Just Arrived, 12/16/10
Posted on December 16, 2010 Posted by John Scalzi 15 Comments
Hey! Look what I got in the mail!
* Soul Hunt, Margaret Ronald (Harper Voyager): The third book in Ronald’s fabulous urban fantasy series has our paranormally empowered heroine discovering that she owes a debt to someone very powerful and thus must take on a job that she dare not fail at, or else bad things will happen to Boston. Yes, even worse than the Celtics not making the finals. This one will be out on December 28, so now you know what to spend those holiday gift cards on.
* Up Against It, M.J. Locke (Tor): This is an ARC for an science fiction book which has been getting a fair amount of early buzz for its look at life on an asteroid colony a couple centuries upstream — and the troubles one of that colony’s engineers has to deal with when it’s targeted for takeover. And if that’s not enough, a formerly helpful AI had gone rogue. See, this is why I stay here at the bottom of a gravity well. This one comes out in March, and Locke’s already slated for a Big Idea slot, so you’ll hear more about it here closer to release.
* Cowboy Angels, Paul McAuley (Pyr): This is a cool idea: A version of the US discovers a way to access alternate history versions of itself and plans basically to make these other versions its client states. Oh, America. Self-reflexive imperialism probably won’t end well, will it? Probably not — and there’s where the story is headed. This novel’s been out for quite some time in the UK but has its US release on January 1.
* Speculative Horizons, Patrick St-Denis, ed. (Subterranean Press): This fantasy anthology features stories from Tobias Buckell, Hal Duncan, L.E. Modesitt, Jr. and others, got a starred review in Publishers Weekly, and a cut of the profits go to breast cancer research. It’s out now.
* Black Magic Sanction, Kim Harrison (Harper Voyager): The paperback version of Harrison’s latest installment in her Rachel Morgan series hits stores on December 28.
* Corruptor, Jason Cordova (Twilight Times): So there’s this video game which is so very awesome that playing it is just like actually being in it. What could possibly ever go wrong with that set-up, right? Yes, exactly. Sigh. When will people remember to pause the game and step away from it every fifteen minutes or so? It’s not so hard, folks. This one is out now.
* A Hard Day’s Knight, Simon R. Green (Ace): Green’s Nightside series is up to installment number 11, which is a pretty impressive series run, if you ask me. In this one, our hero private investigator John Taylor discovers the sword Excalibur has been sent to him in the mail, and you just know that’s going to mean complications galore. Apparently “Return to Sender” was not an option. This one’s out January 4.
I miss reading the Hawk and Fisher books by Simon R. Green, maybe it is time I started on the Green’s Nightside series. Hmmmmmm…..
It’s been a while since I’ve read anything by McAuley, but I am intrigued by the idea…
Corruptor, Jason Cordoba should be Corruptor, Jason Cordova
Fixed.
Ooh, ooh, ooh.
One of the geek T-shirt sites used to sell a shirt which had DON’T FORGET TO EAT printed on it backwards. You know, so you’d see the reflection in your monitor or in the bathroom mirror when you had to make the occasional trip to the bathroom.
Oh not another Nightside book. I wish Green would remember some of his other series, or even a proper standalone again. I loved his Forest Kingdom stuff (but oddly not when it was the Hawk and Fisher incarnation) and Shadows Fall was truly epic although I’ve been told it has since been retconned into the Nightside stuff along with Midnight Wine. It is always somewhat dispiriting when an author reaches the point in his or her career when they feel the need to retcon all their disparate books into one single continuity.
Is okay, people do that to my name all the time. It allows me to walk into Qdoba and act like I own the place. :-)
So, I read the description of Cowboy Angels, sounded interesting so I wanted to check it out, but there’s no link to a seller/source. I think you’re missing on a potential, if small, revenue stream there, right? How come no links?
@CrypticMirror: I feel ya. The Rachel Morgan series got one hell of a big retcon a couple books back and I had to pass after that. On the one hand, it was a very small detail. On the other hand, it’s something that would have changed a great deal of personality/personal relationship things about the character. I decided that once an author has gone down that route, you can’t trust that any developments (past or future) will matter. So, if nothing that happens matters, why do you care what happens? Like Heroes, sorta, where the characters became caricatures with no personality but what fit the script that week.
Cowboy Angels is great, and was my introduction to McAuley, which directly led to owning almost his entire catalogue, and which I regret not at all.
Also, I am so glad to hear of a new Nightside book. Good pulpy fun.
Another recommendation for Cowboy Angels here. McAuley tends towards the intricate and dark; if you hate Banks and Ian MacDonald you won’t like this either.
Can’t wait to read the next in Maggie Ronald’s series. I was given the honour of reading the first two as advance copies, and now I’m being made to wait with the rest of the unwashed masses on the third…it’s killing me!
Huh, I am curious about Corruptor but my brick and mortar stores don’t seem to have it on their website, and Amazon only has a kindle version listed. :-\
#7 – I liked Simon Green’s other stuff too, but I never could get into the Nightside series for some reason. I loved the Hawk and Fisher series.
Aurian: B&N has it, and Amazon has a regular print version as well I’ve found.