Category: Speculative

Title: Trigger

Author: Todd Durrant

Publisher: Outskirts Press

Release Date: April 29, 2009

ISBN: 978-1432711528

Size: 380 pages, 6×9, softcover

Genre: Science Fiction

What if we could build a machine to guarantee survival…at all costs!

The survivors of a devastating mechanical invasion have used every possible resource to flee to Epsilon Eridani where humanity must start over. With unimaginable ingenuity and determination they build a new home in New Eden, a huge habitat orbiting the star. But despite the true pioneering spirit that keeps them alive, there is a growing division. Should humanity continue to spread among the stars, or launch a powerful counterattack and retake Earth from the mysterious enemy? Most important of all– would a military victory be tantamount to suicide?

Trigger is an imaginative piece of speculative history where multiple timelines are brought together to unveil a story where grand designs cause havoc on the space-time continuum. Even the best intentions of brilliant minds and the altruistic desires of rising leaders can collide and crumble into chaos when the truth is only revealed in the shadows.

Title: Wordsmith, v2: The Thousand Eyes of Flame

Author: Michael R. Collings

Publisher: Wildside Press

Release Date: March 9, 2009

ISBN: 978-1434402813

Size: 216 pages, 6×9, softcover

Genre: Speculative

Series: The Veil of Heaven (v1)

This is Omne, a world of perpetual clouds without metals, machines, or technology, whose people harbor the secrets of an unimaginable power that can be used for destruction–or redemption!

Title: Wordsmith, v.1: The Veil of Heaven

Author: Michael R. Collings

Publisher: Wildside Press

Release Date: March 5, 2009

ISBN: 978-1434402806

Size: 316 pages, 6×9, softcover

Genre: Speculative

This is Omne, a world of perpetual clouds without metals, machines, or technology, whose people harbor the secrets of an unimaginable power that can be used for destruction–or redemption!

Title: I Am Not a Serial Killer

Author: Dan Wells

Publisher: Headline

Release Date: March 5, 2009

ISBN: 978-0755348817

Size: 288 pages, 5.5×8.5, softcover

Genre: Speculative

I Am Not a Serial Killer is the story of John Cleaver, a 15-year-old sociopath who works in a mortuary, dreams about death, and thinks he might be turning into a serial killer. He sets strict rules to keep himself “good” and “normal,” but when a real monster shows up in his town he has to let his dark side out in order to stop it–but without his rules to keep him in check, he might be more dangerous than the monster he’s trying to kill.

The book is currently available in the UK. It comes out in Germany this fall, and launches in the US in the Spring of 2010. You can buy it on amazon.co.uk, borders.co.uk, waterstones.com, and play.com. For overseas orders I recommend bookdepository.co.uk, which ships for free anywhere in the world.

Kindle version of book available in US.

US edition to be published by TOR; available March 30, 2010.

Title: He Is Coming (vol. 8)

Author: Wendie L. Edwards

Publisher: Seventh Seal Publishing

Release Date: December 15, 2008

ISBN: 978-0971222892

Size: 305 pages, softback

Genre: Speculative

Series: Hidden Light; Wars of Light; Apocalypse the Unveiling; The Ascension; Hanging By a Thread; Justice of Affliction; United We Stand

An electromagnetic pulse rips through America, initiating a plague written of in the Book of Revelation. Death takes no prisoners, yet ironically, it liberates the captive Saints from persecution. Flying banners of freedom, a new American society emerges based on the original Constitution of the United States. A different, fiercely righteous people descend from the north and join with the Saints as they re-establish a republic. The lost tribes bring with them miracles, gifts, and deadly defenses to protect their tent cities from rogue land pirates that infest the nation. For the Rogers family, the tribes return is especially joyful as Braun and Carea finally come home! In Jerusalem, Elder Conrad Rogers and the two apostles he serves face hostile Jews. The apostles have caused many Jews to question the ancient holy traditions as they send sore plagues upon the nation. Secretly, a Judas is sent among the apostles and their missionary associate, Elder Rogers. It s his job to bring them to destruction. It s only a matter of time before someone dies…. Among the righteous in every corner of the world, there are whisperings among the faithful. They see the signs and know it is the midnight hour. He is coming!

Title: Stonefather

Author: Orson Scott Card

Publisher: Subterranean Press

Release Date: October 31, 2008

ISBN: 978-1596061941

Size: 112 pages, Hardcover

Genre: Speculative

Novella length; not eligible for Whitney Award.

When Runnel leaves his mountain valley to head for the great city of the water mages, he has no idea of his own magical talents. But he soon finds that without meaning to, he complicates and then endangers the lives of everyone he comes to know and care about. For when it comes to magic, there are rules and laws, and the untrained mage-to-be must be careful not to tap into deep forces and ancient enmities. Other people might end up paying the price for his mistakes.

Title: Ender In Exile

Author: Orson Scott Card

Publisher: Tor Books

Release Date: November 11, 2008

ISBN: 978-0765304964

Size: 384 pages, Hardcover

Genre: Speculative, Science Fiction

Series: Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind, A War of Gifts

Read review

At the close of Ender’s Game, Andrew Wiggin – called Ender by everyone – is told that he can no longer live on Earth, and he realizes that this is the truth. He has become far more than just a boy who won a game: he is the Savior of Earth, a hero, a military genius whose allegiance is sought by every nation of the newly shattered Earth Hegemony. He is offered the choice of living in isolation on Eros, at one of the Hegemony’s training facilities, but instead the twelve-year-old chooses to leave his home world and begin the long relativistic journey out to the colonies. With him went his sister Valentine, and the core of the artificial intelligence that would become Jane.

The story of those years has never been told… until now.

Title: The Great and Terrible: Clear as the Moon (Vol. 6)

Author: Chris Stewart

Publisher: Deseret Book

Release Date: November 4, 2008

ISBN: 978-1590389942

Size: 352 pages, hardcover

Genre: Speculative

Series: Prologue, The Brothers (vol.1), Where Angels Fall (vol. 2), The Second Sun (vol. 3), Fury and Light (vol. 4), From the End of Heaven (vol.5)

THE EXCITING CONCLUSION TO THE EPIC LAST DAYS SERIES

“We have this one chance,” Brucius told Sam. “If you can get him, if you can locate and extricate King Abdullah, then we can punish him. Justice will be served. We could stop the final world war. Find him, we’ll try him and hang him. Don’t, and we’ll have to retaliate.”

The United States, stunned by the nuclear detonation in Washington, D.C., and further crippled by the EMP attack on the whole country, is on the brink of destruction. The unscrupulous leaders who have banded together to toss out the Constitution and divide the ruling of the world between themselves have all but achieved their objective.

But they haven’t factored in one thing. They haven’t considered the chance, however slight, that good people remain who will continue standing up for what they believe in. A daring plot to reinstate Brucius Marino to his rightful position as president of the United States, with an even more audacious plan to bring King Abdullah to justice—everything hinges on the courage and skill of Sara and Sam Brighton and their friends. The thrilling conclusion to The Great and Terrible series will keep you riveted to the very end!

Title: The Clone Elite

Author: Stephen L. Kent

Publisher: Ace

Release Date: October 28, 2008

ISBN: 978-0441016082

Size: 384 pages, Softcover

Genre: Speculative, Science Fiction

Series: The Clone Republic, Rogue Clone, The Clone Alliance

2514 A.D.: An unstoppable alien force is advancing on Earth, wiping out the Unified Authority’s colonies one by one. It’s up to Wayson Harris, an outlawed model of a clone, and his men to make a last stand on the planet of New Copenhagen, where they must win the battle and the war—or lose all.

Title: Lightland

Author: Kenny Kemp

Publisher: Alta Films Press

Release Date: September 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-1892442390

Size: 464 pages, softcover

Genre: Speculative

THE END IS ONLY THE BEGINNING

A deadly virus rages across ancient Africa and young tribesman K’tanu is the only one who is immune. Yet without counting the cost, he gives his life to save his loved ones.

After lying dormant for six thousand years, the virus, now known as Cobalt, reawakens and again begins its destructive march across the planet. When all seems lost, archeologists in Africa unearth a mummy whose perfectly-preserved heart is incredibly immune to the virus. In a final, desparate attempt to stop Cobalt, scientists illegally clone the mummy. At that moment, K’tanu’s soul is torn from his wife and children in the afterlife Lightland and thrust back into mortality.

At first K’tanu is just another medical marvel and the scientists who cloned him have no idea they have interfered with the journey of his soul. But he eventually remembers who he is and realizes that to be reunited with his family in Lightland, he must first return to Africa. He is joined on his perilous journey by Christopher Tempest, the brilliant but reckless archeologist who recovered the mummy, and Kate Seagram, the beautiful and tenacious researcher who is trying to unlock Cobalt’s deadly secrets. Together they will uncover two pasts… one future.

Title: Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show

Author: eds. Edmund R. Schubert and Orson Scott Card

Publisher: TOR Books

Release Date: August 5, 2008

ISBN: 978-0765320001

Size: 432 pages, 5.5×8″ softcover

Genre: Fantasy

This is a collection of short stories, and therefore not eligible for a Whitney Award. LDS authors featured in this anthology are Orson Scott Card, David Farland, Eric James
Stone, and Scott M. Roberts.

Bestselling writer Orson Scott Card founded the online magazine Intergalactic Medicine Show in 2006. It has been a big success, drawing submissions from well-known sf and fantasy writers, as well as fostering some amazing new talents. This collection contains some of the best of those stories from the past year.

There is fiction from David Farber, Tim Pratt, and David Lubar among others, also four new Ender’s Game universe stories by Card himself. This collection is sure to appeal to Card’s fans, and be a great ambassador to them for these other talented writers.

Title: The Divine Talisman (vol. 3)

Author: Eldon Thompson

Publisher: EOS

Release Date: July 22, 2008

ISBN: 978-0060741549

Size: 544 pages, hardcover

Genre: Fantasy

Series: The Crimson Sword (vol. 1), The Obsidian Key (vol. 2)

To protect his people from the demonic Illysp, Torin, king of Alson, made the ultimate sacrifice. Now, as his best friend and his former love seek to salvage the shattered lands beyond their borders, a treacherous assault costs them their most powerful weapon—the fabled Crimson Sword.

Hopelessly outmatched, Pentania’s citizens must fight to flee their conquered homeland or else perish. Yet an even greater threat looms, for the Leviathan has been awakened, an unfathomable creature whose wrath could single-handedly destroy the entire world.

Hope—if any remains—lies in the efforts of a lone elf, a mad witch, and a fallen hero charged with unraveling a series of divine riddles. Yet to do so they must first find a way to break the very bonds of fiendish possession. . . .