Tuesday, February 26, 2013

New e-book editions from Aqueduct

Aqueduct Press released two new e-book editions today.

Richard Bowes's The Queen, the Cambion, and Seven Others (Conversation Pieces Vol. 35) is available in both mobi and epub formats for $5.95 through Aqueduct's site. For a description of the book, see yesterday's post here.

We're also bringing out an e-book edition of Rebecca Ore's Gaia's Toys, which is otherwise out of print, originally published by Tor in 1995. Gaia's Toys is a tale of eco-terrorism set in a dystopian near future of gene-manipulation, medical nanotechnology, and environmental damage; an examination of the risks of overpopulation and uncontrolled technological expansion. This action adventure story is filled with theoretical political ideas. The main characters are a collection of misfits whose lives are linked together through a scientist’s experiments in ecological reconstruction: a species of giant mantises that treat their anxiety stressed human companions with tranquilizing pheromones; and bioengineered wasps drawn to human anger and conflict in order to sting the offenders into a sleep state. Humans manipulate earth's creatures as if they were toys while the bio-altered creatures transform us.

Here's the 1995 review from Booklist:
Thanks to its brilliant, macabre vision of America's not-too-distant future, Ore's new novel puts her squarely in the ranks of such leading-edge sf talent as William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. The twenty-first century she imagines brings--along with bioengineered nanoviruses that keep the rich perpetually young and mandatory cyberspace brain hookups for the poor (for human brains, it turns out, are cheaper than computer brains for running menial programs)--a ruthless caste of eco-terrorists whose latest strike wipes out a score of oil refineries with a miniature nuclear bomb. One terrorist named Allison, aka Mattie Higgins, is nabbed before the explosion, interrogated with high-tech brain probes, and cleverly drafted as an undercover infiltrator for the government. Her new objective: to catch an outlaw gene-tweaker who is breeding insects capable of drugging humans into pacifism. Using three ingeniously different points of view, Ore fuses slick and absorbing storytelling with sophisticated speculative science.

The e-book edition is available in both mobi and epub formats for $7.95. You can check it out here.


 

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