Barnes & Noble Bookseller’s Picks

Barnes & Noble Bookseller’s Picks for June

For over a decade, Barnes & Noble buyer Jim Killen has been a driving force behind Barnes & Noble’s science fiction and fantasy sections. Each month on Tor.com, Mr. Killen curates a list of science fiction & fantasy titles, sometimes focused on upcoming titles and sometimes focused on a theme.

Here are the Barnes & Noble science fiction and fantasy picks for June!

The Lost—Sarah Beth Durst
(May 27, HarlequinPaperback)

Andre Norton Award-winning author Sarah Beth Durst invites us to get lost! Like a modern-day Dante, 27-year-old Lauren is lost in a dark wood, though in this case, the dark wood is a desert-edge town surrounded by apparently impassible dust storms. Nothing in the desolate village of Lost seems to abide by laws of either nature or reason, leaving Lauren to hunt for new meaning, even as she searches for a way out…and hopes to be found.

 

Miracleman Book 1: A Dream of Flying— Mick Anglo, Garry Leach (Illustrator), Alan Davis (Illustrator), Paul Neary (Illustrator)
(May 27, Marvel—Hardcover)

KIMOTA! With one magic word, a long-forgotten legend lives again! Freelance reporter Michael Moran always knew he was meant for something more-now, an unexpected series of events leads him to reclaim his destiny as Miracleman! The groundbreaking graphic novel that heralded a literary revolution begins here in A Dream of Flying. After nearly two decades away, Miracleman uncovers his origins and their connection to the British military’s “Project Zarathustra”—while his alter ego, Michael Moran, must reconcile his life as the lesser half of a god.

COLLECTING: Miracleman 1-4

 

Hellboy in Hell Volume 1 The Descent—Mike Mignola, Dave Stewart
(June 3, Dark Horse Comics—Paperback)

Hellboy creator and comics superstar Mike Mignola returns to draw Hellboy’s ongoing story for the first time since Hellboy: The Conqueror Worm. It’s a story only Mignola could tell, as more of Hellboy’s secrets are at last revealed, in the most bizarre depiction of Hell you’ve ever seen! Hellboy still qualifies as the right hand of doom even in the seething lowest precincts of Earth’s belly.

 

The Walking Dead: The Fall of the Governor: Part One—Robert Kirkman, Jay Bonansinga
(June 3, St. Martin’s Press—Paperback)

The Walking Dead original novel series, set in the universe of Robert Kirkman’s iconic comic book, continues with The Fall of the Governor: Part One. From co-authors Kirkman, creator of the Eisner Award-winning comic as well as executive producer of AMC’s blockbuster TV series, and Jay Bonansinga, Stoker Award-finalist and internationally acclaimed author, comes the gripping third novel in this richly woven, page-turning literary saga, which began with The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor, in which uber-villain Philip Blake journeyed from his humble beginnings directly into the dark heart of the zombie apocalypse, and became the self-proclaimed leader of a small town called Woodbury. Now, in The Fall of the Governor: Part One, the Governor’s descent into madness finally erupts in a tour de force of action and horror. Beloved characters from the comic book, including Rick, Michonne and Glenn, finally make their entrance onto this nightmarish stage, and fans of The Walking Dead will see these characters in a whole new light. Simmering grudges boil over into unthinkable confrontations, battle lines are drawn, and unexpected twists seal the fates of the innocent and guilty alike.

 

A Shiver of Light (Meredith Gentry Series #9)—Laurell K. Hamilton
(June 3, Penguin—Hardcover)

Merry Gentry, ex-private detective, now full-time princess, knew she was descended from fertility goddesses, but when she learned she was about to have triplets, she began to understand what that might mean. Infertility has plagued the high ranks of faerie for centuries. Now nobles of both courts of faerie are coming to court Merry and her men, at their home in exile in the Western Lands of Los Angeles, because they will do anything to have babies of their own.

Taranis, King of Light and Illusion, is a more dangerous problem. To save herself and her babies from Taranis she will use the most dangerous powers in all of faerie: a god of death, a warrior known as the Darkness, the Killing Frost, and a king of nightmares. They are her lovers, and her dearest loves, and they will face down the might of the high courts of faerie—while trying to keep the war from spreading to innocent humans in Los Angeles, who are in danger of becoming collateral damage.

 

Affliction (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series #22)—Laurell K. Hamilton
(June 3, JovePaperback)

For years, Micah deliberately turned his back on his own family, trying to protect them from a vengeful sadistic killer; but that time is passed. He rushes home when he hears that his sheriff father is dying, the victim of a vicious zombie attack. For Anita Blake, this is the worst type of undead wakeup call: Must she now face a band of pernicious zombies who feast on the living in almost unimaginable ways?

 

On the Steel Breeze (Poseidon’s Children Series #2)—Alastair Reynolds
(June 3, Ace—Hardcover)

Chiku Akinya, great granddaughter of the legendary space explorer Eunice and heir to the family empire, is just one among millions on a long one way journey towards a planet they hope to call their new home. For Chiku, the journey is a personal one, undertaken to ensure that the Akinya family achieves its destiny among the stars.

The passengers travel in huge self-contained artificial worlds—holoships—putting their faith in a physics they barely understand. Chiku’s ship is called Zanzibar—and over time, she will discover it contains an awesome secret—one which will lead her to question almost every certainty about her voyage, and its ultimate destiny…

 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane—Neil Gaiman
(June 3, HarperCollins Publishers—Paperback)

A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse where she once lived, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

A groundbreaking work as delicate as a butterfly’s wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out.

 

Blood Red—Mercedes Lackey
(June 3, DAW—Hardcover)

Rosamund lives with her Earth Magician mentor deep in Germany’s Black Forest. As the first woman Hunt Master, she carries a heavy responsibility: She must vanquish the werewolves and shapeshifters who would destroy the fae creatures from the forest. As if her job wasn’t dangerous enough, Rosamund’s latest assignment has a disconcerting wrinkle: One of the two Elemental Magicians who have come from Hungary to ask her assistance is a werewolf. Having witnessed the savage violence of the species before, she cannot stop worrying even as she pursues her mission. A fantasy novel by a popular genre author whose work perfectly blends suspense and human feeling.

 

California Bones—Greg Van Eekhout
(June 10, Tor—Hardcover)

When Daniel Blackland was six, he ingested his first bone fragment, a bit of kraken spine plucked out of the sand during a visit with his demanding, brilliant, and powerful magician father, Sebastian.

When Daniel was twelve, he watched Sebastian die at the hands of the Hierarch of Southern California, devoured for the heightened magic layered deep within his bones. Now, years later, Daniel is a petty thief with a forged identity. Hiding amid the crowds in Los Angeles—the capital of the Kingdom of Southern California—Daniel is trying to go straight. But his crime-boss uncle has a heist he wants Daniel to perform: break into the Hierarch’s storehouse of magical artifacts and retrieve Sebastian’s sword, an object of untold power.

For this dangerous mission, Daniel will need a team he can rely on, so he brings in his closest friends from his years in the criminal world. There’s Moth, who can take a bullet and heal in mere minutes. Jo Alverado, illusionist. The multitalented Cassandra, Daniel’s ex. And, new to them all, the enigmatic, knowledgeable Emma, with her British accent and her own grudge against the powers-that-be. The stakes are high, and the stage is set for a showdown that might just break the magic that protects a long-corrupt regime.

 

Earth Awakens—Orson Scott Card, Aaron Johnston
(June 10, Tor—Hardcover)

The story of The First Formic War continues in Earth Awakens.

Nearly 100 years before the events of Orson Scott Card’s bestselling novel Ender’s Game, humans were just beginning to step off Earth and out into the Solar System. A thin web of ships in both asteroid belts; a few stations; a corporate settlement on Luna. No one had seen any sign of other space-faring races; everyone expected that First Contact, if it came, would happen in the future, in the empty reaches between the stars. Then a young navigator on a distant mining ship saw something moving too fast, heading directly for our sun.

 

The Girl With All the Gifts—M.R. Carey
(June 10, Orbit—Hardcover)

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class.

When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.

Melanie is a very special girl.

 

Robogenesis—Daniel H. Wilson
(June 10, Knopf Doubleday—Hardcover)

Humankind had triumphed over the machines. At the end of Robopocalypse, the modern world was largely devastated, humankind was pressed to the point of annihilation, and the earth was left in tatters . . . but the master artificial intelligence presence known as Archos had been killed.

In Robogenesis, we see that Archos has survived. Spread across the far reaches of the world, the machine code has fragmented into millions of pieces, hiding and regrouping. In a series of riveting narratives, Robogenesis explores the fates of characters new and old, robotic and human, as they fight to build a new world in the wake of a devastating war. Readers will bear witness as survivors find one another, form into groups, and react to a drastically different (and deadly) technological landscape. All the while, the remnants of Archos’s shattered intelligence are seeping deeper into new breeds of machines, mounting a war that will not allow for humans to win again.

 

Koko Takes a Holiday—Kieran Shea
(June 10, Titan—Paperback)

Five hundred years from now, ex-corporate mercenary Koko Martstellar is swaggering through an early retirement as a brothel owner on The Sixty Islands, a manufactured tropical resort archipelago known for its sex and simulated violence. Surrounded by slang-drooling boywhores and synthetic komodo dragons, the most challenging part of Koko’s day is deciding on her next drink. That is, until her old comrade Portia Delacompte sends a squad of security personnel to murder her.

 

The Long Mars: A Novel—Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter
(June 17, HarperCollins Publishers—Hardcover)

The third novel in Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s “Long Earth” series!

2040-2045: In the years after the cataclysmic Yellowstone eruption there is massive economic dislocation as populations flee Datum Earth to myriad Long Earth worlds. Sally, Joshua, and Lobsang are all involved in this perilous rescue work when, out of the blue, Sally is contacted by her long-vanished father and inventor of the original Stepper device, Willis Linsay. He tells her he is planning a fantastic voyage across the Long Mars and wants her to accompany him. But Sally soon learns that Willis has an ulterior motive for his request. . . .

Meanwhile U. S. Navy Commander Maggie Kauffman has embarked on an incredible journey of her own, leading an expedition to the outer limits of the far Long Earth. For Joshua, the crisis he faces is much closer to home. He becomes embroiled in the plight of the Next: the super-bright post-humans who are beginning to emerge from their “long childhood” in the community called Happy Landings, located deep in the Long Earth. Ignorance and fear have caused “normal” human society to turn against the Next. A dramatic showdown seems inevitable. . . .

 

Rogues—eds. George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
(June 17, Random House—Hardcover)

A thrilling collection of twenty-one original stories by an all-star list of contributors—including a new A Game of Thrones story by George R. R. Martin!

If you’re a fan of fiction that is more than just black and white, this latest story collection from #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois is filled with subtle shades of gray. Twenty-one all-original stories, by an all-star list of contributors, will delight and astonish you in equal measure with their cunning twists and dazzling reversals. And George R. R. Martin himself offers a brand-new A Game of Thrones tale chronicling one of the biggest rogues in the entire history of Ice and Fire.

Follow along with the likes of Gillian Flynn, Joe Abercrombie, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, Cherie Priest, Garth Nix, and Connie Willis, as well as other masters of literary sleight-of-hand, in this rogues gallery of stories that will plunder your heart—and yet leave you all the richer for it.

 

Cibola Burn (The Expanse #4)James S. A. Corey
(June 17, Orbit—Hardcover)

The gates have opened the way to a thousand new worlds and the rush to colonize has begun. Settlers looking for a new life stream out from humanity’s home planets. Ilus, the first human colony on this vast new frontier, is being born in blood and fire.

Independent settlers stand against the overwhelming power of a corporate colony ship with only their determination, courage, and the skills learned in the long wars of home. Innocent scientists are slaughtered as they try to survey a new and alien world. The struggle on Ilus threatens to spread all the way back to Earth.

James Holden and the crew of his one small ship are sent to make peace in the midst of war and sense in the midst of chaos. But the more he looks at it, the more Holden thinks the mission was meant to fail.
Shattered (Iron Druid Chronicles Series #7)—Kevin Hearne
(June 17, Random House—Hardcover)

Iron Druid Atticus O’Sullivan always had his faithful wolfhound Oberon, but he always yearned for Druid companions. At long last in this seventh installment, his former apprentice Granuaile graduates to full Druid status. And she is not the only new addition to the clan. Atticus has successfully defrosted a Druid from olden times, who has taken a contemporary name (“Owen Kennedy”), but seems to be struggling with assimilating even the digital rudiments of modern life. With its ever increasing richness, Kevin Hearne’s first Iron Druid hardcover promises to please both newbies and devotees of this engaging urban fantasy series.
The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains: A Tale of Travel and Darkness with Pictures of All Kinds—Neil Gaiman, Eddie Campbell (Illustrator)
(June 17, HarperCollins—Hardcover)

“You ask me if I can forgive myself?
I can forgive myself . . .”

And so begins The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains, a haunting story of family, the otherworld, and a search for hidden treasure. This gorgeous full-color illustrated book version was born of a unique collaboration between New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman and renowned artist Eddie Campbell, who brought to vivid life the characters and landscape of Gaiman’s award-winning story. In this volume, the talents and vision of two great creative geniuses come together in a glorious explosion of color and shadow, memory and regret, vengeance and, ultimately, love.

 

Inhumanity—Marvel Comics
(June 17, Marvel—Hardcover)

After the fall of Attilan and the Terrigen Bomb explosion, thousands of people across the globe have transformed into Inhumans! Their new powers are dangerous and terrifying, making them targets. With Black Bolt believed dead, who can these new Inhumans turn to? As the Avengers face Karnak, who has discovered the Inhumans’ secret, Medusa struggles to rule her vastly increased population, and Marvel’s heroes – including the Hulk, Spider-Girl, the X-Men, the new Illuminati, Iron Man, the Jean Grey School, Avengers Academy, Luke Cage and the Superior Spider-Man – must cope with the fallout!

COLLECTING: Avengers Assemble 21.INH-23.INH, 24-25; Inhumanity 1-2; Uncanny X-Men 15.INH; Indestructible Hulk 17.INH-18.INH, 19; New Avengers 13.INH; Iron Man 20.
Thorn Jack: A Night and Nothing Novel—Katherine Harbour
(June 24, HarperCollins—Hardcover)

“O, I forbid you, maidens all,/ That wear gold in your hair,/ To come or go by Carterhaugh,/ For young Tam Lin.” The sixteenth century Scottish ballad “Tam Lin” has metamorphosed into almost countless songs, plays, and even a movie. Now it emerges again, artfully recreated by debut novelist Katherine Harbour. In this incarnation, its central character is Finn Sullivan, a beguiling 17-year-old who moves to Fair Hollow, a small hamlet in upstate New York with her father after her older sister’s suicide. There she falls under the spell of Jack Fata, a member of a hamlet’s most prominent family. As she settles into her new home, she learns more about that family and also about the secrets and magic that seem to seem to lurk behind all too many mansion closed doors.

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