New Books and ARCs, 10/5/15
Posted on October 5, 2015 Posted by John Scalzi 36 Comments
I usually post new book/ARCs entries later in the week, but I’m going to be busy later this week, at NYCC and at Nerdcon:Stories, and also I received enough books to do a post today, so: Hey, look! New books and ARCs! If you see anything that interests you, tell us about it in the comments.
To get ahead of it before someone else notes it: Yes, several of the “Puppies” are in that pile. This is not an excuse to rehash this year’s Hugo nonsense in this thread, please, or to bash any of those authors, or declare how you’ll never read them, etc. I’ll snip out the comments about that.
Please use the thread the way it’s intended to be used: To point out the books there that interest you. Thanks.
Please tell me you’ve already read SHARDS OF HONOR, from the Vorkosigan Saga.
Shards of Honor is a good one… nice to see that it’s still in print.
Busy week for Baen, eh? Is it normal for one publisher to have that many titles coming out at once? Or is this just an anomaly around when you’re getting the ARCs?
Maxutility:
Baen sends all their releases for a month in one package. Normally I parcel them out over a couple of weeks, but this week I put them all into the same stack.
So what’s the grrm?
Is it a special edition or a just a new printing of Shards of Honor?
Neil Ottenstein:
It’s a reprint, probably to help prime the pump for a new Bujold release later in the year.
Oh I loved that book. The audio version was fantastic! I am preordering Larry Correia’s book (audio version of course) next payday.
I was just skimming the authors and when I saw Bujold I was so exited b/c I thought it was an ARC for her new book. Then I read the title. ~sigh~ While it’s cool to see the reprint of Shards of Honor I am really looking forward to the new Vorkosigan book. I wonder if it’s available for pre-order now…
After having Shards and Barrayar mainly available together in omnibus form, looks like BEAN is going back to solo releases in trade paperback reissues. Barrayar will be out in January. Since the new novel focuses on Cordelia, it does make sense to get those early books back out there.
Thanks. I just spotted some more info on the Lois McMaster Bujold FB page (which is fan-run). “Barrayar is supposed to follow in January, so both Cordelia books should be on deck in time for Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen in February.”
I wonder if this is a general splitting of the Bujolds back into their individual books, since only the collected volumes have been available for a while.
Fourteen years at a Big 5 taught me that repackaging books gooses their sales, at least if they’re bestsellers or steadysellers to begin with. At my previous employer, we had several authors with big backlists that we put new cover designs on through regular rotations every five years or so.
Though judging by the spine, I doubt the cover on Shards of Honor is any better than the original. I understand Baen has a “look,” and I can’t say it hasn’t served them reasonably well, but…sigh. Why don’t I get to be in charge of the publishing world? :shakes fist at sky:
And yes, that should have been BAEN…
To add to the question of –E, it looks like they are all getting the repackaging trade treatment with a 30th Anniversary The Warrior’s Apprentice scheduled for next May. Also interesting is the BAEN does not appear to have ebook rights to those books anymore. Although most long time fans probably have a CD or two that was included with one of their hardcovers.
Do they need to prime the pump for a Bujold release? Speaking for myself, I come pre-primed these days. “TAKE MY MONEY! GIVE ME THE THING! LEAVE ME ALONE NOW, MUST READ THING!” primed.
As for the question as to whether Lois McMaster Bujold’s “Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen” is available for pre-order — I see it on Amazon right now.
chompmancobra: They want to get new readers. Believe it or not, not everyone–not even every SF reader!–has read Bujold. I know, it’s shocking!
But the strategy is name recognition. “I’ve been hearing about these books for a long time, everyone seems to like them. There’s a new one coming out, but should I read the others first? Oh, hey, they are oh-so-conveniently right here on this front table of my local bookstore! I guess I can pick up the first one or two.”
Twain’s End looks intriguing. I’ve just been reading reviews, and it could be just up my street.
Flint and Weber? Good. Weber keeps Flint from strawmanning the right, and Flint’s preference for “little guy” characters is a personal favorite style.
That team gave us “1633”, I’ll read pretty much anything with one or both of their names on it at least once.
Also, Bujold, yay!
And GRRM, huh. Knowing the background of that particular book, it’s basically going to be an illustration of why it sucked to be a peasant in Medieval Europe and why this didn’t change for centuries.
It’s also going to be a solid argument against the Danaerys fanboys who want a Targaryen restoration, since based on the official companion guide there were like 2 competent kings out of the whole bunch of nuts, and Aegon the Fifth was not one of them. He wasn’t bad, per se, but not good either.
I’m still gutshot from the end of Cryoburn…
I have to admit that I’m one of those science fiction readers who has YET to read “Shards of Honor” (hangs head in shame). I even picked it up in a Humble Bundle 2 years ago and I still haven’t gotten around to it! Sigh. So many books, so little time…
So, does the presence of Knight of the Seven Kingdoms mean we may see a Winds of Winter ARC in this pile one day?
I’m always happy to read a new Mike Resnick book.
You can never go wrong with Bujold.
Man you get a lot of books. Over the years watching your book piles, I have gone from jealous to overwhelmed…your local library must have the best SFF collection in 1000 miles (yes I know you can’t give all of them away, and it’s still true).
I want to know what the SoH cover looks like. (Amazon was no help.) Some were terrible, some pretty good. The second printing of Barrayar had a fantastic cover: a woman’s hand, wrapped around a man’s hand, wrapped around a wooden-handled sword. I hope Baen uses that one again.
FYI, Bujold is releasing all the Vorkosigan ebooks, with neat new covers. They’re more stylized and more uniform but for all that, you could probably guess the book from the cover (if you’re familiar with the book, of course).
GRRM book is 3 novellas. They are reprints of Hedge Knight Novellas in other collections. These are Song of Ice and Fire prequels. The first one I think is 15 years old. That is the only prequel I have read. I think there are 2 more prequel novellas that do not involve the Hedge Knight around. George said he would start collecting this into Song of Ice and Fire volumes.
I really liked the Chaplains War. The writing style is similiar to Daniel Abraham. Main character is the regular guy type. Nothing really super awesome about him and he makes him interesting. ITs also one of the few epic space operas where the main character solves problems without using violence and/or is not a super genious type.
shbeaty, seriously, go take ‘Shards of Honor’ and put it right at the top of the pile. you won’t regret it. I only ‘discovered’ Bujold a few years ago, and was all ‘where have these been hiding from me!!!’ and glommed them alllllll down.
Baen is still selling the Bujold ebooks, including the revised Shards of Honor, so maybe they just don’t have exclusive rights to them. IIRC, Lois said that the revised version is mainly just cleaning up typos, punctuation, and maybe a rewording here or there, with no scenes added or deleted.
OOOO! OOOO! OOOO! Shards of Honor is BACK IN PRINT!!!! This is a wonderful Irish Stew of a book: Love story, war story, comedy, Space Opera!!!! I read this to my wife when she was in the Hospital, and as soon as she could read again, she swiped it and read it herself!
“Twain’s End” sounds interesting but maybe not fun. I will have to make a note for later, when my entertainment bar is set a little higher.
However, based on Mr. Davis’ comment above and the Amazon capsule, I just put “Shards of Honor” on my wishlist. :-)
@chachai: I summarize Shards of Honor as “What should honorable people do, when all the choices are dishonorable?” Walter Davis is not wrong in his description but I think it obscures the underlying serious theme.
That said, and despite the fact that Lois’s writing SoH is rough in some places (it was one of the first books she wrote), it remains one of my all-time favorite books. I envy you your upcoming experience of encountering Bujold for the first time.
I agree with Guess; Chaplain’s War is an interesting read (listen, since it’s on Audible). Nice to have a character who is not stabbing, shooting, lasering, etc.
I wish Correia would cool off a bit. I’m not going to read three novels by the guy every year.
I’ve always found the Dunk and Egg stories frankly kind of dumb, but I’ll probably get around to it.
The Chaplain’s War is in my local bookstore (congratulations Torgersen!), but it’s in the big paperback format that goes for like fifteen bucks. I wish they’d stock it in mass market.
I am so glad to see all the love for Bujold’s books. I’ve watched them go out of print several times. Had to buy a used copy of Barrayar when I gave my most recent copy to my niece. @Mark, I still haven’t read Cryoburn … just skipped it. Captain Volpatril’s Alliance is as enjoyable as the rest.