Ace and Roc are both imprints of Penguin, who is starting to get a clue about ebooks, but really needs to go thwack some of their formatters who apparently believe that paragraphs should have 2.5em of separating space between them.
Trust me, it’s not just me that notices this kind of formatting annoyance; just about everybody who reads ebooks, including high-profile book blogs and forums in every genre, notices and is displeased.
Not all Penguin books are like this; maybe half are? But my sample size is fairly small.
Anyways, new Ace/Roc books:
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The beginning of a brand new supernatural private investigator series starring one Sylvie Lightner, whose beat covers south Miami Beach.
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The continuing adventures of Raine Benares, a Seeker who can’t stay out of trouble, with a sarcastic bite and and an amulet that’s taken control of her life.
This time, demon hordes, a gate that’s yawned into hell, and what can only be called Elric’s Bane, all threaten to pull her down.
Oh, and she’s managed to get bonded to two powerful men, each on opposing sides of good and light. I’m pretty sure this is an archetype story element by now.
The previous two books in this series are both on the Kindle: Magic Lost, Trouble Found and Armed & Magical.
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The newest chapter in the Lost Fleet series. I’m not sure I can concisely describe what’s going on from the multiple synopses on the web. One may need to start from the beginning of the series to appreciate what’s going on.
I rather liked John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series, and this series keeps getting recommended to me on a fairly consistent basis, so I need to try one of these some day.
For the curious, the Lost Fleet series is entirely available on the Kindle:
Oh, SF/F series and your naming patterns. Never change.
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Far future space opera writ on enormous time scales across this series, following one post-human, Imre Bergamasc: pervious engram incarnation, previous murder victim, previous ruler of the galaxy, now abdicated, having brought along a sort of peace.
But peace never does last.
The other books in the Astropolis series are available in the Kindle store: Saturn Returns and
Earth Ascendant.
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I think I’m going to cry. Robert Asprin has been gone since last May. Almost a year now. He was a funny man.
This is obviously a legacy written while he was still alive from the previous year, only now published, and a sequel to Dragons Wild, in the world of underworld dragons. Who run speakeasies and gambling joints.
Godspeed, Mr. Asprin.
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Finally, book one of this series starring Kate Daniels, mercenary with a BFS in an alternate Atlanta where magic has invaded reality.
The series is now almost complete on the Kindle, alongside Magic Burns and Magic Strikes, save for an upcoming fourth book.
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Sawyer is back in full form with Wake, the start of the WWW series. The Internet has woken up. That is so very cool and full of awesome.
There’s also an intelligent monkey and Chinese revolutionary bloggers battling against a (still) repressive government. What more can you ask for? Well, okay, ninjas and pirates. Still.
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A makeup artist with the magic power to literally transform people (not that they’re entirely aware of it). If this means fewer hours under latex mold creation, I’m sure this is every SF/F TV/movie actor’s dream.
Her latest client unfortunately becomes possessed by a powerful and dark forest god.
The previous book in the saga of the LaZelle family, A Fistful of Sky, is also available on the Kindle. I don’t believe there are any other LaZelle books around, print or not.
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Magic cyberpunk. Ravirn is thrown into an alternate universe and must hack his way back into our reality.
The previous books in this series—which is a definite you-should-not-miss if you’re a tech geek who also happens to love fantasy—are all available on the Kindle:
Buy: Kindle Store
Another paranormal crime series with a strong female lead, Tess Corday (an OSI, Occult Special Investigator). Her beat is Vancouver, and now I want this book, because it covers Vancouver.
(Supernatural investigator books have a strong presence of specific city, usually, like Dresden’s Chicago or Chen’s Singapore Three. ((Singapore Three is obviously not of “our age”.)) Books in “our age” usually are deeply tied to a modern city, not always where the author lives.
You can pretty much identify each such series by city. It’s like they all stake out their own claim in Idea Space.)
The other book in this series, Night Child, is also available in the Kindle store.
And now I’m going to go fold up with reading the rest of the Harry Dresden series, which is also published by Penguin, under the Roc imprint. I’m currently on Summer Knight. ((I note that the next Dresden Files book is apparently titled Changes, which is a switch from the two-single-syllable-word title pattern. Fitting, of course. Um, I hope people I like don’t die. But you know, good authors are cruel like that.))
Spontaneous ∂erivation 