Fifteen new fantasies hit the shelves this month, including the first in a new trilogy from Malazan master Steven Erikson, the ninth book in S.M. Stirling’s Emberverse series, and number six in David Weber’s Safehold series. There are also new series additions this month from Robert Silverberg, Pearl North, Sam Sykes, Sherwood Smith, Stephen R. Lawhead, and Brent Weeks.

Fiction Affliction details releases in science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and “genre-benders.” Keep track of them all here.

Note: All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher.

WEEK ONE

Lord of the Mountains: A Novel of the Change (Emberverse #9), by S.M. Stirling (September 4, Roc)

Rudi Mackenize, now Artos the First, High King of Montival, and his allies have won several key battles against the Church Universal and Triumphant. But still the war rages on, taking countless lives, ravaging the land once known as the United States of America. Artos and his Queen, Mathilda, must unite the realms into a single kingdom to ensure a lasting peace. If the leaders of the Changed world are to accept Artos as their ruler, he will need to undertake a quest to the Lake at the Heart of the Mountains, and take part in a crowning ceremony, a ceremony binding him to his people, his ancestors, and his land. Then, once he has secured his place and allegiances, Artos can go forward, and lead his forces to the heart of the enemy’s territory….

Majipoor Chronicles: Book Two of the Majipoor Cycle (Majipoor: Lord Valentine #2), by Robert Silverberg (September 4, Roc)

When Hissune, Lord Valentine’s successor-designate and a clerk in the House of Records, is assigned to organizing the archives of the tax-collectors, he is disheartened to say the least. No one will ever have need of his findings, his useless busywork. But close to the House of Records lies a far more interesting place: the Register of Souls. Home to millions of telepathically recorded stories, the Register contains Majipoor’s infinitely complex histories, tales of love and loss, triumph and heartbreak. And as the young prince-to-be immerses himself in the lives of those who have come before, he creates an enthralling chronicle of his own.

The Book of the Night (Libyrinth, #3), by Pearl North (September 4, Tor)

The world of the Libyrinth has experienced a series of wrenching changes. After the Libyrarians and their longtime foes the Singers discovered their common heritage, a young healer named Po found the Lion’s Bloom, an ancient and enormously powerful artifact capable of rewriting reality. Behind the mysteries of their shrouded past has always been the legendary Book of the Night. Sought for generations, both feared and revered, it is the key to this world of wonders. When vain, grasping Queen Thela steals the Lion’s Bloom and imperils the very reality of the world, only the Book can heal what she has rent asunder. An epic journey through strange lands, a perilous encounter in a clockwork city, and the revelation of the truth beyond reality will lead those who find the Book to a moment when their world will either be saved…or cease to exist. Young Adult.

The Skybound Sea (Aeon’s Gate #3), by Sam Sykes (September 4, Prometheus)

The skies bleed. The Earth groans. The sea howls. The world is rent asunder as the Kraken Queen claws her way from hell. And the only ones standing in her way are a young man with a piece of steel and a voice in his head his many companions, and their many problems. As Lenk journeys to the Island of Jaga, the tomb of Ulbecetonth, he is hunted. By enemies, by the woman he loves, by the demon he has to kill, by an army of any number of bloodthirsty purple berserkers, savage lizardmen, vicious monsters, and colossal demons. In the lands where sky and sea have forgotten they were ever separate, Lenk and his companions’ destinies await at the tip of a sword and the mouth of hell.

The Spirit Well (Bright Empires #3), by Stephen R. Lawhead (September 4, Thomas Nelson)

Kit Livingstone is on a quest for the ultimate treasure, a tattooed map to an alternate universe. When he witnesses Arthur Flinders-Petrie carry his dead wife into a pool of light, and emerge with her alive, Kit wonders if The Spirit Well is the secret of the map. And if it is, can Arthur’s ruthless great-grandson be far behind?

Blood Spirits (Dobrenica #2), by Sherwood Smith (September 6, DAW)

With the man she loves set to marry a look-alike princess, Kim Murray returns to California from the magical country of Dobrenica to heal her broken heart. But family politics soon have her leaving for London, where she is forced into a duel with a Dobrenican nobleman. He reveals that her great sacrifice, leaving Alec, was a disaster. To fix her mistake, Kim returns to Dobrenica, but what she finds there is far more shocking and dangerous than she ever imagined. Not just politics and personalities but ghosts and magic, murder and mystery, await her as she struggles to understand the many faces of love. Once again Kim has to take sword in hand as she tries to make peace and learn the truth. Only, whose truth?

WEEK TWO

The Blinding Knife (Lightbringer #2), by Brent Weeks (September 11, Orbit)

He’d thought he had five years left, now he has less than one. With fifty thousand refugees, a bastard son, and an ex-fiancée who may have learned his darkest secret, Gavin has problems on every side. All magic in the world is running wild and threatens to destroy the Seven Satrapies. Worst of all, the old gods are being reborn, and their army of color wights is unstoppable. The only salvation may be the brother whose freedom and life Gavin stole sixteen years ago.

WEEK THREE

Legends of the Dragonrealm: Shade, by Richard A. Knaak (September 18, Gallery Books)

Survivor of a once-mighty race of sorcerers, the spellcaster known to those of the Dragonrealm simply as Shade struggles to find an end to the curse he brought upon himself millennia ago in his hope to escape death, and worse. Instead of immortality, he was condemned to an endless series of lives alternating between darkness and light, with death only resurrecting him over and over. His blurred features and unstable but terrible powers a threat to friend and foe alike, the hooded sorcerer must struggle against not only those who would manipulate him, but also his very self. Worse, he must do so always aware that even the very land itself may have its own sinister designs upon him.

Midst Toil and Tribulation (Safehold #6), by David Weber (September 18, Tor)

After centuries of stasis, the island kingdom of Charis began to defy the edicts of the Church of God Awaiting, egged on, some say, by the mysterious warrior-monk Merlin Athawes. Now, in the wars and intrigues that have cascaded from Charis’s declaration of independence, the populous Republic of Siddermark is sliding into chaos. King Cayleb of Charis, his queen Sharleyan, and Merlin Arthawes will have their hands full trying to stave off wholesale starvation in Siddermark while at the same time shipping in enough land combat units to fend off the “volunteers” from the Church’s Temple Lands. While Vicar Clyntahn is hailed in the Church for his boldness and audacity, there are those who remember how dependent Church power is on money from Siddermark.

Stormdancer (The Lotus War #1), by Jay Kristoff (September 18, St. Martin’s Press)

The Shima Imperium verges on the brink of environmental collapse. The skies are red as blood, the land is choked with toxic pollution, and the great spirit animals that once roamed its wilds have departed forever. The hunters of Shima’s imperial court are charged by their Shogun to capture a thunder tiger. The beasts have been extinct for more than a century. The price of failing the Shogun is death. Yukiko is a child of the Fox clan, possessed of a talent that if discovered, would see her executed by the Lotus Guild. Accompanying her father on the Shogun’s hunt, she finds herself stranded, with only a furious, crippled thunder tiger for company. Even though she can hear his thoughts, even though she saved his life, she knows for certain is he’d rather see her dead than help her.

The Crown of Embers (Fire and Thorns #2), by Rae Carson (September 18, HarperCollins)

Elisa is the hero of her country. She led her people to victory against a terrifying enemy, and now she is their queen. But she is only seventeen years old. Her rivals may have simply retreated, choosing stealth over battle. And no one within her court trusts her, except Hector, the commander of the royal guard, and her companions. As the country begins to crumble beneath her and her enemies emerge from the shadows, Elisa will take another journey. With a one-eyed warrior, a loyal friend, an enemy defector, and the man she is falling in love with, Elisa crosses the ocean in search of the perilous, uncharted, and mythical source of the Godstone’s power. That is not all she finds. Young Adult.

The Forge of Darkness (The Kharkanas Trilogy #1), by Steven Erikson (September 18, Tor)

It’s a conflicted time in Kurald Galain, the warren of Darkness, where Mother Dark reigns. But this ancient land was once home to many a power, and even death is not quite eternal. The commoners’ great hero, Vatha Urusander, longs for ascendency and Mother Dark’s hand in marriage, but she has taken another Consort, Lord Draconus, from the faraway Dracon Hold. The idea of this union sends fissures throughout the realm, and as the rumors of civil war burn through the masses, an ancient power emerges from the long dead seas. Caught in the middle of it all are the Sons of Darkness, Anomander, Adarist, and Silchas Ruin of the Purake Hold.

Read the first five chapters on Tor.com

The Indigo Pheasant: Longing for Yount, Book 2, by Daniel A. Rabuzzi (September 18, ChiZine)

London 1817. Maggie Collins, born into slavery in Maryland, whose mathematical genius and strength of mind can match those of a goddess, must build the world’s most powerful and sophisticated machine, to free the lost land of Yount from the fallen angel Strix Tender Wurm. Sally, of the merchant house McDoon, must choose either to help Maggie or to hinder her. Together, or not, Maggie and Sally drive to conclusion the story started in The Choir Boats.

The Well of Tears, by Roberta Trahan (September 18, 47North)

More than five hundred years have passed since the legendary age of Camelot, and the Stewardry, the magical order charged with protecting the old ways of power and magic, has fallen into decay, disorder, and distrust. Now Hywel, a new king promised by prophecy, has come to claim his crown. But as he journeys toward his throne, those preparing the way are besieged by agents of destruction. A great evil stirs at Hywel’s coming. As a sorceress born of an ancient bloodline sworn to defend the Stewardry at all costs, Alwen is determined to fulfill her oath. When black magic begins claiming those closest to her and traitors plot to steal the Stewardry’s source of power, she realizes that the king’s survival and that of all the realms may require that she sacrifice her own.

WEEK FOUR

Baba Yaga’s Daughter and Other Stories of the Old Races (Negotiator Trilogy/Old Races Universe #4), by C.E. Murphy (September 28, Subterranean)

Dragonlord Janx and master vampire Eliseo Daisani are the threads upon which a tapestry of lives and loves are woven across the centuries. From the coldest Russian nights to the heat of Chicago’s greatest fire, nothing brings the immortal adversaries together, or tears them apart, like a woman. And there is always a woman. Vanessa Grey has been at Daisani’s side for decades, but the secrets borne by a witch may be her undoing. Baba Yaga’s daughter has plots that are decades in the hatching, but they may only succeed if Margrit Knight, named ’the Negotiator’ by Daisani and Janx themselves, will work with her. And there are others, the greatest vampire hunter mankind has ever known, and a woman for whom the Old Races are a wonder to walk away from.

Urban fantasy author Suzanne Johnson is a book geek with a fondness for a good dystopia. Royal Street, the first in her Sentinels of New Orleans series, is set in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina. Find Suzanne on Twitter.