Overall, The Guns Above was an enjoyable steampunk adventure, with a strong female protagonist and airships and battles. Josette Dupre is an enjoyable protagonist who becomes the first female captain of an airship. Whether this assignment is out of earned respect or a setup to see her fail depends on perspective. Either way, its an amazing opportunity that came her way after becoming a hero when her previous airship crashed. And it turns out her new airship is not just any airship, but a brand new, cutting edge model. Again, since its cutting edge, the likelihood of demise is higher, so whether it was an honor or not is a bit debatable. But Josette is up for the challenge and handles everything with skill and humor. She really is a great character to follow as she lightens things with a great sense of humor and she kicks ass at what she does. One of the things that didn’t work well for me was the sexism. I know the author has done this on purpose, but the misogynistic characters in this just felt over the top. We get the view point from a an overly sexist character who’s only real defining…

The Empire’s Ghost is epic on many levels. The massive empire of Elesthene is now history, fractured into separate lands. Magic has become fable, thought to be rooted in superstition rather than historical fact. The story gives viewpoints from several rulers, all with their own agendas and ruling styles. You also get the view point of many citizens and soldiers as well. It gives a sweeping view of what life is like across the board, giving the reader insights into the life and happenings for commoners as well as intrigue from within the palace. Though the perspectives are all unique, they become intricately intertwined as the story progresses. Through perspectives on the struggles between adjacent lands that used to be part of the Empire, we meet the rulers of all three and three and see the contrasting styles of rule. We see hints of magic, enough for speculation. The story can be dark at times, but this is not a brutal and gritty story. It is epic with ups and downs, and definitely death and blood. It’s not a happy feel good story that glosses over battles, but it is not terribly graphic either (at least not by my standards). Now, one…

Here’s a rundown of the books we think you should look out for in coming in the week. See any that you are really looking forward to? Find any you had not heard of yet? Know of books we missed? We know we don’t have everything and would love to hear what you feel we may have overlooked.   FANTASY          URBAN FANTASY           SCIENCE FICTION           HORROR   FANTASY       URBAN FANTASY   SCIENCE FICTION       HORROR       FANTASY          URBAN FANTASY           SCIENCE FICTION           HORROR   After Atlas Newman, Emma 11/8/2016 Roc Alien Morning Wilber, Rick 11/8/2016 Tor Books At the Sign of Triumph Weber, David 11/8/2016 Tor Books Belle Chasse Johnson, Suzanne 11/8/2016 Tor Books Tales from the Darkside: Scripts by Joe Hill Hill, Joe 11/8/2016 IDW Publishing The Iron Beast Remic, Andy 11/8/2016 Tor.com The Mountain of Kept Memory Neumeier, Rachel 11/8/2016 Saga Press The Shadow of What Was Lost Islington, James 11/8/2016 Orbit

Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older was a fascinating blend of technology, politics, big corporations and conspiracy.  Everything in this world revolves around Information, a corporatized database of sorts that contains pretty much everything. It’s like Google, research libraries and government databases all rolled into one mega-powered Information solution. Pretty much, it’s all the information in the world contained and controlled. I found the government structure in this really intriguing. Instead of countries ruled by their own local governments, the world is now broken into pieces (centenals – which contain a population of about 100,000). Each centenal is ruled by their elected government, at least until the next election in 10 years. They don’t vote for individual people here or there, the entire government is a whole package deal. They refer to this model as “micro-democracy”. Now, as you can imagine, the campaigning, research and everything else that goes into a typical election here is on a whole other level when it is the entire package being voted on. It pretty much turns governments into corporations (in fact, some of them bear the names of modern day corporations we are quite familiar with) and all the tactics are taken to a much…