Just Arrived, 12/31/10
Posted on December 31, 2010 Posted by John Scalzi 29 Comments
It’s the last Just Arrived of the year! In order of me grabbing them from the pile:
*Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love, Andrew Shaffer (Harper Perennial): A slim nonfiction book which assures you that all the great philosophers couldn’t get dates, either — or, in the case of Rousseau, got off on flashing women in alleyways. Oh, Rousseau. So nasty, brutish and short, you are. This one is out on January 4.
* Counterfeit Magic, Kelley Armstrong (Subterranean Press): A new novella set in the world of Armstrong’s popular books Dime Store Magic and Industrial Magic. It involves a supernatural “fight club” scenario. I am Jack’s lycanthropy! Out now.
* The Running Dream, Wendelin Van Draanen (Knopf): A teenager track star has to reassess her life when an accident causes her to lose a leg. This YA is out on January 11, and Van Draanen will be contributing a Big Idea piece around the same time.
* Ghost Country, Patrick Lee (Harper): Lee’s follow up to his bestseller The Breach features his heroes racing to avoid an apocalypse that will end with billions dead (and, one assumes, the survivors severely inconvenienced). This out came out last Tuesday.
* Demonstorm, James Barclay (Pyr): The third book of the Legends of the Raven series, in which we learn that just because you’ve won a great victory doesn’t mean your enemies won’t still try to get at you. Enemies, they’re persistent that way. Also out January 4.
* The Company Articles of Edward Teach, Thoraiya Dyer/Angaelian Apocalypse, Matthew Chrulew (Twelfth Planet Press): Ooooooh, look. This is paperback done in classic “Ace Double” style, for which I have a constitutional weakness. And one is time-travel pirate story, and the other has Jesus in a flying saucer! This is out — in Australia, although the publisher will send it to you if you live elsewhere in the world.
* Eternal Prey: The Gods of the Night, Nina Bangs (Avon): It’s predators versus vampires, and no, not the predators from the science fiction movies, ancient mystical predators that live in the souls of certain humans. I’ve looked into my own soul and found an ancient squirrel. I am disappointed in myself. This came out on Tuesday.
* Citadel, John Ringo (Baen): The follow-on to Live Free or Die has humans squaring off against various aliens who are just plain pissing them off. Because this is a John Ringo book, and that’s what they do. One day John Ringo will write a delightful, delicate romantic comedy and heads will explode. But not today, or on January 4, which is when this one comes out.
* Machine of Death, edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo & David Maliki (Bearstache Books): The conceit of this anthology is that the people in the various stories know how (but not when) they are going to die. The deaths range from “Cancer” to “Flaming Marshmallow.” I don’t think I would like to die from the latter, or indeed by any variant of a marshmallow. And if I did, I would expect the survivors to lie. Contributors include my old college pal Erin McKean, “Yahtzee” Croshaw, Gord Sellar and Randall Munroe. Out now.
I have more books in the pile but they’re just going to have to wait until 2011, I’m afraid.
*envies so many books, as always*
I can attest that Machine of Death is awesome.
Machine of Death also outsold Glenn Beck’s latest ‘book’ on Amazon on the latter’s release day.
I firmly believe that John Ringo has it in him to write a delicate, delicious romance novel! All 10 pages (over the 4 books) of March to the Stars that handled the romance were surprisingly well done.
Allison:
Ringo is a good enough writer that he could easily write whatever he wanted. It’s thought of a John Ringo rom-com that’s amusing.
Wait, you mean that the Paladin of Shadows books aren’t RomCom? Quoth Wikipedia about the second one:
“In this book, Mike (In search of beautiful prostitutes) stumbles across an almost forgotten group of people in the country of Georgia. These people, known as the Keldara, are a fierce group of warrior farmers who descend from an ancient Varangian culture. Fascinated by the place, Mike purchases the castle on the hill with a quantity of terrorist bounty money and goes about learning the ways of his new ‘people’ who, as he is their new ‘Kildar’ are willing to follow his orders.”
Lest anyone be confused, the Paladin of Shadows series are not romantic comedies, although there is comic romance on several pages, and there are moments of gleeful laughter — and sometimes embarrassed laughter — from the reader. For science fiction / romantic comedy, you should probably head to Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Naismith Vorkosigan series (starts with Cordelia’s Honor, a combination of Barrayar and Shards of Honor) , or maybe Elizabeth Moon’s Serrano Legacy series (starts with Hunting Party.) Lots of people get injured or killed in both, but they (mostly) deserve to have it happen.
I’m sure Ringo could write a real romantic comedy where heads -do- explode.
I’m a little over 1/2 through Ghost Country and it is really good.
“Northanger Abbey Sniper”?
Regards,
Jack Tingle
So I saw the note about Machine of Death, and the comment saying it was awesome, and I was reaching for my Kindle before the page finished loading and had bought it by the time the comment pane appeared . . .
and that’s when I knew I was in real trouble. Instant gratification, I am your bitch.
Agreed on the Ace doubles. Just obtained Philip Farmer’s Lord of the trees/the mad goblin. A Tarzan pastiche paired with a Doc Savage? Totally in.
I still dream of a John Ringo/Scalzi book where each takes an alien nation at war with each other. Or really any type of collaboration. And yes, my head would explode if I read a romantic comedy by Ringo.
Our Gracious Host wrote:
Probably true, although I wouldn’t mind risking the possibility. Such a work would be the ideal shelf companion for that copy of Love Stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs which sits away from all the other books on the shelf.
Machine of Death caught me by surprise. It’s self-published, without a mainstream editor and publishing house. I bought it because, hey, I like Dinosaur Comics and Wondermark and wanted to support those guys. I expected something full of gimmicky twist endings, but it was nothing at all like that. There’s some really thoughtful stories in there.
I was curious about the Nina Bangs book but I think the title is wrong – it seems to be “EXTERNAL Prey” not eternal prey…
Oh never mind, sorry delete the above please? For some reason my search found a book by the name External Prey as well.
John Ringo should write a romantic comedy featuring exploding heads.
Re: Spirit of a squirrel.
What could be more awesome then that?
Having been forced to read a year of philosophy in college, I’d kind of always assumed that a bunch of them had failed at love.
Add me to the chorus of folks recommending ‘Machine of Death.’ The stories are surprisingly thoughtful and varied.
And I thought that Ringo had already written his romantic comedy, in “Ghost”.
Steve@2: And the funniest thing isn’t just that a self-published book outsold Glenn Beck, it’s that Glenn Beck took the time to complain about it on his show: http://machineofdeath.net/159
Hey, thanks for the tip on the Patrick Lee books. They were excellent.
#16 by zzatz on December 31, 2010 – 4:29 pm
John Ringo should write a romantic comedy featuring exploding heads.
And David Cronenberg should direct it. It could be like a combination of Scanners and Sleepless in Seattle. Just think of how awesome this could be, no one has done an exploding head movie since Scanners, and exploding head technology has advanced by leaps and bounds in the last 30 years.
#11 by David moody on December 31, 2010 – 3:30 pm
I still dream of a John Ringo/Scalzi book where each takes an alien nation at war with each other
I dream of a John Ringo/Ringo Starr book where a rock group consisting of former Navy SEALS travels through space and time in a yellow spaceship wiping out a horrible and vicious tribe of mean blue aliens.
Wait… the collaborators of Wondermark, Dinosaur Comics, and xkcd all collaborating in one book?
WANT.
I’m trying to think of science fiction romantic comedies and I can only think of one: Corrupting Dr. Nice by John Kessel.
In case folks are interested in the Twelfth Planet Press novella double mentioned, here are some links:
Purchase:
Review:
Authors: ,
Sorry, without the html fail that should be:
Purchase: http://www.twelfthplanetpress.com/the-company-articles-of-edward-teachthe-angaelian-apocalypse
Review: http://mondyboy.livejournal.com/127544.html
Authors: http://matthewchrulew.wordpress.com/, <http://www.thoraiyadyer.com/
META”, why in the voice “Syndicate RSS” i’m appear the link “VOCE Rss”. I can sostitute whit the voice “FEED RSS”? Thanks for your great templates.