New Books and ARCs, 12/30/20
Posted on December 30, 2020 Posted by John Scalzi 20 Comments
This is it, the final stack of new books and ARCs of 2020, and we’re going out with larger-than-usual stack of titles to make sure we’re all caught up. What here would you want in your hands in 2021? As always, share in the comments.
I am in the mood for hard science fiction; Something by a real scientist.
Ooh pretty Jemisin edition.
Note: I’m a huge fan of Wil McCarthy, but I did not like Antediluvian.
Oh-I didn’t realize there was a new Kelly Armstrong book out! I will have to check into that!
Thank you for another ARC stack.
Nice to see a new Miller/Lee Liaden book!
All the Subterranean Press titles and The Best of Jerry Pournelle.
I’m a big Joe Lansdale fan. I’m going to have to check out Fishing for Dinosaurs.
N K Jemisin & Connie Willis are always amazing reads! Expand my mind, make me think, and keep me guessing!
Always interested in what N K Jemisin has to say about her work… I’ve read THTK, but I’d love to hear her Big Idea thoughts on it…
Ooh, new Tamsyn Muir. And new Willis.
Do you get a lot of ARCs from Subterranean? Or was this just a banner week?
Note that this edition of “Agent Of The Imperium” has a few extra chapters and a slightly different set of appendices.
I’m a big fan of Wil McCarthy. Admittedly part of that is because we both live in the same town, and I’ve met him on a number of occasions, but a bigger part is I just really like the way he writes. Antediluvian looks rather different from anything he’s written before, (that I’m aware of), I look forward to reading it. Connie Willis also lives not too far away, and I’ve met her at the same places I’ve met McCarthy, (Mile High Con mostly, and DASFA club meetings). Even if she lived on the far side of the world, she is still one of the most brilliant, readable, science fiction authors ever to put words on paper. Finally, I’ve already read The Best of Jerry Pournelle. I read it mostly out of nostalgia, and for the editorial commentary by John Carr.
I’m really looking forward to Princess Floralinda. Her Nine Houses series have been mind-blowingly creative. It’ll be interesting to see how she does with lighter subject matter (what could be heavier than battles between necromancers?).
I’m not so sure about Accepting the Lance. The last recent book of theirs I read didn’t seem to go anywhere. I’ll have to read reviews before I seriously consider it.
Agent of the Imperium was great fun. Set in the universe of the Traveller RPG, written by the guy who created the Traveller RPG, and I thought quite well written. A fun pot-boiler. I think very much in the spirit of H Beam Piper’s Space Vikings.
I really loved ‘Take a look at the five and ten”. I’m interested in the Tamsin Muir book, and Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is the book that introduced me to NK Jemisin’s that I have never managed to finish. Maybe one day.
Pournelle for sure.
Foreign reader here. I do not want another year to go by without knowing what ARC means. Who can help? :)
My favorite wrong guess: Advanced Robot Combat.
Advance Reading Copy. If you just can’t bear to wait another month or so for “Space Goat V: Ungulates Revenge” you can pay extra to get it now, without the editing being finished.
(I think they may also be for you can send them to reviewers, blurbers, critics, etc. so they can talk it up to their audience.)
Accepting the Lance – I love the Lee & Miller books. I found ‘Conflict of Honors’ in a bookstore in 1989, inhaled it, went back a day or two later (first opportunity and bought and read Agent of Change and Carpe Diem. It was a LONG wait until the next book – and I only discovered the chapbooks for sale online either shortly before or shortly after I found Local Custom and Scout’s Progress – which will have been 2002, based on the publication dates.
Every time Scalzi posts one of the photos, I search the stack for “Rothfuss” on the spine. Still no luck. Beginning to wonder if it’ll ever happen…