Carte: ce ne aşteaptă în februarie?

4 februarie: Peter V. Brett – The Daylight War (Demon Cycle #3, Del Rey)

Deşi universul din Demon Cycle îmi pare teribil de interesant, nu am citit încă nimic de Peter Brett. Probabil că voi mai aştepta o vreme, însă pentru foarte mulţi acest al treilea volum din Demon Cycle este cea mai aşteptată carte a anului, care, cu siguranţă, va fi devorată cu repeziciune.

On the night of the new moon, the demons rise in force, seeking the deaths of two men, both of whom have the potential to become the fabled Deliverer, the man prophesied to reunite the scattered remnants of humanity in a final push to destroy the demon corelings once and for all. Arlen Bales was once an ordinary man, but now he has become something more—the Warded Man, tattooed with eldritch wards so powerful they make him a match for any demon. Arlen denies he is the Deliverer at every turn, but the more he tries to be one with the common folk, the more fervently they believe. Many would follow him, but Arlen’s path threatens to lead to a dark place he alone can travel to, and from which there may be no returning. The only one with hope of keeping Arlen in the world of men, or joining him in his descent into the world of demons, is Renna Tanner, a fierce young woman in danger of losing herself to the power of demon magic.

Ahmann Jardir has forged the warlike desert tribes of Krasia into a demon-killing army and proclaimed himself Shar’Dama Ka, the Deliverer. He carries ancient weapons—a spear and a crown—that give credence to his claim, and already vast swaths of the green lands bow to his control. But Jardir did not come to power on his own. His rise was engineered by his First Wife, Inevera, a cunning and powerful priestess whose formidable demon bone magic gives her the ability to glimpse the future. Inevera’s motives and past are shrouded in mystery, and even Jardir does not entirely trust her. Once Arlen and Jardir were as close as brothers. Now they are the bitterest of rivals. As humanity’s enemies rise, the only two men capable of defeating them are divided against each other by the most deadly demons of all—those lurking in the human heart.

5 februarie: Cory Doctorow – Homeland (Tor Teen)

Popularitatea lui Cory Doctorow a crescut şi mai mult de când a fost lansat extrem de apreciatul – şi discutatul – Little Brother. Homeland, care continuă povestea luptei lui Marcus împotriva sistemului şi a îngrădirii libertăţilor, de această dată în jurul scandalului Wikileaks, va fi cu certitudine nu doar una dintre cele mai bine vândute cărţi SFF ale anului (atâta cât este SFF), ci şi un rival pentru Neil Gaiman la premiile Hugo din 2014.

In Cory Doctorow’s wildly successful Little Brother, young Marcus Yallow was arbitrarily detained and brutalized by the government in the wake of a terrorist attack on San Francisco—an experience that led him to become a leader of the whole movement of technologically clued-in teenagers, fighting back against the tyrannical security state.

A few years later, California’s economy collapses, but Marcus’s hacktivist past lands him a job as webmaster for a crusading politician who promises reform. Soon his onetime girlfriend Masha emerges from the political underground to gift him with a thumbdrive containing a Wikileaks-style cable-dump of hard evidence of corporate and governmental perfidy. It’s incendiary stuff—and if Masha goes missing, Marcus is supposed to release it to the world. Then Marcus sees Masha being kidnapped by the same government agents who detained and tortured Marcus years earlier. Marcus can leak the archive Masha gave him—but he can’t admit to being the leaker, because that will cost his employer the election. He’s surrounded by friends who remember what he did a few years ago and regard him as a hacker hero. He can’t even attend a demonstration without being dragged onstage and handed a mike. He’s not at all sure that just dumping the archive onto the Internet, before he’s gone through its millions of words, is the right thing to do. Meanwhile, people are beginning to shadow him, people who look like they’re used to inflicting pain until they get the answers they want.

Fast-moving, passionate, and as current as next week, Homeland is every bit the equal of Little Brother—a paean to activism, to courage, to the drive to make the world a better place.

12 februarie: Robert Jackson Bennett – American Elsewhere (Orbit)

Dacă nu aţi citit până acum nici una dintre cărţile lui Robert Jackson Bennett (Mr. Shivers, The Company Man, The Troupe), să ştiţi că aţi pierdut poate cea mai interesantă voce masculină apărută în peisajul literaturii fantastice americane în ultimii 5 ani. Măiestria cu care Bennett combină majoritatea genurilor literaturii speculative este formidabilă, iar omagiul pe care îl aduce maeștrilor lui (Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clarke) este un deliciu pentru cunoscători. Şi American Elsewhere se petrece tot în universul mitologiei americane, o mitologie căreia Bennett îi găseşte mereu adâncimi nebănuite şi colţuri neexplorate.

Ex-cop Mona Bright has been living a hard couple of years on the road, but when her estranged father dies, she finds she’s had a home all along: a little house her deceased mother once owned in Wink, New Mexico. And though every map denies Wink exists, Mona finds they’re wrong: not only is Wink real, it is the perfect American small town, somehow retaining all the Atomic Age optimism the rest of world has given up on. But the closer Mona gets to understanding her mother’s past, the more she begins to understand that the people in Wink are very, very different—and what’s more, Mona begins to recognize her own bond to this strange place, which feels more like home every day.

12 februarie: Karen Lord – The Best of All Possible Worlds (Del Rey)

Redemption in Indigo a fost unul dintre cele mai apreciate debuturi din ultimii ani, câştigând prestigiosul premiu Crawford în 2011. Toată lumea aştepta să vadă ce va face în continuarea această scriitoare din Barbados, o voce atât de proaspătă şi inedită. Din fericire, Lord ne oferă destul de repede un nou roman, de această dată un science-fiction veritabil în care îşi pune la bătaie toate cunoștințele acumulate în timpul carierei sale profesionale de fizician.

The Sadiri were once the galaxy’s ruling élite, but now their home planet is unlivable and most of the population killed. The few groups living on other worlds are desperately short of Sadiri women, and their extinction is all but certain.

Grace Delarua is assigned to work with Councillor Dllenahkh, a Sadiri, on his mission to visit distant communities, looking for possible mates. Delarua is garrulous and fully immersed in the single life; Dllenahkh is controlled and responsible for keeping his community together. They both have a lot to learn.

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