Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from the second chapter of Devil In The Device before it releases on August 24th!

Zhade’s power might be going to his head. Newly on the throne, he’s still getting used to wearing Maret’s face, but he can’t deny that the influence it affords him has its perks. So when the magic of Eerensed starts to turn deadly, Zhade must master the Crown if he’s going to save his people, and Tsurina’s destructive plans for Eerensed aren’t going to make that easy. Worse, he’s starting to see her point.

Andra is underground. Assumed dead by the people of Eerensed, she must stay hidden in the city’s depths if she’s going to live long enough to build the rocket that will finally save the colonists from this dying planet. But when Andra hears voices urging her to destroy everything, she starts to dig deeper into her subconcious. What she discovers leads her to question whether she’s destined to be a savior after all.

Battling the dangerous forces buried within their minds, Andra and Zhade will have to find a way to work together before two power-hungry leaders and a deadly swarm of rogue technology destroy humanity for good.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As an only child, Lora Beth Johnson grew up telling herself stories and reading past her bedtime. She spent her adulthood collecting degrees, careers, and stamps in her passport before realizing her passion for creating fictional worlds. When she’s not writing, she’s teaching college English and learning new languages. She lives in Davidson, North Carolina, with her little roommate, Colocataire the Yorki-poo. She is also the author of Goddess in the Machine. Find Lora Beth on Twitter @LoraBethWrites.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Devil In The Device’ by Lora Beth Johnson appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Hi, Lora Beth! Congratulations on the release of your first novel, Goddess in the Machine. First of all, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Thank you so much! As you can probably tell from the plot of Goddess, I’m a huge sci-fi and fantasy nerd. I grew up on a healthy diet of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. When I’m not writing novels, I teach college English (mostly research-based writing courses). I don’t have a lot of free time, but when I do, I like trying my hand at paint-by-numbers or learning to play Dungeons & Dragons with my friends.

In three words, what can readers expect from your new book?

Sci-fi, fantasy… etymology?

Goddess in the Machine is a sci-fi novel full of plot twists. It is a rollercoaster of emotions and it works brilliantly, but where did everything start? What was the idea that kick-started everything? And what were your main influences?

I got the idea while I was working on a different project that I was struggling to stay interested in. That project was a generic secret space princess story, so I took what I loved about that premise and started repackaging it into something I could be excited about. I started exploring fairy tale tropes, like the sleeping princess, and remixed them with sci-fi elements I drew from places like Star Wars and Beth Revis’s Across the Universe. Very quickly, that sparked the idea of a girl waking up from stasis to a post-apocalyptic society centered around a prophecy that she would save them.

The world of Goddess in the Machine is beautifully and thoroughly developed, everything is obviously thought out to the smallest detail. How did you plan out your dystopic future? Do you think it is a possible outcome for humanity?

I think part of being a writer is constantly coming up with worst-case scenarios. A lot of the world of Goddess came from letting those scenarios play out to the destruction of society as we know it. The results, by necessity, shaped the world and its inhabitants (who survived). I had to ask myself how a society would function in that environment, after such massive losses of life, knowledge, and nature. I hope that’s not in our future. I think we have it in us as a species to destroy. But I also think that we have it in us to create something spectacular.

Technology and religion are one and the same in the reality of Eerensend, the futuristic city where Goddess in the Machine is set, when in our current time they are almost polar opposites. Why did you decide to base their system of beliefs in technology?

Religion is often based in faith and worship. In organized religion, the object of that faith and worship is usually a god or gods, but humans build religions around a lot of things, even if they don’t call it that. The Eerensedians are putting their faith in technology (what they call magic), and worshipping its immense power. Using that dichotomy was really the basis for me to explore how changing the name of something (ie: technology to magic, science to religion), changes how we interact with it.

The futuristic dialect used by Eerensedians and languages in general play a big part on the novel, why did you decide to create an entire new language for the book?

I developed a passion for linguistics in grad school and became especially interested in how language shapes reality. So I decided early in writing the book that I couldn’t have a world that exists 1000 years in the future and have the characters speaking 21st century English. Initially, I tried to make the dialect as accurate as possible to how English would evolve over 1000 years, and it was absolutely unreadable. So I compromised a bit, and created a pidgin-like dialect that borrowed from this future evolution of English, but relied pretty heavily on the English we speak today.

Most of the changes your dialect presents are a different use of affixes and changes in spelling due to pronunciation, but what was your course of action when building it and what rules and limitations did you impose on your linguistic creative process?

For the most part, I let the language develop naturally based on the culture. Language is socially constructed to meet the needs of the society that uses it, so there are very rarely hard-and-fast rules that apply across the board in any language. The only concession I made to that was to change all -ly words to -ish words. This is not typically how language evolves, but I wanted to give the reader something concrete to center them, as the rest of the dialect is a bit more fuzzy and fickle, as languages tend to be.

We know you are currently writing the sequel of Goddess in the Machine, but what are your plans for the future? Are you planning on trying out different genres?

I have some ideas that I’m really excited for but can’t say much about yet. In general, I’d love to explore lots of categories and media, but I think my brand of story-telling will always have a mix of sci-fi and fantasy.

Finally, imagine you wake up a thousand years into the future like Andra, which current books do you think would have become cult classics by then?

The idea behind what makes a cult classic is an interesting one, but I can’t even imagine what from today will have dedicated followings in 1000 years. Who even knows if they’ll have access to most of what we’re creating now? I really hope Star Wars is still around in some shape or form though.

Will you be picking up Goddess In The Machine? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: Lora Beth Johnson, Author of ‘Goddess In The Machine’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

As an only child, Lora Beth Johnson grew up telling herself stories and reading past her bedtime. She spent her adulthood collecting degrees, careers, and stamps in her passport before realizing her passion for creating fictional worlds. When she’s not writing, she’s teaching college English and learning new languages. She lives in Davidson, NC with her little roommate, Colocataire the Yorki-poo. Goddess in the Machine is her first book. Find Lora Beth on Twitter @LoraBethWrites

There are a lot of things I love about language.

It’s so weird and almost inexplicable that we can make scratches on a page or noises with our mouths or signs with our hands and transport ideas into someone else’s head. That we can create an infinite amount of messages from a finite amount of resources. That we can derive meaning from inexplicit language based on context, cognition, and inference.

The thing I love most about language, though, is that it actively creates and recreates reality.

I started writing Goddess in the Machine in grad school, so it was heavily influenced by my studies, especially my linguistics course. So the very first thing I thought of when I started to create the world of a book set in the far future was language. Because language is not only constructed by culture, but constructs culture in return.

In Goddess, Andromeda—a self-described underachieving teenager—wakes up from cryonic stasis a thousand years in the future. Not only is she unfamiliar with her new surroundings, but she struggles to understand the language of the people she meets. It sounds like a completely new language. But it’s not. It’s English. So why is it almost unrecognizable?

Because language evolves. It’s constantly recreating itself to meet the needs of society. That’s why it’s difficult for baby boomers to understand the language millennials use on the internet, or why my gen z students always have to explain new slang to me. It’s also why we have so much trouble reading Beowulf in Old English. To us, it’s a foreign language. Likewise, a thousand years from now, English will be completely unrecognizable.

Because language is born out of shared experiences. Our colloquialisms, jargon, idioms, metaphors, the names we give things, are all tied to our shared culture. That’s why internet memes work. They use common experiences and familiar images to create a single message. But they can only be understood by people “on the inside,” those who are familiar with the experience the meme references. Those outside of internet culture don’t have the shared knowledge to understand the message. Likewise, as culture shifts, so does language. But the weird thing is: as language shifts, so does culture.

Because language creates reality.

When I was in grad school, one of my professors pointed at a table and said, “that table wouldn’t exist if we didn’t have a name for it.” Of course, I thought that was nonsense. Doesn’t the table exist irrelative to human acknowledgement? But that’s the funny thing about reality. We can only know it as it is known. So, until we know something, until we can name it, it doesn’t exist in our reality. And our reality is the only one we have access to.

Names are powerful things, as any fae will tell you. A name gives identity by separating the named from “thisness” and giving it a “thatness.” We can understand this by thinking about everything as existing on a spectrum, like colors. As we travel the color spectrum, minute variances shift one color to the next. Blue slowly becomes purple slowly becomes red, etc. The question is: when exactly does blue become purple? The answer is: language. We have decided as a society that everything between one spot and another on the spectrum is called blue and everything between one spot and another on the spectrum is called purple. By naming them, we have separated that part of the spectrum into two distinct colors, giving them “thatness.” Giving them names. And once something has a “thatness”—a name—it exists.

There are two main characters in Goddess in the Machine, and depending on which point of view you’re reading from, you’re either reading a sci-fi story or a fantasy. The only difference between the two is language. What Andra calls technology, Zhade calls magic. This simple shift in terms changes everything about how each perceives reality. For Andra, technology is something created and controlled by humans. A tool. For Zhade, magic is something mystical and sacred. Something to be borrowed, but never fully controlled. They may be occupying the same story, but they’re living in alternate realities because of the language they use.

A sentiment echoed throughout Goddess in the Machine is “decide your fate.” It is a wish to control your own destiny. To decide who and what you want to be. The way we decide our fates—and the fates of those around us—is through language. We carry an awful lot of responsibility whenever we speak or write or sign or type, because every utterance is an action that shapes the world around us. Decide your fates wisely. Choose your words with care. Every time you use language, you speak a new reality into existence.

The post Linguistics and Alternate Realities appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The 100 meets Cinder—with a dash of Planet of the Apes—Goddess in the Machine will be the latest YA sci-fi hit and definitely one of the strongest releases of 2020. No one would think that this is Lora Beth Johnson’s debut novel, but it is, and it is outstanding.

A witty, refreshing take on the cryogenics trope on science fiction, Andra, the main character, wakes up a thousand years later than she was supposed to, just to find that her destination planet is on the brink of devastation. Oh, and she is also considered a goddess, isn’t that a lovely scenario for a person to wake up to? That is as far as we can read, because, undoubtedly, the withdrawals and rationed revelations of information are the stars of the novel.

Goddess in the Machine is an absolute ride and Lora Beth Johnson is a master of plot-twists. By revealing small but crucial pieces of information in the least expected moments, the author is able to create an exquisite pace. Not only does she methodically spread key information out to maintain the maximum shock value throughout the novel, but she also manages to hook you up so tightly that you won’t be able to put the book down until you unravel of all its secrets. Be prepared because Johnson has not only one, but five plot twists up her sleeve that will leave you staring blankly at a wall in admiration for a good half an hour.

In addition to the brilliant planning plot-wise, the author also develops an entire futuristic dialect for the society Andra encounters in Eerensend when she awakens. Based on natural word formation and pronunciation changes that could be totally plausible in the future, the dialect manages to be both easy to read and alien to our current understanding of English. It is just a delight to read: the dialect is so seamlessly natural that almost adds such a sense of credibility to the story that it clashes with the strong suspension of disbelief that goes hand in hand with the genre of science fiction.

The novel also offers a remarkably interesting exploration of how technology could become so advanced in the future that people will stop being able to understand it, to such a point where they treat it as magic and build an entire religion around it. The inhabitants of this dystopian future do have the resources to save the planet, but they have long ago lost the ability to use them. For that reason, they put all of their faith in the three goddesses that are meant to restore the forests and oceans, long gone due to global warming and human destruction. Thus, there is also a constant, yet subtle underlying message for ecology and the importance of saving our planet ourselves, instead of relying on a future form of technology that will magically make everything better.

In terms of the set of characters, Goddess in the Machine counts on a gorgeously strong main character whose curves are not the centre of attention or an impediment for anything. This apparently small detail is very much appreciated, as it is still hard to find a non-normative main character who is not brought down by their body. Even if a bit insecure at first, Andra becomes more and more powerful as the plot develops, making the most of her intelligence and kindness. Also, even though she has to be protected during most of the physical fights, Andra is never portrayed as weak or overlooked by other characters. Nobody is perfect, and yet, all of these characteristics make Andra perfect because they make her human.

Sadly, all the effort that the author puts on building the main character, leaves Zhade—the rogue who helps her survive the future—and the rest of the line-up feeling a bit flat. Nonetheless, both Zhade and the villain do show a lot of potential. Maret, the gov of Eerensend is a fascinatingly complex antagonist, strongly manipulated by his mother and advisor. Throughout the development of Andra’s story, he helps her a couple of times and demonstrates that he truly wants to protect his brother. That is why you are constantly wondering whether he is truly bad or pretending to be just to keep his mother from the throne. Hopefully, the sequel will delve more in these two characters, because they are both truly promising!

All in all, Goddess in the Machine is a truly outstanding first work for a debut. Exhilarating and gripping, the novel reinvents one of the most beloved genres of fiction and leaves you wanting more. You will need to take a thousand-year nap like Andra to absorb all of the surprises Lora Beth Johnson has in store to leave you with your mouth wide open. We for certz reck that you will love Goddess in the Machine, marah. So, evens, decide your fate.

Goddess In The Machine is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of June 30th 2020.

Will you be picking up Goddess In The Machine? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis | Goodreads

When Andra wakes up, she’s drowning.

Not only that, but she’s in a hot, dirty cave, it’s the year 3102, and everyone keeps calling her Goddess. When Andra went into a cryonic sleep for a trip across the galaxy, she expected to wake up in a hundred years, not a thousand. Worst of all, the rest of the colonists–including her family and friends–are dead. They died centuries ago, and for some reason, their descendants think Andra’s a deity. She knows she’s nothing special, but she’ll play along if it means she can figure out why she was left in stasis and how to get back to Earth.

Zhade, the exiled bastard prince of Eerensed, has other plans. Four years ago, the sleeping Goddess’s glass coffin disappeared from the palace, and Zhade devoted himself to finding it. Now he’s hoping the Goddess will be the key to taking his rightful place on the throne–if he can get her to play her part, that is. Because if his people realize she doesn’t actually have the power to save their dying planet, they’ll kill her.

With a vicious monarch on the throne and a city tearing apart at the seams, Zhade and Andra might never be able to unlock the mystery of her fate, let alone find a way to unseat the king, especially since Zhade hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with Andra. And a thousand years from home, is there any way of knowing that Earth is better than the planet she’s woken to?

The post Review: Goddess In The Machine by Lora Beth Johnson appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

This months sees books featuring Robin Hood’s children, unfamiliar planets, a novel inspired by West African folklore, an alternate 1880’s London, an d much more!

The Ghosts of Sherwood by Carrie Vaughn
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Carrie Vaughn’s The Ghosts of Sherwood revisits the Robin Hood legend with a story of the famed archer’s children.

Sisters of Sword and Song by Rebecca Ross
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From the author of The Queen’s Rising comes a thrilling YA stand-alone fantasy about the unbreakable bond between sisters. Perfect for fans of Ember in the Ashes, Sky in the Deep, and Court of Fives.

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks
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The #1 bestselling author of World War Z takes on the Bigfoot legend with a tale that blurs the lines between human and beast–and asks what we are capable of in the face of the unimaginable.

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown
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The first in an fantasy duology inspired by West African folklore in which a grieving crown princess and a desperate refugee find themselves on a collision course to murder each other despite their growing attraction.

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho
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Zen Cho returns with a found family wuxia fantasy that combines the vibrancy of old school martial arts movies with characters drawn from the margins of history.

Interlibrary Loan by Gene Wolfe
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Interlibrary Loan is the brilliant follow-up to A Borrowed Man: the final work of fiction from multi-award winner and national literary treasure Gene Wolfe.

The Obsidian Tower by Melissa Caruso
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The Obsidian Tower begins a bold new epic fantasy trilogy in which the broken magic of one woman will either save an entire continent-or completely destroy it.

The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison
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Katherine Addison, author of The Goblin Emperor, returns with The Angel of the Crows, a fantasy novel of alternate 1880s London, where killers stalk the night and the ultimate power is naming.

Red Noise by John P Murphy
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Caught up in a space station turf war between gangs and corrupt law, a lone asteroid miner decides to take them all down.

Goddess in the Machine by Lora Beth Johnson
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Andra wakes up from a cryogenic sleep 1,000 years later than she was supposed to, forcing her to team up with an exiled prince to navigate an unfamiliar planet in this smart, thrilling sci-fi adventure, perfect for fans of Renegades and Aurora Rising.

The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty
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The final chapter in the bestselling, critically acclaimed Daevabad Trilogy, in which a con-woman and an idealistic djinn prince join forces to save a magical kingdom from a devastating civil war.

The Unconquered City by K. A. Doore
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The final volume in K. A. Doore’s critically-acclaimed assassin fantasy series, praised by Publishers Weekly as “a hit with fans of Sarah J. Maas and George R.R. Martin”.

Will you be picking up any of these releases? Tell us in the comments below!

The post June 2020 Book Releases: Fantasy + Sci-Fi appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow (February 26, 2020)
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Can a girl who risks her life for books and an alien who loves forbidden pop music work together to save humanity? Ellie and M0Rr1S embark on a wild and dangerous road trip with a bag of books and their favorite albums, all the while making a story and a song of their own that just might save them both.

A Golden Fury by Samantha Cohoe (Release Date: October 13, 2020)
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In her debut novel, Samantha Cohoe weaves a story of magic and danger, where the streets of Oxford and London come to life, and the curse of the Philosopher’s Stone will haunt you long after the final page.

Jade Fire Gold by June C.L. Tan (Release Date: 2020)
Goodreads 

Told in a dual POV narrative reminiscent of Ember in the Ashes, Jade Fire Gold is a YA fantasy inspired by Chinese mythology and folk tales. Epic in scope but intimate in characterization, fans of classic fantasies by Tamora Pierce and the magical Asiatic setting of Avatar: The Last Airbender will enjoy this cinematic tale of family, revenge, and forgiveness.

Beyond the Ruby Veil by Mara Fitzgerald (Release Date: October 13, 2020)
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After endangering their city’s waning water supply, Emanuela and Ale must travel through the mysterious, blood red veil that surrounds the city in order to uncover the secrets of the watercrea’s magic and find a way to save Occhia–by any means necessary.

Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar (Release Date: August 11, 2020)
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Neil Gaiman’s Stardust meets a rich landscape of Hindu mythology and celestial intrigue in this sparkling YA fantasy debut.

Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles (Release Date: June 2, 2020)
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Where Dreams Descend is the startling and romantic first book in Janella Angeles’ debut Kingdom of Cards fantasy duology where magic is both celebrated and feared, and no heart is left unscathed.

Goddess in the Machine by Lora Beth Johnson (Release Date: June 30, 2020)
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When a girl wakes from a cryogenic sleep on a planet she doesn’t recognize, she must team up with the mysterious soldier who woke her to navigate a future world where technology is considered magic and its practitioners revered as Deities.

Shielded by KayLynn Flanders (Release Date: July 21, 2020)
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For fans of Sorcery of Thorns and Furyborn comes a thrilling new fantasy about a kingdom ravaged by war, and the princess who might be the key to saving not only those closest to her, but the kingdom itself, if she reveals the very secret that could destroy her.

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna (Release Date: May 26, 2020)
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The start of a bold and immersive West African-inspired, feminist fantasy series for fans of Children of Blood and Bone and Black Panther. In this world, girls are outcasts by blood and warriors by choice.

Crownchasers by Rebecca Coffindaffer (Release Date: September 29, 2020)
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Lara Croft meets Star Wars in this young adult space opera, in which a wisecracking intergalactic adventurer becomes the odds-on favorite to win a deadly, cross-galaxy contest to become the quadrant’s next emperor; too bad she has no intention of winning.

Don’t Call the Wolf by Aleksandra Ross (Release Date: April 28, 2020)
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A forest, besieged. A queen, unyielding. Fans of Leigh Bardugo and Holly Black will devour this deliciously dark Eastern European–inspired YA fantasy debut.

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn (Release Date: September 15, 2020)
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Filled with mystery and an intriguingly rich magic system, Tracy Deonn’s YA contemporary fantasy Legendborn offers the dark allure of City of Bones with a modern-day twist on a classic legend and a lot of Southern Black Girl Magic.

Elysium Girls by Kate Pentecost (Release Date: April 14, 2020)
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In this sweeping Dust Bowl-inspired fantasy, a ten-year game between Life and Death pits the walled Oklahoma city of Elysium-including a girl gang of witches and a demon who longs for humanity-against the supernatural in order to judge mankind.

Queen of Coin and Whispers by Helen Corcoran (Release Date: April 23, 2020)
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When teenage queen Lia inherits her corrupt uncle’s bankrupt kingdom, she brings a new spymaster into the fold … Xania, who takes the job to avenge her murdered father. Faced with dangerous plots and hidden enemies, can Lia and Xania learn to rely on each other, as they discover that all is not fair in love and treason?

In the Shadow of the Sun by EM Castellan (Release Date: February 11, 2020)
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France, 1661 – Henriette of England must navigate her arranged marriage to Louis XIV’s brother while keeping her magical abilities a careful secret from all at the Sun King’s court, but when a mysterious sorcerer uses a forbidden spell to murder royal magicians, she must decide if she will reveal her powers to help Louis defeat him and build a new, enchanted seat of power — the Palace of Versailles.

The Dark Tide by Alicia Jasinska (Release Date: June 2, 2020)
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The Wicked Deep meets A Curse So Dark and Lonely in this gripping, dark fairy-tale fantasy about two girls who must choose between saving themselves, each other, or their sinking island city.

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne Brown (Release Date: June 2, 2020)
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

The first in an immersive fantasy duology inspired by West African folklore in which a grieving crown princess and a desperate refugee find themselves on a collision course to murder each other despite their growing attraction.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas (Release Date: June 9, 2020)
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A trans boy determined to prove his gender to his conservative Latinx family summons a ghost who refuses to leave in this paranormal YA debut.

The Ninth Life by Taylor B. Barton (Release Date: September 15, 2020)
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Filled with heart, hope and beautiful prose, The Ninth Life is a wonderful, weird and unforgettable novel for readers looking for something unique, honest and real.

A Miracle of Roses by Diana Pinguicha  (Release Date: December 1, 2020)
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A Miracle of Roses is an f/f #OwnVoices retelling of the Portuguese miracle of the same name, where the Princess of Aragon enters a bargain with an Enchanted Moura so she can reverse her gift that turns all the food she touches into flowers.

Do you have any other recommendations? Tell us in the comments below!

The post 20 SFF YA Debuts To Watch Out For In 2020 appeared first on The Nerd Daily.