JULY 30-AUGUST 5, 2014: Trilogies conclude and trilogies begin, and still another expands, along with two intriguing standalone novels to kick off August: Lev Grossman’s The Magician’s Land, Lou Anders’ Frostborn, David Shafer’s Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, J.M. Hayes’ The Spirit and the Skull, and Daniel Abraham’s The Widow’s House. It’s a busy week, with other audiobooks out including Carol Berg’s Dust and Light, Steven Erikson’s Reaper’s Gale (in Brilliance Audio’s ongoing productions of his Malazan Book of the Fallen), Kat Richardson’s Revenant, and a new Blackstone Audio edition of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos works entitled Necronomicon. Some “seen but not heard” selections include Sam Cabot’s Skin of the Wolf and Graham Joyce’s The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit, though Joyce’s is set for audio from Dreamscape in a couple of weeks. In audiobooks news, a pair of successfully-funded Kickstarters with audiobooks attached to pass along: The Maze of Games read by Wil Wheaton, and the An Alphabet of Embers anthology edited by Rose Lemberg. While it’s too late to get in on the Kickstarters, both of these look to be fantastic projects. Speaking of projects, Audible unveiled a new Author Spotlight on The Books that Changed My Life feature with 3 books picked and pitched by a fantastic (and huge) panel of authors, including (among others) Deborah Harkness, Michael J. Sullivan, B. V. Larson, Cassandra Clare, Ernie Cline, Christopher Moore, Kevin Hearne, Lev Grossman, Emma Straub, Megan Abbott, Brandon Mull, Jack McDevitt, and Shawn Speakman. Also new (at least to me) is the Try Audio Books website from Random House Audio and Listening Library where, among other choices, you can get a free download of Jason M. Hough’s The Darwin Elevator. Happy listening!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

In the fantasy worlds of Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, magic is hard. There is more, much more to it, than waving a wand and saying a few words in a modified Latin. And yet, as his characters come to find, magic is the easy part. Finding answers to your questions doesn’t make things more simple either. Both magic and answers have a cost — a high one, one you’re not sure is worth it, for all the good they do you. And when — if — you get to the “happily ever after part” you may not recognize it or appreciate it, may not have the sense to “close the book, put it down, walk away.”

Counting Codex, his internationally best-selling 2004 technothriller of a lost medieval manuscript, and the just-released The Magician’s Land — and by the way yes, it’s brilliant, but I’ll get to that later — I’ve read “all” 4 of his novels. (Hey, if he doesn’t count his first novel Warp why should I? Warp is to Lev Grossman as The Big U is to Neal Stephenson: no longer on the “also by this author” list in the first pages of his books, and by far — by far — the most valuable books they’ve published from a collector’s point of view. Oh how I regret not coming upon Lev’s writing until The Magicians — I wish I had bought a few boxes of Warp because that would be my kids’ college fund right there.)

Back to his books. They’re about finding the point of magic and technology or even wealth and power. They’re about characters trying to make sense of the nonsensical, brutal, uncaring world and its systems; characters breaking, characters surviving, re-building themselves from the pieces and carrying on, whether for love, for the next adventure, for those who have been left behind, for those who didn’t make it, or perhaps even to save the world or something yet more precious, magic itself.

Having grown up as a twin daydreaming of being an only child, Grossman wrote Quentin, the protagonist of The Magicians, as an only child; having aged into a still young man with the final realization that Narnia was not in fact lurking in a wardrobe and, some years later, that his letter from Hogwarts was not coming by owl any time soon, he wrote of Brakebills and Fillory, but with an adult complexity and discovering — as in so many things both real and in his fiction — that becoming a magician and traveling to a world behind the walls are not at all as advertised. Wherever you go, there you are.

He has a knack for writing just what I — and thousands of others — have needed to read. As Proust wrote, “The reader’s recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book’s truth.” He also has an anthropologist’s grasp of the evolving technology of reading, from stone tablets to scrolls to books to ebooks; technology and literature are the yin-yang of his journalistic DNA’s double helix. In cover stories for TIME he has covered technology from advanced anti-aging research to BitCoin to quantum computing to the Oculus Rift, an upstart Virtual Reality company recently purchased by Facebook where, one day soon, you may see a popup ad for The Magicians and later find yourself walking through and looking around a dryad-populated wood while flipping through a virtual paperback. From his pulpit as the book editor of TIME magazine, he is one of the more public champions of the return of plot to literature, of genre fiction as worthwhile of creation and consideration.

Given that public stance, and two best-selling books so far in The Magicians trilogy, there was no shortage of expectations for The Magician’s Land. Let me tell you: he stuck the landing. The Magician’s Land is the sequel I thought I was waiting for last time around, but Quentin wasn’t ready; despite everything he’d fought for and gained and lost in The Magicians he still had some growing up to do in The Magician King where, along the way, the losses piled up until, at the end, at the moment of triumph, Grossman left us (and Quentin) with almost literally nothing. The hero pays the price. It’s a gut-punch of an ending, but it did, actually, leave us with one thing: we knew it could’t really end like this. Or at least we hoped it wouldn’t.

Chronologically, The Magician’s Land picks up right where The Magician King left off. Quentin, alone in the windswept streets of a post-apocalyptic Neitherlands, deposited at last outside his parents’ suburban home, instead returns to the only home he has left: Brakebills, the college of magic where everything started. Welcomed back by Dean Fogg, Quentin accepts a position as an adjunct professor, and things are actually going pretty well for him until, suddenly, they aren’t, and after dealing with the aftermath of personal loss (in a way made all-the-more poignant by the recent death of Grossman’s father, poet and professor Allen Grossman) and returning to Brakebills, shockingly, can-it-really-be-no-effing-way things really, really aren’t.

Structurally, that’s where The Magician’s Land kicks off: Quentin, fired, friendless, jobless, walking out of the rain into a strip-mall bookstore and a recruitment meeting for a magical heist. A rag-tag crew assembles: we’ve got “Stoppard”, the self-taught tech-wizard (literally) with a knack for devices; we’ve got “Betty”, an all-aggro badass from the Safe House scene; we’ve got “Pushkar”, an expert in all things transport; we’ve got Quentin; and we’ve got Plum, another Brakebills exile with secrets of her own. (It’s through a series of chapters from Plum’s eyes that we get a fantastic look at Quentin as Brakebills professor, as co-conspirator, as confident and competent in a way that we don’t experience much in Quentin’s own point of view.)

Meanwhile, in Fillory… High King Elliot deals with an invading army from the north (“The Duel” from Shawn Speakman’s Unfettered anthology) before learning from the ram’s mouth himself, Ember, that Fillory is dying. Again. But, like, for real this time. After an all-too-brief pow-wow with fellow King Josh and Queen Poppy, Elliot and Janet set off into Fillory to see what can be seen. As Quentin has, Elliot and Janet have both grown over the course of the books as well, both as people and wizards but also in their love and attachment to Fillory itself. Through their ongoing quest, we see sides of each that we’ve not seen in these books: honest, open, vulnerable.

Both in our world and in Fillory, quests do what quests do: put the right people together at the right place and time, across interesting terrain with fascinating side characters. But where these books have shined and where this book really shines is in the emotional payoff, the point of self-realization and reflection that, having taken a trilogy to get here, must be worth the journey, must be worth being earned. Grossman delivers with The Magician’s Land, and while I’m sad to see this series end, if this is all we ever see of Fillory, we sure got an awful lot. Humor, heart, pain, loss, joy, action, misery, and yes, of course, magic.

And those payoff lines — what is magic for, and especially where Quentin reflects on what his 17-year-old self had right and wrong — are really darned good stuff: the old magic, the story as metaphor for itself, the “this is why we read books!” feeling. Nearly every moment that could have been easy instead becomes harder and more complicated, reality seeping in. The sweeping, visual awesomeness of some scenes — massive battles and cosmic-scale world-building galore. I’m going to have these three books my whole life, and I’ll fight the bastard who says they aren’t right there with The Canon, old or new. I know they’re three of my favorite books, ever. For whatever that’s worth.

And Mark Bramhall has been a fantastic narrator for this series throughout, though his Australian accent for Poppy leaves some amount to be desired, he does everything else you could ask and more: poignant, flippant, cold, pleading, everything comes through in his reading. His Quentin and Josh are marvelous — I can’t think of Josh without Bramhall’s slightly goofy inflection, and smile to myself — and (across the series) I’ve adored his bitter, manic Mayakovsky and arrogant Penny, the deep rumble of his Ember and the inherent snark in the Elliot-Janet banter, the clipped British of his Martin Chatwin. When Penguin Audio cast someone three times Quentin’s age for The Magicians, they, somehow, knew exactly what they were doing.

More: NY Times (by Edan Lepucki); io9 (a “Biography of Christopher Plover”); Slate; NY Times Book Review; Vulture; The AV Club (Grossman “lists his 5 favorite magic portals”); BuzzFeed; The Atlantic [interview]; NPR; The Nerdist; reddit; events; and the fantastic book trailer starring both fans and authors (Neil Gaiman, Pat Rothfuss, Gregory Maguire, Peter Straub, Terry Brooks, Charles Stross, Rainbow Rowell, Erin Morgenstern, …)

Get: [IndieBound | Downpour | Audible | OverDrive | Kobo | Kindle]

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I’m more and more often asked for “family-friendly” recommendations, books that ages 6-106 can enjoy together, and Lou Anders’ debut novel Frostborn is my newest go-to answer. An award-winning editor and art director, Anders has created a thoroughly enjoyable Viking-infused middle grade fantasy for boys and girls and their parents, with a winning combination of board gaming, frost giants, barrow mounds, and (of course!) dragons; fairly equal parts The Hobbit and (yes!) The Lion King with How to Train Your Dragon and The Black Cauldron flavoring atop a foundation of board games.

After a high-action wyvern-riding prologue, we’re introduced in quick alternating scenes to our young heroes: Karn, the eldest son of a Hauld but with much more interest in his board games than in running a farm or minding his lessons, and Thianna, the “diminutive” (at 7 plus feet) half-frost-giant trying to prove that she belongs in a brutal world where her size and darker skin mark her as “different”. Karn’s world is a bit more fleshed out, with an uncle, farm-hands, and siblings, but where he wants to reject the responsibilities that are coming his way all Thianna wants to do is fit in, be accepted. A line early on from her father, telling her that she “absolutely” is a frost giant, but that it’s simply not all that she is, is a beautiful encapsulation of her struggle for identity and acceptance. As it happens, Karn’s father meets with Thianna’s father every year to trade between their people, and this is the first year the two children have been brought along. One thing leads to another and, naturally, we have an adventure on our hands.

The audiobook edition is really fantastically narrated by Fabio Tassone for Listening Library — grumbling giants, bewhiskered dwarves, bumbling trolls, booming dragons, wheezing, hissing undead, accents galore, and a foreshadowingly sinister characterization of a key character that really colors the original text in an unexpected way — and I’m eagerly awaiting the future adventures of Thianna and Karn in the rest of the Thrones and Bones series. A prologue plus two chapter sampler are online, as is a positive review from Kirkus in which we learn of an important message: “always stand downwind from a troll”.

More: [Suvudu | SciFi Pulse | ThronesAndBones.com]

Get: [IndieBound | Downpour | Audible | OverDrive | Kobo | Kindle]

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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by David Shafer (Mulholland Books and Hachette Audio, August 5) — “William Gibson meets Chuck Palahniuk in an ambitious novel of international techno conspiracy and dark comedy. The Committee, an international cabal of techno-industrialists and media barons, is on the verge of privatizing all information. Dear Diary, an idealistic online Underground, stands in the way of that takeover, using radical politics, classic spycraft, and technology that makes Big Data look like dial-up. Into this pitched and secret battle tumbles an unlikely trio: Leila Majnoun, a disenchanted non-profiteer; Leo Crane, a bipolar trustafarian; and Mark Devreaux, a wracked and fraudulent self-betterment guru.” Says TIME books editor Lev Grossman: “And there’s a book coming out called Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by David Shafer. It’s his first book and comes out the same day as my book (The Magician’s Land). Don’t buy his, buy mine. But you might catch his paperback because it’s unbelievably brilliant.” Narrated By Bernard Setaro Clark — whom I loved on Hal Duncan’s Vellum — it’s one I’m looking forward to getting deeper into soon, but what I’ve heard so far makes this one a title worth checking out. Get: [IndieBound | Downpour | Audible | Kobo | Kindle]

My next pick came to my attention via BuzzFeed, and from a small mystery publisher, Poisoned Pen Press. The Spirit and the Skull by J.M. Hayes, read by Barry Press for Blackstone Audio, a narrator I am not familiar with at all to match an author with whom I’m not familiar either, but the setup reminds me quite a bit of Kim Stanley Robinson’s absolutely fantastic Ice Age-set novel Shaman which was my favorite book and audiobook of last year. Where Robinson cast his eyes to the famous Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave in France, Hayes focuses on the Americas, and does so in a much shorter narrative of investigation and accusation, and with an older, more mature shaman at its center. Here’s the book copy: “Murder is unthinkable to The People—a Paleolithic tribe migrating across Alaska and becoming some of the first undocumented immigrants to enter the Americas. For them, murder isn’t merely tragic, it’s forbidden. Murder poisons the entire tribe and puts it at odds with nature, the Spirits, and the mighty Earth Mother. A murderer must be found and removed in order to put the world back in balance. Raven is the aging Spirit Man to a band in which a member has been strangled with a garrote. Worse, evidence of witchcraft is linked to the killing—another terrible violation of the People’s covenant with the Earth Mother and the Spirits. Raven isn’t a Spirit Man because of sacredly held beliefs. He holds the position because his band needed someone to do so, and because he needed to secure his place among them. Now the agnostic Spirit Man begins having dreams in which a stranger holds Raven’s skull in his hands, and a woman claiming to be the Earth Mother—accepted by many followers—declares that only Raven can solve the crimes and restore the People to harmony. How will a man who doubts the authenticity of this goddess satisfy her demands? What if she and the dreams are real and successfully solving the crimes will result in Raven’s imminent death? An impossible situation becomes even harder as Raven finds it increasingly likely the young woman he’s falling in love with must be the guilty party.” Get: [IndieBound | Downpour | Audible | Kobo | Kindle]

The Widow’s House (The Dagger and the Coin) by Abraham, Daniel (Orbit, Aug 5, 2014) — narrated by Pete Bradbury for Recorded Books, the 4th book in The Dagger and the Coin series which my fellow AudioBookaneer Dave Thompson has called “the best kept secret in epic fantasy”, and I’m sure it won’t be long before we have a full review for this latest book. (Though it’ll have to at least wait for Dave’s forthcoming review of Cibola Burn, in the space opera series The Expanse which Abraham co-writes as “James S.A. Corey”.) Here: “Lord Regent Geder Palliako’s war has led his nation and the priests of the spider goddess to victory after victory. No power has withstood him, except for the heart of the one woman he desires. As the violence builds and the cracks in his rule begin to show, he will risk everything to gain her love or else her destruction. Clara Kalliam, the loyal traitor, is torn between the woman she once was and the woman she has become. With her sons on all sides of the conflict, her house cannot stand, but there is a power in choosing when and how to fall.” Buy: [Downpour | Audible]

Lastly, a collection which popped up just as I was finishing up my final draft of picks for the week: Occultation and Other Stories By Laird Barron, Narrated By David Drummond for Audible (Aug 5). Originally published by Night Shade Books in 2010 in hardcover and just re-released in a new trade paperback edition, this collection, Barron’s second, was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. “Laird Barron has emerged as one of the strongest voices in modern horror and dark fantasy fiction, building on the eldritch tradition pioneered by writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub, and Thomas Ligotti. His stories have garnered critical acclaim and been reprinted in numerous year’s best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards, including the Crawford, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards. His debut collection, The Imago Sequence and Other Stories, was the inaugural winner of the Shirley Jackson Award. He returns with his second collection, Occultation. Pitting ordinary men and women against a carnivorous, chaotic cosmos, Occultation‘s eight tales of terror (two never before published) include the Theodore Sturgeon and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated story “The Forest” and Shirley Jackson Award nominee “The Lagerstatte.” Barron is also the editor of the inaugural “Year’s Best Weird Fiction” anthology, forthcoming from ChiZine. Buy: [Audible]

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

SEEN BUT NOT HEARD:

COMING SOON:

SEPTEMBER 2014:

OCTOBER 2014:

NOVEMBER and DECEMBER 2014:

UNDATED or 2015: