Posted on May 22, 2020 Posted by John Scalzi 19 Comments
As we begin the Memorial Day weekend, here’s a stack of the new books and ARCs that have come to the Scalzi Compound. Anything here that speaks to you as we head into the long weekend? Share in the comments!
Taunting the tauntable since 1998
John Scalzi, proprietor – JS
Athena Scalzi, contributor – AMS
About the site
What's the Big Idea? Authors explaining the the big ideas behind their latest works, in their own words. See the latest Big Ideas!
Authors/Editors/Publicists: for information on how to participate, click here.
Also, to pre-empt the questions/comments: a) there are a lot of Baen Books titles because Baen is actually sending out physical copies of their books, which is pretty much the requirement for being in a “New Books/ARCs” feature, b) if you’re surprised by any of the authors in the stack, see point a).
I am glad to see that Will McCarthy’s “The Collapsium” has been re-released. His “Queendom of Sol” quadrilogy, of which that is book one, really fired my imagination about the physics of nanotechnology.
McCarthy’s Collapsium series is a delight: more wacky superscience than you can shake a stick at.
Dagnabbit, you’re failing to help destroy Baen Books by including all these! Didn’t your superiors at the Grand Evil Liberal Conspiracy to Ruin Science Fiction Forever (GELCRSFF) teach you better than that!? Keep this up, and we’ll have to confiscate your sekrit decoder ring! :D
Seconding the enthusiasm for Wil McCarthy, and noting with some interest the Butler and the Niven/Pournelle/Barnes, both of which are New to Me™.
The John Ringo zombie universe is pretty good; I’ve listened to the original three books as audiobooks on cross-country drives more than once.
I’m reminded there’s a lot by Octavia Butler I still haven’t read. Not sure what the one in the stack is.
I just can’t get worked up about GMOs, personally. I have two friends I met in college who went on to become food scientists, and they know way more than I do about nutrition and health and food safety. They’re not concerned, even behind closed doors. (Contrast this with the climate scientists!) Surely the only way that “natural” foods look benign is if someone else has very carefully selected and/or prepared them. And toxicity is in the dosage. I hear that even potatoes are poisonous if you eat, like, five pounds of them in a day.
OMG! Jerry Pournelle book shows up on your list…he was a pioneer in computers when we all started…I had ten years of Byte mags and waited every month for Chaos Manor. I feel old. I owe so much to his writings as a now retired but still inspired computer geek
Mamelukes!
Can’t wait. Over thirty years I’ve waited for it. I read the first three novels when I was 17.
The copy I have of the first of the series, Janissaries, is one of the best illustrated novels I’ve read.
I miss him.
Eagerly awaiting Give Me LibertyCon. I miss Uncle Timmy.
Egads! I never thought that Janisaries Vol. 4 (Mamelukes) would ever see print.
Bought & read the first two shortly after they came out. Then a lo-o-o-o-o-ng wait for book #3. Now book 4, after an even longer wait.
I wonder how much the suck fairy has visited the first three of that series. And whether #4 will be any good.
I’ve read “The Lesson” (and met the author) and it was one of the most interesting SF reads of last year. It creates a detailed world (in Jamaica, during an alien invasion) and a textured discussion of culture and colonialism. A little on the literary side, but so well done. Have a great Memorial Day weekend, John!
I liked Pournelle’s writing, too, and his column in Byte. I got to know him from tech support calls he made to my company, which suggested he needed help to actually turn on a computer, much less use one. Sir, this is a “readme.txt” file. That thing is the setup program, named “setup” for some reason.
I’m tired (yes it is the afternoon) and I just agreed to reading something else. There are several I’m interested in. Give me Libertycon is probably the only way I’d get ro attend that con.
Isn’t the Pournelle/Niven/Barnes consortium the same one that gave us Fallen Angels? If so, I’m looking forward to another fun read.
eta: Not Barnes, Flynn. My bad! Still interesting…
One can start “Starborn and Godsons” online. With half a dozen idiocies in the first chapter, I was done very quickly. A big disappointment.
Oh, come on… idiocies in SF are par for the course. Star ships, antimatter weapons, wormholes, Real AI, all scientifically idiotic, but necessary for Space Opera warfare. I mean, really Zombie hordes?!!!? I will admit Ringo’s zombies are the only zombie books I can stomach at all.
I really enjoyed Ringo’s series about the asteroids used to build giant orbital fortresses to defend Sol System from aliens bent upon conquest. And the submarine turned into a star ship, that was a fun series too. What an imagination! That was Ringo, wasn’t it? I have a terrible memory for authors of even favorite novels… made English classes really hard!
I’m assuming the Niven and Pournelle books are reissues and suspicious lest they be re-titled. Trying to collect all Keith Laumer’s books is tricky that way.
My biggest problem with John’s stacks of books and ARCs is that sometimes most of them aren’t actually available to buy yet — so SAD when that happens!!!
I know it isn’t your fault, Scalzi, and I love having the advance warning that good reads are on the horizon. I do go into the deep past of Whatever to see older piles of new books, in order to be able to download them onto my tablet.
I also enjoyed Pournelle’s Byte columns, and his online computer pieces too. I will miss him also too.