Upcoming Releases That I Want to Read in 2014

If December was a time for various and sundry "best of year" lists, then perhaps January is the time to list the forthcoming releases that intrigue, if not excite, particular readers/reviewers.  Below are a list of books, mostly culled from a recent post on The Millions, that I plan to read before the year is done:

Edit:  Titles I've since purchased/received will be bold if read, italics if not yet read.  Links to reviews provided.  Also will add certain titles as applicable.


January:

Chang-rae Lee, On Such a Full Sea

Ishmael Beah, Radiance of Tomorrow

Ben Marcus, Leaving the Sea

Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

Okey Ndibe, Foreign Gods, Inc. 

Daša Drndić, Trieste (also read the Croatian edition, Sonnenschein)

Simon Ings, Wolves

Dave Hutchinson, Europe in Autumn

Adam Sternbergh, Shovel Ready

Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

Richard Powers, Orfeo

J.M. McDermott, Maze

Laurie Halse Anderson, The Impossible Knife of Memory

Marco Magini, Come fossi solo (Italian)


February:

Kyle Minor, Praying Drunk

Kofi Awoonor, The Promise of Hope:  New and Selected Poems 1964-2013

Molly Antopol, The UnAmericans

Marcel Theroux, Strange Bodies

Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation

Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman

Adam Wilson, What's Important is Feeling

Anna Hope, Wake

Lorrie Moore, Bark

Donatella Di Pietrantonio, Bella Mia (Italian)

Véronique Bizot, Âme qui vive (French)


March:

Teju Cole, Every Day is for the Thief

David James Poissant, The Heaven of Animals

Helen Oyeyemi, Boy, Snow, Bird

Dinaw Mengestu, All Our Names

David Grossman, Falling out of Time

Karen Russell, Sleep Donation

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (eds.), The Time Traveler's Almanac (US release; UK release was in 2013)

Rene Denfeld, The Enchanted

Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

D. Foy, Made to Break

Nadifa Mohamed, The Orchard of Lost Souls

Siri Hustvedt, The Blazing World

Margaret Killjoy, A Country of Ghosts

Linda Bierds, Roget's Illusion

Phil Klay, Redeployment

Elisa Ruotolo, Ovunque, proteggici (Italian)

Dorothy Tse, Snow and Shadow


April:

Emma Donoghue, Frog Music

Hilda Hilst, With My Dog Eyes

Andrés Neuman, Talking to Ourselves (also read in the original Spanish)

Carlos Labbé, Navidad & Matanza

Max Brooks, The Harlem Hellfighters (graphic novel)

Felix Gilman, The Revolutions

Cara Hoffman, Be Safe I Love You

Katherine Addison, The Goblin Emperor

Lydia Davis, Can't and Won't:  Stories

Evie Wyld, All the Birds, Singing

Paul Kingsnorth, The Wake

Elizabeth McCracken, Thunderstruck & Other Stories


May:

Jeff VanderMeer, Authority 

Porochista Khakpour, The Last Illusion

Rivka Galchen, American Innovations

J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf:  A Translation and a Commentary

Smith Henderson, Fourth of July Creek 

Sean Ennis, Catch Us

Mary Rickert, The Memory Garden

Edmundo Paz Soldán, Iris (Spanish)

Cristovão Tezza, O professor (Portuguese)

Roxane Gay, An Untamed State

Richard Thomas (ed.), The New Black:  A Neo-Noir Anthology

Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

Rose Fox and Daniel José Older (eds.), Long Hidden:  Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History 

Paula Bomer, Inside Madeleine

Frances Hardinge, Cuckoo Song

Niall Williams, History of the Rain

Joshua Ferris, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour

Gail Giles, Girls Like Us

Antonya Nelson, Funny Once


June:

Cristina Henríquez, The Book of Unknown Americans

Kyung-Sook Shin, I'll be Right There

Jorge Franco, El mundo de afuera (2014 Premio Alfaguara winner) (Spanish)

Lily King, Euphoria

Kalyan Ray, No Country

Thomas Ligotti, The Spectral Link

Johanna Rakoff, My Salinger Year (memoir)

Corinne Duyvis, Otherbound

Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You

Tom Rachman, The Rise & Fall of Great Powers

Neel Mukherjee, The Lives of Others


July:

Edan Lepucki, California

William T. Vollmann, Last Stories and Other Stories

Lucius Shepard, Beautiful Blood

Can Xue, The Last Lover

Scott Cheshire, High as the Horses' Bridles

Catherine Lacey, Nobody is Ever Missing

Christopher Beha, Arts & Entertainment

Rachel Pollack, The Child Eater

Shane Jones, Crystal Eaters

Josh Weil, The Great Glass Sea

Bryan Lee O'Malley, Seconds (graphic novel)

Spencer Reese, The Road to Emmaus


August:

Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (read it first in Spanish translation, then later in English)

Richard House, The Kills (US release; UK release was in 2013 and longlisted for the Booker Prize)

Ian Cameron Esslemont, Assail

Lev Grossman, The Magician's Land

Kameron Hurley, The Mirror Empire

Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

Justin Taylor, Flings

Neil Clarke (ed.), Upgraded: A Cyborg Anthology

Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Matthew Thomas, We Are Not Ourselves

Terry Goodkind, Severed Souls

Howard Jacobson, J

Nina Allan, The Race

Adam Roberts, Sibilant Fricative:  Essays & Reviews

Pierre Demarty, En face (French)

Claudie Hunzinger, La langue des oiseaux (French) 

Hedwige Jeanmart, Blanès (French)

Nathalie Kuperman, La Loi Sauvage (French)

Christine Montalbetti, Plus rien que les vagues et le vent (French)

Antoine Volodine, Terminus radieux (French)

Valérie Zenatti, Jacob, Jacob (French)

Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

Lydie Salvayre, Pas pleurer (French; won 2014 Prix Goncourt)


September:

Jeff VanderMeer, Acceptance

David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks

Hilary Mantel, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher:  Stories

David Cronenberg, Consumed

John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van

Eimear McBride, A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing

Brian Francis Slattery, The Family Hightower

Robert Jackon Bennett, City of Stairs

Kelly Barnhill, The Witch's Boy

Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

Ben Lerner, 10:04

Joseph O'Neill, The Dog

Louise Glück, Faithful and Virtuous Night

Haikasoru (Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington) (eds.), Phantasm Japan

Ali Smith, How to be Both

Lin Enger, The High Divide

Dylan Landis, Rainey Royal

Michael Pitre, Fives and Twenty-Fives

Margaret Atwood, Stone Mattress

Jay Lake, Last Plane to Heaven

Robert Darnton, Censors at Work:  How States Shaped Literature


October:

Keith Donohue, The Boy Who Drew Monsters

Blake Butler, 300,000,000

Michel Faber, The Book of Strange New Things

Frankétienne, Ready to Burst

Jac Jemc, A Different Bed Every Time

Nuruddin Farah, Hiding in Plain Sight

Julia Elliott, The Wilds

David Nicholls, Us

Angélica Gorodischer, Palito de naranjo (Spanish)

Marilynne Robinson, Lila

Jane Smiley, Some Luck

Johanna Sinisalo, The Blood of Angels 

Fábio Fernandes and Romeu Martins (eds.), Vaporpunk:  Novos Documentos de uma Pitoresca Época (Portuguese)

David Soares and André Coelho, Sepulturas dos Pais (Portuguese; graphic novel) 


November: 

Jenny Erpenbeck, The End of Days

Denis Johnson, The Laughing Monsters

Steven Erikson, Willful Child

Ismail Kadare, Twilight of the Eastern Gods

Ron Rash, Something Rich and Strange

Will Self, Shark

Paul Theroux, Mr. Bones

Cixin Liu, The Three-Body Problem 

Mariano Villarreal (ed.), Terra Nova 3 (Spanish)


December:

S. Yizhar, Khirbet Khizeh

Jennifer Marie Brissett, Elysium


This is the list so far.  And before some of you start to complain about a perceived paucity of SF/speculative fiction, look up these titles.  You might be surprised.  Oh, and I didn't list a few titles that don't yet have a confirmed release date from either the publisher or Amazon, thus no listing of Steven Erikson's Fall of Light, which is indeed a book that I will buy whenever it is available in some part of the world.

Five new genre-bending books you may want to read this month

I don't usually post columns on books that I anticipate reading because I worry that it might have a negative influence on any reviews that may follow, but having read works by all five authors listed here, who have either had books released in either English or English translation in the US before, I think for once I can dismiss my general reluctance to promote and list the authors/books and briefly state why I'm looking forward to reading them (one I've already read):

Jamaica Kincaid, See Now Then (February 5).

Ever since reading a couple of Kincaid's earlier books, including A Small Place and My Brother, I have been meaning to read more of her fiction, as she mixes character and place so superbly.  Have this scheduled to be downloaded to my iPad Tuesday morning.

Angélica Gorodischer, Trafalgar (January 29).

I have read several of Gorodischer's fictions, including Kalpa Imperial, Opus Dos, Bajo las jubeas en flor, Casta luna electrónica, and Menta (and I have a couple of others to read/review later this year), yet I've not read Trafalgar in Spanish due to the difficulty in finding an affordable edition, so I will be buying the English translation later this week and reading/reviewing sometime this month.  Her stories remind me favorably at times of Ursula Le Guin's best and the wide range of tales that Gorodischer has told over nearly 50 years makes me curious about this translation of a 1977 collection.

Karen Lord, The Best of All Possible Worlds (February 12).

I have been looking forward to this one ever since I learned about its existence a couple of months ago.  Really enjoyed her debut novel, Redemption in Indigo.  That novel's mixture of West African and Caribbean story motifs was very well-done and I am curious to see how her writing style will translate to an off-planet setting.

Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove (February 12).

I've enjoyed Russell's fictions ever since I read one of the stories included in this, her second collection, during my readings for BAF 4.  Her first collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, I thought was an excellent debut collection and her first novel, 2011's Swamplandia!, likewise showed promise.  Yet at this point in her career I prefer her short fictions to her novel and so my hopes are high that Vampires in the Lemon Grove will prove to be her strongest work to date.

Yoko Ogawa, Revenge (January 29).

I've already read Revenge and a mostly-positive (OK, I rarely write fully-positive reviews) review will be written in the next week or so.  It is a very good collection and the translation of this 1998 Japanese work was very good.  I also enjoyed her novel The Housekeeper and the Professor, which I highly recommend to most readers of this blog.

Here are some upcoming 2013 releases that I want to buy/read

Or at least the ones on two lists by Writers No One Reads and The Millions that have caught my attention (there are others elsewhere that I won't list here).  Not in alphabetical order, but roughly chronological from one list and then the other (some I already own in other editions or plan on buying in their original languages):


January:

Yoko Ogawa, Revenge


February:

Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove

Georges Perec, La Boutique Obscure

Aron Grunberg, Tirza

Maurice Sendak, My Brother's Book

Jamaica Kincaid, See Now Then

Manil Suri, The City of Devi

Ron Rash, Nothing Gold Can Stay  (OK, I'm so totally thinking of Ponyboy here)


March:

William Gass, Middle C

Robert Desnos, Liberty or Love! and Morning for Mourning

Sam Lipsyte, The Fun Parts

Vladimir Nabokov, The Tragedy of Mr. Morn (US edition; UK out already)


April:

Italo Calvino, Letters 1941-1985

Elfriede Jelinek, Her Not All Her

Agnieszka Kuciak, Distant Lands:  An Anthology of Poets Who Don't Exist

Fiona Maazel, Woke Up Lonely

Ma Jian, The Dark Road

Robert Perišic, Our Man in Iraq


May:

Adam Bodor, The Sinistra Zone

Imre Kertesz, Dossier K

Elliott Holt, You Are One of Them

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fall of Arthur

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

Benjamin Percy, Red Moon

Ramona Ausubel, A Guide to Being Born

A. Igoni Barrett, Love is Power, or Something Like That


June:

Mario Santiago Papasquiaro, Advice of 1 Disciple of Marx to 1 Heidegger Fanatic (the flip side of an early Robert Bolaño book, written by a close friend and co-founder of infrarealismo)

László Krasznahorkai, Seiobo There Below

Ror Wolf, Two or Three Years Later:  Forty-Nine Digressions

Samuel Beckett's Echo's Bones

Stephen Romer (ed.), French Decadent Tales

Colum McCann, Transatlantic

Matt Bell, In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and Woods

Steven Dixon, His Wife Leaves Him

Rawi Hage, Carnival

Joseph McElroy, Cannonball


July:

Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone (2600 pages!)

Marguerite Duras, L'Amour

Almantas Samalavicius (ed.), The Dedalus Book of Lithuanian Literature


August:

Marisha Pessl, Night Film

Edwidge Danticat, Clare of the Sea-Light


Date Not Yet Set:

Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge

Emil Hakl, The Witch's Flight

Bruno Jasienski, The Legs of Izolda Morgan


While I doubt I'll buy/read all 44 of these listed books by year's end, I certainly will try to read as many of them as I can, time/energy/money willing.  Oh, and that's leaving aside several others that I will get in Spanish or Italian or already own in Spanish.  Not a bad start to the year, anticipation wise.  Knowing that this is but the tip of the iceberg makes it even better for me.

Trailer for a movie I'm going to be reviewing in the next day or two

I received a DVD screener earlier this month for The Rabbi's Cat, a critically-acclaimed (it won the French equivalent for an Oscar for Best Animated Picture) animation film that is an adaptation of Joann Sfar's The Rabbi's Cat graphic novel series.  Although it had a limited-release in New York City this month in order to qualify it for certain awards, it'll be receiving a wider release in January.  Thought perhaps this might be of interest to a few readers here, especially after having watched it and (mostly) loving it.  Review forthcoming, once I recover more from a recurrence of bronchitis.

ODD?

Taken from Jeff VanderMeer's site:


ODD?
The anthology that poses the question, “Is this odd…or are you too normal?”
Amos Tutuola – “The Dead Babies”
Gustave Le Rouge – “The War of the Vampires” (new translation by Brian Evenson)
Jeffrey Ford – “Weiroot”
Leopoldo Lugones – “The Bloat Toad” (new translation by Larry Nolen)
Mark Samuels – “Apt 205”
Michael Cisco – “Modern Cities Exist Only to Be Destroyed” (published only in a limited edition previously)
Nalo Hopkinson – “Slow Cold Chick”
Sumanth Prabhaker – “A Hard Truth About Waste Management” (revised since publication)
Hiromi Goto – “Stinky Girl”
Eric Basso – “Logues”
Edward Morris – “Lotophagi”
Karin Tidbeck – “The Aunts” (previously unpublished)
Jeffrey Thomas – “The Fork”
Rikki Ducornet – “The Volatilized Ceiling of Baron Munodi”
Amanda le Bas de Plumetot – “Unmaking” (previously unpublished)
Karl Hans Strobl – “The Head” (new translation by Gio Clairval)
Caitlin R. Kiernan – “A Child’s Guide to the Hollow Hills”
Stacey Levine – “Sausage”

You might notice a little story up there that's being translated from Spanish.  That's part of the reason why I've been relatively quiet recently, as I've been working on that translation.  I strongly believe this anthology will be a very strong one to get when it comes out in e-book form in May and that this is precisely the sort of thing which I'd support even if I weren't (a small) part of this new e-book (and later, possibly print) anthology series.

So who here wants to read ODD?

So there's this author who finally is having a new release coming out shortly

I am, of course, talking about David Foster Wallace's posthumous novel, The Pale King, coming out in April.  Who else would I be talking about, right?

Books in my Amazon pre-order cart

I don't often pre-order books, especially for those months down the road, but here are some books that I have on pre-order for December 2010-Spring 2011 that I think might be some of my more highly anticipated reads in the coming months:

Karen Russell, Swamplandia! (February 1, 2011) - I became a fan of Russell's short fiction this past spring when I was doing readings for BAF 4 and I was delighted just now to learn that her debut novel is coming out in February!  Her stories are very difficult to classify (other than I think she has written some damn fine bizarre stories) and the synopsis sounds as though her novel will be in much the same vein.  Tempted to break my resolution not to ask directly anymore for ARCs, as I think this one would be just the sort of read for me now.

Téa Obreht, The Tiger's Wife (March 8, 2011) - Obreht has been featured in both Atlantic and The New Yorker's special issues on important new voices over the past year.  This is another debut novel, one that promises to mix sadness and hope in a powerful way.  The little short fiction of hers that I've read has strengthened my hope that this will be a gripping read.

Bradford Morrow, The Diviner's Tale (January 20, 2011) - Morrow edits Conjunctions, one of my favorite fiction journals, so I'm curious to see how this new novel of his will be like, since I really haven't read any of his fiction before.  Premise sounds intriguing, to say the least.

Richard Parks, On the Banks of the River of Heaven (December 7, 2010) - Parks has written several spec fic short stories that I've enjoyed, so it was a no-brainer that I would pre-order his upcoming collection of 14 stories.

Michael Moorcock, Elric:  Swords and Roses (December 28, 2010) - Sixth collection of Elric stories.  I own the previous five and have (mostly) enjoyed them all.  Of course I'm going to continue the collection.


Not a huge amount of pre-orders, but I believe most of these are flying under the radars of those who might be most drawn to reading them.  Hopefully, my few words on why each interests me, combined with the product descriptions, will lead some at least to consider purchasing one or more books on this list.

And since I'm always curious, which ones appeal to you the most and why?

I just finished reading The Gathering Storm and some vague impressions

Going to be writing a formal review of this on the 27th that will be quite a bit more substantive than this, with quite a bit of discussion of thematic elements, characterization issues, plot development, how well Brandon Sanderson managed to integrate his writing style with the WoT story, and so forth.  I think it'll be an interesting review, but sadly, some will only want to know things that I won't reveal until after the 27th, since I did agree to not give out spoilers until after the release date.

However, I will note that my general impressions differ in several regards from those seen over here at Pat's blog, for example.  Pat, it seems (based on general impressions of having read several dozen of his reviews over the past four years) prefers more plot-based development.  I, on the other hand, prefer to focus on thematic development and prose.  Therefore, there have been several times that he and I have differed quite a bit in our interpretations of stories.  Figures that this would be the case here.

I will note that there is more of an emphasis on the development of the characters than there is on overt action, although several important plot "prophecies," are fulfilled, some in surprising ways.  There are those who will argue that certain ones of those were not developed fully and in a few cases, I could see that point of view, although I'd suspect it's more a matter of the reader having built up one's own imagination to the point of making most anything that was designed to occur to be a letdown.

It probably helps that I have not been all that huge of a "fan" of the WoT series since the 9th installment. I thought then (and still do, to an extent) that the writing was a bit laborious in places, the pacing was glacial, certain character arcs were not developed well, and so forth.  So when reading over the course of nearly 800 pages not just plots developing in a decent pace, but character traits being developed more concisely and with a greater emphasis (perhaps too great, some might argue) on thematic parallels between various characters.

The Gathering Storm is in many ways, a "dark" novel.  The main characters featured are tested; some prove to be brittle.  I am reminded of the late Robert Jordan's blog entry from several years ago, talking about his experiences in Vietnam and a choice made there.  There are certain parallels between that and what takes place in this novel.  What that situation/choice is will have to be a matter of conjecture until the next week.

Did I enjoy it?  Yes.  It was better, for the reasons I hinted at above, than several of the more recent entries in the novel.  It is not a perfect novel (reasons I'll explore on Tuesday), but it reminded me of the elements of the series that I did enjoy when I began reading it in 1997.  While not likely to be considered for the best 2009 novel that I've read, I do think it is one of the best epic fantasies novels that I've read this year.

But if you want to know anything more specific than this, then read and find out...on October 27.

ProLiteracy charity anthology, Last Drink Bird Head, now available for pre-orders

Last Drink Bird Head is an anthology of flash fiction featuring several of my favorite authors, with all proceeds from this limited-edition work going to benefit the ProLiteracy group, which works toward eradicating illiteracy. More details, including a pre-order discount, can be found here.

One final note: The list of contributors is impressive. For those who need to be persuaded by "name" authors, feast your eyes on these authors:

Daniel Abraham, Michael Arnzen, Steve Aylett, KJ Bishop, Michael Bishop, Desirina Boskovich, Keith Brooke, Jesse Bullington, Richard Butner, Catherine Cheek, Matthew Cheney, Michael Cisco, Gio Clairval, Alan M. Clark, Brendan Connell, Paul Di Filippo, Stephen R. Donaldson, Rikki Ducornet, Clare Dudman, Hal Duncan, Scott Eagle, Brian Evenson, Eliot Fintushel, Jeffrey Ford, Richard Gehr, Felix Gilman, Jon Courtney Grimwood, Rhys Hughes, Paul Jessup, Antony Johnston, John Kaiine, Henry Kaiser, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Tessa Kum, Ellen Kushner, Jay Lake, Tanith Lee, Stina Leicht, Therese Littleton, Beth Adele Long, Dustin Long, Nick Mamatas, JM McDermott, Sarah Monette, Kari O’Connor, Ben Peek, Holly Phillips, Louis Phillips, Tim Pratt, Cat Rambo, Mark Rich, Bruce Holland Rogers, Nicholas Royle, G Eric Schaller, Ekaterina Sedia, Ramsey Shehadeh, Peter Straub, Victoria Strauss, Michael Swanwick, Mark Swartz, Alan Swirsky, Rachel Swirsky, Sonya Taaffe, Justin Taylor, Steve Rasnic Tem, Jeffrey Thomas, Scott Thomas, John Urbancik, Genevieve Valentine, Kim Westwood, Leslie What, Andrew Steiger White, Conrad Williams, Liz Williams, Neil Williamson, Caleb Wilson, Gene Wolfe, Jonathan Wood, Marly Youmans, and Catherine Zeidler.

Think you might want to consider placing an order now, since it's for a good cause and the chances are high that there'll be some quality stories to read?

Some upcoming 2009 releases

Adam Whitehead over at The Wertzone has an impressive list (with cover art in most cases) of 54 upcoming 2009 releases. A great many on his list are books I either own and enjoyed or I want to read in the near future. However, there were a few books on my want list of 2009 releases that weren't on his, so I thought I'd list those (and provide cover art when possible for those who like those). All dates are for U.S. releases.














Will Elliott, The Pilo Family Circus (3/1/09) - This is the U.S. release of Elliott's work. I received an ARC of this from Underland Press, a new publishing firm, a few months ago and I hope to read this in the next month or so and have a review ready around the release date.

Brian Evenson, Last Days (2/1/09) - This is an expansion of the P.S. Publishing novella, The Brotherhood of Mutilation. It is a very dark, literary fantasy and I plan on re-reading it before writing a review in the coming week.

Jo Graham, Hand of Isis (3/23/09) - Graham's second novel, set in the Egypt of the Ptolomies around the time of Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Graham's first novel, Black Ships, was a favorite of mine in 2008 and I have high hopes for this one. I plan on having a review of this ready sometime after I complete the review for her first book...

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Angel's Game (6/16/09) - English translation of the second of four novels set in the Barcelona of the mysterious Cemetery of Lost Books. I reviewed the book last May for Amazon's Omnivoracious blog. Ought to be one of the more highly-anticipated titles of the year, especially for those who aren't genre-only readers.















Daniel Fox, Dragon in Chains (1/27/09) - New fantasy book written by British author Chaz Brenchley, using the pseudonym of Daniel Fox. Curious to see how this will be, so I might read/review it in the next few weeks, if I have the time.

Álvaro Uribe and Olivia Sears (eds.), Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction (2/26/09) - Reviewed here. Nice anthology of short stories, some with a speculative element to them.

Michael Moorcock, Duke Elric (3/24/09) - This is the fourth in a series of I believe six reprint volumes of Moorcock's Elric stories. I've enjoyed reading the three previous volumes and will start work reading this one shortly.

Paul Melko, The Walls of the Universe (2/3/09) - Melko's second book, after 2008's Singularity's Ring. I have that other book; need to read it before deciding whether or not to read this one.














Jeff VanderMeer (ed.), Mapping the Beast: The Best of Leviathan and Album Zutique (6/29/09) - Reprint that collects some of the best stories from previous anthologies VanderMeer has edited. Very curious about this one.

John Birmingham, Without Warning (2/3/09) - Not for me, perhaps for those who like John Ringo or Tom Kratman.

Bruce Sterling, The Caryatids (2/24/2009) - Very promise-looking SF novel involving an examination of the ethics of human cloning, among many other things. An almost-certain read before March.

Catherynne M. Valente, Palimpsest (2/24/2009) - I've enjoyed greatly virtually every single one of Valente's previous books, so this one will be a must-buy, if I don't receive a review copy before the release date.

James Morrow, Shambling Towards Hiroshima (2/1/09) - Just received this in the mail. Press kit describes this fictional attempt by the US Navy to create its own big-ass weapon to defeat the Japanese (after the Army used the A-Bomb) in the form of producing a biological weapon in the form of a huge, destruction-loving iguana. To do this, a B-movie star, Syms Thorley, is employed to act the role. Sounds very intriguing. It's short (170 pages for the galley proof), so I might read it this weekend.

Sarah Monette, Corambis (4/7/09) - Fourth and final volume in her The Doctrine of Labyrinths series. Since I've enjoyed the previous three volumes starring Felix Harrowgate and his half-brother Mildmay the Fox, I'm looking forward to this one as well.



Later Releases/Probable 2009 Releases (No cover art)

Andzrej Sapkowski, La dama del lago (Spanish, TBA) - This is the last volume of the Geralt series and it supposedly will be available in Spain before the year is out. It has been over two years since the penultimate volume, La torre de la golondrina, was released, and I believe there's been a Martin-like watch on the stores and websites for news of this book's release in Spanish translation.

Jeff VanderMeer, Finch (Autumn 2009) - This is the third and last volume in the Ambergris Cycle. VanderMeer is one of my favorite authors and the noir-like tone of the book, as described by the author ought to make for a gripping read for many.

Jesse Bullington, The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart (August 2009) - Debut novel that first attracted interest (and then an agent and soon after, a publisher) after Bullington submitted his draft to VanderMeer to be examined and the story was then praised highly. From what little I've read about it, it is a clever sort of story that ought to appeal to a wide variety of readers. I know I want a copy of it.

David Anthony Durham, Acacia: The Other Lands (Autumn 2009) - Durham's first Acacia book, The War with the Mein, was an intelligently written epic fantasy opener with some wonderful character development to complement Durham's excellent prose. I have high hopes for this one when it is released.

In addition, there are three more anthologies/short fiction works edited by/written by Jeff and his wife Ann that I believe will be released in 2009 (no firm dates) - Last Drink Bird Head, The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals (ought to be an interesting take on Borges' bestiary, especially since I read the hilarious blog entry that led to the book deal), and The Leonardo Variations, a charity anthology to support the Clarion writing residency program.














Doubtless there are even more 2009 to add to both Adam and my lists, perhaps some could list them here or on their own blogs?

New Margo Lanagan book, Tender Morsels: First thoughts

There are plenty would call her a slut for it. Me, I was just glad she had shown me. now I could get this embarrassment off me. Now I knew what to do when it stuck out its dim one-eyed head.

OK, this first paragraph from the Prologue to her upcoming October novel, Tender Morsels, made me curious when I received the book in the mail today. After having read the first 50 pages, this is a very promising start, as before I had read only her short fiction. It is shaping up to be one of those dark, brutal, yet touching stories, one that seems to address some very harsh and uncomfortable topics (for example, the lead character seems to be the victim of parental incest) that might make a few "critics" *cough*Truesdale*cough* eager to scream "pornography" to the high heavens. Needless to say, such people would have missed the beautiful pine forest for a few pine needles jabbed in their eyes and orifices.

Although I have a very busy couple of nights ahead, once Thursday's work is done, I'm looking forward to indulging myself further with this novel, as past experience has shown me that Lanagan really is a writer to make time for, regardless of the pressing deadlines.

Best American 2008 cover, Michael Moorcock writing a book on Mervyn Peake

This cover art image was just posted on Ecstatic Days by Ann VanderMeer, co-editor of the upcoming Best American Fantasy 2008. I loved the first edition and am highly eager to read the second volume.


The second news item (and no, it's not just to please Matt Staggs, who hosted the announcement yesterday ;)) is the news (with excerpt!) of a forthcoming book by Michael Moorcock on British writer Mervyn Peake and his wife, Maeve, called Lovers: Mervyn and Maeve Peake. A Personal Memoir. I'm looking forward to reading this non-fiction piece (which also contains information added by the Peake children), even though there is no announced release date.

Early June Book Porn

It's been a while since I've posted some Book Porn, so here are 4 purchases and 5 Review Copies/ARCs that I've received in the past few weeks:

Here are the five review copies/ARCs that I received over the past couple of weeks. The first is the just-released (June 3rd) graphic novel, Out of Picture 2, which highlights the drawing and story talents of artists currently or formerly associated with Blue Sky Studios. I might review this one shortly; I certainly thought it was entertaining and very creative. Next is the ARC for Tobias Buckell's third novel (coming out in August), Sly Mongoose, which Buckell himself sent to me. Review later this month; I thought it was better than his first two efforts, which I enjoyed. The third book I just received yesterday and is by the late Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl, The Last Theorem. This book comes out August 5.

The MMPB on the bottom is Patricia Rosemoor & Marc Paoletti's The Last Vampire, and it is set to be released on June 24. And finally, the hardcover is Peter David's retelling of the Peter Pan story, Tigerheart. It goes on sale June 17th. I read it last week and found it to be an okayish tale, but it wasn't anything special.

These are my four most recent purchases. Bought, read, and enjoyed greatly Franz Kafka's The Trial, Flann O'Brien's The Complete Novels, and Naguib Mahfouz's Voices from the Other World: Ancient Egyptian Tales, and am currently reading the Spanish translation of Serbian author Goran Petrović's La Mano de la Buena Fortuna (The Hand of Good Fortune). Alas, there's no English translation of any of his work available at the moment, as I really think there are many here (especially those who've read and enjoyed the other authors in this photo) who would really enjoy this fine work.

More Book Porn later this month, perhaps.

Early thoughts on two upcoming releases

This past week, I received two ARCs. The first was from Random House and it was Lord Tophet by Gregory Frost, which concludes the story began in Shadowbridge. The second ARC I received from Tobias Buckell himself and it is the third serial installment in his stories about Pepper and other Ragamuffins, Sly Mongoose. While I will not be writing formal reviews until closer to each book's release date (late July for the Frost and I believe sometime in August for Buckell's), I thought I'd give just a few teaser reactions to each, for those who are curious about each author.


Lord Tophet is a slender book, shorter even than the 270 pages or so Shadowbridge. However, much more is revealed in these pages and Leodora/Jax's stories play a much more prominent role, as there is a dark, destructive force striding the spans. Frost has a nice twist on our own legenda, some of which is referred to directly in places, and the climatic scene was done quite nicely. Lord Tophet almost certainly will get a positive review from me when I sit down to write the full review in 5-6 weeks.



I am about 2/3 into Sly Mongoose right now and am enjoying it quite a bit. Buckell continues to develop his characters and if I'm not mistaken, Sly Mongoose might be his most "political" novel to date, although I use that term in the loosest of senses; it is not didactic or "preachy." As in his earlier novels, Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin, there is an adolescent voice (Timas in this case) who serves as a focal point for the cultural conflicts that often are undercurrents in his novels. I have enjoyed those scenes in which Timas is the focal character and I have high hopes that the novel will conclude nicely, as right now the characterizations are better than in the previous novels and the pacing is smoother. It'll probably be two months before I sit down and write out all of my thoughts.

Hope these teasers will be enough for those who are curious about these two summer releases!

Assorted Zafón news

This was an interesting discovery:

Orion has bought four bestselling young-adult novels from Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón in a "major pre-empt". The books, Prince of the Mists, Midnight Palace, September Light and Marina, have nearly three million copies in print in Spain. The author's adult title The Shadow of the Wind has sold two million copies in English and 10 million worldwide.

UK rights (minus ANZ rights) were bought through the Colchie Agency in New York on behalf of the Antonia Kerrigan Agency in Barcelona.

The Angel's Game, a prequel to Shadow and Zafón's second novel, will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK in September 2009.

Reminds me that I need to get around to buying those YA books of his, since I've seen them in local bookstores. And I guess the wait for the English-language translation will be longer than expected, unless the American release comes before the British one.

Beginning to Zafón's El juego del Ángel

I found this opening paragraph to be quite attention-grabbing (and roughly 1/5 in, it fits what appearing to follow after quite well):

Un escritor nunca olvida la primera vez que acepta unas monedas o un elogio a cambio de una historia. Nunca olvida la primera vez que siente el dulce veneno de la vanidad en la sangre y cree que, si consigue que nadie descubra su falta de talento, el sueño de la literatura será capaz de poner techo sobre su cabeza, un plato caliente al final del día y lo que más anhela: su nombre impreso en un miserable pedazo de papel que seguramente vivirá más que él. Un escritor está condenado a recordar ese momento, porque para entonces ya está perdido y su alma tiene precio.

Or in my rough English translation:

A writer never forgets the first time that he accepts some money or praise in exchange for a story. He never forgets the first time that he feels the sweet venom of vanity in his blood and he believes that, if he manages that no one discovers his lack of talent, the literary dream will be capable of placing a roof over his head, a hot plate for the end of the day and his deepest yearning: his name impressed on a miserable piece of paper which surely will survive longer than he. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is lost and his soul has a price.

If The Shadow of the Wind dealt more with the perils (among other things) of the reader, El juego del Ángel perhaps will capture the attentions of those who write even more than those who read. So far, the story is entertaining and occasionally thought provoking. More later, elsewhere.

A special April 29th book porn entry

This arrived in my mail today. It is the bound galley proof for Carlos Ruiz Zafón's latest novel, El juego del Ángel, which goes on sale on May 13th in the US. While I plan on having a Spanish-language reseña here, I received this ARC because I agreed to review it elsewhere for posting on the 13th. It is a monster at 667 large font pages bound in an 8.5" x 11" format, so it'll probably take me a few days of careful reading to jot down all the necessary notes and to do the translations and re-translations. Needless to say, I am curious to see how this will stack up next to Zafón's previous novel, La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind), which I felt was on the cusp of becoming something truly special before settling for merely quite good. But more on this later. The Cemetery of Lost Books awaits.

More Book Porn

I received seven books this week, six of which appear as the first six books seen on the second shelf of one of my bookcases. I thought it might be amusing to a few to see not just the new and forthcoming (and yes, I'm rather excited about receiving an ARC for Nisi Shawl's first short story collection, Filter House (coming out in August from Aqueduct Press), but also to showcase my rather non-systematic shelving arrangement. Spot the non-genre books mixed in with the genre ones, if you can.

And now back to the finishing stages of a long-delayed review. If I'm lucky, I might have a handful of smaller reviews up in the coming days, some of them involving two or more books with similar themes or attitudes towards the story being presented. And yes, a few of these planned reviews involve books whose spines are just barely visible in that photo. But more on all this later; lunch awaits.

Interesting Upcoming Releases

Scouring the web, I have learned about a couple of intriguing releases that ought to appeal to fantasy fiction fans of all sorts.

First, I learned the Brandon Sanderson, author of the popular Mistborn trilogy of novels and recently signed to complete the late Robert Jordan's bestselling The Wheel of Time series, has a new book coming out in early 2009 that will serve as a bridge between the final Mistborn novel, The Hero of Ages and the final WoT novel, A Memory of Light.

Tentatively called The Way of Kings, this book has already generated a lot of attention on Amazon, where apparently the cover art and a brief synopsis have been leaked by some of Sanderson's fans, those who seemingly have been privy to what sounds to be an outstanding novel. Below are some of the readers' comments about this novel:

...No matter your race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or belief system, you will find something to love in "The Way of Kings". There were pirates, ninjas, monkeys, fireworks, grand journeys, infidels dragged through streets by dragons and a fair amount of buckles swashed. There were ladies romanced, men romanced, sheep romanced and one scene where even two mice get it on. And if you can forgive an inordinate amount of abuse aimed at Canadians, this just may be the book for you. Be forewarned, however, if you can't abide graphic depictions of sexual content that would make Laurell K. Hamilton blush and cover her naughty bits, you might want to skip this book...

...The way Brandon Sanderson breathes life into this story is inspirational. The characters, the storyline, the magic -- seemingly woven (as only Brandon can) from sheer nothingness. One of my favorite parts of the book is where the Wizard Ooflar divides one rather simple system of magic into five complex subsets, each with its own arcane history and labyrinthine steps. Who would have thought the apprentice Pemberly could put an entire village to sleep by tapping out a quadrille in her clogs? Although it would seem implausible, somehow his magical system works, especially the dance-off. I also enjoyed the ten-day feast in section two, chapter 85. I don't know if I'll ever forget the scene in which we see King Horag the Midleth eating live grunthyean orbs. (gag) I loved this book and can't wait for the sequel...

More on this as I learn more from Sanderson and his editor at Tor, Moshe Feder.

The second rumored book release is a movie novelization, the first in a series of tie-in action-adventure/fantasy books based on the wildly popular Suburban Commando movie. Starring the immortal Hulk Hogan, the film garnered all sorts of critical commentary and due to its now-iconic status, the movie's producer, Terry "Thunderlips" Bollea, has decided that the timing is right to make the jump into the tie-in fantasy novel world. Here are a few words from Mr. Bollea:

Let me tell ya something, brutha! When the Hulkster started out in those tiny gyms, pumpin' that iron, sayin' the prayers, and poppin' those vitamins, he had a dream. For years as he traveled around the country, cuppin' his ear and basking in the glory of his millions of ragin' Hulkamaniacs, he felt as though there was a bit of electricity missin'. Even when the 7'5 Andre the Giant himself was picked up as the Hulkamaniacs prayed their li'l hearts out, willin' the Hulkster on to press slamming that 500 lb. monster over his head and slammin' him to the mat, even then the Hulkster was lackin' something.

But one day, like a bolt from the sky, while on the set of Suburban Commando, it came down and struck with the force of 10,000 screamin' Hulkamaniacs. This movie contained the way, brutha, the way! Here was where I, the Hulkster, he of the 24" pythons, could make a difference in the lives of the millions of Hulkamaniacs out there! It was like a vision from Above. Pearly gates, string music, even a bit of angelic singin' burst out. A book, a book based on what might just be the greatest obscure movie of all time! I contacted my agent, who put me in touch with one of the best in the biz, Harry Sachs, and we begin to work on writing the defining tie-in novel series, one that will serve as inspiration to all of my Hulkamaniacs out there.

Although no publisher has yet to be confirmed, it is believed that Hogan's old nemesis, The Ultimate Warrior, will be receiving the first galley for review purposes.

New Carlos Ruiz Zafón novel to be released April 17

Source (in Spanish): Here is my quick translation:

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, author of The Shadow of the Wind, will publish next April 17, his new novel, with a print run of one million copies, according to an announcement this morning (February 28th) by Editorial Planeta. The publisher considers that this print run will reach a historical landmark in Spain.

The number of copies (printed) surpasses the 525,000 for World Without End by Ken Follet, of which, in its day, the publisher Random House Mondadori explained that it was about "the most number of books ever placed in Spanish bookstores in a single day," and that it found "was more than the number for the Harry Potter series."

Ruiz Zafón's new work, untitled [now known to be El Juego del Ángel], will tell a story of ambient intrigue in the Barcelona of the 1920s and will return to submerging the reader in the Cementery of Lost Books, scene from his previous book.

Ruiz Zafón is considered by his publisher to be the Spanish author most read in the world. The Shadow of the Wind, published in May 2001, has been published in 50 countries and sold more than 10 million copies. This new entry (in the planned tetralogy around the Cementary of Lost Books), which is published 7 years after its predecessor, will form part of a tetralogy. The publisher has chosen this date for its publication to fall on Saint George's Day.

Sadly, it's not yet available for purchase on Amazon, but trust me, as soon as I can, I'm getting a copy of it and I'll review it to give people an idea of the book's quality well in advance of its releases en otros idiomas.

Edit: While it'll likely be a year or longer before the English translation is released, for those of us who can read Spanish, there is an official website for the book now up. Not much yet, but there is a place where you can have information sent to you (in Spanish, of course) regarding updates on the author or any other author on Planeta's roll.