It's no secret this blog's not updated as often as it should be. I struggle with what to say, too easily falling into being an echo chamber for news stories posted elsewhere on the web. But Friday, inspiration struck. Let me explain.

No, that'll take too long. Let me sum up.

Receiving the shipment, I came across copies of Mark L. Van Name 's fourth book in his Jon & Lobo series, Children No More . On the back cover, there's a note indicating Van Name's donating all the proceeds from the book to Falling Whistles , a charity devoted to rehabilitating children forced into the fighting in the ongoing war in Congo. A nice gesture and one worthy of a mention here, considering we'd read the first book in the series, One Jump Ahead , just about a year ago. Stacking the books for shelving, awareness crept up from my reptile brain into the higher areas, lobe by lobe. New titles pass through my hands almost every day. Noting the titles and posting them once a week gives me (A) a reason to post and (B) provides something resembling useful information to post. This then is the first in a series of entries tipping the readers to the arrival of new books of possible interest. You won't find any of the storm surge of vampire/werewolf/ghost romances choking the shelves though. I have neither the time nor inclination to account for all of those.

Hardcover
Children No More, in the store this past Friday. The synopsis:

No child should ever be a soldier.

Jon Moore knew that better than most, having learned to fight to survive before he’d hit puberty. So when a former comrade, Alissa Lim, asks for his help in rescuing a group of children pressed into service by rebels on a planet no one cares to save, he agrees. Only later does he realize he’s signed up to do far more than he’d ever imagined.

Jon’s commitment hurtles him and Lobo, the hyper-intelligent assault vehicle who is his only real friend, into confrontations with the horrors the children have experienced and with a dark chapter from his past. The mission grows ever more complicated as they deal with:

· An assault on a rebel fortress deep in the jungle

· A government whose full agenda is never clear

· A woman Jon once loved and who still loves him—but who will sacrifice anything for her cause

· The best con man they’ve ever known

· And, toughest of all, their own demons, as we learn for the first time what happened after his home planet’s government yanked Jon’s sister out of his life

Jon and Lobo rush straight into the darkness at the heart of humanity to save a group of child soldiers—and then face an even tougher challenge:

When we’ve trained our children to kill, what do we do with them when the fighting is over?

Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik , sixth in her Temeraire series where the Napoleonic Wars are fought with dragons. The synopsis:

A dazzling blend of military history, high-flying fantasy, and edge-of-your-seat adventure, Naomi Novik’s Temeraire novels, set in an alternate Napoleonic era in which intelligent dragons have been harnessed as weapons of war, are more than just perennial bestsellers—they are a worldwide phenomenon. Now, in Tongues of Serpents, Naomi Novik is back, along with the dragon Temeraire and his rider and friend, Capt. Will Laurence.

Convicted of treason despite their heroic defense against Napoleon’s invasion of England, Temeraire and Laurence—stripped of rank and standing—have been transported to the prison colony at New South Wales in distant Australia, where, it is hoped, they cannot further corrupt the British Aerial Corps with their dangerous notions of liberty for dragons. Temeraire and Laurence carry with them three dragon eggs intended to help establish a covert in the colony and destined to be handed over to such second-rate, undesirable officers as have been willing to accept so remote an assignment—including one former acquaintance, Captain Rankin, whose cruelty once cost a dragon its life.

Nor is this the greatest difficulty that confronts the exiled dragon and rider: Instead of leaving behind all the political entanglements and corruptions of the war, Laurence and Temeraire have instead sailed into a hornet’s nest of fresh complications. For the colony at New South Wales has been thrown into turmoil after the overthrow of the military governor, one William Bligh—better known as Captain Bligh, late of HMS Bounty. Bligh wastes no time in attempting to enlist Temeraire and Laurence to restore him to office, while the upstart masters of the colony are equally determined that the new arrivals should not upset a balance of power precariously tipped in their favor.
   
Eager to escape this political quagmire, Laurence and Temeraire take on a mission to find a way through the forbidding Blue Mountains and into the interior of Australia. But when one of the dragon eggs is stolen from Temeraire, the surveying expedition becomes a desperate race to recover it in time—a race that leads to a shocking discovery and a dangerous new obstacle in the global war between Britain and Napoleon.

Trade Paperback
The Secret History of Fantasy — Peter S. Beagle , ed. The synopsis:

This ingenious anthology posits that fantasy fiction is on a new path: series novels that chronicle epic adventures have been joined by tales where mythology, fairy tales, and archetypes are fully re-imagined into a new modern literature. Anthologist and author Peter S. Beagle represents both the traditional and the new, having written the introduction to The Lord of the Rings as well as the inventive fantasy novel, The Last Unicorn. In this exciting, canonic volume, Beagle showcases gifted writers who began to rediscover older fantasy classics and to redefine fantasy in their own unique voices. Innovative authors in this anthology include Robert Holdstock, Gregory Maguire, Neal Gaiman, Francesca Lia Block, Steven Millhauser, and others who have lead the way to expanding imaginative frontiers. From the depths of an dangerous English forest to the staircase at the edge of the world, on a caffeinated journey to the empire of ice cream to the maze in the Barnum museum, you'll discover the wonder of favorite childhood tales made modern and fresh once again.

The anthology's a thematic companion volume to Tachyon's The Secret History of Science Fiction from last October.

Next week's Out of the Box should have more titles, considering I'll have the whole week to collect them.