Friday Round-Up: Bowen, Corey & O'Keefe @SFFWorld and @SFSignal Mind Melds

Wow, I haven’t posted a round up since last year (hack joke), but seriously, it has been over a month and that’s a longer time between Round Ups than usual. Not sure what that bodes for the future, but there it is.

As my Millions….and MILLIONS readers are probably aware, I posted my annual (and tenth!) Reading Year in Review on Monday. It turned out to be a really good year, if you want to take a gander at the SFF books published in 2015 that I enjoyed the most head over there. But in this post you’ll find some of the recent things I’ve posted to SFFWorld and SF Signal.

As it turned out my Mind Meld from March SFF Series That Hooked us After the First book was the top (most viewed) Mind Meld post for 2015, and my Mind Meld on giving Authors a Second Chance (September) is also on the list.  Of course, the fact that "hooked" posted early in the year gave it more time to be viewed than all but 2 mind melds last year.

My Mind Meld for December was posted just before Christmas (and it turned out to be one of the top SF Signal posts for December!), wherein I asked A.M. Dellamonica, Bob Milne, Kristen Bell , Troy L. Wiggins, Mieneke van der Salm, Kallen Kentner, Stefan Raets, Kat Hooper, The G (from Nerds of a Feather), Martin Cahill, Ardi Alspach , and Sarah Chorn

Q: Who is Your Favorite “New to You” Author You Read in 2015?

I finished off December with two reviews at SFFWorld and began 2016 with one review. Here goes...

Just about a month ago, my review of Lila Bowen (AKA Delilah S. Dawson) Wake of Vultures, one of the most honest and raw (in an excellent way) fantasy novels I read:

At the start of the novel, Nettie is a slave in all but name to her foster parents, and she isn’t too happy with them or her situation. They treat her horribly and she has no recompense. When a strange creepy fellow arrives on their farm, and Nettie fights for her life until she manages to defeat the creature making it dissolve into black sand, Nettie has an awakening. She can see things that normal people are unable to see. She leaves her home to join the Double TK Ranch where she poses as a boy and her considerable skill at breaking horses gives her the acceptance, friendship, and value-recognition she needs and deserves. In parallel to that, a Skinwalker (shapechanger) named Coyote Dan befriends her and helps Nettie come to grips with her new supernatural life. She can see vampires, witches and all sort of supernatural and weird entities. Dan sets her up with the Texas Rangers who combat these baddies. When Nettie was first sucked into the weird world, she became entangled with Pia Mupitsi, a monstrous child thief and Coyote Dan acts as a mentor to her through much of the story as Nettie comes to grips with how she fits into this new world she sees.
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Another element I appreciated about Wake of Vultures, and this goes hand in hand with the “realness” of the protagonist, is the honest, unwavering nature of the entire narrative. Bowen doesn’t shy away from the bloody scenes, the difficult character scenes, the challenging themes and topics. In short, Wake of Vultures is a brave, bold novel of human truth set against a dark, magical backdrop. It is perfectly paced and engaging from start to finish.

My last review of 2015 turned out to be for a book that immediately leapt to the top of my favorites list, the latest Expanse installment from James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games:

Here in Nemesis Games, James S.A. Corey changes the script again, by breaking up the crew of the Rocinate into its individual parts: Alex Kamal, Naomi Nagata, Amos, and James Holden. Not only that, a good portion of the narrative takes place on Earth, so in many ways, Nemesis Games is a risk. Worry not, though: the powerful storytelling and engaging characterization from previous volumes are shining through as The Expanse continues to reshuffle the deck with each installment.
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If finding a new habitable planet on the other side of giant portal (let alone 1,000 planets) wasn’t game changer enough, what Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck do to Earth is well…earth shattering. A terrorist attack, unfortunately, is something resonates all too well in this day and age (Goddamn it, as I write this there was a terrorist attack on a Mosque in California) and there is some very introspective and pointed charged discussion between Naomi and her former lover Marcus surrounding the attack (Chapter 33). It is one of those central moments in a novel where so much of the ideological confrontations throughout the series seem to be nearly exemplified in one conversation.

My first review of 2016 is also a debut, and an impressive one at that. Steal the Sky the first installment of Megan E. O’Keefe’s Scorched Continent series:

Steampunk and magic on the raw, dusty frontier provide the backdrop for Megan E. O’Keefe’s debut novel, Steal the Sky. Our protagonist, Detan Honding, is stuck in a backwater mining town with his sidekick Tibs. Their airship is in a state of disrepair, but he’s given an opportunity to steal a ship from a ruthless figure in the community. Because the job, of course, doesn’t go smoothly, Detan soon finds himself under the scrutiny of the woman who employed him – Watch Captain Ripka, a local gang boss – Commodore Thratia Ganal (with the endearing nickname of Throatslitter), and a doppel. What’s a doppel you ask? A doppel is an illusionist/shape-changer who can assume the visage of anybody, which makes it difficult for Detan to always know with whom he’s speaking. But our roguish hero didn’t get far in life by being slow-witted
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Of course the natural comparison for Detan is Malcom Reynolds, he of Serenity/Firefly. O’Keefe evokes a similar feel of the raw frontier as did Whedon’s space-western. Where O’Keefe raises the stakes is the judicious inclusion of magic and enhancing the western setting with steampunk elements.

Reading Year in Review - 2015

I’ve done this for a few years now (2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006), so in order to maintain my flailing credibility as a genre blogger/book reviewer I have, I'm doing it again for 2015. I figured the first Monday of 2016 would be a good day to post this one, so here goes.

Before I get to the book stuff, I’ll mention again the big positive change this year. As some are aware, I was toiling away at an unrewarding, futureless job simply collecting a paycheck for a few years. The pay, admittedly, was not too bad, but the future at that job was somewhat dystopic. A few months before I left, a few people in my group were "Future Endeavored" and one high up VP promised more cuts to come multiple times on multiple conference calls. Then in August, I started a new job which four or so months in, I am really enjoying. I work at a great company and work with a great team of people and the future here is very bright and promising. I’m working a lot harder than I have in recent years, but it is rewarding and foundational for my future career with this company.

OK, back to the books. I’ll start with some stats as I do every year: I read (or at least attempted* to read) 80 books in 2015, depending on how you count omnibus editions. I say attempted because a few books I simply dropped because nothing about the book compelled me to keep reading. About half of what I read were new/2015 releases. In 2015, I posted 34 reviews to SFFWorld and 3 to Tor.com. I did more for SF Signal in 2015, too. My Completist column slowed down in 2015 (I kind of hit a little roadblock with the number of book series I actually finished reading). Keeping with the gender theme, 6 of the 15 Completist columns featured books by women. Still short of a fair and balanced 50%. I also continued wrangling the popular Mind Meld feature, having organized about one per month in 2015. Lastly, 4 of my book reviews appeared at SF Signal.

So all of that said, I think it was a fairly productive year, in terms of what I wrote/edited and posted – a total of 57 things I wrote were posted to those three Web sites. Plus whatever I rambled on about here on my blog. Whew…

Aside from the regular gamut of current year releases, some of my ‘catching up’ reads included a couple of installments of Butcher’s Dresden Files, finishing out Elizabeth Moon’s satisfying Paladin’s Legacy. My overall reading numbers increased a bit because I joined audible earlier in the year and this gave me more leeway in choosing my next read rather than pulling from the books publishers send me for review. I caught up with some titles from previous years, I think only one of the audio books I consumed was a current year release.

Here are some stats:

• 43 2015/current year releases
• 39 can be considered Fantasy
• 28 books by authors new to me
• 41 Books by women
• 32 can be considered Science Fiction
• 9 can be considered Horror
• 14 total debut
• 6 can be considered 2013 debuts
• 12 audiobooks

Again, I made a concerted effort to read more books by women, and on a quantity basis, I’ve doubled and almost tripled the number for past years. This year, I read a slightly larger percentage (51.25%) of books written by women. What doesn't surprise me, but frustrates me still, is that if I read solely from books sent to me for review unsolicited, I likely wouldn't have even been at 30%. I've become more proactive when I'm given the opportunity to select books sent to me and when I purchase books. I'll again call out Renay's appearance on Rocket Talk as an eye-opener for me.   All in all, 2015 was a great reading year for me.

Minimalist number crunching out of the way, on to the categories for the 2015 Stuffies (I’ve been informally calling them that for a few years now). My annual disclaimer: This isn’t a typical top 10 or 12 or anything, but whatever you want to call them, here’s a breakdown of the 2015 books  I read and enjoyed most this past year. (Plus a few non-2015 books).

Rob’s Favorite 2015 Fantasy Novel(s)

Nailing down my very favorite fantasy novel published in 2015 is a very difficult task. These are essentially the same books I mentioned in the SFFWorld Best of 2015 post, but I’ll rejigger the order here to be alphabetical by book title since I enjoyed them all nearly equally. This means means The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher gets the nominal first spot. This may have been the most fun I had reading any book this year.

I loved this book. Steampunk isn’t my go-to subgenre, when it misses, it really misses. But when it hits like this one (or Beth Cato’s debut The Clockwork Dagger link), I really love it. I think because there’s more of a mix between the Steampunk aesthetic and epic rather than what is more typical of Steampunk in world that echoes Victorian times. I remarked on twitter that the best storytellers can transfer the joy they had in telling the story to the reader, in that conversation that a book/story is between reader and storyteller. It was very clear that Jim had a great deal of fun writing this one because it was an incredibly fun and engaging story.

Have I mentioned that I like Bridget? . Gwen was a great character, too. Very headstrong and I really empathized reading the scenes written with her as the POV. I don’t think she was as frustrating to the extent that her co-characters did, I got a sense that some thought she was a bit of a nuisance but again I didn’t see her that way at all. She was just a very headstrong, youthful character who acts before thinking. Folly is a lot of fun, too, even if she was more of a secondary character. I see big things down the road for her in terms of moving up to be more of a primary player. (Or maybe if the series is popular enough, a story from her POV would be fun).

Black Wolves by Kate Elliott is up next and the one book that probably gave me the most complete and satisfying reading experience of the year...

Elliott begins her tale at the height of King Anjihosh’s reign, he has united the Hundred, has two wives (as is custom), loving children, and a devoted people over whom he reigns. His son is curious and being groomed for the throne and Anjihosh’s daughter wishes to become a reve, a scout bonded to the enormous eagles who soar above the empire carrying messages of import. Anjihosh takes a bold young man named Kellas under his employ when Kellas dares to climb the Tower of Law in defiance of the King’s edicts. Kellas becomes an integral part of Anjihosh’s power base as the highest ranking Black Wolf (the King’s elite force of spies and warriors). He learns a secret about the king and is presented with a fateful decision.

Through these characters, Elliott smoothly navigates sexual and gendered lines of power, the power of politics, the power of fables and belief, the power of secrets, and how ruler’s thoughts of “what’s best for the people” is often what is best for themselves and potentially short-sighted. The sexual power here in Black Wolves is remarkable for many reasons, the women who hold stature are not demeaned for their sexual relations, it is facet of their characters and past; it is empowering just as any other positive trait should be. One of the more brutal scenes in the novel is when a man is punished via sexual violence by other men. Admittedly, the blatant nature of the brutality arises perhaps because it is less common to see such “punishment” directed towards men, whereas women are more often the targets of such punishing violence.

Fool’s Quest by Robin Hobb continues to cement her status as the wielder of the finest prose in the genre...

From Fool’s Assassin to Fool’s Quest, Fitz has been dragged through an emotional crucible, as was the Fool to an extent (both emotional and physical) in prior novels. In the Fool’s case we just get to learn more about it here in Fool’s Quest. My point is that these two characters have spent a great deal of time apart dealing with emotional and physical hardships. They both had to have their souls nearly destroyed so they could become the ideal versions of themselves through a rebirth and healing to confront their adversaries.
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What also became clear to me as the novel was drawing to a conclusion, especially as the Fool wore his many guises, and revelations that came to light, is that Hobb is playing towards what I hope to be a world-capper of a novel. Without being too spoilerific, much of Hobb’s output has existed in the same world even if divided by characters, the Fitz/Farseer novels and the Liveship/Rain Wilds novels. There have been some hints from one series to the other, some crossover between characters, but each of the series have been fairly concerned with events in their parts of the world. Here, it seems, and more so than even in the finale of The Tawny Man Trilogy (Fool’s Fate), the Rain Wilds and Farseer “sections” of the world are coming together in what could be a spectacular finale.

Gemini Cell by Myke Cole is his fourth novel, but a perfect novel for new readers to pick up and read and hands down his best yet.

I have been following Myke Cole’s writing career since reading his debut Control Point, the first salvo in a brilliant Military Fantasy series and milieu. Over that time, I’ve corresponded with Myke and chatted with him at various NY geek gatherings (NY Comic Con, Tor.com meet-ups) so I am readily admitting there might be some bias coming into this review…. In it, Myke introduces readers to Jim Schweitzer, a Navy SEAL, husband, and father. Like many soldiers/operators, he is torn between his military life and his family life. His wife Sarah is an artist and her career is beginning to flourish. As the novel starts, Sarah is having a major exhibition of her work and unfortunately, Jim is called away in the middle of the exhibition by the Navy for an emergency mission.
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Jim wakes up or rather he is brought back from the dead by a sorcerer and learns he is not alone in his own head and body. His unlife in his undead body share space with an ancient jinn named Ninip. Jim is informed that death has not severed his service to the Navy and he is “transferred” into Gemini Cell with Gemini referring, of course, to the twin souls of Jim and Ninip inhabiting Jim’s zombie body. As Jim soon learns, sharing a body with an angry jinn is a challenging task on top of adjusting to being undead and having been told his wife and son were murdered when he was killed. Jim’s spirit and Ninip’s spirit constantly struggle for control of Jim’s body, when in stasis, training or one of the missions he is sent to accomplish. Ninip is angry, seeks blood death and vengeance while Jim tries to calm the spirit.

Twelve Kings in Sharakhai by Brad Beaulieu blew me away. I loved everything about it and I want more, more, MORE.

We begin in the fighting pits, witnessing 19-year old Çeda (pronounced Chayda) Ahyanesh’ala – known to many as the White Wolf – defeat a champion pit fighter, an opponent much larger and more experienced than her. An opponent of her own choosing. This opening was perfect, we get a sense of Çeda as a strong, deceptively imposing physical presence, a flavor of Sharakhai itself, and as the fight ends, a hint of her character and motivations. I dare say that if you aren’t drawn in by Bealieu’s powerful and magnetic opening, you should check yourself.

There’s also a nice interplay of fantasy flavors here, the more intimate and personal elements closely associated with Sword and Sorcery against the larger scale (worldly) elements associated with Epic Fantasy. Through Çeda’s introduction in a fighting/gladiatorial pit, the feel is initially Sword and Sorcery, something that could very easily be compared to a Robert E. Howard Conan story. I would even say you could extract that opening/intro as a complete stand-alone Sword and Sorcery story, it is a powerful, adrenalizing tale. As the story develops, we learn that Çeda’s plight and quest for revenge has more global stakes.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik rounds out my favorite fantasy only because it is last alphabetically.

One thing that struck me throughout the novel is a pervading sense of anger; it fueled much of the character interaction and pulled much of the plot along. Anger seems to be the only emotion, or a version of it such as disdain, the Dragon exhibits for much of the narrative. The prince, Marek, who visits the Dragon and later implores Agnieszka and the Dragon for their help, shows disdain and anger towards the Dragon. The other wizards introduced later in the novel seem to feel anger towards each other, while the Dragon condescends to interact with them with a great deal of spite. When Agnieszka interacts with people from her village in the middle-to-latter portion of the novel, they emanate an air of anger bordering on hatred to her. And yet, despite that anger driving many of these characters and the plot, Novik manages to overlay that anger with a sense of beauty and hopefulness; hope through the fierce determination of her character Agnieskza. Of course there are other emotions at play here, too. There’s a deep abiding love-of-friendship between Agnieszka and Kasia that provides an emotional backbone to the novel. There’s also sorrow and compassion and those come through in some of the minor characters.

Perhaps because I recently wrote about the books for SF Signal, I found many emotional and linguistic resonances with Patricia McKillip’s Riddle-Master trilogy. There’s a sense that the world in Uprooted echoes the folk tales of Europe, that it has a rich tradition sewn into the DNA of the world the characters inhabit, but we as readers meet these character at a time of Great Change, after all why else would we meet these characters?

Other 2015 fantasy books I enjoyed a great deal in 2015….

• The Skull Throne by Peter V. Brett - "…pride may be one of the characteristics or traits that does in many of the characters and can be seen as the greatest flaw a person can have in this world. Rojer, Jardir, Jayan (among others) all exhibit a great deal of hubris and pride. Some of them overcome that and don’t let the hubris consume them, but when that hubris so strongly defines an individual character here, it tends to be a fatalistic flaw. Leesha was quite prideful in her journey through to The Skull Throne, but in this third volume, her pride seems to have been quelled and as a result, she is a stronger character. I have been enjoying The Demon Cycle through the first three books and even more after The Skull Throne; I love the world building and enjoy the characters, but is also rewarding to see a writer’s skill and prowess grow from one novel to the next."
• Chapelwood by Cherie Priest - "Thirty years after Maplecroft, the second (and at this time final) novel begins. Lisbeth is alone, her sister Emma has passed, her lover Nance has disappeared, and Dr. Seabury finally lost his battles with sanity and also passed. Lisbeth is drawn to the strange occurrences in Birmigham, AL. Though I haven’t read every Cthulhu mythos tale, for my money,Maplecroft and Chapelwood are the epitome of modern entries of that subset of horror and dark fantasy. Although there are only two novels chronicling the Borden family’s conflict with creatures out of the Cthulhu mythos, I would not mind the title of this column being invalidated."
• The Price of Valor by Django Wexler - "…on the whole, Django Wexler manages to reveal more layers of the plot of the antagonists and more about his characters. Some closure here, but dammit, the unresolved elements and giant hints of things to come have the next installment in The Shadow Campaigns quite high on my I NEED TO READ WHEN IT PUBLISHES list. With The Price of Valor, Django Wexler continues to prove that he’s got a great story to tell...an excellent installment in a thoroughly entertaining Military/Flintlock Fantasy saga.”
• The Court of Fives by Kate Elliott – Court of Fives is one of those deceptively simple novels in which there’s a lot to be gleaned from the page if you know to look for it, and even more happening beyond the immediate action, as little details come together to build a very sound structure of a novel. …Jessamy is an extremely well-rounded character who, for all of her love for her family and inner strength, is flawed, occasionally allowing her pride to get the best of her.

Rob Favorite 2015 Science Fiction Novel(s)

The divide between Fantasy and Science Fiction was much more even this year, but much of the SF I read was backlist like CJ Cherryh. I think the SF book I enjoyed the most was The RED: First Light by Linda Nagata. Yeah, I know it is technically an older title, but a new edition was published this year through Saga Press:

Lieutenant James Shelley is in charge of a Linked Combat Squad (LCS), who has dubbed him King David because of his premonitions which have often saved some, or all of them, from defeat or death. In this near future (probably about Twenty Minutes into the Future) members of the military wear skull caps on their heads which connect them to a cloud network. The military answers more to defense contractors than the government. The skull caps worn by the squad members also, via the cloud and their network administrator (for lack of a better term), control their emotions to ensure a more cool and calculated demeanor in the field. Ironically enough, Shelly was a war protestor and in lieu of serving out a jail sentence, he agreed to join the military. He excelled and eventually Shelly’s premonitions become more powerful, but he sustains a very damaging combat injury in the first third of the novel. What provides Shelly with these premonitions is something he dubs “The Red;” but is it malevolent, benign, or benevolent or more likely, an unknowable wild card?
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A big part of what I, and many people, enjoy about SFF is seeing familiar elements spun in a new way so I guess what I’m saying is that Nagata manages to bring a many familiar elements together (and few SF frameworks are as familiar or popular as Military SF) into something that manages to echo great stories that preceded it while still engaging in a powerfully refreshing fashion. In The Red, Nagata manages one of the most seamless, enjoyable, and enthralling meldings in SF of that familiar and “new spin.” I am excited to read the further exploits of James Shelley, The Red and wherever this story goes.

Since James S.A. Corey (AKA Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) published another installment of The Expanse guess what makes my list again? Yup, the fifth installment; Nemesis Games (The TV show just launched!)

After returning from the planet Ilus at the far end of the Galaxy through the gate the protomolecule opened, Holden and crew go on shore leave in search for a bit of respite. Each has some affairs to settle or loose ends requiring tying up from prior to the series events. Naomi wants to reconnect with her son, Alex initially wants to make amends with his ex-wife, and Amos wants to settle up with a woman from his days as “Timmy” on the streets of Baltimore. Meanwhile, Holden is tasked by Fred Johnson, leader of the Outer Planets Alliance, with tracking down missing space vessels.
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Each member is sort of going along on their own business when a major terrorist attack shatters the Earth. As such, we see the story through each of their personal lenses with all POV chapters from a member of the Rocinante. Each member of the crew is affected dramatically by their circumstances away from Rocinante, with Naomi a “guest” of her former lover, and Amos near one of the ground zeroes of the impact of the attack. Alex and Holden, have their own life-threatening issues to deal with after the attack, too. We’ve seen glimpses of the other characters in Holden’s presence, but never separated like this. At five books into the series, splitting the characters is a genius move to make the crew of theRocinante still seem fresh with plenty of room to breathe and develop. We knew them, sure, but we didn’t know them completely and only had glimpses or hints of their past. (At least in the novels.)

Next up is a book by an author who I first read last year, the fabulous Delilah Dawson. This is the first audio book on the list, Hit by Delilah Dawson:

It isn’t too much of a leap to think that banks own us, our debt, and everything we possess because of our debt to banks and credit cards. Take that idea one step (or leap) further – A single bank buys out all of America’s debt and America is the United States of America in name only. In Delilah S. Dawson’s dystopic tale Hit, Valor National (Bank) has done just that and owns all the debt. If you are overdue, they’ll come collecting just as they did on seventeen year-old Patricia (Patsy) Klein’s single mother (Patsy’s father left them years ago, and is only a faint memory for Patsy) with three options: pay all your debt now, die, or become an indentured servant for Valor National. In other words, become a bounty hunter for the bank and approach other people who owe Valor and offer them the same options. The indentured servitude lasts 5 days or until the 10 people on the list are killed, brought into service, or least likely, pay their debt.
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The natural dystopic comparison is to The Hunger Games, if only because both novels feature a very head-strong, likable, engaging, young female protagonist. If anything, the America and world revealed in Hit could be seen almost as a precursor to the fractured and realigned national boundaries of Panem. There’s a certain South Park episode that served as partial inspiration to the novel/series/world, but the story takes off from the notion set forth in that episode with Dawson’s wonderful pacing and character development.

Planetfall by Emma Newman is a powerful and Important novel:

Let’s get this out of the way first: Planetfall is not an easy book to discuss without giving away too much about its plot and characters. So I won’t give away too many of the finer details of the plot—what can be said is that approximately 1,000 colonists left Earth, including the protagonist, Renata “Ren” Ghali, who followed Lee Suh-Mi, her lover and leader of this group, to the new planet in what can best be described as a pilgrimage of faith. Earth was not in the best of shape, but there isn’t much more elaboration than that in the plot or background details. When the colonists arrived on the new planet, Lee entered a pre-existing structure the colonists discovered and came to name God’s City. When Newman begins the novel 20 odd years later, Lee had yet to return from God’s City and she is revered as something close to a saint as the people await her return and still follow the spirit of her beliefs.
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Planetfall is at once a fascinating character study through Ren’s first person narrative and a novel that examines how secrets, no matter how deeply buried they are, can be extremely damaging things…especially in a small colony in a seeming utopia. Ren spends much of her day as the colony’s printer, responsible for overseeing an advanced 3-D printer which is used to repair damaged items or create new items when necessary. Any items. Ren’s obsession with repairing things is a mask for trying to repair the damages left in the wake of Lee’s disappearance, and an attempt to bury her own guilt in the tragic events which transpired nearly two decades ago.

Other 2015 Science Fiction Novels I enjoyed a great deal in 2015….

• Alive by Scott Sigler - "… With Alive, I feel like Scott upped his game. It isn’t always easy (at least for this relative and at the time very neophyte audiobook consumer) to get an idea of an author’s prose, listening to the book makes it a bit challenging to linger over the page and consume the prose with as much in-depth consideration. Even with that disclaimer, I think Scott’s prose here in Alive was a strength, and his use of the first person narrative was very engaging and helped me to finish reading the book in just a couple of days."
• Zero World by Jason M. Hough - "I thought Zero World was a blast. One of my favorite Science Fictional tropes* is the Parallel Universe. Stories that feature protagonists/worlds and their mirror images which differ in only slight details, novels like The Talisman, the classic novel from Stephen King/Peter Straub, Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion cycle, or the many parallel worlds in comics, especially those of DC Comics’ Elseworlds. So you’ve got that element with Zero World and a protagonist that is like Leonard Shelby (from the film Memento) possessing the physical abilities of The Bionic Man and the tactical/combat/superspy knowledge of Jason Bourne or James Bond.."

Rob's Favorite 2015 Debut(s)

The debut with the most hype and the one that came close to living up to it was Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings, the first installment in his Epic Dandelion Dynasty:

Set in the Dara archipelago (an imagined world with a Asian resonances), the Emperor Mapidéré has united the many islands under one banner. Immediately, in my mind, a flag arose. This could be seen as an endgame, for an epic fantasy novel/saga – the uniting of kingdoms by an ambitious ruler. But this is where Liu launches his story, at the apex of one ruler’s conquering goals as viewed by a trickster with lofty aspirations and an orphan seeking revenge. This trickster is a young boy who often gets into trouble, would rather frolic than read, but whose mother continually holds out hope that he’ll eventually “get it” and stop his tomfoolery. This is Kuni Garu, one of the primary protagonists of the novel. We see much of the action of the narrative through his point of view, we see him grow into manhood, become a husband, father, and unlikely leader of men. Kuni joins a street gang, has many adventures until he finally appoints himself Duke Garu and grows a legion of followers who pledge themselves to him. As Kuni climbs the social strata and makes a name for himself, he falls for a woman named Jia, the woman who becomes his first wife. … The Grace of Kings is one of those books that is a major part of the ongoing “conversation” of genre, as Coode Street podcasters Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe often refer. (I –highly– recommend checking out the episode of their podcast featuring Ken Liu and Saga Press editor Joe Montias well as Ken and Joe on Rocket Talk with Justin Landon). One of those topics of the “ongoing conversation” is the treatment of women characters and gender in the genre. There’s been a fair amount of criticism about the lack of female characters in this novel, itself just the first part of a trilogy. (This raises the question, I suppose, of how to review one novel in a series, which is a large chapter in a much larger story. That topic could be an essay or podcast itself.) While I can understand that frustration – to a point – it seems to me in order to showcase an element that might be underrepresented, one must first illustrate that deficiency.

C.A. Higgins’s, Lightless, impressed the hell out of me when I read it and I’m looking forward to my from this author

The System is the governing body of the solar system, they have total control of the populace. One of their experimental military space vessels – the Ananke – is boarded by two hostile men. These men, Mattie and Ivanov, are known to be thieves (Space Pirates!) and are suspected to be allies of the galaxy’s most infamous terrorist. Ivanov is caught, Mattie escapes. But before he escapes, Mattie does something to the Ananke. At the center of Lightless, C.A. Higgins debut novel space is computer scientist Althea. … Higgins is an astrophysicist, having recently graduated from Cornell University. Impressively, she also wrote this novel whilst studying for her degree. While at the heart of the novel is a science fictional trope that has been part of the genre for many years, Higgins extrapolates the science of today well enough in the details to make it a plausible question to consider. Equally impressive is that, like a blanket over the hard science fictional core of the novel, is some deft characterization, plotting, and story pacing. Another element of the story that Higgins evoked very powerfully was claustrophobia – both in terms of the confined atmosphere of the space vessel and the urgency of the timing of everything. Althea is under a very imposing deadline to repair the computers of two space vessels and Ida is feeling a great deal of internal pressure from her own superiors to prove that Ivanov and Mattie are connected to the terrorist Mallt-y-Nos. Even if there isn’t a xemomorph hunting the crew of Ananke the way one hunted the crew of the Nostromo, Higgins captures that same claustrophobic, confined feeling just as well.

Favorite Backlist / Book Not Published in 2015 Read in 2015

As I said earlier, I started an audible subscription this year.  One of those audio standouts was Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, the first audio book I snagged with my audible subscription and the bar was set very high.

George R.R. Martin proclaimed when he stated that Station Eleven was his favorite book from 2014, it is a book that shouldn’t work. The structure is not linear, it veers all over the place and doesn’t make itself immediately clear how everything is connected. That perceived barrier is what makes this such a strong and powerful novel because Mandel so skillfully weaves these narratives and left me at each seeming halting of a specific narrative wanting so much more. So I continued with the “new” narrative in the hopes of coming to a connection point between the seemingly separate narratives only to be fully engrossed in that “new” narrative. Or, in other words, I was wrapped up in what was happening to Kirsten only for Mandel to switch over to a narrative featuring Leander’s first wife Miranda and found myself equally enwrapped in her story. … Station Eleven is also a story about the power of art and how humanity will continue to express and be mystified by art. This couldn’t be more evident with an actor dying on stage or another protagonist as a player in the Traveling Symphony. ….or where the novel gets its title, from a comic book / graphic novel titled Station Eleven depicting humanity in space as a result of a ravaged earth. We see both the creative process and energy that went into the creation of the comic book as well as its long-ranging effects as Kirsten carries a copy around as both a comfort read and remembrance of the World Before. Like the Traveling Symphony itself performing King Lear as Arthur died performing the same play, the graphic novel Station Eleven is a great mirror with which to compare the novel itself.

I also loved the The Dresden Files installment from last year, Skin Game, The Martian by Andy Weir, and the second installment of Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War sequence, Marque and Reprisal. She's publishing a new installment in that milieu this year so I'd like to read through the last three in the five book series. I didn’t do a formal review of these books but that is no indication of my lack of enjoyment. Both were great. Another audio book I thoroughly enjoyed was from an author I’ve been following and friendly with on twitter for a while, Miserere by Teresa Frohock.

Lucian Negru, a Katharoi, is a disgraced (or fallen) exorcist in Woerld; one of four parallel worlds and specifically, Heaven’s primary “defensive line” between Earth and Hell. He is living on the proverbial leash of his twin sister Catarina, a dark sorceress looking to help the demon Mastema take over the known worlds. When she was at the gates of Hell years prior to the events of the novel, Lucian forsook his oaths as a man of god and to Rachel, the women he loved, in the hope that he could save his sister’s life and bring salvation to her soul. That didn’t quite work out completely, because although Catarina’s life was saved, her soul was tainted. For sixteen years, Catarina has continued to ask Lucian to open the Hellgates, despite his continued refusal. She begs him to constantly heal her wounds, which he does, but she mentally abuses him, and with some help, physically abuses him over those years leaving him a cripple with an unhealed leg. … Miserere is a novel of devotion, faith, god, demons, angels, and love. The novel utilizes Christian imagery and myth, but throughout the novel, it does not proselytize. Christian myth and biblical imagery provide the backdrop/world-building and it is handled beautifully through the characters, their actions, and the affect of the world(s) on the characters. One other thing I appreciated was the gender flip Frohock employed in the novel. When there is an abusive relationship between man and woman, the default dichotomy is for the man to be the abuser, the woman the victim. With Lucian and Catarina, Catarina is most definitely the abuser and Lucian the broken one who struggles to both remain in the relationship (for 16 years) and finally, with great difficulty and little outside assistance leaves the relationship. As the remainder of the narrative demonstrates, Lucian has a great deal of internal strength; he is saved as much by Rachel and Lindsay as he saves them both.

MVP Author of 2015

The criteria here is based solely on books published..since there a handful of authors who had high profile media adaptations release this year (ahem Andy Weir, James S.A. Corey). So, for me, here's what made this author my MVP author of 2015...

I tried to narrow this down to one author, but found that a difficult task. So, I'm going to mention two and whether you want to call them co-MVPs or MVP and first runner up, that's up to you. MVP and runner-up seems OK. Then again, in 1979 the National League MVP was awarded to two baseball players. Either way, both authors deserve special mention. The first is based on how much I thoroughly enjoyed what I read from her, so let's do this.

One author published five books this year, two of which I read. The two novels I read each launched a new series, she published a retrospective of her short fiction and a few short novels/novellas set in her existing worlds. This author was also a guest on many podcasts I listened to over the course of the year and was a wonderful voice, both from a fictional storytelling perspective and also from an Important Voice for the Genre standpoint.

Kate Elliott

As I said above, Black Wolves was one of my favorite novels of the year, a novel that has me very eager to dive into her backlist. Elliott’s young adult debut, Court of Fives was a stunning novel, too. I recommended it to a cousin on facebook after she was looking for something new to read and she was blown away by it. I'd mentioned before (early last year and as far back as 2013) that I wanted to revisit Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series and finally began the first volume, King's Dragon, in the waning days of 2015 and I'm loving it. I'm likely not going to post a "Anticipated Reading" post for 2016, but chances are I'm going to be reading quite a bit of Kate Elliott in 2016 and perhaps dive into either Jaran or Crossroads trilogy (Crossroads is set in the same world as Black Wolves). 

Chuck Wendig

A very strong runner-up/co-MVP is Chuck Wendig as he was nearly as impossible to ignore for all the right reasons. Chuck published a dark, near future cyber-thriller, Zer0es, a new installment in his Miriam Black series, finished out The Harvest, his young adult series, with The Heartland, self published the second Mookie Pearl novel, The Hellsblood Bride, after some build-up helped to launch a flagship comic book title (The Shield from Dark Circle Comics), and oh yeah, published Aftermath the flagship title in the lead up to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I only read two of the books and the comic and enjoyed them a great deal. Chuck bore a majority of the brunt of the Sad Banthas © John Kovalic (Star Wars “fans” who are extremely vocal about their anger over everything they judge as “incorrect” in Star Wars since the Disney buy-out) and came out better for it.

So that's my wrap-up of what I read in 2015.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2015-05-30)

At this point, this would be about an average week of arrivals, since there seems to be an uptick in recent weeks. Anything her you, my fine readers, fancy?


Blood of the Cosmos (Saga of Shadows #2) and Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Hardcover 06/02/2015) - Second installment of Anderson’s Saga of Shadows series the first of which was shortlisted for the Hugo Award. This series itself is a sequel to the Saga of the Seven Suns series. This is the first book of either series I’ve received.

Blood of the Cosmos: the second book in Kevin J. Anderson's Saga of Shadows trilogy.
An epic space opera of the titanic conflict of several galactic civilizations against a life-destroying force of shadows, a dark cosmic force that has swept through the undercurrents of the human interstellar empire.

The intertwined plots, overflowing with colorful ideas, a large cast of characters, and complex storylines, span dozens of solar systems, alien races, and strange creatures.

As the second book of the trilogy opens, the humans and Ildirans, having narrowly escaped annihilation at the hands of the Shana Rei and their robot allies in Book One, are desperate to find a way to combat the black cloud of antimatter of the Shana Rei. The mysterious alien Gardeners, who had helped them previously, turn out to be a disaster in disguise and because of them, the world tree forests are again in danger. The allies believing they have found a way to stop their dreaded enemies, a new weapon is tested, but it's a horrible failure, throwing the human race and its allies to the brink of extinction.

Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey (Orbit Books June 2015) – The Expanse is consistently my favorite space-based science fiction series, with each book landing on my top reads of the year. Cibola Burn was a bit of a game changer for the series – in a good way for a series that was already quite good.

The fifth novel in James S.A. Corey's New York Times bestselling Expanse series--now being produced for television by the SyFy Channel

A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle

Ships are disappearing without a trace. Private armies are being secretly formed. The sole remaining protomolecule sample is stolen. Terrorist attacks previously considered impossible bring the inner planets to their knees. The sins of the past are returning to exact a terrible price

And as a new human order is struggling to be born in blood and fire, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante must struggle to survive and get back to the only home they have left.

Tin Men by Christopher Golden (Ballantine Hardcover, 06/23/2015) – Much of Golden’s oeuvre lies in the darker, fantastic realms of Speculative Fiction. This one is a slight directional change into a Military SF/Apocalyptic tale. I’ve read a book or two by him and I’ve always wanted to go back and read more. This is the final/finished copy of the ARC I received in March.

Brad Thor meets Avatar in this timely thriller for the drone age as award-winning author Christopher Golden spins the troubles of today into the apocalypse of tomorrow.

After political upheaval, economic collapse, and environmental disaster, the world has become a hotspot, boiling over into chaos of near apocalyptic proportions. In this perpetual state of emergency, all that separates order from anarchy is the military might of a United States determined to keep peace among nations waging a free-for-all battle for survival and supremacy.

But a conflict unlike any before demands an equally unprecedented fighting force on its front lines. Enter the Remote Infantry Corps: robot soldiers deployed in war zones around the world, controlled by human operators thousands of miles from the action. PFC Danny Kelso is one of these “Tin Men,” stationed with his fellow platoon members at a subterranean base in Germany, steering their cybernetic avatars through combat in the civil-war-ravaged streets of Syria. Immune to injury and death, this brave new breed of American warrior has a battlefield edge that’s all but unstoppable—until a flesh-and-blood enemy targets the Tin Men’s high-tech advantage in a dangerously game-changing counter strike.

When anarchists unleash a massive electromagnetic pulse, short-circuiting the world’s technology, Kelso and his comrades-in-arms find themselves trapped—their minds tethered within their robot bodies and, for the first time, their lives at risk.

Now, with rocket-wielding “Bot Killers” gunning for them, and desperate members of the unit threatening to go rogue, it’s the worst possible time for the Tin Men to face their most crucial mission. But an economic summit is under terrorist attack, the U.S. president is running for his life, and the men and women of the 1st Remote Infantry Division must take the fight to the next level—if they want to be the last combatants standing, not the first of their kind to fall forever.




Lightless by C.A. Higgins (Del Rey Hardcover 09/25/2015) –This is another impressive looking SF debut, this time from the fine folks at Del Rey Books.

The deeply moving human drama of Gravity meets the nail-biting suspense of Alien in this riveting science fiction debut. With bold speculation informed by a degree in astrophysics, C. A. Higgins spins an unforgettable “locked spaceship” mystery guaranteed to catapult readers beyond their expectations—and into brilliantly thrilling new territory.

Serving aboard the Ananke, an experimental military spacecraft launched by the ruthless organization that rules Earth and its solar system, computer scientist Althea has established an intense emotional bond—not with any of her crewmates, but with the ship’s electronic systems, which speak more deeply to her analytical mind than human feelings do. But when a pair of fugitive terrorists gain access to the Ananke, Althea must draw upon her heart and soul for the strength to defend her beloved ship.

While one of the saboteurs remains at large somewhere on board, his captured partner—the enigmatic Ivan—may prove to be more dangerous. The perversely fascinating criminal whose silver tongue is his most effective weapon has long evaded the authorities’ most relentless surveillance—and kept the truth about his methods and motives well hidden.

As the ship’s systems begin to malfunction and the claustrophobic atmosphere is increasingly poisoned by distrust and suspicion, it falls to Althea to penetrate the prisoner’s layers of intrigue and deception before all is lost. But when the true nature of Ivan’s mission is exposed, it will change Althea forever—if it doesn’t kill her first.


Nova by Margaret Fortune (DAW Hardcover 06/09/2015) – This is Fortune’s debut novel. If I’m not mistaken, when I was at the Tor.com meet-up last September, I think this book came up in conversation with some folks quite favorably. This looks good and impressive that an SF debut is publishing in hardcover.

36:00:00*

The clock activates so suddenly in my mind, my head involuntarily jerks a bit to the side. The fog vanishes, dissipated in an instant as though it never was. Memories come slotting into place, their edges sharp enough to leave furrows, and suddenly I know. I know exactly who I am.

My name is Lia Johansen, and I was named for a prisoner of war. She lived in the Tiersten Internment Colony for two years, and when they negotiated the return of the prisoners, I was given her memories and sent back in her place.

And I am a genetically engineered human bomb.

Lia Johansen was created for only one purpose: to slip onto the strategically placed New Sol Space Station and explode. But her mission goes to hell when her clock malfunctions, freezing her countdown with just two minutes to go. With no Plan B, no memories of her past, and no identity besides a name stolen from a dead POW, Lia has no idea what to do next. Her life gets even more complicated when she meets Michael Sorenson, the real Lia’s childhood best friend.

Drawn to Michael and his family against her better judgment, Lia starts learning what it means to live and love, and to be human. It is only when her countdown clock begins sporadically losing time that she realizes even duds can still blow up. If she wants any chance at a future, she must find a way to unlock the secrets of her past and stop her clock. But as Lia digs into her origins, she begins to suspect there’s far more to her mission and to this war, than meets the eye. With the fate of not just a space station but an entire empire hanging in the balance, Lia races to find the truth before her time—literally—runs out.

The Banished of Muirwood (Covenant of Muirwood Book 1)by Jeff Wheeler (47North Trade Paperback 08/18/2015) – Wheeler has been spinning tales in his Muirwood milieu for man years, this is his latest and seems a decent entry point for new readers.

n a stand-alone series set in the world of Muirwood, eighteen-year-old Maia is the exiled princess of Comoros and heir to the throne. As a result of her father’s ceaseless need for authority, she was left disinherited and forced to live as a servant in her enemy’s home. When the king invites chaos into the land by expelling the magical order known as the Dochte Mandar, Maia finds herself on a perilous quest to save her people. To survive, she must use magic she has learned in secret—despite the fact that women are forbidden to control it. Hunted by enemies at every turn, Maia realizes that danger lurks within her, too. Her powers threaten to steal not only her consciousness but also her sense of right and wrong. Can she set herself free and save the realm she loves—even if that realm has forgotten her?

Anticipated Reading: A Baker's Dozen of Books for 2015

In the past, I’ve lumped in a list of forthcoming books publishing in the calendar year with my wrap up of the previous years. This time around, I decided to go with a post of its own to highlight some books I am looking forward to reading. Of course I give the caveat that reading plans are far from things set in stone by any biblioholic like myself. Furthermore, I am not including books I don’t have yet like Elizabeth Bear’s Karen Memory or Dave Bara’s Impulse which I already have in ARC form and will be reviewing in time for the publication dates of those books.

Without further ado here’s a baker’s dozen worth of books publishing in 2015 I look forward to reading…

Gemini Cell by Myke Cole (Ace January 2015) – I loved the first three books in his Shadow OPS series (Control Point, Fortress Frontier, Breach Zone) which formed a loose trilogy. This one takes a step back in the action to the days of the Great Reawakening; essentially the foundational time for the milieu.

Myke Cole continues to blow the military fantasy genre wide open with an all-new epic adventure in his highly acclaimed Shadow Ops universe—set in the early days of the Great Reawakening, when magic first returns to the world and order begins to unravel…

US Navy SEAL Jim Schweitzer is a consummate professional, a fierce warrior, and a hard man to kill. But when he sees something he was never meant to see on a covert mission gone bad, he finds himself—and his family—in the crosshairs. Nothing means more to Jim than protecting his loved ones, but when the enemy brings the battle to his front door, he is overwhelmed and taken down.

That should be the end of the story. But Jim is raised from the dead by a sorcerer and recruited by a top secret unit dabbling in the occult, known only as the Gemini Cell. With powers he doesn’t understand, Jim is called back to duty—as the ultimate warrior. As he wrestles with a literal inner demon, Jim realizes his new superiors are determined to use him for their own ends and keep him in the dark—especially about the fates of his wife and son

The Skull Throne by Peter Brett (Del Rey March 2015) – I have really enjoyed the three books Peat has published in the Demon Cycle series for its mix of old school high fantasy with some more modern sensibility (The Painted Man, The Desert Spear, and The Daylight War).

Following up on the internationally bestselling The Warded Man, The Desert Spear, and The Daylight War, Peter V. Brett continues his critically acclaimed epic fantasy Demon Cycle series that will appeal to fans of Terry Brooks, George R.R. Martin, David Eddings, and Robert Jordan.

Peter V. Brett has quickly established himself as one of the most successful new fantasy writers working today. Readers have embraced his world and his characters with a fervor, and his third and most recent novel hit the New York Times bestseller list in hardcover. Now he continues his epic series in grand style, offering the continuing stories of all the POV characters we have come to know and love, as well as adding several new ones into the mix.

Providence of Fire by Brian Staveley (Tor January 2015) – I was a little late to the game on Staveley’s debut, The Emperor’s Blades, which I thoroughly enjoyed and what I’ve heard about what happens in this one has me very excited to dive into it.

Brian Staveley's Providence of Fire, the second novel in the Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, a gripping new epic fantasy series.

The conspiracy to destroy the ruling family of the Annurian Empire is far from over.

Having learned the identity of her father's assassin, Adare flees the Dawn Palace in search of allies to challenge the coup against her family. Few trust her, but when she is believed to be touched by Intarra, patron goddess of the empire, the people rally to help her retake the capital city. As armies prepare to clash, the threat of invasion from barbarian hordes compels the rival forces to unite against their common enemy.

Unknown to Adare, her brother Valyn, renegade member of the empire's most elite fighting force, has allied with the invading nomads. The terrible choices each of them has made may make war between them inevitable.

Between Valyn and Adare is their brother Kaden, rightful heir to the Unhewn Throne, who has infiltrated the Annurian capital with the help of two strange companions. The knowledge they possess of the secret history that shapes these events could save Annur or destroy it.

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor (Saga Press July 2015) – I realize this was published in the UK a while back, but the Wizard helming SAGA PRESS Joe Monti is making this one available to US readers. 

It’s up to a famous rapper, a biologist, and a rogue soldier to handle humanity’s first contact with an alien ambassador—and prevent mass extinction—in this novel that blends magical realism with high-stakes action.

After word gets out on the Internet that aliens have landed in the waters outside of the world’s fifth most populous city, chaos ensues. Soon the military, religious leaders, thieves, and crackpots are trying to control the message on YouTube and on the streets. Meanwhile, the earth’s political superpowers are considering a preemptive nuclear launch to eradicate the intruders. All that stands between 17 million anarchic residents and death is an alien ambassador, a biologist, a rapper, a soldier, and a myth that may be the size of a giant spider, or a god revealed.

Cold Iron by Stina Leicht (Saga Press June 2015) – Another book in the Saga Press launch as part of Joe Monti’s plan to take over the SFF publishing world. I missed out on Stina’s series from Nightshade, so I’m very much looking forward to this one.

Fraternal twins Nels and Suvi move beyond their royal heritage and into military and magical dominion in this flintlock epic fantasy debut from a two-time Campbell Award finalist.

Prince Nels is the scholarly runt of the ancient Kainen royal family of Eledore, disregarded as flawed by the king and many others. Only Suvi, his fraternal twin sister, supports him. When Nels is ambushed by an Acrasian scouting party, he does the forbidden for a member of the ruling family: He picks up a fallen sword and defends himself.

Disowned and dismissed to the military, Nels establishes himself as a leader as Eledore begins to shatter under the attack of the Acrasians, who the Kainen had previously dismissed as barbarians. But Nels knows differently, and with the aid of Suvi, who has allied with pirates, he mounts a military offensive with sword, canon, and what little magic is left in the world.

The Hellsblood Bride by Chuck Wendig (Angry Robot March 2015) - I loved the first Mookie Pearl novel, The Blue Blazes. Of it, I said, “It may be reductive to do the whole combine-and-compare thing, but think one part Hellboy, one part Mathew Stover, one part Big Trouble in Little China, and throw in a dash of The Sopranos, the film The Wrestler and pulp sensibilities, and you might have an idea of what a great stew of fun this novel really is.” Also, just look at that awesome cover, right?

Yes, we’re going back deep underground for another twelve rounds with Mookie Pearl.

Father, barkeep, former Mafioso, ruler of his subterranean crime-kingdom. The Organization is back, and they’ll do anything to get Mookie on board, but Mookie has gone legit, and it’s taking every ounce of effort for him to keep his new bar from crashing and burning.

To top it all, his daughter is missing, and when Nora’s not in plain sight, that’s usually a sign of bad things to come! On one hand, the Organization. On the other, Nora.

Why can’t Family ever be easy..?

Nemesis Game by James S.A. Corey (Orbit Books June 2015) - The Expanse is consistently my favorite space-based science fiction series, with each book landing on my top reads of the year. Cibola Burn was a bit of a game changer for the series – in a good way for a series that was already quite good.

The fifth novel in James S.A. Corey's New York Times bestselling Expanse series--now being produced for television by the SyFy Channel!

A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle.

Ships are disappearing without a trace. Private armies are being secretly formed. The sole remaining protomolecule sample is stolen. Terrorist attacks previously considered impossible bring the inner planets to their knees. The sins of the past are returning to exact a terrible price.

And as a new human order is struggling to be born in blood and fire, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante must struggle to survive and get back to the only home they have left.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Del Rey June 2015) – I thoroughly enjoyed the first few books (His Majesty’s Dragon) of Novik’s Temeraire series by admittedly, my interest waned as the series continued. This is a fresh new world and looks to be a modern twist on a Fair Tale.

Naomi Novik, author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed Temeraire novels, introduces a bold new world rooted in folk stories and legends, as elemental as a Grimm fairy tale.

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Empire Ascendant by Kameron Hurley (Angry Robot October 2015) – I don’t know much about what will be happening in the second book of Hurley’s Worldbreaker saga, but all I need to know is that it is the second book in the series and follow-up to The Mirror Empire.

The Spider’s War by Daniel Abraham (Orbit Books June 2015) – The concluding volume of the fantastic Dagger and the Coin series. - The epic conclusion to The Dagger and The Coin series, perfect for fans of George R.R. Martin.

Lord Regent Geder Palliako's great war has spilled across the world, nation after nation falling before the ancient priesthood and weapon of dragons. But even as conquest follows conquest, the final victory retreats before him like a mirage. Schism and revolt begin to erode the foundations of the empire, and the great conquest threatens to collapse into a permanent war of all against all.

In Carse, with armies on all borders, Cithrin bel Sarcour, Marcus Wester, and Clara Kalliam are faced with the impossible task of bringing a lasting peace to the world. Their tools: traitors high in the imperial army, the last survivor of the dragon empire, and a financial scheme that is either a revolution or the greatest fraud in the history of the world.

Fool’s Quest (Fitz and the Fool Trilogy #2) by Robin Hobb (Del Rey August 2015) – Considering Fool’s Assassin was the most enjoyable reading experience I had in 2014, this one is very, VERY high on my anticipation list.

Ranking alongside George R. R. Martin as a groundbreaking master of fantasy, New York Times bestselling author Robin Hobb delivers the second book in her long-awaited Fitz and the Fool trilogy. After a devastating confrontation, FitzChivalry Farseer is out for blood—and who better to wreak havoc than a highly trained former royal assassin?

The Black Wolves by Kate Elliott (Orbit Books July 2015) – A new series from Elliott who writes some of the strongest opening volumes in fantasy.

SOME CHOICES CAN NEVER BE UNDONE.

He lost his honor long ago.

Captain Kellas was lauded as the king's most faithful servant until the day he failed in his duty. Dismissed from service, his elite regiment disbanded, he left the royal palace and took up another life.

Now a battle brews within the palace that threatens to reveal deadly secrets and spill over into open war. The king needs a loyal soldier to protect him.

Can a disgraced man ever be trusted? 

The Prince of Valor by Django Wexler (Roc July 2015) – I read the first two Shadow Campaigns novels last year and thought The Shadow Throne was awesome.

In the latest Shadow Campaigns novel, Django Wexler continues his "epic fantasy of military might and magical conflict" following The Shadow Throne and The Thousand Names, as the realm of Vordan faces imminent threats from without and within.

In the wake of the King’s death, war has come to Vordan.

The Deputies-General has precarious control of the city, but it is led by a zealot who sees traitors in every shadow. Executions have become a grim public spectacle. The new queen, Raesinia Orboan, finds herself nearly powerless as the government tightens its grip and assassins threaten her life. But she did not help free the country from one sort of tyranny to see it fall into another. Placing her trust with the steadfast soldier Marcus D’Ivoire, she sets out to turn the tide of history.

As the hidden hand of the Sworn Church brings all the powers of the continent to war against Vordan, the enigmatic and brilliant general Janus bet Vhalnich offers a path to victory. Winter Ihernglass, newly promoted to command a regiment, has reunited with her lover and her friends, only to face the prospect of leading them into bloody battle.

And the enemy is not just armed with muskets and cannon. Dark priests of an ancient order, wielding forbidden magic, have infiltrated Vordan to stop Janus by whatever means necessary...

                                                                                                                                                       

It seems the past few years I’ve gone and done a re-read of a series or a re-read/catch-up of a series. Last year it was Memory, Sorrow and Thorn by Tad Williams, the year before that, David Anthony Durham’s Acacia, and the year before that it was Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet and for a couple of years before that I re-read & caught up with The Wheel of Time and as a refresher for A Dance of Dragons and Game of Thrones premiering on HBO, I re-read A Song of Ice and Fire.

In 2015, the series that most likely will fall into this category is Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars series. As I intimated above, I loved the first book King’s Dragon when I first read it years ago and enjoyed each subsequent volume of the series but, as I’ve written previously, the onslaught of review books over the years kept pushing this series away from my grasp. 

So as of this post, I’ve given myself 20 books to read next year, which will account for about 1/3 of what I’ll likely read.

I’ll close out by saying that I am also VERY much looking forward to Saga Press entering the genre marketplace. 

Strike that, a final postscript: my primary source Locus Online’s Forthcoming books so a couple of books I might otherwise include in this post aren’t on Locus’s list (i.e. Joe Hill’s The Fireman and Robert Jackson Bennett’s City of Blades don’t have US dates listed)