Tag: Guy Gavriel Kay

13 for 2013: A Baker’s Dozen of My Most Anticipated Reads

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> books> ebooks

“Love looks forward, hate looks backward, and anxiety stalks NetGalley and Edelweiss for early review copies.” That is not the way the saying goes, but it works for me.

I’m also hoping that there will be review copies of the Spring books at least on the American Library Association Midwinter Exhibits floor–especially since I won’t need to worry about what I carry home with me. I’ll be home. The conference is here in Seattle this year.

So, what books are at the tippy top of my wishlist for 2013?

Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris, otherwise known as Sookie Stackhouse’s last hurrah. Even though the last few books in the series haven’t been quite up to the high bar set by the early entries, I have to know how Sookie’s story ends. Don’t you?

Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon is the 8th doorstop in her giant, world-traveling, era-spanning Outlander series. The series has been described as “historical fiction with a Moebius twist,” and that’s the best short summation I’ve read for the damn thing that makes any sense. What they are is the best way to lose about three days, every time there’s a new one–and I can’t wait.

The Second Rule of Ten by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay. I’ll confess that I have this one because I did stalk NetGalley for months after reading The First Rule of Ten, but the official date of publication is January 1, 2013, so it’s on the list. Tenzing Norbu is interesting as a detective because he is just different enough to see the world slightly askew, and it helps him solve crimes. The world he solves crimes in is itself slightly askew. Of all the places for an ex-monk to end up, Hollywood? Really? Marvelous!

Cast in Sorrow by Michelle Sagara will be number 9 in her Chronicles of Elantra. I just finished book 8, Cast in Peril, last week, and I’m already jonesing for my next fix. It doesn’t help that Cast in Peril ended in the middle of a very dangerous journey, not that Kaylin ever manages to stay out of trouble for long. So this wait is even more cliffhanger-esque than normal.

Imager’s Battalion by L.E. Modesitt Jr. When I finished the first trilogy in Modesitt’s Imager Portfolio, I thought he was done. The story was marvelous, but his hero’s journey was over. Little did I know he had a prequel in mind. Quaeryt’s journey from bureaucratic aide to military leader reads a bit like Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series. And that’s not bad company at all.

Untitled Psy-Changeling #12 by Nalini Singh. I hate this. The publisher and the author are being particularly coy about this one. Even the title is supposed to be a huge spoiler for some shocking secret mystery. As annoyed as I am about this, I adore the Psy-Changeling series, so I can’t wait for the book. Whatever it’s called.

Tuesday’s Gone by Nicci French is the second book in French’s new mystery series featuring therapist Frieda Klein. Something about the first book, Blue Monday, absolutely grabbed me. I think it had to do with how much Klein wanted to keep the case at arm’s length, and how personal it all turned out to be.  Blue Monday was chilling and I want to see if Tuesday’s Gone is just as good.

One-Eyed Jack by Elizabeth Bear is something I’ve wanted for a long time, but never expected to see. It’s a continuation of her utterly wondrous Promethean Age series. The Promethean Age books were urban fantasy of the crossover school, something that isn’t done well nearly often enough. In the Promethean Age, Faerie exists alongside our world, and events can effect both, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

Wicked as She Wants by Delilah S. Dawson is the second book in Dawson’s absolutely yummy Blud series. The first book, Wicked as They Come, was dark, creepy, sensual and extremely eerie. At the same time, the love story was hauntingly beautiful. And I want to see more bludbunnies. Any writer who can come up with piranha rabbits has to have more tricks up her sleeve.

Calculated in Death  and Thankless in Death by J.D. Robb. I still want to know how Nora Roberts does it. Calculated and Thankless are the two In Death books scheduled for 2013. I have a hard time believing that they are numbers 36 and 37 in the series. Odds are that one will be close to awesome, and one will be a visit with old friends, which is still not bad. I’m going to buy them both anyway and read them in one gulp the minute I get them.

The Human Division by John Scalzi is Scalzi’s first novel in his Old Man’s War universe since Zoe’s Tale in 2008. Old Man’s War is military science fiction, with a slice of social commentary, and just a hint of a love story. It’s also just plain awesome. And anything new by Scalzi is automatically great news. Even more fascinating, The Human Division is going to be released as a digital serial, starting in January. So the only question is whether I get it in bits, or do I wait for the finished novel? Or both?

Heart Fortune by Robin D. Owens is the twelfth book in Owens’ Celta series. In Celta, Robin D. Owens has created the kind of world that readers want to live on, as well as experience vicariously through her stories. I’ve read the entire Celta series, and they are one of the few romance series I’ve read that manages to make the “fated mate” concept work–probably because she occasionally subverts it.

Blood and Magick by James R. Tuck. This is the third book in the Deacon Chalk series, and I love them. I found Deacon because it’s getting to be too long a wait between Dresden Files books (and it looks like 2013 will be a year without Harry). Deacon Chalk mostly takes out his demons with guns. Lots and lots of guns. But he knows some on the side of the righteous, too. Deacon Chalk is urban fantasy of the purely kick-butt fun school.

River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay will be my birthday present this year, or close enough. Kay writes fantasy mixed with a large helping of historical fiction. The result is a magical blending of history as it might have been. Beautiful, complex, breath-takingly poignant. Kay writes worlds of awe and wonder. I can’t wait to be awestruck again.

These are the books. For 2013 it seemed fitting to choose a baker’s dozen, or 13, books that  I’m looking forward to the most.

If you’re curious about what happened to last year’s “Anticipateds” stop by Book Lovers Inc. on Thursday.

What books are you looking forward to the most in 2013?

NPR and the Top 100 SF/F

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | books

If I didn’t already love NPR, I would now. But I’ve sat in the car too many times laughing myself silly at the Car Talk brothers not to love NPR.

However, they just gave me a whole new reason to love them. NPR is putting together a list of the 100 best science fiction and fantasy (SF/F) titles “ever written”. The list will be based on recommendations submitted here.

There are, naturally, a whole bunch of caveats built into this kind of thing. NPR wants this list to be strictly science fiction and fantasy for grown-ups (admittedly that term alone can be pretty loosely defined). YA SF/F will be covered some other summer. Besides, as NPR put it best, won’t it be nice to have someone besides Harry Potter win for a change?

Also, they are limiting to purely SF/F, so no paranormal or horror. Stephen King is out, and so is Sookie Stackhouse. So is Twilight. On the other, and much more interesting hand, it is perfectly okay to nominate an entire series as a single entity. So the Lord of the Rings counts as one nomination. Five noms to a posting, probably just to keep the lists manageable.

But my brain keeps hashing over what to nominate. There are two lists running in my head. One list is of the books/series that I have read and loved. Those are ones I would recommend in a heartbeat to someone who was remotely interested in science fiction or fantasy. Or someone I could get to sit still for ten seconds and listen.

1. The Lord of the Rings. This is still a comfort read. Or a comfort listen. I have multiple copies in print, and both the unabridged recording and the radio play. Tolkien could write beautiful words, and there are parts of this thing that still ring in my head, and still wring my heart. The tvtropes wiki says there are 7 basic plots; 1)Overcoming the Monster, 2)Rags to Riches, 3)The Quest, 4)Voyage and Return, 5)Comedy, 6)Tragedy and 7)Rebirth. The Lord of the Rings has everything but a comedy plot. There’s comedy in there, but it isn’t a major plot thread.

There are still things in LOTR I would like to have a serious talk with Prof. Tolkien about, if he were still around. The lack of female characters in the Fellowship. The shortage of strong female characters, period. And that’s just for starters. But the quibbles stand out because the whole is so very, very good.

2. American Gods by Neil Gaiman. The premise caught me, and didn’t let go. Every deity that had every been worshiped on American soil was alive, if not well, somewhere in the U.S. Some are still active, and some are trying to blend in, but they are all still here. Then Shadow meets Mr. Wednesday on a plane, and everything starts to fall apart, or come together. American Gods is part of the great American road novel tradition, except it’s written by a British ex-pat who seems to have swallowed a mythopedic dictionary whole. The point where the Egyptian gods were running a funeral parlor in Cairo, Illinois, I think I had tears in my eyes, laughing. But there’s more pathos than humor, and every god and monster has his, or her, day. The ending took me by complete surprise. And I loved every second of it.

3. Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. Pratchett’s Discworld can be seen as a parody of any number of fantasy worlds. Or all of them. When he’s funny, he’s screamingly funny. But it’s the kind of humor that makes you think, and more and more, makes you want to weep. Havelock Vetinari, the Patrician of the city of Ankh-Morpork, makes Machiavelli look like an amateur. Death is personified as the bony gentleman with the scythe–on the other hand, his adopted granddaughter is considerably scarier than he is. After all, Death named his horse ‘Binky’. Start with either Mort or Guards, Guards. Just start.

4. Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay. I would include this because reading it once hurt so much I’ve never been able to read it again. Tigana is a country that is lost, gone. It was not just conquered, it was also cursed. The wizard who conquered it laid down a curse that no one who was not born there before the fall could say the name, or hear it spoken. Tigana, beautiful, artistic, advanced, lovely as it was, was doomed to be forgotten in a generation. There was only one chance to save it. A desperate group of survivors banded together to infiltrate the court of the wizard king and assassinate him before the last of those born in their beloved country before its fall became too old to recreate what they had lost. What they did not count on was how long it would take, or how much the part you are playing becomes you, if you play it for too long.

5. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi. You know up front that this is not a coming-of-age story. More like wish-fulfillment, at least up to a point, as all the major characters start out as senior citizens who suddenly get brand new young bodies. Then they have to go fight aliens with those upgraded bods. This reads like one of Robert Heinlein’s space stories at its best, updated 50 years and without Heinlein’s attitudes about women. Or maybe that’s the updating. This is a great space opera. And because the point-of-view character is older, his perspective gets to use that life experience to wonder what the hell is going on. It’s a very important part of the story. He questions, and he wants answers. As he gets them, so does the reader.

These books are ones I have read, finished and would recommend unconditionally. In another post, I’ll list the ones I want to read this summer, and why.