Books Received, June 14 to June 20

[james_davis_nicoll]

Five works new to me: 2 fantasy, 1 non-fiction, 2 science fiction, of which 1 belongs to a series, and the other 4 are stand-alone.

Books Received, June 14 to June 20

Poll #33275 Books Received, June 14 to June 20

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 45

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Which of these look interesting?

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99 Ways to Die: And How to Avoid Them by A. M. Alker, M. D. & Ashely Alker (January 2026)
24 (53.3%)

The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear (June 2025)
24 (53.3%)

From These Dark Abodes by Lyndsie Manusos (May 2024)
8 (17.8%)

The Prestige by Christopher Priest (July 2025)
9 (20.0%)

Deathly Fates by Tesia Tsai (April 2026)
13 (28.9%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
31 (68.9%)

Comments

[petrea_mitchell]

What audience is the marketing person writing a book description writing for when they use the phrase "Quirky yet commercial"?

[patrick_morris_miller]

Marketing people.

[(Anonymous)]

I was very irritated by the movie of *The Prestige*, and I expect I'd find the same flaw in the novel. If you choose to write a novel about stage magicians, it should be about stage magic. All the tricks should have a physically possible explanation. Instead, *The Prestige* establishes the characters and setting as one about a rivalry between stage magicians, but then chooses to give one of the rivals laws-of-the-universe breaking magical powers just to fuck with the reader.

It's like if you sat down to read a Miss Marple mystery novel and the twist ending was that the victim had been killed by the Evil Eye.

--
Nathan H.

[petrea_mitchell]

IIRC, the book is primarily about a person much closer to our time trying to figure out the supernatural thing, with the magicians' rivalry providing the backstory.

[(Anonymous)]

As it happens I've recently read a Miss Jane Marple story series, being the collection, "The 13 Problems" - good ones, I think, if perhaps showing the village of St Mary Mead and the wider world as loci of wicked criminal behaviour as bad as Tom Lehrer's home town. As told, Jane is a stern judge and not superstitious; she experiences intuition, but in episode "A Christmas Tragedy" she explains it as an unconscious product of a lifetime's knowledge and experience - I'm paraphrasing considerably.

However, one character in "The Idol House of Astarte" persists in a belief that an evil influence exists in that location, and indeed I notice that Jane considers a local house in St Mary Mead, "The Larches", "very unhappy", supernaturally or otherwise - no one has settled in it for long. But chez Astarte, an un-supernatural explanation of the principal crime is found.

Miss Marple also seems to have lived, after all. Talking about fancy-dress, she says, "He would be sure to have a weapon of some kind in his belt. I remember dancing with a man dressed as a brigand chief when I was a young girl. He had five kinds of knives and daggers, and I can't tell you how awkward and uncomfortable it was for his partner."

Robert Carnegie

[zotz]

It's only incidentally about magic. Primarily it's about obsession and how far people will go.

[(Anonymous)]

One wonders how many of the 99 ways to die our beloved James has successfully avoided?

[petrea_mitchell]

Since he's still alive, obviously all of them!

[thomasyan]

why 99? why not go for 100 at that point?

but even more why: the cover shows Ashely Alker, but how come both A. M. Alker, M. D. and Ashely Alker are listed as authors? Are they different people?

[james_davis_nicoll]

Something went wrong during the collect metadata phase and I missed it.

[thomasyan]

Maybe nothing wrong on your part. I mean, Amazon shows something similar, and even has brief bios for "each" author.

[bolindbergh]

Similar things have happened to Sea Wasp and Seawasp as well.

[patrick_morris_miller]

Bezos doesn't know what authority control is but he thinks it sounds like something that would impede his power hunger, so he forbids Amzn to practice it.