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David's Diamonds

 

Retired Store Manager David is an old-time bookseller, with a career spent working only at independents, starting with A Change of Hobbit, The Midnight Special Bookstore, Books Inc., Bay Books, and  for many years with Mysterious Galaxy. He loves hard science fiction, space opera, literary sf, classic science fiction, fantasy fiction, manga and anime, and the occasional young adult novel. 

 

Books: 
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Blood of the Four By Christopher Golden, Tim Lebbon Cover Image
$20.39
ISBN: 9780062641403
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: Harper Voyager - March 12th, 2019

Magic is power. For Princess Phela, magic is the power to become Queen, the absolute and unassailable ruler of her world. For Blane, a Bajuman slave and lowest of the low, magic is the power to free his people from servitude and abuse. Blood of the Four is the story of their struggle, magic against magic, and of their bitter apocalyptic war to the death. Along the way, authors Lebbon and Golden deftly upset reader preconceptions regarding plucky kick-ass princesses and heroic freedom-fighters to bring the story to a fabulous conclusion, one wholly unexpected yet perfectly right. Highly recommended!


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Semiosis: A Novel By Sue Burke Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9780765391360
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: Tor Books - March 12th, 2019

Sue Burke’s debut novel, Semiosis, is a fascinating and totally original take on that old science fiction chestnut, human colonization of a new world. Burke’s innovation is to insist on telling her story from the standpoint of biological, environmental, and Darwinian realism. As her characters struggle to survive in the alien world, they must inevitably give up their old earth-derived ideologies, social institutions, and finally their very biology. Immigrants into a new natural reality, they undergo the most radical of melting pots, and become something wholly other and strange. Brilliant and thought-provoking.


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The Philosopher's Flight: A Novel (The Philosophers Series #1) By Tom Miller Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781476778167
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: Simon & Schuster - February 19th, 2019

Tom Miller’s The Philosopher’s Flight is a wonderfully engaging alternative history, in which the great technological and political exploits of early 20th century America were accomplished by magic instead of science, and by women instead of men. So it is that the novel’s hero, Robert Weekes, aspires to attend Radcliffe College, there to study magic, in the hope of joining the Army’s elite flying squad, despite the fact these are all the preserves of women. The story is well-told and gripping, as Robert battles gender prejudice, bonds with his fellow students, and falls in love with war hero Danielle. Author Miller impresses as much with his command of historical detail as with his ability to imagine a fully-realized and absorbing literary world. Highly recommended!


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Space Opera (Space Opera, The #1) By Catherynne M. Valente Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9781481497503
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: S&S/Saga Press - December 18th, 2018

Space Opera! Exactly what Catherynne Valente’s new brilliant hoot of a novel is about! Aliens arrive (weird and nutty ones), and they have serious doubts if humans are really civilized. Their test: a human band has to compete in the galactic version of Eurovision and not finish dead last. Our champion: Decibel Jones, a washed out glam-rock David Bowie has-been. The result: great lunacy and fun! And, along the way, an unending stream of the best bon-mots since Christopher Moore! Space Opera has the funniest opening line of any novel I know of. And that’s just the beginning. Enthusiastically recommended!


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An Enchantment of Ravens By Margaret Rogerson Cover Image
$12.99
ISBN: 9781481497596
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Margaret K. McElderry Books - September 25th, 2018

Margaret Rogerson’s An Enchantment of Ravens is a lovely, remarkable exploration of the heart of magic. Isobel paints the Fair Folk’s portraits, in exchange for useful spells and cantrips. When her portrait of Rook, the Autumn Prince, violates all taboos and discloses his secret human feelings of sorrow, Isobel is seized and taken to Fairie to answer for her crime. The novel artfully balances human qualities against fay ones: mortality and immortality, human craft and fairy magic, peasant life and fairy aristocracy. And though separated by all these aspects, Isobel and Rook are still drawn to each other, in an impossible love. This extraordinary book, on the level of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell or Lud-in-the-Mist, is the author’s debut novel. True magic.


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An Unkindness of Magicians (Unseen World, The #1) By Kat Howard Cover Image
$16.99
ISBN: 9781481451208
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: S&S/Saga Press - June 5th, 2018

In An Unkindness of Magicians, Kat Howard imagines a war among the magical families of New York City, conducted by duels brilliant, gorgeous, and fatal, to decide which of the Houses will rule the rest. Breaking into this circle of genteel violence is Sydney, the novel’s heroine, an outsider of extraordinary magical ability--and rage. For Sydney knows, bitterly and personally, the dreadful secret of the magical aristocrats’ power. Follow Sydney as she pursues her vengeance and fights to free the magical world of corruption, in a tale that is exciting, imaginative, and dark. Magic has its price. Even Sydney must pay it. Highly recommended!


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The Book of M: A Novel By Peng Shepherd Cover Image
$26.99
Currently unavailable, email or call for more information.
ISBN: 9780062669605
Published: William Morrow - June 5th, 2018

The Book of M is so much more than an exciting, hyper-violent post-apocalyptic zombie thriller. The tale’s “zombies” are people who have lost their shadows and memory, creatures of fear who can be swayed by love. The main story is a love story about how Ory and Max are separated after Max loses her memory and how they traverse a devastated America searching for each other, despite all the crazies and zealots and terrifying death-kites, to arrive at last at a very moving and unexpected conclusion. The Book of M is a surprising and profound book, complete with fascinating reflections on Peter Pan, magical realism, and love. Very highly recommended.


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The Poppy War: A Novel By R. F. Kuang Cover Image
$30.00
ISBN: 9780062662569
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: Harper Voyager - May 1st, 2018

With war-shamans, Chinese mythological monsters, and a fully-realized social world and back story based on Chinese history, Rebecca Kuang’s The Poppy War is a stunning, distinctive, and completely original debut. Her lead character, Rin, is now the type example of the kick-butt heroine. An outsider — orphan, peasant, dark-skinned — she claws her way into and through the elite military school at Sinegard. Armed with terrible powers taken from the gods, she faces the most extreme moral quandaries of how far she will go to protect her country and to avenge her people. Open the front page, and the story sweeps you away. I can’t believe this is the author’s first book: so accomplished, so powerful, so wonderful! And so, so recommended!


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Void Star: A Novel By Zachary Mason Cover Image
$23.00
ISBN: 9781250159410
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
(This book cannot be returned.)
Published: Picador - April 24th, 2018

Zachary Mason’s Void Star dazzles with its intricate tale of mentally-boosted people fighting a clandestine war with secret AIs across the battle-space of memory, perception, and cyberspace, in a world gone noir with political collapse, climate change, corporate warlords, and universal surveillance. Giving the story an almost hallucinatory intensity is Mason’s marvelous, superb language, at once endlessly allusive, lush, and incantatory. Reading the book, you suddenly realize he is writing science fiction of the heart, where science and technology make possible new sensations, new feelings, new dreams. During reading you feel awe; afterwards, gratefulness. The best book I’ve read in six years of bookselling at MG. Void Star is one of the great science fiction novels of our time.


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At the Table of Wolves (A Dark Talents Novel) By Kay Kenyon Cover Image
$14.99
Currently unavailable, email or call for more information.
ISBN: 9781481487795
Published: S&S/Saga Press - April 10th, 2018

Kay Kenyon’s At the Table of Wolves is everything you like in WWII spy thrillers – louche British aristocrats of dubious loyalty, charming but diabolical Nazis hiding dreadful plots against England, a wonderfully strong, intelligent heroine pressed to her limit to save the day – but with psychic powers thrown into the mix. Kim Tavistock has the power to get people to confess their deepest secrets without intending or realizing it. She is up against a Nazi spy with hidden talents of his own, working in league with a mole at the heart of British intelligence. Will Kim discover their deadly secrets before the Nazi plots bring England to her knees? Read At the Table of Wolves to find out! A fun, fast read. Highly recommended!


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Sorcery for Beginners: A Simple Help Guide to a Challenging & Arcane Art By Matt Harry, Juliane Crump (Illustrator) Cover Image
By Matt Harry, Juliane Crump (Illustrator)
$10.99
ISBN: 9781942645689
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: Inkshares - October 10th, 2017

Matt Harry’s Sorcery for Beginners is a fun, fast, and furious story of teenagers discovering that magic is actually real. Fleeing from bullies, Owen Macready ducks into a strange bookstore called Codex Arcanum. Its proprietor insists he take a book of magical instruction called Sorcery for Beginners. Just like that, Owen and his pals become soldiers in a secret war against the terrible Euclideans, people who hate magic and wish to drive it from the world. The book impressively gets the life and tenor of contemporary teens perfectly. And the design of the book — the illustrations, the footnotes, the arrangement of paragraphs on the page — is striking and vivid. Reading the book you know at once that the author is brilliant, the book special, and the pleasure of reading it, wonderful.


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The Bear and the Nightingale: A Novel (Winternight Trilogy #1) By Katherine Arden Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9781101885956
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Del Rey - June 27th, 2017

The Bear and the Nightingale is a magical Russian fairy-tale of a novel, a gorgeous Ivan Bilibin illustration come to life. There are rusalkas, upyrs, and domovoi, the supernatural creatures of Russian folk-tales; Tsars and boyars, priests and peasants, the traditional inhabitants of medieval Russian tales; and there are bears and wolves and snow and unrelenting winter that in an instant evoke Russia for us in our imaginations. Then there is Vasya, the heroine of the tale, whose courage and resourcefulness when facing family troubles, natural disasters, courtly intrigues, mad monks, and a deep, implacable magical evil make the fairy tale real and immediate. Author Katherine Arden has written the best of books: a book which we never knew we wanted, and now can't live without. The Bear and the Nightingale is orginal, brilliant, and wonderful. My highest recommendation.


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This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1) By Victoria Schwab Cover Image
Unavailable to Order
ISBN: 9780062380869
Availability: Out of Print
Published: Greenwillow Books - May 16th, 2017

This Savage Song is a wonderful young adult novel set in a post-apocalyptic America, where the two main characters, August and Kate, must confront monsters, human and otherwise, their own fathers, who happen to be the enemy warlords of their divided city, and themselves, as they are drawn into irrevocable choices by the dark appeal of their own savage natures. But infusing this bleak world is an intense yearning for redemption, to bring good out of evil and beauty out of horror that lends this book a deeply-felt and wholly remarkable spiritual quality. The pacing is fast, the narrative enthralling, but it is the depths of the novel--its acuteness of moral imagination and perception--that will stay with you afterwards. My highest recommendation.


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The Queen of Blood: Book One of The Queens of Renthia By Sarah Beth Durst Cover Image
$8.99
ISBN: 9780062474094
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: Harper Voyager - April 25th, 2017

In The Queen of Blood, humanity lives in an uneasy balance with the spirits of the natural world. The spirits make possible all life, but they also are greedy for life's inevitable harvest--death. To protect themselves, people rely upon the queen, and her coterie of magical women. The novel follows Daleina, a young girl with magical powers, as she rises through the ranks of witches. And as she does, the title of the novel becomes redolent with unexpected connotations and references. You read the book with a growing horrid fascination, until by the end you are amazed and appalled. The heroine of The Queen of Blood is a woman of steel--and you have to be someone of steel yourself to read her story. A great read. Highly recommended! 


The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe By Kij Johnson Cover Image
$14.99
ISBN: 9780765391414
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: Tordotcom - August 16th, 2016

How wonderful to find that one of your favorite authors (Kij Johnson, At the Mouth of the River of BeesThe Fox Woman) loves H P Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath as much as you do! Johnson's pastiche brings back Lovecraft's zugs and ghouls and moon-cats, now imagined inside-out, where dream Kadath is the real world, and the human waking world a far-away, legendary place. The quest Vellitt Boe undertakes to find the human world redeems the original work of its misogyny and racism, and reminds us of just how strange our own ordinary reality can be. Highly recommended.


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A Darker Shade of Magic: A Novel (Shades of Magic #1) By V. E. Schwab Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9780765376466
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Tor Books - January 19th, 2016

Schwab imagines four Londons, that differ by their distance from magic’s dark heart. Farthest away is Grey London, of our 18th-century. Next is Red London, where magic proliferates, followed by White London, where magic is power, and the strong prey upon the weak. Finally there is Black London, an unimaginable horror the other worlds have shut out for their own safety.

The story follows Kell, a magician who can travel between Londons. When he is tricked into smuggling a stone originally from Black London via White London into Red London, a terrifying cascade of events follows, as black magic begins to pour across worlds. Kell’s only help is Lila, a wonderfully brave and resourceful thief. Together, they must face down the dark magic that threatens to destroy everything.

Featuring appealing main characters, splendidly wicked villains, and a horrifying conception of magic, Schwab’s fantasy will shock you and thrill you. Highly recommended!