The Getaway God is the latest in the Sandman Slim series. As we rejoin Stark, the apocalypse appears to be imminent. In L.A., it's raining nonstop and people are fleeing the city en masse without quite knowing why. In hell, it's also raining nonstop but there it's blood. There's a serial killer on the loose who has been dubbed Saint Nick, and some people from the Vigil aren't entirely sure it's not Stark. A self-mummified monk is trying to figure out how to use the Qomrama Om Ya, a weapon that can kill gods. And something just isn't right with Candy.

This book remains everything that I love about this series. It's pure messy, violent, gritty fun capped with wise-ass dialogue. I attempted to sum it up once as Sin City with angels and demons running around, which doesn't quite cover it but comes close. For a while near the end I wondered if this was going to be the last book in the series, but then it became clear it was just being turned in a new direction. I'll always be looking forward to the next one.

Overall: A

Rose Sweetly is a mathematical genius with a passion for astronomy. Aside from her work, all she wants is a quiet life. For that, she has to guard her reputation, particularly because too many people will see a middle class black woman as not a lady and somebody of whom advantage can be easily taken. Stephen Shaughnessy, novelist and author of the "Ask a Man" column in the newspaper published for and by women which featured in the previous book in the series, is widely known as a rake. Rose knows that he's the last man that she should even let anybody think she associates with. Nevertheless, when he appears under the pretense of wanting to learn about astronomy for his next novel, she agrees to teach him.

I adored this book. Stephen is the best sort of romance rake: he genuinely likes women, he never hurts anybody, and he never pressures Rose to risk anything she doesn't want to. He loves her for her brilliance and the way she sees the world, and he makes it clear that if she marries him he'll support her continuing her work. Rose starts the book having learned to keep her head down and stay out of trouble as a method of survival; by the end she learns to take a stand for herself and her family, and when to dare to be a little bit outrageous. And when she *does* stand up for her sister... I can't give specifics without spoilers, but I love that Stephen joins in by threatening to help her rather than taking over the lead. Courtney Milan just writes the best beta heroes.

This *might* have became my new favorite Courtney Milan novel, except that as a novella, there just isn't enough of it to unseat the wonder that is The Suffragette Scandal. Which isn't to say that it feels too short in itself: it is exactly the right length for its own purposes.

Overall: A+

The Artful Dodger was always a far more interesting character than Oliver Twist, who mostly burst into tears and got rescued by other people. Why, then, did Charles Dickens choose to write the story of the latter rather than the former? Peter David here proposes the answer: because the story of the Artful Dodger is full of vampires and people simply were not willing to accept that. Having escaped transportation to Australia, the Artful Dodger stumbles into a conspiracy of vampires in high places. (As Peter David points out, Dickens was so known for giving characters revealing names that the practice has become known as Dickensian, and there was a character in the original called Magistrate Fang.) What happens from then is equal parts hilarity and adventure featuring the best known names of 19th century London, historical and fictional. It's terribly fun, with everything I expect from Peter David's fantasy and streaks of Douglas Adams and George MacDonald Fraser as well.

Peter David is in the middle of two series that I would very much like to see continued, and which I'm under the impression are supposed to be, but I have absolutely no bitterness that he chose to write this instead of the next installment of one of them. It might be my favorite book of his yet... or I may need to reread some of the others just to compare and make sure.

Overall: A

I rarely bother to review a cookbook, but that's because it's a rare cookbook that I read straight through. Garden and Table is framed as the journal of Harald Bumbleburr, a halfling. Harald included in his journal detailed notes about recipes he made or enjoyed, and so this book is both useful and entertaining, with the glimpses of Harald's life and hints of his relationships with his neighbors in the narration around the recipes. It was fun to read straight through and I'm looking forward to trying a few of the recipes in it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I know one of the authors, Daniel Myers, who also happens to be Master Eduoard Halidai in the Society of Creative Anachronism. While that did have something to do with my buying it, it does not affect the content of this review. (Not having made any promise to review it, if it weren't worth a good review I'd probably have not bothered to write one at all.)

Overall: A

Frederica ("Free") Marshall publishes a newspaper by, for, and about women. She's an investigative reporter in the mold of Nellie Bly, and she has her share of enemies. One of them, James Delacey, is currently behind a scheme to ruin her paper by making it appear that it is plagiarizing from other papers.

Edward Clark was born Edward Delacey, James's older brother, but has been out of the country and unheard from in so long that he's about to be legally presumed dead and his title passed to his younger brother. Edward is fine with that. What he's not fine with is that James's scheme would also ruin Stephen Shaughnessy, the little brother of his childhood best friend. When he initially approaches Free with part of his story (leaving out that James is his brother and that his motive is protecting Stephen) he attempts to blackmail her into working with him. She blackmails him right back, and accepts.

This is quite possibly my new favorite romance, period. Free is a force of nature. She knows every bit of how ugly the world can be; she frequently subjects herself to it deliberately for the sake of a story. But she sees that ugliness and then finds bits of it that she can fix. And I love how Edward was utterly bowled over by her from the beginning. The author's note says that Milan's original intent was for Free to meet some guy who was opposed to women's rights, and I'd probably be writing a very different review if that hadn't changed. My favorite thing about Edward is that, even if he isn't always sure that there's much hope for Free to succeed, he never for a second thinks that she's wrong or needs to change.

There's also a secondary romance that was quite sweet, although not as integrated into the main plot as the one in The Heiress Effect. And as always with Milan's books, the dialogue was wonderful. I can hardly wait for the concluding novella in the series. For that matter, I can hardly wait for the next series after this.

Overall: A

This review is based on a free advance copy provided by the publisher. (It's well past the release date, but in my defense it was slightly past the release date when I received it so the whole "advance" thing was already moot.)

Spademan (not his real name) used to be a garbage man. He still is, in a way, but now the garbage he removes is human. He gets a phone call with a name and arranges payment, and his only rules are no killing kids and no listening to the back story. He doesn't care. He's just the bullet. He lives and works in and around a NYC that has been devastated by a second round of terrorist attacks, including a dirty bomb in Times Square, and which has been largely abandoned. The remaining rich residents seal themselves inside and spend their days "limning," meaning in a new sort of virtual reality Internet, with only the remaining service industry workers on the streets. Then Spademan is given a target that leads to his thinking of some new rules.

This story has everything that you need for a good noir; a hero whose morality it would be generous to call ambiguous (at one point early on he gives the reader a litany of rules he doesn't have - like only killing serial killers - and asks if they would think his being a hit man was forgivable then). A beautiful young woman who either is in trouble, or is trouble, or both. A stark city setting that's integral to the story. And plenty of violence. If I met a Sandman Slim fan who was into dystopias without the paranormal aspects too, I'd recommend this book.

Overall: A

This review is based on a free copy received from the publisher.

I picked up Seven for a Secret at a conference not realizing that it was the second in a series. I probably would have understood more about the characters had I read The Gods of Gotham first, but I don't think that not having read it affected my enjoyment of this book.

Timothy Wilde, copper star of the newly formed NYPD, is approached by a woman named Lucy Adams whose son and sister have been abducted by slave catchers in spite of being free natives of Albany. Rescuing him with the help of his friend Julius Carpenter and the New York Committee of Vigilance is only the beginning for all of them. Timothy is pulled into a murky world of slave traders and politics, with his brother Valentine assisting him only so far as his interests don't disturb the Democratic party machine.

This is a dark, twisty tale full of deceit and vividly drawn characters, set against New York City at a time when the city was filling with refugees from the Irish Potato Famine and tensions over slavery are simmering.

Overall: A

This review is based on a free copy provided by the publisher.

In the future, fast food chains (often affiliated with schools of philosophy) run the world. Leonard his a professional Listener of Neetsa Pizza, answering calls to their complaints number through the night and following the scripts with the goal of getting the caller to convert, i.e. accept a coupon. Then one night the regular calls stop and he begins receiving calls from Marco Polo. So begins a journey that winds up involving time travel, Jewish mysticism, and awesome karate kicks.

A Highly Unlikely Scenario is wonderfully, delightfully bizarre. The overall feel of it reminded me of a combination of Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Book Store and the Thursday Next series, although aside from medieval name dropping (in the case of the former) and odd libraries (in the case of the latter) there isn't much concrete that it has in common with them. The pacing did feel just a bit strange, as if too much was happening and needing to be wrapped up quickly near the end, but this is Cantor's first novel so maybe that's something that will improve in future work.

Overall: A-

This review is based on an advance copy received from the publisher and not gotten to in time for that whole "advance" thing.

Flora 717 is a sanitation worker in a highly regimented dictatorship that happens to be a beehive. Through a combination of luck and unusual talents in one of her origins, she able to transcend her place and learn many roles in the hive from serving in the nursery to foraging. But when she accidentally commits a grave crime, and the hive is in trouble, she finds herself doing things she would previously have thought unthinkable.

I have to say, I think that the comparisons to The Handmaid's Tale, The Hunger Games, and even Animal Farm are out of place. Our Flora actually does appear to be biologically different from the rest of the floras; we're told more than once that it's unusual that she's capable of "speech." And I won't go into the later events of the book. Therefore I'd say that comparisons to human dystopias are off because in the case of books about repressive human societies, we are talking about people who are created equal, for lack of a better phrase, when it's clear that Flora 717 is something "better" than the rest of the floras. And even in Animal Farm, the point is that the pigs take over a society in which all creatures with four legs are supposed to be equal, and not that most of the non-pigs really are inferior and the exceptions are special.

That said, the anthropomorphic look at a beehive in trouble through the eyes of a worker is an inventive idea and wonderfully handled (particularly keeping in mind that Flora 717 does not have a human scientist's external perspective of hive function). Just look at it as an exercise in worldbuilding, don't push the symbolism too far, and enjoy the ride.

Overall: A

This review is based on a free copy received from the publisher.

World of Trouble is the third book in the Last Policeman trilogy, following The Last Policeman and Countdown City. We're now just two weeks away from the asteroid hitting the planet. Hank Palace's police department has long since been shut down, but he still can't help but search for justice, even though it's about to stop mattering permanently. This time, while searching for his sister and her band of radicals who believe they can save the world, he finds another young woman, her throat cut and near death.

The meaning and significance of life or the lack thereof has long been a theme of detective fiction, and this series has brought a SF twist to the subject with the imminent destruction of life as we know it. Hank has coded the towns he passes through according to how people are dealing with the end: red towns, where civilization has already been abandoned; green towns, which are keeping up the pretense of life as normal, and blue towns, which appear abandoned but aren't. But he still goes on, searching for his sister and for answers, even while there's no protecting anybody and the answers won't make a difference.

There are no surprises here, either in regards to the ending we've been promised since the first book or in the case of what happened with Hank's sister and the woman with her throat cut, which I saw coming long in advance. But the ending is exactly what this series needed all the same. This quietly philosophical series is perfect for fans of detective stories with a twist or apocalyptic settings.

Overall: A

World of Trouble will be available on July 15.