The Great Geek Manual

It’s a bit of a slow week for genre fans. The highlight of the week is actually one short story packaged up into a short anthology, Ray Bradbury’s Marionettes, Inc.

Along with the new short, this anthology includes four other Bradbury stories about substitute people, including the famous novella I Sing the Body Electric, in addition to a rare, previously unpublished screen treatment.

Don’t worry. Next week, things pick up next week with the release of the next Sookie Stackhouse book and yet another post-mordem Tolkein book.

New Releases

The Grand Conjunction: Astropolis by Sean Williams
Ace. (ISBN-13: 978-0441017133) Paperback. Length: 336pp
Six hundred thousand years after Imre Bergamasc’s abdication, the Host rules the supposedly peaceful galaxy. But revolution is fomenting—and Imre’s unexpected return may be all it takes to light the final fuse. Release: April 28

Lover Avenged by J.R. Ward
NAL Hardcover. (ISBN-13: 978-0451225856) Hardcover. Length: 544pp
The seventh book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Rehvenge has always kept his distance from the Brotherhood—even though his sister is married to a member, for he harbors a deadly secret that could make him a huge liability in their war against the lessers. As plots within and outside of the Brotherhood threaten to reveal the truth about Rehvenge, he turns to the only source of light in his darkening world, Ehlena, a vampire untouched by the corruption that has its hold on him—and the only thing standing between him and eternal destruction. Release: April 28

Marionettes, Inc. by Ray Bradbury
Subterranean. (ISBN-13: 978-1596062153) Hardcover. Length: 120pp
In Marionettes, Inc., Ray Bradbury offers his devoted readers something both special and unexpected: a unified view of one small corner of a varied fictional universe. In five stories (one of them original to this collection, plus a rare, previously unpublished screen treatment), Bradbury explores the concept of Robotics and examines its impact on the day-to-day lives of ordinary people. Release: April 30

The Moonpool: A Novel by P. T. Deutermann
St. Martin’s Press. (ISBN-13: 978-0312371593) Hardcover. Length: 304pp
A private detective working in Wilmington, North Carolina, is found dead in a gas-station restroom, apparently poisoned. But when her body sets off radiation alarms in the pathologist’s office, suspicion falls on the nearby Helios nuclear power plant, a heavily guarded facility with supposedly failsafe procedures. As the FBI, local police, and the power plant’s own security team investigate, ex-cop Cam Richter, head of the agency that employed the dead woman, begins his own inquiries. What was his detective investigating? And how could one person be poisoned by radiation without others being exposed?

Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi
Tor Science Fiction. (ISBN-13: 978-0765356192) Paperback. Length: 416pp
In the touching fourth novel set in the Old Man’s War universe, Scalzi revisits the events of 2007’s The Last Colony from the perspective of Zoë, adopted daughter of previous protagonists Jane Sagan and John Perry. Jane and John are drafted to help found the new human colony of Roanoke, struggling against a manipulative and deceitful homeworld government, native werewolf-like creatures and a league of aliens intent on preventing all space expansion and willing to eradicate the colony if needed.

Audio Books

• Lord of Misrule: The Morganville Vampires, Book Five by Rachel Caine