Steven Barnes is a The New York Times bestselling author of more than 30 novels. He is a pioneering Afrofuturist, nominated for Nebula and Hugo awards, and writer of the Emmy Award-winning “A Stitch In Time” episode of the 1990’s reboot of The Outer Limits. His collaborator and wife, Tananarive Due, is an academic and author whose books include Ghost Summer: Stories, My Soul to Keep, and The Good House. In their collaboration The Keeper (Harry N. Abrams), illustrated by Marco Finnegan, Aisha has lost her parents in a car crash, and now she must move to decrepit and derelict Detroit to live with her ailing grandmother. But shortly after Aisha’s move, her grandmother’s health rapidly deteriorates. With her dying breath, she summons the dark spirit that has protected their family for generations to watch over her granddaughter. At first, it seems that this spirit, the Keeper, is doing what it was asked. But Aisha finds that this being can only sustain itself by stealing life from others, and she and her friends must come together to destroy it or die trying. Barnes’ graphic novel The Eightfold Path (Abrams ComicArts – Megascope), co-authored by Charles Johnson and illustrated by Bryan Christopher Moss, is an anthology of interconnected Afrofuturistic parables inspired by the teachings of Buddha. Eight strangers looking for enlightenment from an ancient spiritual teacher are trapped in a cave high in the mountains on their way to his temple. One of his acolytes directs them to each tell a story that the group can learn from as they wait out the snowstorm raging outside. One by one, the travelers share their stories, each a morality tale representing one of the aspects of final enlightenment taught in Buddhism. Their stories of horror, dystopia, high adventure, cyberpunk, and urban fantasy are spokes on the symbolic Dharma wheel, and each interlocking tale gets them closer to their true destiny – unveiling the future of the human race.