Books of 2013 is a feature for highlighting speculative fiction books coming out in 2013 that appear particularly intriguing.

 

Book of Iron by Elizabeth Bear

Book of Iron, a novella and prequel to Bone and Jewel Creatures, is scheduled for release on September 30, 2013. It’s set in the same world as Range of Ghosts and the rest of the upcoming Eternal Sky books (Shattered Pillars, the second of these, will be available next month). You can read a little more about the book on Elizabeth Bear’s blog.

I love Elizabeth Bear’s writing, and I especially loved Range of Ghosts (so much that I will definitely be nominating it for a Hugo Award this year). This book sounded amazing, and once I saw it was set in the Eternal Sky world, it went right onto my wish list.

About Book of Iron:

 

Subterranean Press is proud to announce Book of Iron, the standalone prequel to Elizabeth Bear’s acclaimed novella, Bone and Jewel Creatures.

Bijou the Artificer is a Wizard of Messaline, the City of Jackals. She and her partner–and rival–Kaulas the Necromancer, along with the martial Prince Salih, comprise the Bey’s elite band of trouble-solving adventurers.

But Messaline is built on the ruins of a still more ancient City of Jackals. So when two foreign Wizards and a bard from the mysterious western isles cross the desert in pursuit of a sorcerer intent on plundering the deadly artifacts of lost Erem, Bijou and her companions must join their hunt.

The quest will take them through strange passages, beneath the killing light of alien suns, with the price of failure the destruction of every land.