from the yard where it had grown. The crucifix was not exactly a work of art. Jesus’s legs looked more like a single flipper, and the shaky-handed carver had given Him one larger eye and one smaller. But their original had been destroyed with their old ship, and they could not very well send word to the Church for another.
——————-
“Are you one of the sisters of the Our Lady of Impossible Constellations?”
Sister Varvara stopped short. She could deny it. She could also just keep walking. She certainly did not have Sister Faustina’s knack for careful politics or Mother Lucia’s talent for gentle conversation. She looked around the corridor at the blank-faced, oblivious passersby, but she knew they would not have landed if there were any known ECG agents on board. And, as far as she was aware, there was not yet a public price on their heads. Somewhere on Old Earth an entire ministry of government officers was surely debating what to do about them. For now, though, it seemed the risk of exposing their plan to spread deadly ringeye plague across the rebellious outer systems outweighed their desire to find the nuns who had stopped it.
“Why do you ask?”
The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022)
by John Scalzi
“First, understand that when we say KPS is an animal rights organization, we are actively engaged with these animals—very large, very wild, very dangerous animals. We will train you on how to interact with them, and we maintain stringent safety protocols at all times. But you can get injured, severely, and if you’re not careful, you can actually die. If you have any hesitation on this score, or if you have any problem following to the letter the directions and instructions you are given, then this is not the job for you. I need you to verbally acknowledge that you understand this.”
Please Don’t Feed the Dinosaurs:(2022)
(unSPARKed Book 1)
Includes DRIVE! and ‘A Dino-Whisperer at the Zoo’
I throw my ammunition sash on and check the pouches. Three hold full mags, but since we’ll be traveling unSPARKed…I’ll add the fourth pouch. I put my hand on the scanner to open the ammo box and take a handful of HiPiRs, or Hide Piercing Rounds. Penetrate any hide up to T. rex, these will. Though for T. rex, I really would prefer a bigger gun. Much bigger.
“HARRY!” roars Dad, then heads over to me. “Whoa, girl, wait up. Come on, put the rifle away.”
“What?” I turn an incredulous look on him. “We’re travelling unSPARKed, Dad.”
“Carol’s nervous enough about the trip as it is, let alone living out here. If we turn up looking like Rambo-family, she’s going to freak out. I’ll have my rifle. Leave yours here. Just this once.”
“But why have one rifle when you can have three?” I demand.
“Most people don’t take any weapons when they travel, Darryl.”
“City people. And sometimes when they break down or crash, they get eaten.”
“Come on, Darryl, just this once. It will make Carol feel so much better.” Dad’s pleading tone is too much. I unsling my rifle from my shoulder and put it back in its place.
“All right. But we’d better not end up Raptor Food.”
“Of course we won’t.” He sounds downright cheerful with relief.
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