New This Week!

Tor Books has done an amazing job of publishing two of my friends on the same day!

First up is my former student, Ian Tregillis, who is a Los Alamos physicist, and who in his spare time wrote a trilogy that has me clenching my jaw with bilious envy.

Bitter Seeds is the first in the series, a harrowing tale of espionage, treachery, and darkest magic set in an alternate World War II. You can tell it's a cheerful tale by the fact that the chick on the cover is, like, walking on skulls while wearing a swastika armband.

Ian is a fantastic talent, and this is a brilliant book, and I deeply envy anyone who reads it for the first, or even the second, time.

(I have one complaint about this edition, however. It's about the cover. All Tor needs to do in order to sell a kazillion copies of this book is to put a big swastika on the cover! Listen guys, it's a book about World War II! A tiny little swastika on a tiny little armband on a tiny little character does not necessarily translate into mass sales! Rule Number One for a World War II book: MAKE THE SWASTIKA BIG!)

The second book is The Edge of Ruin, by my friend Melinda Snodgrass, who was story editor on Star Trek and wrote for Reasonable Doubts and The Profiler and other fine television. This is the second in her series of novels in which reason, truth, and Earth confronts an invasion of irrationality and superstition. Not like this would ever happen, of course.

(The first book in the series was The Edge of Reason, which you should also read.)

I'm particularly anxious that y'all buy this one because the first book came out a couple years ago, and Tor, umm, dawdled in getting the second book on the shelves. It's what happens with far too many series: the publisher waits for all momentum to disperse before putting out the next book. (When it's the author's fault, it's a different issue.)

I think I can safely guarantee that this is the most unique novel this year featuring Jesus Christ in a speaking part. Check it out.