Posted on October 24, 2013 Posted by John Scalzi 55 Comments
Hey, kids! It’s another stack of cool new books and ARCs, freshly arrived at the Scalzi Compound! What here looks interesting to you? Let me know in the comments.
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John Scalzi, proprietor – JS
Athena Scalzi, contributor – AMS
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The Martian by Andy Weir. Read it as an ebook. It’s brilliantly funny!
I listened to The Martian as an Audible book and thought it was very well done – both the writing and the narration, it is a great story.
Andy Weir is a friend-of-a-friend, so I’m definitely interested in The Martian.
If all I had to go on was title, “Shopocalypse” would be my pick. Hands down.
Read the Krapman and write a bad review of it. Then he’ll turn up and attack you for it and we can all watch the fun.
Rory:
No, won’t be doing that. I don’t pick fights just to pick fights.
Not familiar with Sara Hoyt but sounds interesting. And from comments, will have to check out The Martian.
The Sarah Hoyt book was good but not as good as it’s predecessor. Ryk Spoor’s book looks like an excellent sequel. Sharon Lee’s book is a freaking awesome Liaden book. And Tom Kratman’s will be a good shoot ’em up.
So many books, so little time.
Ooo, Trade Secrets. That’s the new Liaden one.
The only thing that stands out is the Kratman but only because of the title (not enough to encourage or discourage, it just stands out). Yes, the phrase has it’s origins in the Battle of Thermopylae (aka 300) but in the last five years or so, it has become a dog whistle of sorts for the folks afraid of Obama/United Nations/FEMA coming to take their guns away.
From the snippets I saw, Spheres of Influence looks to be a good time. At the least, the snippets were a good enough time I got the book it’s a sequel to, and I plan to get it.
Argh. Its not it’s.
Already have a signed copy of “Trade Secret” ordered. The Liaden novels are good stuff.
Yea! Innocent Blood is coming! I just finished the 1st one in that series! Big James Rollins fan!
Yay- Trade Secret! Jethri is my favorite member of the Liaden Universe.
Another person anxiously awaiting her copy of Trade Secret. I will be rereading Balance of Trade this weekend in preparation. The Martian, Ghost Key and Sphere’s of Influence have gone onto my explore further list. To echo Lynn McGuire, so many books, so little time.
The only thing that stands out is the Kratman but only because of the title (not enough to encourage or discourage, it just stands out). Yes, the phrase has it’s origins in the Battle of Thermopylae (aka 300) but in the last five years or so, it has become a dog whistle of sorts for the folks afraid of Obama/United Nations/FEMA coming to take their guns away.
Not to mention the sort of people who see themselves as King Leonidas and forget the far more relevant example of David Koresh…
I just finished Andy Weir’s The Martian (audio) and I CANNOT RECOMMEND IT ENOUGH. If you don’t read it or listen to it, you are a wanker and dead to me.
Best effing hard sci fi & character book I’ve read in recent memory, and one of the most engrossing I’ve ever read.
Now that I’m done hyperventilating (BUY THE MARTIAN!), I have to wonder about Shopocalypse and David Gullen’s awareness of the Church of Stop Shopping. Because what Gullen’s editor wrote in the teaser summary is nothing like what the fans of Rev. Billy are expecting.
Reading The Martian was the closest I’ve come to reading Heinlein-at-his-peak when I was a teen. Technical explanation woven with a compelling narrative FTW.
So… I’m guessing we’re not meant to read the Kratman title as some kind of subliminal invitation?
I know, long shot. It’s just that I do like free books, and I intermittently wonder what it would be like to set foot on the soil that elected John Boehner. Plus Mary Robinette Kowal says such nice things about your lawn.
(Mindworm what will not die: “John Robinette Boehner, Puppeteer of Congress.” I really need to go to bed.)
I’m surprised you’d even bother to include Kratman’s book in a photo. I think the next photo you post should be that book on fire.
And what’s awful, I live in the same town as him. =(
I’ll third or fourth or whatever the comments for “The Martian”. It’s not one of those books you read for the prose, but it’s hard SF fun that reads (er…sounds, I listened to the audiobook) like it’s by someone who really did their research on current space technology. Pure fun.
I must admit I read ‘Ghost Key’ as ‘Ghost Keg’ and either way it looks interesting…
“I’ll Meet You Yesterday” has the best title. I’d start with that one. :)
I’ve read all of Kratman’s books in this series, including the ARC of this one from Baen. He’s not a bad author, if you can just ignore the blatant political slant he and Ringo throw into these sorts of books. Talk about straw men! LOL!
I’m going with Innocent Blood. Loved the first book in that series, and I am eagerly awaiting this book to come out!
Love the Liaden books, and I actually got the eARC of Trade Secret as soon as it was available. Great reading!
The Kratman book might actually have a practical use if a copy of it turned up at my house – we are getting a wood-burning stove and might want tinder…
Wow! Phoenix Rising last week and Spheres this week! I squeeeed!
You can thank Baen for sending me roughly every thing they publish!
Not surprised that so many people have grabby hands for The Martian. It would be the first thing I reach for.
The Martian wouldn’t usually stand out to me in this pile, but all of the positive comments have me intrigued. It’s going to the near top of my goodreads list.
Lots of good authors here, Hoyt,Spoor, Lee & Miller, and Kratman that i meed to get
Trade Secrets!!!
I started my journey through the Liaden universe with the first Jethri book. I’m so looking forward to this one!
I’ll always remember Kratman for that time he showed up on a forum I frequent and started peddling his neo-nazi revisionist* nonsense in defence of the Juden SS, only to get repeatedly shut down and denied by folk who actually knew real-world history.
The title is pretty much peak Kratman there.
I’ll also always remember Sarah Hoyt for that time I looked at the cover of one of her books, assumed it was a typical bad SF “sex sells” cover, and found it to be an accurate representation of a scene in the book. This is a sequel to that, I’ll probably pick it up. I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere else I read, so I’m glad someone posted that it exists.
__
* Not that he is one, but his arguments and twisting of history certainly came from them.
Got to say Baen has the most interesting titles: Come and Take Them, Darkship Renegades and Trade Secrets are all very intriguing. Spheres of Influence doesn’t do anything for me though. I’ll Meet You Yesterday is a good title, but I’m underwhelmed by the font. Shopocalypse is a funny title. Is it a funny book? If it is a funny book, it is a good title. If it is about something serious, it might be confusing.
I like ghosts, but Ghost Key isn’t spooky. Ghost Lock would be spookier. Perhaps it is a mystery though, or cyberpunk, and then it works just fine. The Martian looks okay. Hope it is about a Martian.
It isn’t pretty to look at but the simple Into the Wilderness stands out nicely. If it is a nature adventure, I’d pick it up.
Sarah Hoyt is great. Watch for her!
“I live in the same town with someone I disagree with, how horrible!”
“This book is from someone I disagree with politically or philosophically, I should burn it”
Ray Bradbury is good reading to, but burning anything I might disagree with sounds too much like the intolerance I would rather decry than emulate.
“I’ll Meet You Yesterday” is a title I would pick up and skim to see if it was any good. Sounds intriguing. May I?
I actually know “Come and Take Them” more from it being adopted by my alma mater (Michigan State, the Spartans(hence the moniker)) after “300” came out than anything else. The original Greek (approx “Molon Labe”) was sewn into the backs of football jerseys.
Re: Kratman in general. SFReviews.net (which pointed me to our host for the first time) has awarded one of his books its loweset rating (1/2 a star), the only book so dishonored. The review is worth a read: http://sfreviews.net/watchontherhine.html.
Like the dudebros that refuse to buy Scalzi books, I boycott Kratman and strongly encourage others to do the same, Makes me (more of) a tool perhaps, but I just can’t stomach that guy.
Let’s not make this thread about Mr. Kratman, please.
I think Ghost Key is the sequel to a book called Esperanza.It’s set in Peru with lots of supernatural creatures, random time-jumping and cell phones that won’t work in 1976, if I remember correctly (that’s Esperanza). So glad I could provide this vital, detailed information.
“Come and Take Them.” I thought the historic source of that quote was this:
“You want her? Come take her. Only, you’ll have to go through me.”– Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season Five.
Hmm I was all excited for The Martian, but… not out until February. Oh well.
@Double Rainbow —
To me, what’s jarring about the typography on the Barlow book is the kerning. Ouch!
That being said, I see that the publisher is hosting a party (sweet!) at SFContario4 next month, only a few days after the book officially debuts. I’ll make a point of checking it out then.
Tom Barlow also has a short story collection out, Welcome to the Goat Rodeo. From skimming a few reviews, I see I ought to check that one out too.
I’m actually interested in “Into the Wilderness”. Lou Anders has an eye for talent, and I’ve never heard of Mandy Hager before. I’m going to have to do a search to find out more.
I’ve read “Darkship Renegades”. It’s good, but not as good as “Darkship Thieves”, “Spheres of Influence” is Ryk Spoor’s sequel to “Grand Central Arena” I believe. Good book, that. I’ll have to check this one out too.
Andy Wier’s “The Martian” was a tremendouos audio read. Great story, likeable character, technically intricate yet approachable. I believe it is due out in print early 2014, so pre-order today! I’m not sure how Mr. Wier can top this wonderful debut, but if he is as inventive as Mark Watney (the main character), I have faith.
My apologies to Mr. Weir. People misspell my name all the time, as well.
Ooooh, “Spheres of Influence”! I loved “Grande Central Arena”, the book to which “Spheres” is a sequel. Huzzah! And I’m intrigued by Sarah Hoyt, of whom I am entirely unfamiliar. I love these posts and continue to look forward to the day when something of mine is in the stack!
You can thank Baen for sending me roughly every thing they publish!
There’s a story that Queen Victoria loved “Alice in Wonderland” so much that she requested Dodgson/Carroll send her a copy of his very next book. There’s no record of her reaction when “An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, With Their Application to Simultaneous Linear Equations and Algebraic Equations” arrived in the mail…
The Martian, because it’s awesome, and Innocent Blood because I read the first one and enjoyed it even though it was sort of a cheap Indiana Jones/Robert Langdon (with vampires) kind of thrill.
@DC Spartan
That book may be every bit as awful as the reviewer claims, but that Tomas Wagner dude has a serious hate-on for Baen. Given that Baen has published many of the novels of one of my favorite SF authors (Asaro), that makes me even more skeptical than I already would be of someone who rationalizes reading books because of a “atavistic, rubberneck-the-car-crash aspect of my personality that I haven’t weeded out.” In my experience, most people who make excuses that they couldn’t resist something horrid are actually all to happy to have something at which to direct their surfeit of disgust-lust. Maybe it was just the book that made him so angry, but my guess is he was angry to begin with a looking for an outlet to vent at the Evil Right (TM). He’s so wrapped up in the chip on his shoulder that he seems to take the use of liberal as slander to heart.
It’s also telling that he describes his right-wing acquaintances as “And sometimes, they’d pin Nazi emblems to their jackets.” instead of And some of them would pin Nazi emblems on their jackets. Unless it’s a weird typo, he figures it’s something all right-wingers do some of the time, indicating he holds the same sort of stereotypical straw-man outlook of people he considers right-wing as he tells us the authors hold of “liberals”. If so, the review is also hypocritical. The best line in that whole review is “Though I don’t like for politics to intrude on this site…” Yeah, right!
Mind you, the novel so reviewed does sound pretty lousy, and I’m not sure it was even worth reading a review of it, to say nothing of wasting time reading the book itself. The reviewer just comes off like a tool as well.
@Murphy7
I particularly like how the solution to an author thought – I haven’t read any of his books (nothing personal, just not into straight-up mil-SF) – to be inspired by neo-nazism is to burn books. The irony would be thicker than the smoke.
“Das war ein vorspiel nur; dort wo man bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am ende menschen.” ~ Christian Johann Heinrich Heine [not talking about the Holocaust specifically, since he died well before the Nazis came to power]
Heard Dave Gullen read from Shopocalypse yesterday at BristolCon. I liked it so I’d go for that.
I listened to Tom Barlow read at a con. I was very impressed.
I have read “The Martian” – well – listened to it – and loved, Loved, LOVED it! It’s funny, it’s frustrating and dramatic. I urge everyone to listen to or read this book. I am going to purchase “Shopocalypse” right now as anything involving shopping cannot be wrong!