16 Comments on “New Books and ARCs, 8/20/21”

1. I’m curious: to which insurrection are we being welcomed? It can be difficult to tell.

2. Was looking casually up and down the stack and then noticed tucked in the middle there a little book: ALONG THE SALTWISE SEA by A. Deborah Baker and got so excited to know that’s coming soon. It makes me immensely happy, the kooky fun weirdness of Seanan McGuire writing an amazing book with an in-universe kids book at the centre of it and now she gets to write the in-universe kids books in our universe. It’s glorious!

3. ALONG THE SALTWISE SEA does look great. The top 3 books from Baen seem to have the same theme, kind of scary.

4. Finished reading World Breakers. About a dozen 20-40 page stories, loosely linked by the Keith Laumer “Bolos” theme, i.e., super AI Tanks.

   Overall, the stories were good to excellent. The main theme was honor and loyalty by these behemoths.

   I did want to make a comment regarding the last story of the book, by David Weber. I’ve gotten a bit jaded with his evolution to gigantic 800 page novels, full of dozens of characters, spending a lot of time in meetings agreeing with each other. Mr, Weber’s entry in this book was some of his best writing in the last decade, I found myself tearing up at the conclusion.

5. Anything by Liu.

6. Indeed, Cixin Liu is back (courtesy Elizabeth Hanlon and Subterranean Press).

   Looks like a good choice.

7. Saving Proxima looks interesting.
   Travis S. Taylor and Les Johnson are both actual rocket scientists; so, I expect some pretty good hard SF.

8. Athena, maybe you should be making a list of reasons to live somewhere other than rural Ohio. Your dad has said that their reasons for moving there have mostly gone away.

   I’ve bought both kosher salt and malted milk powder several times (not often) at our everyday grocery stores in Portland OR. Well, I admit I haven’t tried for those during the pandemic.

9. I really enjoy when Liu Cixin writes about futures, I’m massively intrigued by a book suggesting he’s writing about the past!

10. Bad week for worlds at Baen Books.

11. I’ve got The Cretaceous Past in my hot little hands as we speak, and I am triple stoked to start it!

12. Jane of Battery Park caught my eye so I checked it out via the web, looks interesting, though the presumed sequel’s title lower in the stack looks like I shouldn’t get too attached to the character.

13. John,

    I’m sure this has been asked before but how often are you able to read through a full stack? And, what happens to this massive amount of ARCs you get every week? Do y’all have a separate house for them or find a way to dispose of them properly?

    Just curious. Thanks!

14. I’ve already gotten my grubby hands on “The Serpent” and am really looking forward to when I have the time to start reading it. “World Breakers” sounds interesting and worth picking up.

    Hard pass on the Liu. I don’t do genocide apologists if I can help it.

15. CONSTANCE is already on my list to sample when it comes out!

    I’m a little intrigued by SAVING PROXIMA. But if we know aliens are in dire straits from radio signals, surely we’d be too late to help them. Still, I’m intrigued.

16. I tend not to have so much patience for long novels, so out of the more slender books, Jane of Battery Park really got me curious – an intriguing title and an attractive spine (which shouldn’t make a difference but it does I’m afraid!).