7 Picks for the Summer

Summer is not only upon us, but sitting on most of our faces at this moment. Wouldn't it be nice to put something else a bit closer to your face? Well how about some good books? What a novel idea!

Below are my Summer picks, which also amount to what are some of my favorite reads of the year thus far. I left off novels from series in progress as I like to think of this as a list I'd rattle off to a friend I haven't seen in a long time who might not be down the genre hole as deeply as I. These are in no particular order.

The Age of Ice by J. M. Sidorova

This one is definitely the most challenging read of the bunch, but it is worth it. If you're feeling the heat then the cure is surely The Age of Ice with a protagonist who has not only a cold disposition, but whose icy skin leaves him at arms length from everyone in his life. Placed during the late 1700s in Czarist Russia it is both a wonderful historical look at the period as well as a beautifully told story about feeling out of place wherever you are.

Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh

This is exactly what I want my Sci-Fi to be. The story centers on a future in which good looking women who die are kept cryogenically frozen and can be reanimated if someone is willing to pay the exorbitant costs involved. In less capable hands this could have easily turned comic, but McIntosh has infused his characters with such believable depth you can't help care for them. The future McIntosh envisions is telling about the direction of our own hyper connected society and the direction that we're headed towards.

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

As the title intimates a Jewish golem and a genie out of Arabian lore both end up in New York City in search of a place they fit in. One is as blank slate driven by simple desires while the other is already hundreds of years old, but far out of their own time. The New York City of the early 1900s is not only beautifully explored but so are the communities of Syrian and Jewish these character inhabit. It's a fantastical love story that had me from its opening pages.

Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan

Guns and magic have finally hit their stride with McClellan's opening salvo in the Powder Mage Trilogy which we enter in the middle of a coup d'état with the King and his mages of old being silenced to usher in the age of the Powder Mages. My only real complaint is that there are very few women of substance in the telling. Hopefully this will be fixed in the subsequent volumes. Still McClellan's got me hooked and I need my next fix. Someone pass the snuff box.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Yes, it is on everyone's list, but it deserves it for more than the author's name on the cover. A month removed and my mind still wanders back. The tone is highly personable which makes it feel like your own tale of childhood as you fight against an ancient evil mistakenly released.

Lexicon by Max Barry

Words of power are not necessarily a new idea, but Barry breathes life and high action into them with his secret society of Poets who have access to a lexicon that will have you doing back flips if they so desired. Simply a page flipping good yarn that hits far more often than it misses with a tight plot and humor in all the right places.

The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

This is one falls into the "fun" category and lives up to the publisher tagline, which basically boils down to a European Forrest Gump. If you like road trip stories than consider this a world trip movie as the old man in question Allan Karlsson lives a rich full life and likes to blow things up. But this isn't just the story of an old man jumping out the window, but flips back and forth to the life of a young Allan who meets some of the most influential people of the last 100 years.

One thing is clear from this list: I have a thing for Historical fiction this year. So what have you really enjoyed this summer?

You Might Also Like:
The Hattie Awards 2012!!! Or the best books of 2012 (That I've read)
The 2011 Hattie Awards!!! Or the Best of 2011 (That I've Read)
Best Books of 2010 (That I've read)
The Mad Hatter's Gift Guide
Best Books of 2009 (That I've read)

NEWS | The Name of the Wind to TV and Abercrombie's new trilogy

According to The Bookseller Job Abercombie has just sold a new loose trilogy to Harper Voyager in the UK with the first book slated for 2014 to be titled Half a King. The new books will not be related to the First Law world, but a more traditional yet alternative ancient Europe in the time of the Dark Ages. The books will also be aimed at both a younger demographic as well as Joe's traditional adult audience. For Abercrombie this probably just means cutting down on the cuss words and graphic sex. Abercrombie said:

“In some ways this is a very different sort of book from what I’ve written so far. It’s aimed partly at younger readers (maybe the 12-16 range). It’s much shorter – 80,000 words compared to 175,000 for my shortest, Red Country, and 230,000 for my longest, Last Argument of Kings (though still over twice the length of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, believe it or not). It’s set in a very different world with what you might call a viking or anglo-saxon feel. It’s much more focused, with a single point of view. It’s not so overtly ‘gritty’ although it’s a long way from smooth. It is punchy. It has drive. I aimed to deliver a slap in the face with every page.”

No word on the US rights, but those should come quickly. Abercombie has mentioned a July 2014 publication date as likely on both sides of the pond for Half a King with the sequels spread 6 month apart thereafter. The rub is the next First Law trilogy is still in the works, but we probably won't be seeing that until at least 2017, but there will be a short story collection of the First Law  in 2015 or 2016. It will be interesting to see how Abercrombie transitions his style to a younger set and if it can truly hold a candle for those of us who are use to Lord Grimdark.

The other big piece of news is according to Deadline.com  New Regency and Fox have have optioned  The Name of the Wind for a TV show.  Now don't hold your breathe too much on this as option often lapse, but Fox is in a period of growth splitting FX into two channels with the new FXX starting in the not too distant future though the credits of some involved don't impress me much. Still I'll be there in a heartbeat once it starts airing.

I'm honestly not sure which piece of news excites me more. More Joe Abercrombie fiction is always a good thing, but being able to see the characters that Rothfuss has brought so well to life on to the page being fully realized could be an amazing thing.

You Might Also Like:
REVIEW | The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie
REVIEW | Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
RE-READING | The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothruss - Part 1
RE-READING | The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss - Part 2

A Few Cool Covers

A fresh batch of covers is making the rounds for Tor's Winter 2014 list. So now we can all salivate over books we can't get for more than six months!

Tor US cover

The VanderMeer's killed it with their magnus opus to strange short fiction with The Weird earlier this year and they hope to do the same with The Time Traveler's Alamanc coming out in March with 800 pages of glorious time jumping stories from over the last century or so. Those in the UK will be able to get it from the newish imprint Head of Zeus late this year, but I think the US wins the cover contest this go around.

On the heels of the World Fantasy Award winning The Weird, the next genre-defining anthology from award-winning team Ann and Jeff VanderMeer explores the popular world of time travel fiction 

The Time Traveler's Almanac is the largest, most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Gathered into one volume by intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, this almanac compiles more than a century's worth of literary travels into the past and the future to reacquaint readers with beloved classics and introduce them to thrilling contemporary examples of the time travel genre.

Featuring over seventy journeys into time from Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, William Gibson, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, Michael Moorcock, H. G. Wells, Connie Willis, Charles Yu, and many more, The Time Traveler's Almanac covers millions of years of Earth's history, from the age of the dinosaurs through to strange and fascinating futures.
In fact, The Time Traveler's Almanac will serve as a time machine of its very own: the ultimate treasury of time travel stories, spanning the distance from the beginning of time to its very end.

The Unwrapped Sky is Rjurik Davidson long await debut. I first heard about this book more than 2 years ago as the author has published a couple short and entirely weird short stories from the world of Caeli-Amur so I'm eager to see what a novel length work of his will read like. The cover is gorgeous and we'll be able to touch it come April.

A hundred years ago, the Minotaurs saved Caeli-Amur from conquest. Now, three very different people may hold the keys to the city's survival. 

Once, it is said, gods used magic to create reality, with powers that defied explanation. But the magic—or science, if one believes those who try to master the dangers of thaumaturgy—now seems more like a dream. Industrial workers for House Technis, farmers for House Arbor, and fisher folk of House Marin eke out a living and hope for a better future. But the philosopher-assassin Kata plots a betrayal that will cost the lives of godlike Minotaurs; the ambitious bureaucrat Boris Autec rises through the ranks as his private life turns to ashes; and the idealistic seditionist Maximilian hatches a mad plot to unlock the vaunted secrets of the Great Library of Caeli-Enas, drowned in the fabled city at the bottom of the sea, its strangeness visible from the skies above. 

In a novel of startling originality and riveting suspense, these three people, reflecting all the hopes and dreams of the ancient city, risk everything for a future that they can create only by throwing off the shackles of tradition and superstition, as their destinies collide at ground zero of a conflagration that will transform the world . . . or destroy it.>

I had never heard of The Goblin Emperor by the novel debuting Katherine Addison before I saw the cover, but it just looks like all kinds of crazy, which will be unleashed in April as well.

The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an "accident," he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir. 

Entirely unschooled in the art of court politics, he has no friends, no advisors, and the sure knowledge that whoever assassinated his father and brothers could make an attempt on his life at any moment. 

Surrounded by sycophants eager to curry favor with the naïve new emperor, and overwhelmed by the burdens of his new life, he can trust nobody. Amid the swirl of plots to depose him, offers of arranged marriages, and the specter of the unknown conspirators who lurk in the shadows, he must quickly adjust to life as the Goblin Emperor. All the while, he is alone, and trying to find even a single friend . . . and hoping for the possibility of romance, yet also vigilant against the unseen enemies that threaten him, lest he lose his throne–or his life. 

This exciting fantasy novel, set against the pageantry and color of a fascinating, unique world, is a memorable debut for a great new talent.

You Might Also Like:
INTERVIEW | Jim Hines author of Libriomancer
Cover Unveiled for Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells Edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling
Some Much Steampunk, So Little Time