February 2016 Reading: Elliott, Schwab, Gannon, Sutter, & Akers

February was a short month, but longer than usual as it was a Leap Year (yay!) and like every month for the past forever, I read a handful of books. I'll cover the books I didn't review in more detail than those I did.  I’ve been much more inclined to pick off books from the older slopes of Mount Toberead as of late than the Newer Releases. 

That said I did post a couple of book reviews in February, the first of which was for Tim Akers’s The Pagan Night, posted to SF Signal at the beginning of February. I thought this one had some good ideas, but ultimately was weighed down by an overly bulky middle and a muddling of secondary characters. Loved the monsters Tim created for this Historical Epic Fantasy.

From there I jumped into Trial by Fire the second installment in Charles Gannon’s Terran Empire series. This is a fun space opera saga that is leaning towards Military Science Fiction as the series progresses. 

Fun stuff, great aliens and Gannon mixes traditional SF with modern sensibilities quite nicely. His characters feel real, for the most part, and behave in a plausible fashion in the galactic society he’s constructed for this series.

 My only real complaint with this one is that the protagonist, Caine Riordan, seems to not feature in the book quite as prominently as he did in Fire with Fire. This book was sitting on Mount Toberead for quite a while, I picked up at the Baen Books booth back at New York Comic Con in October 2014.

I listened to two audio books in February, one of which was James L. Sutter’s Akers’s Death’s Heritic which I thoroughly enjoyed. More about that one at the link to my review, but I’ll again stress that an excellent story and a superb narrator make for a great story experience.

That story + narrator combination was full effect in V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic, the audio book which kept my ear-holes happy for the early part of February. A couple of years ago, I read Schwab’s Vicious which is one of the best superhero (supervillain) prose stories I’ve ever read. For A Darker Shade of Magic, Schwab turns her pen to a mix of magic and parallel worlds. As a long time comic book reader, I love parallel world stories and what Schwab with the concept is fantastic. Schwab’s concept of a magical multiverse is, if not exactly a new concept, but one that feels very fresh in how magic exists in each of the parallel worlds.

The characters were very well drawn, Kell as a pressured and roguish magician who can travel between worlds. Delilah (Lila) Bard is his co-protagonist, well initially she felt like a sidekick, but grew as the story grow. I also was slightly annoyed by her at first, but Schwab did a wonderful job of endearing the character to me by the end of the novel.

Steven Crossley is the narrator for this audio version and he’s got a very pleasant style. His narration, combined with Schwab’s at times poetic and lyrical storytelling, made me feel as if I was listening to a Dr. Seuss story. This is not a bad thing.

Continuing with my re-read and catch-up of Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars series, I stormed through Prince of Dogs. Elliott does such great things with the characters in this one, introducing a couple of new players and continuing a Robin Hobb-esque method of torturing her characters. I’m glad I still have five more books to read in this series because this is such a fun, comfortable, and enjoyable series that hits every one of my check-boxes for epic fantasy. I’m still debating if I’m going to do a full write-up of each book in the series.

Yes, that is my copy signed

  

I loved the new character of Rosvita, especially her interactions with Liath and how she comes to an understanding of the events unfolding around her. I hope Rosvita sticks around and becomes more involved because she feels like an important person. Of course, to counter her wonderful appearance is the return of a character from King’s Dragon who was thought to be gone.

Next up was an impressive debut novel, Katherine Bonesteel’s The Cold Between. I’ll be posting my review of this one on the day it publishes (March 8), but I’ll just say right now that I was impressed with the book and Bonesteel’s novel.

January 2016 Reading: Bennett, Elliott, Bear, Kemp, Correia, & Lyle

January has ended and I read a handful of books during the months. I reviewed Robert Jackson Bennett’s City of Blades, the second installment of his soon-to-be landmark Divine Cities epic fantasy series.

As for what I haven’t reviewed, at the start of the year I began my long anticipated re-read (books 1-4) and finish off Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars series with the Nebula nominated first book in the series King’s Dragon. In short, I loved the book, and have much more to say on it. I am thinking of doing a write up of the series as I re-read books 1-4 and as it looks now, I may be doing one book per month. I really like the feel of this world and was pulled along.  I am very excited to continue with this series, the next of which is Prince of Dogs. 

After finishing off King’s Dragon, I dove into Elizabeth Bear’s Dust, a very fascinating take on the generational starship story. Bear always brings a wonderful voice to whatever she writes and this novel from a few years ago (2008) is no exception. It felt as much like a fantasy story with the religion that grew out of long years on the ship.

Although I began listening to the book at the end of December (my audible credit becomes available to me on the 24th of each month), Paul S. Kemp’s thrilling Star Wars novel Lords of the Sith (as read by with gusto and pacing by Jonathan Davis) accompanied me on my commute to and from work and other drives for the first couple weeks of the month. 

I think Kemp did a fine job with Vader and his relationship to Palpatine. This story takes place between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, so Vader isn’t quite the feared monster in black he is when we first “meet” him on screen. I’d be pleased if Rogue One took some cues from this novel. There's still some lingering Anakin in Darth Vader in this story.

Although I haven't read every (or even half) of the Star Wars novels out there, I think the only other writer who capture Vader better was Matthew Stover in his novelization of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Next up was Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter: Alpha. I bought the omnibus o the first three Monster Hunter novels a couple of years ago for a steal at $6. Larry switched things up for the third installment of the Monster Hunter series, focusing on Earl Shackelford (as opposed to Owen Pitt) and switching to an omniscient third person narrative voice rather than Owen’s first person perspective. This was a helluva a lot of fun, so much so that before I even finished reading Monster Hunter: Alpha I bought Monster Hunter: Legion. I would really like to read more novels focused on Earl, maybe some of his earlier adventures. I was also lucky enough to snag a signed copy of

The next audio book I gave a try was/is Anne Lyle’s The Alchemist of Souls, her debut and the first installment of her Night’s Mask trilogy. Michael Page does a very good job with the narration, I like the variety of voices and inflections he brings to the story. The setting is great, but for reasons I can’t fully explain, the story isn’t completely holding my attention. It is by no means bad, but I think I’m going to take a break from it at the moment.

As the month ends, I’m in the middle of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising. Del Rey was giving away copies of this at New York Comic Con this past October (2015). I’ve seen so many great things about the book and for the most part, the book is crafted quite well. A good story, good setting, but I really feel like I’ve read this one before. I finished the book on Friday and wasn't too impressed with the book altogether.  It really felt like The Hunger Games with a male protagonist along with a dash of The Departed. 

Lastly, I began slowly poring over the pages of Volume III of The Annotated Sandman. This is a beast of a book. Leslie Klinger (who did fantastic work on the previous two volumes as well as an Annotated Dracula and volume of HP Lovecraft I own) continues to add layers and depth, from a storytelling perspective, to one of the deepest and richest stories any medium has seen.

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.

Friday Round-Up: Fletcher & Elliott @SFFWorld, October Mind Meld @SFSignal

Been a while since I rounded up my links o’ stuff, so this is going to be a longer post than usual but it has been a bit hectic at the o’ Stuff with the new (as of August) job with the big biannual meeting for my group falling squarely in the middle of the month.

The “oldest” thing since my last round-up is my review of Michael R. Fletcher’s Beyond Redemption, which might be the grimdarkiest grimdark novel to ever grimdark.

In Michael R. Fletcher’s Beyond Redemption, dreams, desires, and imagination manifest as reality and the unhinged are the most powerful, affecting the world most profoundly. Others can affect it in a more personal manner. For example, the character of Wichtig deems himself the Greatest Swordsman in the World. The more he says this, the more he believes it and gets others to believe it, the more true it becomes to the point an opponent refuses to fight Wichtig because of how Wichtig’s belief in himself has affected other people. At the apex of this world is the Konig Furimmer, high priest of the Geborene Damonen, a mad ruler who argues with his Doppels (magically created doubles) about his sanity and rule. Konig has one mad plan above all, to create a new God as all other gods have fallen out of favor. The key to Konig’s plan is that this boy – Morgen – must generate enough belief in his power and die purely so he can Ascend to god-hood.
…
Fletcher’s world has a very heavy Germanic influence, each of the titles and many of the proper names are evocative of the German language if not outright German worlds. There’s a thick layer of grime on Fletcher’s world that permeates everything, there is nothing nice or pretty about it. Even the young godling, initially idealistic, becomes a dark reflection of the world he inhabits. This evoked images of a world where, perhaps, Nazi Germany reigned over a continent it nearly destroyed, especially with the Konig’s far reaching plan of dominance. The plan to create a new God immediately drew comparisons toDune in my mind.

The very next day, my Mind Meld for November was posted, wherein I asked Andrew Leon Hudson, Stephenie Sheung (AKA @MMOGC), Richard Shealy (AKA @SheckyX), Michael R. Fletcher, Mark Yon, and Erin Lindsey the following question:

Q: Who is your favorite animal companion (pet, familiar, etc) in SFF?

Most recently (this week), my review of Kate Elliott’s Black Wolves, a book that was high on my list of anticipated titles and one that exceeded my expectations:

Kate Elliott’s Black Wolves launches a new series; a grand, sweeping epic featuring a fracturing dynasty beset by outside challenges and inside strife; committed honor-bound soldiers coming out of retirement; demons lurking behind the guises of humans; and maybe best of all, a force of protectors who bond with large eagles to protect the realm. At the center of this epic are Dannarah, princess and leader among those who bond to the eagles, and Kellas, a Black Wolf who has retired from his duty (mainly because the kings he protected are dead).
…
Black Wolves is a novel that is both remarkably dense (700+ pages), but deceptively fast paced and addictively readable. Elliott props societal structures either to polish them anew or dismantle them for their failings. Through Dannarah’s eyes, we see how problematic an organization can become when an inept organization can become when blind pride gets in the way. She is supremely devoted to the reves and sees power being unjustly pulled from underneath her and from what the eagles and the reves exemplify. When she is present for an injustice about to be perpetrated on Lifka, Dannarah does all in her power to save the girl and (literally) bring her under her wing.
...
the prevailing fantastical elements….well, the enormous eagles of course. There’s a bond between the reve (rider) and eagle that is not dissimilar to the dragon/rider relationship in Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels. The eagles “jess” potential reves to choose their rider and the two form a powerful lifetime bond (also similar to Naomi Novik’s dragons and their riders in her Temeraire series). There are also demons in this fully realized world although their true nature demons is somewhat muddled as they are secretive, hide behind human guises and are initially presented as enemies of humanity, but the hints peppered throughout the novel have me very intrigued about their true nature.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2015-11-07)

One of these will be my next read.

Ash and Silver (A Sanctuary Novel #2) by Carol Berg (Roc, Trade Paperback 12/01/2015) - Berg has been on my radar for a couple of years, even more so over the past couple of years. My friend Sarah Chorn, (has a blurb for book one in the front matter of this one!) raves about Berg, so maybe with the duology published, I’ll jump into them.

Navronne's brutal civil war has exposed corruption that could bring the once glorious kingdom to its knees, unless someone can be found to stop it. . .

Ever since the secretive Order of the Equites Cineré - the Knights of the Ashes - stole his memory, his name, and his heart, considering the past makes Greenshank's head ache. After two rigorous years of training he is ready to embrace the mission of the Order - to use selfless magic to heal Navronne's troubles. But on his first assignment, the past comes roaring back, threatening to drown him in conspiracy, grief, and murder. 

He is Lucian de Remeni - a sorcerer whose magical bents for portraiture and history threaten the safety of the earth and the future of the war-riven kingdom of Navronne. He just can't remember how or why. 

To untangle his missing past and a cryptic outsider’s plan for his future, Lucian must evade the brutal justice of elemental beings, solve a crime hidden in the depths of history, and locate a city beyond the boundaries of the human world . . .

Made to Kill by Adam Christopher (The L.A. Trilogy #1) - (Tor Hardcover 11/03/2015) – Christopher has a really impressive output and this one is a robot noir mystery. Sounds like it could be fun

It was just another Tuesday morning when she walked into the office--young, as I suspected they all might be, another dark brunette with some assistance and enough eye black to match up to Cleopatra. And who am I? I'm Ray, the world's last robot, famed and feared in equal measure, which suits me just fine--after all, the last place you'd expect to find Hollywood's best hit man is in the plain light of day.

Raymond Electromatic is good at his job, as good as he ever was at being a true Private Investigator, the lone employee of the Electromatic Detective Agency--except for Ada, office gal and super-computer, the constant voice in Ray's inner ear. Ray might have taken up a new line of work, but money is money, after all, and he was programmed to make a profit. Besides, with his twenty-four-hour memory-tape limits, he sure can keep a secret.

When a familiar-looking woman arrives at the agency wanting to hire Ray to find a missing movie star, he's inclined to tell her to take a hike. But she had the cold hard cash, a demand for total anonymity, and tendency to vanish on her own.

Plunged into a glittering world of fame, fortune, and secrecy, Ray uncovers a sinister plot that goes much deeper than the silver screen--and this robot is at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Made to Kill is the thrilling new speculative noir from novelist and comic writer Adam Christopher

Black Wolves by Kate Elliott (Orbit Books Trade Paperback 11/03/2015) – This one has been on my radar for quite some time as I’ve been reacquainting myself with Elliott’s fiction.

An exiled captain returns to help the son of the king who died under his protection in this rich and multi-layered first book in an action-packed new series. 

Twenty two years have passed since Kellas, once Captain of the legendary Black Wolves, lost his King and with him his honor. With the King murdered and the Black Wolves disbanded, Kellas lives as an exile far from the palace he once guarded with his life. 

Until Marshal Dannarah, sister to the dead King, comes to him with a plea-rejoin the palace guard and save her nephew, King Jehosh, before he meets his father's fate. 

Combining the best of Shogun and Marco Polo, Black Wolves is an unmissable treat for epic fantasy lovers everywhere.

Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles #8) by Kevin Hearne (Del Rey, Mass Market Paperback 01/26/2016) – I’ve enjoyed every installment of this series Hammered is blurbed don the front, but because I also really enjoyed Hounded, loved it and posted the Hexed, Tricked, and Hunted

Iron Druid Atticus O’Sullivan, hero of Kevin Hearne’s epic New York Times bestselling urban fantasy series, has a point to make—and then drive into a vampire’s heart.

When a Druid has lived for two thousand years like Atticus, he’s bound to run afoul of a few vampires. Make that legions of them. Even his former friend and legal counsel turned out to be a bloodsucking backstabber. Now the toothy troublemakers—led by power-mad pain-in-the-neck Theophilus—have become a huge problem requiring a solution. It’s time to make a stand.

As always, Atticus wouldn’t mind a little backup. But his allies have problems of their own. Ornery archdruid Owen Kennedy is having a wee bit of troll trouble: Turns out when you stiff a troll, it’s not water under the bridge. Meanwhile, Granuaile is desperate to free herself of the Norse god Loki’s mark and elude his powers of divination—a quest that will bring her face-to-face with several Slavic nightmares.

As Atticus globetrots to stop his nemesis Theophilus, the journey leads to Rome. What better place to end an immortal than the Eternal City? But poetic justice won’t come without a price: In order to defeat Theophilus, Atticus may have to lose an old friend.

Praise for Kevin Hearne and The Iron Druid Chronicles

“[The Iron Druid books] are clever, fast paced and a good escape.”—Jason Weisberger, Boing Boing

“Celtic mythology and an ancient Druid with modern attitude mix it up in the Arizona desert in this witty new fantasy series.”—Kelly Meding, author of Chimera

“Outrageously fun.”—The Plain Dealer, on Hounded

“Superb . . . plenty of quips and zap-pow-bang fighting.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review), on Hounded

“Exciting . . . [Atticus] is one of the best main characters currently present in the urban fantasy genre.”—Fantasy Book Critic, on Tricked

“Funny, razor-sharp . . . plenty of action, humor, and mythology.”—Booklist (starred review), on Shattered

Friday Round-Up: Kate Elliott @Tor.com, Chuck Wendig @SFFWorld, & @SFSignal Mind Meld

What? Two weeks in a row with a Friday Round-up? That’s what happens when a person gets a new job and also has three new pieces post in a week. I’ll start with the review that posted the afternoon after I posted last week’s Round-Up.

Kate Elliott’s Court of Fives is her first Young Adult novel, but far from her first novel. It shows, because it is a helluva novel and I want the next book now. Part of my review:

Elliott immediately thrusts the reader into Jes’ head and heart, and the result is a wonderful immersion in both familial love and the tensions at work within these relationships. Jes and her sisters adore their mother, and while they respect their father, they don’t know him nearly as well because he is often away, off leading armies. What makes this such an outstanding novel is Elliott’s experienced hand at revelation and building compelling characters. I was immediately drawn to Jes as a character, caught up in her plight and the story she had to tell. Much of the YA I’ve read is told from the first-person POV, and in adopting that narrative style, Elliott has placed a great deal of weight on Jessamy’s shoulders—we experience the entire story through her consciousness, and in this case, it works extremely well.

Court of Fives is a novel with very wide appeal, which benefits from a young, headstrong, and charismatic protagonist, a mythically-inspired setting that provides a fantastical spin on historical/classical antiquity (think ancient Egypt, Macedonia, and Rome), a strong base of well-rounded supporting characters, and the magnetic force of its dramatic tension, which kept this reader glued to the pages.

This past Tuesday, my review of Chuck Wendig’s gripping, dark near future SF Thriller Zer0es:

Chuck takes a look at a world Twenty Minutes into the Future and a group of hackers who are corralled by NSA Agent Hollis Cooper to do the NSA’s dirty work. They are Chance Dalton, picked up just as he was being beaten up by the football players he exposed as rapists; Aleena Kattan, DeAndre Mitchell, Wade Earthman, an old school hacker, and perhaps one of the most annoying characters I can recall encountering in SFF, Reagan Stolper. The hackers, who dub themselves zer0es, are brought to The Lodge to infiltrate America’s enemies, it is either that or serve time in prison so the choice is pretty easy. As the plot rolls along the zer0es form an odd bond, a second family almost. Working more closely together, something more frightening than they imagined becomes apparent.

…

The novel begins by introducing each character through their apprehension by Agent Cooper; here Chuck did a great job of making each of these characters unique and provided a solid foundation for their participation in the plot/story and later character development. Building on the solid base built for the characters, Wendig does a great job of revealing more depth to the characters, the backstory that led them to come together. He also mixes them up very nicely as they get to know each other and their pasts are revealed to each other (voluntarily or otherwise).

Lastly, my August Mind Meld posted. In it, I asked Paul Weimer, Jana Nyman, Joe Sherry, Lisa Rodgers, Jonah Sutton-Morse, Susan J. Morris, and Jason M. Hough about Author Comebacks, "Some authors publish a few titles and disappear, or move on to other things (comic book writing, tie-in writing, leaving publishing, etc) but you’d like to see more from them. So we asked this week’s panelists the following:"

Q: Who would you like to see make a comeback to writing original SFF fiction? What subgenre(s) or worlds would you hope they would write?

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)