28 Comments on “New Books and ARCs, 11/8/19”

1. Before anyone mentions it: I’m aware there is currently a contretemps going on with ChiZine Press re: their relationships with authors, payment of same, etc. I’m traveling and took this picture before I left and didn’t want to not promote the other authors in the stack. Hopefully ChiZine and the authors in question get everything resolved.

2. Usually a ghostwriter is the uncredited (or semicredited) person who actually does the heavy lifting for a book–but what if the author is Michael Crichton or Tom Clancy? Are they both ghostwriters?

3. Are you using these to heat your home?

4. Top book cover seems a bit sneaky to me. I remember Andromeda Strain when it first came out – putting Crichton’s name so prominently on the spine with no indication that he wasn’t involved in this book doesn’t predispose me to trust it. (Now if it had some other verbiage, maybe).

5. Gail Carriger is always good.

   So is Lois Bujold. Although I believe this is a collection of Penric stories that I have already read. It will be good for people to be able to find them in bookstores though, if they have not got into ebooks in the last ten years.

   Also that Kevin Hearne guy. I think I’ve heard of him. I will probably read that. :-)

6. Fan Service! I love all the Parasolverse stories!!

7. The Magic the Gathering book is of particular interest to me. I enjoyed the story told by the War of the Spark expansion, and I’d like to know what comes next.

8. I missed the original Penric book. Looks like I’ll have to buy Penric’s Progress to get a paper copy of it.

9. Penric’s Progress, I think. I love her work and I’ve been curious about the Penric series.

10. I’m curious about Van Praag, being married to a Dutch woman.

11. Penric’s Progress is a hoot. At some point I have to decide if I want them all in epub or physical formats (they’re currently a mix).

    The Magic: The Gathering novel, was, umm, not good. The War of the Spark prequel novel (The Gathering Storm, by Django Wexler) was much better. It was released a chapter a week for free, doubtless there’s a collected edition somewhere. It’s a shame – I’ve read other work by Weisman that I’ve enjoyed – but there was a large breakdown in the planning and release of the cards and the books.

12. To clarify, the War of the Spark novel by Weisman was the one that I thought was not good. I haven’t read this one, hopefully the process improved and he was up to his usual standard.

13. I’ve enjoyed the Daniel H. Wilson books that I’ve read previously; so I will try The Andromeda Evolution without any particular prejudice.

14. The Sisters Grimm and Lightning stars a red Cape

15. You got a copy of Fan Service! Is yours numbered too? I got it even though I already own a copy of Romancing the Werewolf, it’s my favorite of her stories anyway, I can have another version of it. Just found out who the damn Wicker Chicken was finally. That was driving me nuts. Parasolverse is always so good.

16. New Carriger; I also like the Parasolverse books, I wonder which characters these will be featuring, or if it’s new ones. And Hearne.

17. @Susan I thought the same thing when I saw the cover. But like @Howard, I’ve enjoyed other books by Daniel H. Wilson, so I’m going to keep an open mind. I’m going to re-read the original first, though, as it has literally been decades since the last time I read it. When Eoin Colfer wrote AND ANOTHER THING… in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, he nailed it and sounded so similar to Douglas Adams that I forgot he didn’t write it. Of course, I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Simon Jones, which went a long way towards validating it. And Spider Robinson’s VARIABLE STAR from Heinlein’s notes felt like it was a perfect blend of the two authors, equal parts of each. That audiobook is narrated by Spider himself, which was awesome.

18. The Sisters Grimm. Big choices to be made on limited knowledge, as a group while separated. This could be really good.

19. I wanna know more about the Sisters Grim.
    Sounds interesting :)

20. I wish you’d make two stacks — “hard SF” on one pile, and magical unicorn dragon rainbow gauzy swordplay on the other stack. I”d bet you could do that sort just looking at the covers, but the spines are ambiguous some of the time. Yeah, I admit a bias developed in the 1950s. Never even found out about Narnia and Tolkien ’til I went to college and met peole who read from that side, so I know there’s some good to be found there. But an early first cut would help me look.

21. The Penric book is the first three novellas, internal chronological order. Baen is also contracted for a second volume which will catch up to the end of “Prisoner.”

22. Interested in the Sisters Grimm and the Kevin Liu short stories.

23. I for one endorse Mr. Roberts’ request a few replies up. It’s been a long time since I was involved in a “Hard SF” discussion/melee. All of my wounds have healed up and I’m feeling the urge to smite some heathens who dare to disagree with my classifications.

24. > discussion/melee

    Oops.

    https://assets.amuniversal.com/9a7101c0dc8d0137ca81005056a9545d

25. I found this great article about “Daniel and Ismail”:

    https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/pb-daily/a-jewish-palestinian-childrens-book-how-daniel-and-ismail-came-to-be

26. Bit surprised to see Michael Crichton’s name on the cover of the top book, seeing as how he has been dead for a few years now, but closer examination reveals it was written by someone else. So what was Crichton’s contribution to the book- was it based on an idea of his, or did he start the book and not finish it, or did someone just think ” I know- I’ll put Michael Crichton’s name on this , everyone will think he wrote it, and it will be a best seller.

27. “Frozen Orbit” looks pretty interesting.

28. Additional Penric information: Volume two, “Penric’s Travels,” is going to come out from Baen in May. Also in hardcover. It comprises the three novellas “Penric’s Mission,” “Mira’s Last Dance,” and “The Prisoner of Limnos.” Logically enough, since they basically make up one story in three parts. This leaves the latest Penric story, “The Orphans of Raspay,” hanging loose out there. People on Bujold’s e-mail list, which she reads, have already remarked what a great start on a third volume that would make.