Midsummer Night by Freda Warrington

The next title in Freda Warrington’s Aetherial Tales series, Midsummer Night (Tor $27.99) is now available.

“Decades ago, at a remote British estate where the veil between our world and the world of the Aetherials – the fair folk – is too easily breached, three young people tricked their uncle by dressing as the fey. But their joke took a deadly turn when true Aetherials crossed into our world, took one of the pranksters, and literally scared their uncle to death.

Decades later, the estate has become an art centre presided over by Juliana Flagg, a noted visionary sculptor and the daughter of one of the long-ago pranksters.”

Meanwhile, a man “stumbles through the portal, into our world, begging for help. The forces of magic and the power of love contend for the soul of a man in this story of loss and redemption.”

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Windup Girl by multi-award winning Paolo Bacigalupi is published in December 2010 by Orbit (£7.99). Time Magazine named The Windup Girl as one of the ten best novels of 2009. The book won five of 2010’s SF awards: Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook and the John W Campbell awards.

“Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen’s calorie representative in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, he comb’s Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs long thought to be extinct. There he meets the Windup Girl – Emiko – now abandon to the slums. She is one of the New People, bred to suit the whims of the rich.

Lake becomes increasing obsessed with Emiko. Conspiracies breed in the heat of political tensions… But no one anticipates the devastating influence of the Windup Girl.”

The Castings by Pamela Freeman

The Castings Trilogy by Pamela Freeman hits the bookshops early December, published by Orbit. This omnibus edition contains: Blood Ties, Deep Water and Full Circle.

“Bramble is impetuous with a talent for trouble, and she finds it when an accident brands her a criminal. But she expects no mercy with her Traveller blood - so when the village gods tell her to flee, she hits the road. In ghost-ridden Turvite, Ash leaves the road for an apprenticeship, the only one available for a Traveller such as himself. Then his employer trains him to kill on demand and his future looks bleak.”

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

Out this month on Orion, Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. “'What is it? What does it want? Why is it angry with me?'

January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life. So when he's offered the chance to be the wireless operator on an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it.

Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year. Gruhuken.

But the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice. Stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return - when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. And Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark.

A terrifying 1930s ghost story set in the haunting wilderness of the far north.”

Now watch the video trailer.