November books of 2012_part I_max

The King's Sword - A J Searle 2012



Ronan Culley is just a blacksmith, or so he keeps telling himself. After being charged to make the King's Sword, he finds he must keep it from the dark forces of Sleagan and deliver it to the newly named King.
Along with his apprentice and a healer who is more than what she seems, he embarks on a great journey that tests his determination and will, and makes him take a long hard look at himself and what he really holds important.

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Alpha - Greg Rucka 2012



For the visitors to Wilsonville, the largest theme park in the world, the day began with a smile. By the end, they wonder-will they be able to escape with their lives? Retired Delta Force operator, Master Sergeant
Jonathan "Jad" Bell, is Wilsonville's lead undercover security officer. The threat begins with the announcement of a hidden dirty bomb, but quickly becomes something far, far worse. Trained since the age of seventeen to save innocent victims from impossible hostage situations, Jad scrambles to assess the threat and protect the visitors. He will come face to face with a villain whose training matches his in every way-and presents a threat Jad may not be able to stop.

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Be My Enemy - Ian McDonald 2012



Everett Singh has escaped with the Infundibulum from the clutches of Charlotte Villiers and the Order, but at a terrible price. His father is missing, banished to one of the billions of parallel universes of the Panoply of All Worlds, and Everett and the crew of the airship Everness have taken a wild Heisenberg jump to a random parallel plane. Everett is smart and resourceful, and from the refuge of a desolate frozen Earth
far beyond the Plenitude, where he and his friends have gone into hiding, he makes plans to rescue his family. But the villainous Charlotte Villiers is one step ahead of him.

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Blood Riders - Michael P. Spradlin 2012



The Western Territories, 1880. For four years, Civil War veteran and former U.S. Cavalry Captain Jonas P. Hollister has been rotting in a prison cell at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. His crime: lying about the loss of eleven soldiers under his command . . . who he claims were slaughtered by a band of non human, blood-drinking demons. But now a famous visitor, the detective Allan Pinkerton, has arrived with an order for Hollister's release. The brutal murder of a group of Colorado miners in a fashion frighteningly similar to the deaths of Hollister's men has leant new credence to his wild tale.

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Fall from Grace - Charles Benoit



I need you to steal something for me."

Grace always has a plan. There's her plan to get famous, her plan to get rich, and—above all—her plan to have fun. Sawyer has plenty of plans, too. Plans made for him by his mother, his father, his girlfriend. Maybe they aren't his plans, but they are plans. When Sawyer meets Grace, he wonders if he should come up with a few plans himself. Plans about what he actually wants to be, plans to speak his own mind for a change, plans to maybe help Grace with a little art theft.

Wait a minute—plans to what?

From Charles Benoit, acclaimed author of you, comes a witty and unsettling tale of two high school seniors planning the job of a lifetime.

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Echo of the Reich - James Becker 2012



A deadly weapon uncovered...
A decades-old conspiracy...
A race to save a city...

Berlin, 1936: When African-American Jesse Owens wins four gold medals in the Olympic Games, Hitler refuses to place the medals around Owens’s neck and vows to develop a means of wiping “inferior” races from the earth....

London, 2012: Chris Bronson is ordered to infiltrate a group of anarchists who plan to disrupt the Olympic Games with destruction and violence. When Bronson’s cover is blown, the police call off the operation. But Bronson is convinced that there’s something more sinister at play. On the run from both the police and the militant anarchists, Bronson soon finds himself immersed in a long-buried secret surrounding a Nazi weapon, and a deadly revenge plot that he must stop before it’s too late....

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I Suck at Girls - Justin Halpern 2012



"Human beings fear the unknown. So, whatever's freaking you out, grab it by the balls and say hello. Then it ain't the unknown anymore and it ain't scary. Or I guess it could be a shitload scarier."

Fans of the #1 bestseller Sh*t My Dad Says will recognize the always-patient voice of Justin Halpern's dad as it crackles through the pages of this hysterical new book. The story begins when Justin takes his dad out to lunch to announce that he's decided to propose to his girlfriend.

"You've been dating her for four years," his dad replies. "It ain't like you found a parallel fucking universe."

But eventually he gives Justin some advice: that he should take a day off and think back over everything he's
learned in life about women, relationships, and himself before making his decision. And that's just what Justin does—revisiting everything from his disastrous childhood crushes to the night he finally lost his virginity while working as a dishwasher at Hooters.

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Under the Moons of Mars- New Adventures on Barsoom - John Joseph Adams 2012



Readers of all ages have read and loved Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series since the first book, A Princess of Mars, was published in 1912. Now, in time for the 100th anniversary of that seminal work, comes an anthology of original stories featuring John Carter of Mars in brand-new adventures. Collected by veteran anthology editor John Joseph Adams, this anthology features stories from titans of literature such as Peter S. Beagle and Garth Nix and original art from Mark Zug, Charles Vess, and many more—plus an introduction by Tamora Pierce and a glossary of Mars by Richard A. Lupoff.

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Life After Death - Damien Echols 2012



In 1993, teenagers Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, Jr.—who have come to be known as the West Memphis Three—were arrested for the murders of three eight-year-old boys in Arkansas. The ensuing trial was marked by tampered evidence, false testimony, and public hysteria. Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life in prison; while eighteen-year-old Echols, deemed the “ringleader,” was sentenced to death. Over the next two decades, the WM3 became known worldwide as a symbol of wrongful conviction and imprisonment, with thousands of supporters and many notable celebrities who called for a new trial. In a shocking turn of events, all three men were released in August 2011.
Now Echols shares his story in full—from abuse by prison guards and wardens, to portraits of fellow inmates and deplorable living conditions, to the incredible reserves of patience, spirituality, and perseverance that kept him alive and sane while incarcerated for nearly two decades.

Life After Death is destined to be a riveting, explosive classic of prison literature.

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Magazine - Asimov's Science Fiction - December 2012




Vol. 36 No. 12, December 2012. Cover art by Laura Diehl illustrating "The Caramel Forest" by Chris Beckett.
ALSO: The Waves by Ken Liu; The Wizard of West 34th Street by Mike Resnick; The Black Feminist's Guide to Science Fiction Film Editing by Sandra McDonald; The Pipes of Pan by Robert Reed; Sudden, Broken and Unexpected by Steven Popkes; poetry by Bruce Boston, Karin L. Frank and Robert Frazier. FEATURES: Merry Armageddon (editorial) by Sheila Williams; Reflections by Robert Silverberg; On Books by Peter Heck; SF Convention Calendar by Erwin S. Strauss.

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Whatever Gods May Be - George Saunders 2012



Rzzdik Zolan is a time traveler from a planet 1,000 light years from Earth. He had been assigned to Earth as an evolutionary observer, and his travels have taken him to every era of human history – from the day Christ died on the cross – to the 21st Century, where World War III strikes out of the blue. Earth in 1 million years, A.D. is a burned out hell-hole populated by mutated bloodsuckers called Redeyes, and led by a mysterious all-powerful being known as The Resistor.
Humans have reverted to prehistoric primitives, and are slowly dying out as a species...

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Zombie Dawn - J.A. Crowley 2012



Jack and his family search for safe, sustainable home after the zombie apocalypse. All they want is peace and quiet--and to eradicate every zombie they see--but the zombies keep coming. Turns out Jack has enemies--both zombie and human--who want him dead. Will Jack be able to create the ideal environment before they arrive? Zombie Dawn is an action packed, full length zombie apocalypse novel.