The Bear Cavalry by D. G. Valdron

SF Canada member D.G. Valdron has been busy lately!:

The Bear Cavalry has just been released. This quirky, inventive alternate history is written in the style of a fun, funky, pop culture television documentary. Robin Prufrock travels the world, telling the story of how the Vikings in Iceland domesticated bears for meat and as draft animals, and how the Scandinavian Bear Cavalry eventually evolved to become the most fearsome fighting unit in the Medieval world. Along the way are entertaining detours into biology, evolutionary history, the Viking era, Medieval monarchs behaving badly, and the role of Bears in movies, art and culture in this world.

Find The Bear Cavalry here.

As well, Giant Monsters Sing Sad Songs: A Story Collection is now available. Enjoy nine scary stories of Melancholy Horror:

  • Fossils: A poet follows a giant monster through the streets of abandoned Tokyo.
  • Flirtin’ Out Back With the Sasquatch Kid: A teenage girl encounters the last bigfoot.
  • Skin: A necromancer’s attack shows a woman discovers that her life is only skin deep.
  • Love, Live and the Necronomicon: The true history of the mad Arab and his era is revealed, along with Lovecraft’s dark connection.
  • Regrets Child: A nurse to a dying woman meets her hungry ghost.
  • Anomalous Phenomena: The title says it all.
  • The Dead Quarter: After the Apocalypse, the living and the undead share a disintegrating world.
  • Tell Me: A hunter finds a child vampire.
  • Killing Hot: A young man with a secret crosses the country, seeking revenge for his sister.

D.G. Valdron is a reclusive writer originally from New Brunswick, currently living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Over the years, he has published in print and online a variety of short stories of speculative fiction, and articles on obscure pop culture topics. Like many writers, his previous occupations have included mechanic, carpenter, schoolteacher, journalist and ditch-digger. He is currently an aboriginal rights lawyer. He loves B-movies and tries to be nice to people.

Immortal Redemption by Alana Delacroix

SF Canada member Alana Delacroix recently released Immortal Redemption, the first novel in the Immortal Protectors series.

Cal Olin is a grudging member of the Immorti. A resurrected Aztec warrior, he knows he has much to atone for but doesn’t believe waiting for an enemy who hasn’t appeared in hundreds of years is the best way to do it. He’d prefer to spend his time in his CEO role with Civica, an organization dedicated to righting wrongs.

However, when Cal sees the unconscious body of a woman near a magical portal, he knows the long period of peace has come to an end. He’s shocked to discover the woman is Dr. Iliana Rogers, Civica’s second-in-command. The beautiful, argumentative thorn in his side has managed to open the gate and set off a chain reaction that could end the world. Is she an agent of evil or an unknowing pawn? He has to find out.

Alana Delacroix is a paranormal romance writer based in Toronto, Canada with her family and two cats. She is an introvert’s introvert who loves true crime, war, and horror podcasts and is very paranoid. Find her on her website, Instagram, and Twitter.

Find Immortal Redemption at Apple | Kobo | Barnes & Noble | Amazon | Google Play

The Night Girl by James Bow

SF Canada member James Bow’s latest novel, The Night Girl, is a New Adult urban fantasy.

Perpetua Collins works for a real troll.

Well, technically a goblin, and it’s not as bad as it sounds. As the administrative assistant, she provides a “human” face for an employment agency specializing in placements for goblins and trolls. It’s probably the most unusual job she could find in Toronto, but she’s grateful for it, having come to the city with $500 in her pocket and no support. Without it, she’d have no choice but to go back to the boring small town and overbearing mother she worked so hard to leave.

But as Perpetua settles into her new job, disturbing questions arise. And no, they’re not about the fact that goblins and trolls exist. She’s fine with that part. The agency has no visible means of support. How does her boss manage to keep his “clients” out of the public eye? They’ve been part of the city far longer than anyone thinks, and are growing restless under the burden of forced invisibility and financial poverty. What will happen if the veil drops, and humans see?

James Bow was born and grew up in Toronto. He now lives in Kitchener-Waterloo with his wife Erin and his daughters, Vivian and Eleanor. He is the author of three books of YA fantasy (The Unwritten Girl, Fathom Five, and The Young City) and the Prix Aurora Award-winning YA SF novel, Icarus Down. He enjoys coming back to his hometown to ride transit and explore its underground city. Find out more about James’ publications on his blog.

Pick up a copy of The Night Girl from Amazon or your local independent bookstore.

The Mythic Dream released!

An all-new anthology of eighteen classic myth retellings, The Mythic Dream, has just been released and is edited by SF Canada member Dominik Parisien.

Madeleine L’Engle once said, “When we lose our myths we lose our place in the universe.” The Mythic Dream gathers together eighteen stories that reclaim the myths that shaped our collective past, and use them to explore our present and future. From Hades and Persephone to Kali, from Loki to Inanna, this anthology explores retellings of myths across cultures and civilizations.

Featuring award-winning and critically acclaimed writers such as Seanan McGuire, Naomi Novik, Rebecca Roanhorse, JY Yang, Alyssa Wong, Indrapramit Das, Carlos Hernandez, Sarah Gailey, Ann Leckie, John Chu, Urusla Vernon, Carmen Maria Machado, Stephen Graham Jones, Arkady Martine, Amal El-Mohtar, Jeffrey Ford, and more, The Mythic Dream is sure to become a new classic.

This eclectic, often subversive collection will appeal to fairy tale fans who want something new and different.

Publishers Weekly

 

The Mythic Dream is a triumph of an anthology
Tor.com

Dominik Parisien is also the co-editor, with Navah Wolfe, of the Shirley Jackson Award-winning Robots vs. Fairies and of The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales, which also won the Shirley Jackson Award and was a finalist for the World Fantasy award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Locus Award. As well, Dominink co-edited, with Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, Uncanny Magazine’s Hugo-winning special issue, Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction Special Issue. Dominik’s fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Quill & Quire, The Fiddlehead, Exile: The Literary Quarterly, as well as other magazines and anthologies. He is a disabled, bisexual, French Canadian. He lives in Toronto.

The Mythic Dream is available from various retailers through Saga Press.

New Release! Sedition by Pat Flewwelling

SF Canada member Pat Flewwelling‘s most recent release is her fourth book in the Helix series, published by Tyche Books. It careens along after Blight of Exiles, Plague of Ghouls, and Scourge of Bones.

What do you do when you wake up and realize you have been the villain all along?

After years of working for CIRCE, Dr. Holly Eva Foster is beginning to realize why her patients have been dying off: she’s killing them, but she doesn’t know why.

Meanwhile, following a devastating ambush and life-or-death surgery, the Padre discovers that his Packmates and colleagues suddenly revile and distrust him. Watching their behaviour degrade from bizarre to brutal, the Padre escapes, only to run into the arms of his least likely allies: enemies of CIRCE.

For the sake of all humanity and other-kind, Eva and the Padre must risk their lives—and their minds—to rebel against one creature’s well-intended quest: the annihilation of her own kind.

“I’m amazed by the way Flewwelling keeps multiple balls in the air, effortlessly juggling shapeshifters, politics, science gone wrong, mysteries, and characters you can’t help but like even if you suspect you shouldn’t.”                                                                                          –Tanya Huff

Pat is a multi-genre author of speculative and crime fiction, swing music, and old fashioned radio plays. She is an avid supporter of emerging artists, musicians, and writers, and is passionate about raising funds for volunteer-driven literacy programs. On the side, she also runs a travelling bookstore, is a co-editor at ID Press, and works full-time as a senior business analyst. Find her at patflewwelling.com.

Sedition and the rest of the Helix series are available from a variety of sources–find them all at Tyche Books.

Dark Corridor by Jennifer Rahn now out!

SF Canada member Jennifer Rahn’s new release from Bundoran Press is a science fiction law enforcement adventure and the second, stand-alone novel set in the Sphairan Universe. Dark Corridor follows the career of Special Investigator Adynn Sheffield as she pushes back against the crime lords who have destroyed the last of her family. After being pulled from a case, she’s assigned to discover the route through which tech, unlike anything anyone has seen before, is suddenly coming through the black markets. Having grown up on a rough world, she’s savvy to the workings of the drug and pirate trades, however political machinations and her own recklessness force her to go rogue and join forces with corporations of dubious repute and space Vikings.

Dark Corridor’s fast prose delivers an imaginative and evocative look at an invasive cyberpunk world.”   –Derek Künsken, author of The Quantum Magician

Jennifer is also happy to announce that the first two novels in the Legends of Temlocht fantasy series have been re-released by Dragon Moon Press.

Wicked Initiations begins the series with the tale of Vladdir, King of the underground Temlochti State, when he is cast out into the Desert as his kingdom is invaded by Aragoths — strange soldiers controlled by the Sorcerer Ilet, who has made no demands and is destroying everything without reason. On the brink of losing everything, Vladdir gives in to a curse that fills him with cannibalistic desires, and gains him access to the capricious, dark magic of the Desert. With his new powers, he overwhelms the nearly indestructible Aragoths — but finds that Ilet was not the Aragoth commander at all. His true enemy is the mysterious Desert Priest, who taps into Vladdir’s curse to ensure the King will never know peace, and to make him pay for the near obliteration of the Aragoths with all he holds dear.

In the second volume, The Longevity Thesis, Desert orphan Antronos is subjected to dark magic that force-merges him with reptiles. Considered exotic by some, repulsive by others, he finds acceptance and respect in the underground civilization of the Temlochti State when he earns the right to practise medicine. Wishing to further his achievement, he enters a graduate program studying longevity.

Duped into an act of murder, Antronos must fight to prevent more harm to his rich and powerful clientele—some of whom he feels connected to, perhaps from a previous life. Desperate to prevent losing the family he never knew he had, Antronos must outsmart Sen Vernus, the most devious and evil professor in the University’s history and unravel a curse that has spanned generations.

Jennifer Rahn is a scientist and author living in Calgary. She is on Twitter (@jennrahn), Instagram (jjrahn70) and Facebook (@rahnbooks).