2012 Reading Year in Review

I’ve done this for a few years now (2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006), so in order to maintain the middling credentials as a genre blogger/book reviewer I have, I'm doing it again for 2012.

As I have in the past, I’ll start with some stats… I read (or at least attempted to read) 73 books in 2012, 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. Many of those, 40, were new/2012 releases, but I have been trying to get back into some of the older stuff and the fact that nearly half of what I read was pre-2012 means I did just that.

In 2012, I posted 51 reviews to SFFWorld and 3 to Tor.com. Yeah, I became one of Tor.com's semi-regular book reviewers in 2012. I've got a couple of Tor.com reviews coming up in early 2013.

Aside from the regular gamut of current year releases, I did some major catching up with Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time in the lead up to the January 2013 release of A Memory of Light.  I also read through a quite a few books by Daniel Abraham, including The Long Price Quartet in addition to this two 2012 releases.

Here are some stats:

• 35 can be considered Fantasy
  
• 40 2012/current year releases
• 20 books by authors new to me
• 25 can be considered Science Fiction
• 6 can be considered 2011 debuts
  
• 3 can be considered Horror
• 14 Books by women (Not necessarily 12 different women because, for example, I read 4 total novels [one novel and an omnibus] by Rachel Aaron)

All that said, on to the categories for the 2012 … which I think I'll call the Stuffies. As I said last year, this isn’t a typical top 10 or 12 or anything, but whatever you want to call them, here are some categories for what I read in 2011 and what I put at the top of those categories.

Rob’s Favorite Fantasy Novel(s) Read in 2012

2012 was another strong year for Fantasy, with according to Locus Magazine, 215 Fantasy/Horror novels published in 2012. One thing I noticed, in addition to the debuts, was the number of novels which were second/third/etc. installments in ongoing series. This isn't rare, per say, rather the opposite.

With all of that having been said, as I've done in the past, I'll highlight the fantasy novels that stood out to me in 2012

The Troupe by Robert Jackson Bennett was not only the best fantasy novel I read in 2012, it is my favorite novel of the year, full stop. It was a powerful novel and I'd even rank it as one of the ten best I've read in the last decade:

Bennett’s style is both subtle and powerful, he doesn’t often beat the reader over the head with blatant imagery or themes. Rather, the hints and pieces he offers the reader work so effectively to build a collaborative engagement of conversation between writer and reader that it proves all the more powerful. We know there’s a big curtain and behind that curtain, lots of pieces and players are moving around while the performers in front of the curtain waive their hands for the audience. In that respect, Silenus’s Troupe is just the front for much larger events and performances, as well as intimate movements and emotions.
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Throughout my experience with The Troupe I felt echoes or resonances with a lot of fiction I’ve read or watched over the years that rang very True. Not that Mr. Bennett was repeating the cadence as much as he was adding to the overall song. Some of these resonances include the aforementioned Ray Bradbury, as well as Stephen King (thematically The Dark Tower and specifically Low Men in Yellow Coats), Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind, the television show Lost, among other elements. What Bennett cued into is the veneer that much more is going on behind the curtain than what the reader sees on the page or the audience sees on the stage – a grand chess match between powers people can’t comprehend, let alone even realize exist.

Daniel Abraham is the author I read the most this year, in terms of quantities of books.  If The Troupe was the best novel I read in 2012, then The King's Blood, book two of The Dagger and the Coin is hands down the best Epic Fantasy novel I read in 2012:

Abraham is doing something very fascinating with most of his characters, but the one which I find the most intriguing is Geder Palliako. Through the eyes of most of the other characters, he is cast in a negative light ranging from as insecure to immature manboy to a dark manipulator to a fool to a coward. Through Geder’s eyes, Abraham evokes a great deal of sympathy for his plight, that ultimately, Geder seems to be trying to do what is best for the Prince under his watch and the land the Prince rules through him. His motivations come across as plausible outgrowths, particularly the less-than-savory aspects of his persona – his frustration, his anger, his jealousy, and his inadequacies. I’m not sure quite what Abraham is building with Geder, it is possible he is being whittled into something of a Big Bad for the series. On those aspects, I find a great deal of similarity between Geder and Walter White of Breaking Bad. Both characters are initially meek and weak, both characters struggle to overcome their fears in what might not be the best of fashions, and through various developments grow out of that shadow into something much more menacing. An important stage in Geder’s development is his ultimate reaction to Killian as seen through the eyes of Cithrin.


The notes are familiar, they are successful; these notes are why readers return to the genre again and again. When those notes are struck well, with precision, and with a flair that is a slightly different, yet graceful, tone, then this symphony is wondrous to behold. With The King’s Blood, Daniel Abraham has achieved such a graceful symphony. There’s an excitement to reading a great novel in a genre you enjoy, the pages ratchet up the excitement for what’s come before and what it promises, this excitement is present in The King’s Blood. Every beat of Epic Fantasy that I wish to hear was struck in The King’s Blood and struck with an evocative quality that comes across as a perfect hybrid of inborn talent and precisely honed skills.

Rounding out my top three is a novel from an author whose short stories I've read, but prior to this novel, never any of her novels. The novel is Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear:

Set in a fantasized Middle-East, the novel centers on characters who are at the fringes of society: a young man who is the lone survivor of a vicious battle for succession that took the lives of many his family (Temur) and a young woman setting aside her royal lineage to assume the role of Sorceress (Samarkar). While Temur and Samarkar are the focal characters for much of the novel, fringe characters such as the tiger-woman (an outcast of her tribe) Hrahima or the woman with whom Temur initially bonds emotionally, Edene herself is part of a fringe society. These characters, despite and because of their ‘fringe’ status are powerful and persistent in their motivations and actions. Yeah, that’s right, Bear threw tiger people in as a race of characters, and though Hrahima is a minor character at the moment, through the other characters in the novel, Bear gives her a great sense of power and awe. I hope Bear explores this character in greater depth in future novels, as well as the society from which she comes


It is precise, engaging and powerful. Bear has packed the novel tightly with emotion, romance, characters who are believable and living, conflict both internal on a character level and external in physical battles, to such a degree that the wonder is in her ability to do so much in such a relatively small space. Bear balances the epic scale of gods in a fully realized and living cosmology as real beings with the intimate goals, feelings, and emotions of her human characters as magnificently as any writer plying their trade in fantasy today.

Other fantasies that really stood out to me were:

• Red Country by Joe Abercrombie - "Red Country is an exciting, entertaining novel; simply one of those books I could NOT put down. It helped me weather the blackout and power outage I experienced as a result of Hurricane Sandy. ... It isn’t clear what Joe will be writing next, but whatever it is, more stories in this world, a tale of Bayaz or frankly anything, I’ll be there. Red Country is easily a top book 2012 book for me."
• Shadow OPS: Control Point by Myke Cole - "On the whole; however, Control Point is a mostly tight novel that was much more thought-provoking and rewarding than I could have imagined. I keep questioning Britton’s actions, I sympathize with his emotions and I can’t come to a fully formed response of what I think his correct course of action would have been (or rather, what my course of action would have been) – rebel or go along with the system. "
• The Bones of the Old Ones by Howard Andrew Jones - "Let me get it out of the way, this book is one helluva an adventure. Flying carpets figure prominently in the novel, so what more do I need to mention? O.K. how about a possessed woman, a sorceress who seemingly does a turn of character, thrilling sword fights, giant bear-monsters, spirits and echoes of ancient heroes. Jones does a near pitch-perfect balancing act between character, action, backstory, and narrative flow."
• The Hammer and the Blade by Paul S. Kemp - "In Egil and Nix, he’s given readers possible long-distant cousins to Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser in that he’s got the large bruiser and short thief duo, as well as the banter between the two. Furthermore, one of the main areas in this world is known as the Low Bazaar, an obvious homage the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser story Bazaar of the Bizarre."
• King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence - "VERY good, more complex, perhaps more ambitious than Prince of Thorns. ... Still, I enjoyed it a great deal and if the finale, Emperor of Thorns can reach the same levels of excellence, craftsmanship, and imaginative storytelling as either of its predecessor, than I for one will be an extremely happy reader."
• Caine's Law by Matthew Stover - "Part of what was so great was seeing all the different versions of Caine Stover gave us and while each one was from a different timeline, the trademarks of his biting and uncompromising personality were on full display. It was also great to have another chance to treat with Ma’elKoth, Orbek and some of the other characters of Caine’s past novels."
• The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams - "What is intrigues me a great deal is the mythology/back-story that informs the ‘current time’ of the novel. The forces of Heaven and the representatives of Hell have the Milton-esque and biblical with more of a modern shell. ... I enjoyed The Dirty Streets of Heaven a great deal and I’m even more excited to see where Tad Williams takes Bobby Dollar in the next two installments."

Rob Favorite Science Fiction Novel(s) Read in 2012

I read a bit more SF in 2011 than in 2012, but the SF I read published in 2012 stood out a great deal.  Two of the three authors appeared in my top 3 for 2011.

David Brin is a living legend in the genre, but I've read very little by him (maybe a short here and there and The Postman).  The novel he published in 2012; however, stands out as my favorite SF novel published in 2012, Existence:

Although the world has suffered catastrophes, like the aforementioned war and a melting of polar ice caps, and changed drastically, Existence is not a dystopian novel even if it is set in a somewhat post-apocalyptic environment. Early on, one of the points Brin makes through his characters and the world-building is that people survive and persevere. Though bad things have happened, people will continue on and adjust. It is both a novel of ends and beginnings, a novel of first contact and a novel that approaches an answer to the question partially framed by the Fermi Paradox “Are we alone in the universe?”
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What worked very well for me in making this a believable future was Brin’s method of relaying the world through his characters not in huge dumps of information, though some elements of the ‘current’ world were divulged in sizeable chunks, but rather the inferences and casual mentions of the past events as if it were common knowledge.

Blackout is the final novel of The Newsflesh Trilogy, Mira Grant’s Zombie-Apocalypse trilogy. The second novel maintained the same tension and narrative power as the first and has set the bar high for the concluding volume. Here’s some of what I said about Blackout:

What Grant has done, in a narrative sense in Blackout, is truly enjoyable and fascinating. The point of view narration in the previous two volumes is indeed intact; however, Grant rotates the chapters with the only initial indication being blog quotes from the opposite perspective. That is, Becks is part of Sean’s narrative and when we see a blog quote from her, it signals a chapter from Georgia’s point of view. It’s a rather obvious trick, but still quite successful. I felt that Georgia’s voice in Feed was stronger than Shaun’s was in Deadline, but there’s more of a balance between the two here in Blackout.

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I enjoyed the random Zombie novel here and there, but when I read Feed I was totally blown away, which set the bar high for Deadline. That bar was met and with Blackout and the whole Newsflesh Trilogy, Mira Grant has completed what should be considered the quintessential Zombie narrative for the early 21st Century: it raises as many (maybe more) questions about identity, government conspiracies, sanity, science gone wrong, and surviving in a Crapsack World. I found it difficult to put these books aside for the annoying interruptions of life while reading them and highly recommend the trilogy, which stands very, very high on my list of completed series.

James S.A. Corey (AKA Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) round out my top 3 SF books with Caliban's War,  the second installment of The Expanse:

Although the war in the solar system came to something of a conclusion in Leviathan Wakes, tension and potential for greater conflict still exists. The events spinning out of James Holden’s actions on Eros are not without their repercussions. The MacGuffin of these books – the protomolecule – is now on Venus and being observed by the governments/military of both Mars and Earth while an Event on Ganymede similar to the vomit-zombies from the previous novel occurs. It is different enough to throw further speculation about the protomolecule’s nature and the group responsible for the Ganymede outbreak into rampant speculation.

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Conversely, the ascerbic Avasarala provides some snarky humor throughout. Her uncompromising attitude is balanced by her interactions with her family. There’s also a good deal of political weaving especially through her character as she interacts with people very high up in the solar system’s hierarchy including a particularly grin-inducing scene with one individual at the novel’s conclusion. I hope to see much more of her in this series as it progresses.

Other SF books that really stood out to me were;

• Arctic Rising by Tobias Buckell - "For an ecological action-thriller, Buckell more than proves he’s capable of delivering the goods. More impressively, he balances the action pieces with equal amounts of engaging character development and geopolitical intrigue. The novel is broken into short, engaging chapters that make it easy to pick up and difficult to put down as many chapters end in a sort of question/conflict that made me want to keep reading.."
• Seeds of Earth by Michael Cobley - "a vast-canvas galactic space opera that exemplifies the qualities readers so enjoy in this space opera renaissance – multi-planetary society, dependence on artificial intelligence, alien horde as the enemy, mystical/mysterious alien allies, colonization of humanity, and more importantly he uses these familiar ingredients in a way that is fresh. Cobley packs a lot of ideas and elements into the novel which flows fairly organically."
• The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier: Invincible - by Jack Campbell - "In the end, I found Invincible to be a very gripping read despite a couple of the minor flaws. It should satisfy long-time readers of the Campbell’s series and might even work as an entry point for new readers, though much of the character interaction is informed by their past as recounted in the previous seven novels."
• Katya's World by Jonathan L. Howard - "In the end, Howard has crafted an engaging, entertaining and thought-provoking novel. Though quite different in accoutrements from the other Strange Chemistry title I read (Blackwood), the same sense of wonder and overall flavor is present – quality story focused on youthful characters in a fantastically plausible setting. Another winner for the imprint.."

Rob's Favorite Debut(s) of 2012

My favorite debut of the year was from Ace books (as it was last year), Myke Cole’s Control Point, the first installment in his Military Fantasy series Shadow OPS which logically posits that if magic were real, then the military would weaponize it, attempt to control, and to codify it:

Myke Cole’s near future saga blends Urban Fantasy and Military Science Fiction, two branches of Speculative Fiction that don’t come together often. The Great Reawakening has taken place, magic is real as are the creatures out of fantasy and myth like goblins and Rocs. The military has permitted (and controls) schools of Elemental magic dealing with wind, fire, water, and earth control. Other ‘schools’ such as reanimating the dead and opening up portals for quick travel, are forbidden. Oscar manifests sorcerous powers in the forbidden school of magic – Portomancy, the ability to open portals allowing for instant transportation to any location. Due to the laws in place, he must immediately turn himself into the authorities. As an officer in the military responsible for bringing in those who manifest out of the public, Oscar has seen what happens to Latents, people such as himself, so he flees and becomes a fugitive.

Gwenda Bond is not unfamiliar to the genre crowd, she's written pieces for Publishers Weekly and Locus.  She's a terrific writer which is why Amanda Rutter and the folks behind the Strange Chemistry imprint were smart to maker her debut novel Blackwood the launch title for the imprint:

In Gwenda Bond’s debut novel Blackwood she takes the historical fact of the disappearance, fills in with some more history, and adds some conjecture of dark magic to the disappearance. All of that is in the background for most of the novel and instead Ms. Bond focuses her novel on Miranda Blackwood, a young lady who works for the local theater and cares for her drunk father, her mother having passed away long before the novel begins.
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Miranda often dropped the “frak” bomb when frustrated and references to other geek culture shows abounded. In other words, Miranda’s a girl on whom a younger version of myself might have had a crush. Bond did a very good job of making me root for both of these young kids and making them both outcasts who find common ground.

Rounding out my three stand out debut novels comes a novel from a writer who has made a name for himself  as a short story writer, Saladin Ahmed's Throne of the Crescent Moon:

Where Ahmed excels is with his protagonist, Doctor Adoulla Makhslood. He’s the type of guy you want to have as the ‘crotchety but cool uncle’ at the bar with you to share a drink or at your side should that bar-room brawl occur. We get in the head of Makhslood as he re-examines the decisions he’s made in the immediate past and ponders of how he should best proceed particularly with the Falcon Prince.
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The pacing is terrific, as it drew me into the characters heads, I felt the high stakes of the conflict and really wanted these people to succeed. DAW wrapped this enthralling novel with a bright, eye-catching cover by Jason Chan that very much captures the feel of the novel displaying the three primary protagonists fighting a horde of ghuls. Over the course of the novel, I felt resonance between Throne of the Crescent Moon and comic book superheroes, specifically Batman and towards the end, characters in Watchmen.

Favorite Backlist / Book Not Published in 2011 Read in 2012

I'll start off this section with an entire series, Daniel Abraham's Long Price Quartet, which published from 2006 to 2009 in single volumes and was re-released in 2012 in two omnibus volumes:

A Shadow in Summer has many elements in common with Abraham’s fantasy contemporaries – imagined world with echoes of our own, archaic governments that hearken to our past, hints of magic and non-human creatures. Where the novel (and series) differs is in how these elements play together in Abraham’s sandbox. The magic is subtle  ...  So, taking a bit of a step away from the first volume, (in A Betrayal in Winter) Daniel Abraham gives readers what is essentially a fantastically infused murder mystery set in the imagined city of Machi. Though the events in the previous volume were indeed climactic, Abraham’s story illustrates how far ranging the consequences of one’s actions can be.  ...  Abraham jumps another fourteen years between books at the beginning of An Autumn War, Otah is entrenched in his role as ruler trying to keep his nation together. While Otah is busy ruling, Maati spends much of his time in the novel reflecting. Abraham provides a vantage point into the world outside of the cities where the andat have such an impact. ... Even though the first three volumes were intimate and personal in that Abraham’s dealings with characters focused on a relative few characters compared to his genre contemporaries, the stakes increased with each book. The personal aspect; however, is even more strong in The Price of Spring as the feel of the novel comes through Otah and Maati, once friends and allies who have become ideological enemies and are no longer in the same land.

George R.R. Martin makes an appearance on another one of my wrap-up posts, this time for  his classic vampire novel Fevre Dream:

Six years earlier, Anne Rice published Interview with the Vampire and the superficial similarities between the two novels are hard to ignore – both take place in the south, with much of the action focused on a ‘gentleman vampire.’ One of the most fascinating elements to Rice’s Chronicles was the backstory/history of the vampires as a race. Martin does quite possibly a better job in one book with his vampires – we learn of the history of the vampire solely through Joshua’s voice. While this works to a large degree, I find it more successful than Rice’s history more for what is left unsaid and told for Rice left seemingly no stone unturned. A little bit of mystery is stronger than knowing the full scope in this case.

The final book here is Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia.  Sometimes a protagonist is a mirror image of the writer and it comes across as self indulgent or as the dreaded Gary Stu.  While some can say that about the protagonist Owen Pitt, for me, the novel was a blast and I could easily overlook such Gary Stu-ish qualities. I'm pleased that I've got the next two on my kindle in the omnibus edition waiting to be read:

Correia admits to being a fan of B-Movies featuring monsters and that love for such films transfers well to the page he clearly had a lot of fun writing the book. Who wouldn’t want to throw their boss out the window, beat up his dream-girl’s annoying boyfriend, have carte-blanche when it comes to fighting monsters, save the world and get the girl of his dreams on his arms after beating the Big Bad? These audacious elements blared out to me while I was reading the book and I didn’t care because I was having fun reading it.

Monster Hunter International was clearly a book that I was able to enjoy despite (and maybe because of) some of the bombastic elements that if thrown together without some skill, I would have easily dismissed. Another element that helped to make the novel enjoyable was how Correia depicted Owen interacting with his newbie squad and in particular the defacto head of MHI, Earl Harbinger. Where some of the character interaction felt a little less genuine were some of the scenes when Owen and Julie interacted.

MVP Author of 2012

Anybody who has been following my blog for the past year or knows me from the SFFWorld forums should find it as no surprise that this slot goes to…

Daniel Abraham

His 2011 collaboration with George R. R. Martin's assistant Ty Franck, Leviathan Wakes (the first installment of the Space Opera series The Expanse) was short-listed/ nominated for the Hugo Award and The Locus Award for best Science Fiction novel in 2012.  The second novel in that series, Caliban's War, published to nearly as much acclaim. The King's Blood, the second installment of his epic fantasy series The Dagger and the Coin published to rave reviews. and I would be surprised not to see it on awards ballots next year. His acclaimed Long Price Quartet was released in two omnibus volumes in 2012.  Abraham is writing/scripting the comic book/graphic novel adaptation of his friend George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. His urban fantasy series The Black Sun's Daughter hit UK bookshelves for the first time this year and his short fiction appeared in Gardner Dozois's 29th Annual Year's Best Science Fiction anthology.

Favorite ‘New To Me’ Author(s) of 2012

I did a wrap up this earlier in the year and I can't really say much has changed since then so I'll a couple:

Rachel Aaron – I enjoyed the heck out of her The Legend of Eli Monpress omnibus, I've read the fourth in the series - The Spirit War and the fifth/final - Spirt’s End - awaits to be plucked off of Mount Toberead. These are fun, entertaining fantasies that I think would appeal to readers who enjoy Scott Lynch.

Jim C. Hines – I’ve only read one book by him, Libriomancer, but it really stood out to me.  Jim is a smart writer, has one of the best author blogs in the genre, and I've got a few books of his sitting along the slopes of Mount Toberead. 

Favorite Publisher of 2012

For the second year in a row, I have to give the nod to…

Orbit Books

A quick look through of this post and it shouldn't be that great a surprise that Orbit Books is the publisher whose books I enjoy the most. For my reading time, no publisher produced books that worked as consistently from book-to-book for me. That is, on the whole, all the books I read published by Orbit worked for me in a big way.

This isn’t to say that other publishers didn’t publish great stuff I enjoyed, just that nothing I read from Orbit fell into the disappointment/clunker/meh category. I can't say the same for the other publishers whose books I read in 2011.

Looking Ahead to 2012

Another shot of Sully to close out the year as she ponders what's to come in 2013. Either that or she sees some deer.

What does 2013 bring?

• Season 3 of Game of Thrones
• Season 3.5 Walking Dead
• The final season of Breaking Bad
• Man of Steel
• The Hobbit (part 2)
• Thor 2
• Iron Man 3
• Shadow OPS: Fortress Frontier by Myke Cole
• The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett
• American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett
• A Memory of Light the final Wheel of Time (I'm a Memory Keeper for the Philadelphia signing!)
• Abaddon's Gate the second in James S.A. Corey's The Expanse
• The Tyrant's Law book 3 of Daniel Abraham's The Dagger and the Coin

Looks like a decent batch of major releases on the small screen, big screen, and page for me. Let's just hope some of it lives up to the hype.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2012-12-29)

The last full week of the year and the biggest book of 2013 arrives. Christmas was also this past week so not much else arrived.

Seven Kings (Books of the Shaper Volume 2) by John R. Fultz (Orbit Trade Paperback 01/25/2013) –Second installment of Fultz’s epic sword & sorcery saga, the first volume of which Seven Princes seemed to be a love-it-or-hate-it book.

In the jungles of Khyrei, an escaped slave seeks vengeance and finds the key to a savage revolution. 

In the drought-stricken Stormlands, the Twin Kings argue the destiny of their kingdom: one walks the path of knowledge, the other treads the road to war. 

Beyond the haunted mountains King Vireon confronts a plague of demons bent on destroying his family. 

Iardu the Shaper weaves history like a grand tapestry, spinning sorceries into a vision of apocalypse. 

Giants and Men march as one to shatter a wicked empire.

The fate of the known world rests on the swift blades of Seven Kings….

A Memory of Light < (The Final Volume of The Wheel of Time Novel, Book 14) by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor Hardcover 01/08/2013) – DO I really need to say anything about this book? As of this writing of this blog post, I’m on book 12, The Gathering Storm

Since 1990, when Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time® burst on the world with its first book, The Eye of the World, readers have been anticipating the final scenes of this extraordinary saga, which has sold over forty million copies in over thirty languages.

When Robert Jordan died in 2007, all feared that these concluding scenes would never be written. But working from notes and partials left by Jordan, established fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson stepped in to complete the masterwork. With The Gathering Storm (Book 12) and Towers of Midnight (Book 13) behind him, both of which were # 1 New York Times hardcover bestsellers, Sanderson now re-creates the vision that Robert Jordan left behind.

Edited by Jordan’s widow, who edited all of Jordan’s books, A Memory of Light will delight, enthrall, and deeply satisfy all of Jordan’s legions of readers.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass.

What was, what will be, and what is,

may yet fall under the Shadow.

Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.

The Dread (Book One of The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga) by Gail Z. Martin (Orbit Books Trade Paperback 01/08/2013) – Since Martin’s first novel, The Summoner published in 2007, this is her sixth published novel and first to break away from her earlier series.

Condemned as a murderer for killing the man who dishonored his sister, Blaine "Mick" McFadden has spent the last six years in Velant, a penal colony in the frigid northern wastelands. Harsh military discipline and the oppressive magic keep a fragile peace as colonists struggle against a hostile environment. But the supply ships from Dondareth have stopped coming, boding ill for the kingdom that banished the colonists.

Now, as the world's magic runs wild, McFadden and the people of Velant must fight to survive and decide their fate ...

From Gail Z. Martin, author of the beloved series THE CHRONICLES OF THE NECROMANCER and THE FALLEN KINGS CYCLE, comes a new fantasy adventure for the ages.

Welcome to the end of the world.

Welcome to the beginning of THE ASCENDANT KINGDOMS SAGA.

SFFWorld Reviewers' Top SF, Fantasy, & Horror of 2012

As we do every year at SFFWorld, Mark and I took a look back at what we read and reviewed at SFFWorld. This year, we pulled in KatG, who serves as one of the moderators, and Nila (N.E.) White (aka tmso) who moderates, writes reviews for us and makes sure the folks in the writing forum play nice with each other.

Part 1 covers Fantasy and Horror

April saw a slew of Fantasy novels reviewed. Rob reviewed The Hammer and the Blade by Paul S. Kemp, his first non-shared world/media tie-in which is a great example of modern Sword and Sorcery, as well as Elizabeth Bear’s ‘first true venture into Epic Fantasy’, Range of Ghosts. Mark read Alchemist of Souls by Anne Lyle and Fire by Kristin Cashore, occasional reviewer Kathryn read Forged in Fire by J.A. Pitts and Nila reviewed the third Mike Shevdon novel, Strangeness and Charm. Rob’s favorite in April was his much anticipated Caine's Law by Matthew Woodring Stover

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For the start of June SFFWorld went old-school, with the review of a game-book, Destiny Quest: The Legion of Shadow by Michael J. Ward. Mark found it quite fun. He also reviewed the UK re-release of George R.R. Martin’s Armageddon Rag, expanding on a short review he wrote for The Fortean Times. Rob enjoyed the fast-paced mayhem of Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia, and the Young Adult tale Thief's Covenant by Ari Marmell, but his favourite of the month (and of the year) was The Troupe by Robert Jackson Bennett, a Bradbury-esque tale of strange goings-on in a circus troupe.

Part 2 covers Science Fiction

January started strongly for Space Opera, with Alastair Reynolds’ Blue Remembered Earth which Mark reviewed. Rob reviewed The Recollection by Gareth L. Powell. We also reviewed something we should do more of at SFFWorld, an audio drama, when occasional reviewer Kathryn Ryan reviewed a Ciaphas Cain story Dead in the Water by Sandy Mitchell. Mark reviewed a superhero reimagining with Empire State by Adam Christopher and an old-fashioned duo of future-colony tales, Tau Ceti by Kevin Anderson and Steven Savile. Elsewhere, Paul Mc Auley’s In the Mouth of the Whale was another Space Opera liked by readers, as too Chris Beckett’s alien planet tale Dark Eden, though Mark was not as impressed. Lavie Tidhar’s Osama was published this month, with an audacious meta-fiction premise and was generally well liked, winning the World Fantasy Award for 2012 later in the year.

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Just as impressive in June was David Brin’s Existence, which Rob loved for its big, bold ideas and complex plot, saying ‘Brin achieved an excellent gestalt of character, big ideas, and narrative energy.’ We also had the US release of John Scalzi’s Redshirts, a book Rob recommended because it ‘succeeded in making me laugh a great deal and had the all-important powerful pull to keep reading to find out what happens next.’ Mark also reviewed the book on its UK release in December.

The Hundred Year Christmas by David Morrell - Catching up with the Classics

Christmas stories are a dime a dozen, and I think that’s underselling the point. For a story about Christmas or Santa Claus to have some kind of impact, it needs to be different while still towing to the themes of faith, love, and hope. When the writer of First Blood turned his storytelling pen to a fable about Santa Claus not many people would have expected such a poignant and heartfelt tale. Well, that’s just what readers of The Hundred Year Christmas got when they closed the book illustrated by R. J. Krupowicz.

My father was and is a big Stephen King fan so when he first became a King fan back in the 1980s, he learned of The Dark Tower (at the time, only The Gunslinger) was published. He managed to get a first edition of The Gunslinger and subsequently got on the mailing list for the publisher Donald M. Grant books, the original publisher of The Hundred Year Christmas.

So, since my father bought the book nearly 30 years ago, I read it every couple of years and again yesterday for the first time in quite a while. It is basically an origin for Santa Claus and it’s got a little bit in common with the film The Santa Clause and hits upon some of the same thematic beats as the Rankin-Bass stop-motion special The Year without a Santa Claus.

The story is told as a bedtime story on Christmas Eve from  father to his two children. The story itself began as a tale Morrell told his two children. Intertwined into the story of Santa Claus is that of Father Time; Santa has a 100-year lifespan and Father Time a one-year lifespan. Both entities live in a magical house with a road leading over a hill where each must go when their time is up. EThe story chronicles the hundredth year of the Santa Claus from the 20th Century, for there have been multiple Santa Clauses throughout the years. very 100 years, Santa has to choose his successor while every year a new Father Time appears. Morrell crafts a wonderful story and in a short space, builds up a great deal of emotion and love between the two mythical characters.

To go into more detail would spoil the story (right, its a story nearly 30 years old now and not easy to acquire). I’m somewhat surprised this one hasn’t been made into a film or TV special of some sort. The illustrations by R.J. Krupowicz are a bit unsettling, the elves in the illustrations are creepy and they resemble gremlins. Away from the elves, the art does lend an appropriately classic look to the story.

Overlook Press recently reissued the story in an illustrated edition with some revisions and an introduction.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2012-12-22)

Some of the books I received this week, which are part of a series, had their previous installment appear just about exactly a year ago. What's most surprising about the standard three DAW mass market paperbacks in this usual spot of the month is that there's no themed anthology.

Throne of the Crescent Moon (Book I of The Crescent Moon Kingdoms) by Saladin Ahmed (DAW, Mass Market Paperback 12/31/2012) – Mass Market reissue of Ahmed’s stunning debut, which really impressed me, which “is a tightly packed sword and sorcery adventure that is great proclamation of a new voice in fantasy. I want to follow more adventures of Doctor Mahslood and his surrogate family, I want to see if the relationship between Zamia and Raseed grows and I want to learn more about the enigmatic Falcon Prince.”. For whatever reason, the publisher decided to pull the characters from the cover.


The Crescent Moon Kingdoms, home to djenn and ghuls, holy warriors and heretics, are at the boiling point of a power struggle between the iron- fisted Khalif and the mysterious master thief known as the Falcon Prince. In the midst of this brewing rebellion a series of brutal supernatural murders strikes at the heart of the Kingdoms. It is up to a handful of heroes to learn the truth behind these killings.

Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, "the last real ghul hunter in the great city of Dhamsawaat," just wants a quiet cup of tea. Three score and more years old, he has grown weary of hunting monsters and saving lives, and is more than ready to retire from his dangerous and demanding vocation. But when an old flame's family is murdered, Adoulla is drawn back to the hunter's path.

Raseed bas Raseed, Adoulla's young assistant, is a hidebound holy warrior whose prowess is matched only by his piety. But even as Raseed's sword is tested by ghuls and manjackals, his soul is tested when he and Adoulla cross paths with the tribeswoman Zamia.

Zamia Badawi, Protector of the Band, has been gifted with the near- mythical power of the lion-shape, but shunned by her people for daring to take up a man's title. She lives only to avenge her father's death. Until she learns that Adoulla and his allies also hunt her father's killer. Until she meets Raseed.

When they learn that the murders and the Falcon Prince's brewing revolution are connected, the companions must race against time-and struggle against their own misgivings-to save the life of a vicious despot. In so doing they discover a plot for the Throne of the Crescent Moon that threatens to turn Dhamsawaat, and the world itself, into a blood-soaked ruin.

Luck of the Draw (Xanth #36) by Piers Anthony (Tor, Hardcover 12/24/2012) – What can I say about a book series, heavy on puns, that is now has three dozen installments in the sequence? Not much, at this point with Anthony’s Xanth novels you are either reading them or ignoring them. Lots of folks must be buying them if this is the 36th. Anthony is one of those “classic” fantasy authors I’ve never read


Bryce is summoned to Xanth as part of a wager between the Demons Earth and Xanth. To his surprise, he has left behind his home and family and eighty-year-old body forever, in exchange for youth and magic….and a quest. He must court and marry Princess Harmony, who is anything but willing to be courted!

Luck of the Draw is Anthony’s thirty-sixth pun-filled adventure in the magical land of Xanth.

Doctor Who: The Wheel of Ice by Stephen Baxter (Ace Hardcover 12/31/2012) – The folks at BBC are getting some heavy hitters for these Doctor Who novels


From Stephen Baxter, master of science fiction and national bestselling author of Bronze Summer, comes an all-new Doctor Who adventure…

Resilience. Remembrance. Restoration.
Whatever the cost.

Hurtling through a vortex beyond time and space is a police box that’s not a police box. The TARDIS has carried the Doctor and his companions, Jamie and Zoe, to all sorts of places, but now, when they don’t want to go anywhere, the TARDIS makes a decision for them. Like it or not, they’re coming in for a landing, who knows where or when…

The Wheel. A ring of ice and metal turning around a moon of Saturn, home to a mining colony supplying a resource-hungry Earth. It’s a bad place to live—and a worse place to grow up.

The colony has been plagued by problems. Maybe it’s only a run of bad luck, but the equipment failures and thefts of resources have been increasing. And there are stories among the children of mysterious creatures glimpsed aboard the Wheel. Some of the younger workers are even refusing to go down into the warren-like mines any more.

And then one of them, surfing Saturn’s rings, saves an enigmatic blue box from destruction.

Once on the Wheel, the Doctor and his companions face a critical situation when they become suspected by some as the source of the ongoing sabotage.

They soon find themselves caught in a mystery that goes all the way back to the creation of the solar system. A mystery that could destroy the Wheel—and kill them all...

Doktor Glass by Thomas Brennan> (Ace, Trade Paperback 12/31/2012) – Steampunk supernatural mystery!

Here’s the snippet:

In an age of Zeppelins and gyroplanes, atomics and horseless carriages, the Transatlantic Span is the industrial marvel of the nineteenth century. A monumental feat of engineering, the steel suspension bridge stretches across the Atlantic from Liverpool to the distant harbor of New York City, supported by no less than seven hundred towers. But in the shadows of its massive struts, on the docks of the River Mersey, lies a faceless corpse…

Inspector Matthew Langton is still seized with grief when he thinks of Sarah, his late wife. Tortured by nightmares and afflicted by breathless attacks of despair and terror, he forces himself to focus on the investigation of the faceless man. The victim wears the uniform of the Transatlantic Span Company but bears the tattoos of the Boers—could there be a Boer conspiracy to assassinate Queen Victoria on the upcoming Inauguration Day of the Span?

But the truth, as it begins to emerge, is far more bizarre than a political coup. As additional victims turn up—each with strange, twin burn marks on their necks—Langton draws a connection between the dead man beneath the bridge and chilling rumors of the Jar Bars, soul snatchers who come under cover of night. Most frightening of all is the mythic and elusive Doktor Glass, who may not only be behind the illicit trade in souls…but who may hold the key to what happened to the inspector’s own beloved wife on her deathbed…


Dinosaur Thunder by James F. David (Tor, Hardcover 12/24/2012) – Interesting premise here for the second book in David’s series. This cover seems to be a homage to the Del Rey cover of James Hogan’s Inherit the Stars
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Eighteen years ago, the prehistoric past collided with the present as time itself underwent a tremendous disruption, transporting huge swaths of the Cretaceous period into the twentieth century. Neighborhoods, towns, and cities were replaced by dense primeval jungles and modern humanity suddenly found itself sharing the world with fierce dinosaurs. In the end, desperate measures were taken to halt the disruptions and the crisis appeared to be over.
Until now.

New dinosaurs begin to appear, rampaging through cities. A secret mission to the Moon discovers a living Tyrannosaurus Rex trapped in an alternate timeline. As time begins to unravel once more, Nick Paulson, director of the Office of Security Science, finds a time passage to the Cretaceous period where humans, ripped from the comforts of the twenty-first century, are barely surviving in the past. Led by a cultlike religious leader, these survivors are at war with another sentient species descended from dinosaurs.
As the asteroid that ends the reign of dinosaurs rushes toward Earth, Nick and his allies must survive a war between species and save the future as we know it.

Dinosaur Thunder is a terrifying, futuristic thriller in the tradition of Michael Crichton and Douglas Preston.

The Dog in the Dark (The Thirteenth Novel of the Noble Dead) by Barb and J.C. Hendee (Roc, Hardcover 12/31/2012) – Another year passes, and almost exactly to the date, the prolific Hendees publish another installment in their Vampire Epic Fantasy saga. I’d wanted to read the first one for a while, but it keeps getting pushed lower on the virtual Mount Toberead.

Here’s the snippet:

The Noble Dead series has been hailed as “a crowd-pleasing mix of intrigue, epic fantasy, and horror.”* Now, national bestselling authors Barb and J.C. Hendee present the latest thrilling novel following the adventures of dhampir Magiere and half-elf Leesil…

Barely escaping the city of Calm Seatt—and the assassins hunting them—Magiere, Leesil, and the elven dog Chap sail south to continue their quest to find the powerful Orb of Air before their enemies do. But they are not alone, much to their frustration.

The aging elven assassin Brot’an has forced himself on them by offering his protection. Chap doesn’t believe this ruse, however, and seeks to uncover the assassin’s true agenda—as well as the cause of the secret civil war that has erupted into the open among Brot'an's people.

Meanwhile, Magiere struggles with her own dark nature, using Leesil’s love as an anchor to keep her grounded. For the personal price she paid to procure the Orb of Fire was more than she thought—and more than she wants to reveal to anyone.

But that is exactly what the cunning Brot’an wants to know. And he is willing to do whatever it takes—even if he must reveal his own dreaded secrets that may cost the entire party their lives…and their very souls.

*Publishers Weekly

The Ramal Extraction (Cutter’s Wars Book 1) by Steve Perry (Ace Mass Market Paperback 12/24/2012) – I read Perry’s Star Wars novel Shadows of the Empire years ago and remember enjoying it. This is the first of a new military SF series.


At the close of the 24th Century, a series of revolutions has caused the galaxy to descend into chaos. With the Galactic Union’s Army stretched thin, mercenary units have arisen for those who have the need—and the means—to hire them…

Captained by former Detached Guerrilla Forces Colonel R.A. “Rags” Cutter, the Cutter Force Initiative is one of the best. A specialized team consisting of both aliens and humans, the Cutters offer services ranging from fight training and protection to extraction and assassination—as long as the target deserves it and their employer makes good on payday.

When they’re hired to find and rescue Indira, the soon-to-be-married daughter of the Rajah Ramal of New Mumbai, the teams’ first task is to identify the kidnapper. The obvious suspects are insurgents who want to overthrow the rajanate, but as other forces enter the game and an assassination attempt is made on Ramal, the Cutters realize that their in-and-out extraction job is about to get a lot more interesting—and a lot more lethal…

Touch of the Demon (Kara Gillian, Book 5) by Diana Rowland (DAW Mass Market 12/31/2012)– Fifth in a series about vampire hunter on the police force. This is one of two ongoing series Rowland has with DAW.

Kara Gillian is in some seriously deep trouble.

She’s used to summoning supernatural creatures from the demon realm to our world, but now the tables have been turned and she’s the one who’s been summoned. Kara is the prisoner of yet another demonic lord, but she quickly discovers that she’s far more than a mere hostage. Yet waiting for rescue has never been her style, and Kara has no intention of being a pawn in someone else’s game.

There’s intrigue to spare as she digs into the origin of the demonic lords and discovers the machinations of humans and demons alike. Kara is shocked to discover that she has her own history in the demon realm, and that the ties between her and the demonic lords Rhyzkahl and Szerain go back farther than she could have ever imagined. But treachery runs rampant among all the lords, and she’s going to have to stay sharp in order to keep from being used to further their own agendas. The lords have a secret that dates back to earth’s ancient history, and it could have devastating repercussions for both worlds.

Yet more than anything else, Kara’s abilities as a homicide detective will be put to the test—because this time the murder she has to solve is her own.


The Griffin’s War (The Risen Sun Trilogy #1) by K.J. Taylor (Ace Mass Market Paperback 12/24/12) – First in a sequel trilogy to Taylor’s debut trilogy, The Fallen Moon, chronicling the further exploits of people bonded with Griffins

Laela Redguard was born with the black hair of the Northern kingdom and the blue eyes of the Southern people, forever marking her as a hated half-breed child of both. When her only family tie is severed, the fierce and strong-willed Laela decides to leave her adoptive father’s home in the hopes of finding acceptance in the North, where the ruthless King Arenadd and the dark griffin Skandar rule.

While Laela’s Northern features allow her to blend into the crowds of the King’s seat at Malvern, she cannot avoid falling victim to a pair of common thugs. When a stranger saves her life and gives her a place to stay, Laela is shocked to learn he is Arenadd himself—a man said to be a murderer who sold his soul to the Night God—the King without a heart.

Arenadd is unsure what compels him to help this girl, but there is something about her that seems familiar, something he cannot remember—something that may rise up to banish the darkness forever…

Skirmish (The House Wars Book 4) by Michelle West (DAW Mass Market Paperback 12/31/2012) – This is the fourth in her < House War, which is set in the same world as her Sacred Hunt duology and her six-book Sun Sword series.
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Skirmish is the fourth novel in the long-awaited House War series. Set in the same rich fantasy universe as Michelle West’s Sacred Hunt duo logy and her six-volume Sun Sword series, the House War novels recount the events leading to the momentous battle between the demonic minions of the Lord of the Hells and the defenders of the Essalieyan Empire — a realm with a long and bloody history. The empire is ruled by the Twin Kings, sons of the gods. It is also controlled by The Ten, the heads of the most influ­ential Houses in Aver­alaan, the capital of the Empire.

But The House War focuses not only on the larger war but also, and more impor­tantly, on the campaign to control the most powerful of the ruling Houses in the Essalieyan Empire – House Terafin.

As Skirmish opens, Amarais ATerafin – The Terafin – lies dead, assas­si­nated by a demon at the very moment that Jewel ATerafin returns from the war in the South, appearing as if out of thin air, having traveled by hidden paths. Jewel is accom­panied by her domicis Avandar, known as the Warlord, by Lord Celle­riant of the Winter Queen’s court, and she rides on the back of a giant stag – the Winter King. Yet still she cannot arrive in time to save her leader, but only in time for Celle­riant to slay the demon assassin.

Jewel returns to a city beset by a myste­rious “sleeping sickness” for which there appears to be no cure. Only one healer – a young man who shelters with Jewel’s den – can temporarily wake the sleepers so they make take enough suste­nance to survive. And the sickness continues to spread unchecked. As the Empire strives to combat this insidious disease, and stave of demonic attacks, House Terafin begins prepa­ra­tions for the funeral of its Lord. And four members of the House declare them­selves as candi­dates to claim the House Seat, ready to do whatever it takes to wrest control.

Only Jewel remains silent, though she is the heir secretly desig­nated by Amarais before her departure to the South. While some seek to intim­idate Jewel or recruit her for their own bids, others begin to gather around her: her own den, the most loyal of House Terafin’s Chosen, Haval the dress­maker, powerful magi, and three myste­rious ‘winged cats’ who come to her in the midst of a deadly encounter in a forest not meant for mortals to walk….

Jewel is deter­mined not to make any deci­sions before the Terafin is laid to rest. But as the enemies of House and Empire mobilize, it becomes terri­fy­ingly clear that everyone – including Jewel and her other­worldly allies – must survive the three days of the funeral rites before they can even be certain that there will be a House Terafin left to fight over….


Count to a Trillion by John C. Wright (Tor Hardcover 12/24/2012) – Second in Wright’s Space Opera which began with Count to a Trillion. The two books appeared just about a whole calendar year apart.

Continuing from Count to a Trillion, Menelaus Illation Montrose—Texas gunslinger, idealist, and posthuman genius—has gone into cryo-suspension following the discovery that, in 8,000 years, a powerful alien intelligence will reach Earth to assess humanity’s value as slaves. Montrose intends to be alive to meet that threat, but he is awakened repeatedly throughout the centuries to confront the woes of an ever-changing and violent world, witnessing millennia of change compressed into a few years of subjective time. The result is a breathtaking vision of future history like nothing before imagined: sweeping, tumultuous, and evermore alien, as Montrose’s immortal enemies and former shipmates from the starship Hermetic harness the forces of evolution and social engineering to continuously reshape the Earth in their image, seeking to create a version of man the approaching slavers will find worthy.

Ahmed and Cobley Reviewed at SFFWorld

A couple of days later than usual, but we’ve got another debut for Mark’s review and my review is (as it was for last week) the second installment of a trilogy. Our reactions from last week (Mark thumbs down and me big thumbs up) are a bit reversed, though my thumbs aren’t quite as drastically down as Mark’s thumbs.

Mark’s review concerns the Saladin Ahmed’s debut novel Throne of the Crescent Moon, which recently appeared in the UK after appearing in the US earlier in the year (and leaving me very impressed):

Crescent Moon taps into an area of Fantasy that seems to have fallen out of favour in recent years. With the genre’s concentration on Western pseudo-Medieval type tales, the ancient Arabian Nights type tales, based less on European culture, is ripe for revisiting.

There’s certainly enough here. We have Kingdoms, rebellion, canny thieves and honourable heroes, combined with mystical supernatural elements. It reminded me of those Arabian stories from Weird Tales in the 1930’s, but with a contemporary re-imagining.
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In talks of gods and religion, ancient evils and older spells, Saladin has tapped into the well-stone of good old-fashioned storytelling in an old established setting of ancient Arabia. This is Arabian Nights meets Clark Ashton Smith but with less purple prose and more adventurous actions.

I enjoyed The Orphaned Worlds the second novel of Michael Cobley’s Humanity’s Fire trilogy, but not quite as much as the first book:

With the universe a-flutter about the discoveries on Darien of potential ancient races and the reuniting of two of humanity’s lost colonies, Cobley paints his story on a very wide canvas and delves further into the past of Darien and the ancient races who may or may not still have their fingers in affairs. While Seeds of Earth focused primarily on the planet Darien and the inhabitants from the seed ship Hyperion and a bit of a focus on the planet of Pyre, populated by of the seed ship Tenebrosa, as well as the final seed ship Forrestal on the planet Tygra.
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One of the smaller plot strands, at least thus far, is that of Robert Horst, an ambassador from Earth and the artificial intelligence that has taken the form of his daughter. Horst is a tragic and sympathetic character at times, at others desperate to change the past. These sequences show something larger at play than any of the characters, especially Robert himself, could imagine. What I also found intriguing was how Robert’s ‘daughter’ aged as quickly as she did, not remaining at a static age as one would expect a simulated intelligence based on one’s memories to be. Here, I thought, Cobley’s playing with the A.I. trope of SF handled very well and differently than I’d previously seen.

R.T. Kaelin Interviewed at SFFWorld

Today I posted my interview with R.T. Kaelin, the mastermind behind the Hurricane Sandy benefit Anthology, Triumph over Tragedy.  We also discussed his fantasy saga, which begins with the novel Progeny.

Go have a look, won't you?

Books in the Mail (W/E 2012-12-15)

American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit Trade Paperback  02/12/2013) – With The Troupe, Robert Jackson Bennett may have written my favorite novel of 2012 (hint: he did) and one of the best novels I read in the past five or ten years so yeah, you could say this is high on the anticipation list for 2013.

Ex-cop Mona Bright has been living a hard couple of years on the road, but when her estranged father dies, she finds she's had a home all along: a little house her deceased mother once owned in Wink, New Mexico.

And though every map denies Wink exists, Mona finds they're wrong: not only is Wink real, it is the perfect American small town, somehow retaining all the Atomic Age optimism the rest of world has abandoned.

But the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people in Wink are very, very different - and what's more, Mona begins to recognize her own bond to this strange place, which feels more like home every day.


The Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton. (Del Rey Hardcover 12/26/2012) – Hamilton’s latest epic is a standalone (much like his superb Fallen Dragon).  The book is out in the UK and Mark/Hobbit had some good things to say.

New York Times bestselling author Peter F. Hamilton’s riveting new thriller combines the nail-biting suspense of a serial-killer investigation with clear-eyed scientific and social extrapolation to create a future that seems not merely plausible but inevitable.

A century from now, thanks to a technology allowing instantaneous travel across light-years, humanity has solved its energy shortages, cleaned up the environment, and created far-flung colony worlds. The keys to this empire belong to the powerful North family—composed of successive generations of clones. Yet these clones are not identical. For one thing, genetic errors have crept in with each generation. For another, the original three clone “brothers” have gone their separate ways, and the branches of the family are now friendly rivals more than allies.

Or maybe not so friendly. At least that’s what the murder of a North clone in the English city of Newcastle suggests to Detective Sidney Hurst. Sid is a solid investigator who’d like nothing better than to hand off this hot potato of a case. The way he figures it, whether he solves the crime or not, he’ll make enough enemies to ruin his career.

Yet Sid’s case is about to take an unexpected turn: because the circumstances of the murder bear an uncanny resemblance to a killing that took place years ago on the planet St. Libra, where a North clone and his entire household were slaughtered in cold blood. The convicted slayer, Angela Tramelo, has always claimed her innocence. And now it seems she may have been right. Because only the St. Libra killer could have committed the Newcastle crime.

Problem is, Angela also claims that the murderer was an alien monster.

Now Sid must navigate through a Byzantine minefield of competing interests within the police department and the world’s political and economic elite . . . all the while hunting down a brutal killer poised to strike again. And on St. Libra, Angela, newly released from prison, joins a mission to hunt down the elusive alien, only to learn that the line between hunter and hunted is a thin one.

Limits of Power (Book Four of Paladin’s Legacy) by Elizabeth Moon (Del Rey Hardcover 02/21/2012) – I liked the first two in this series (Oath of Fealty and Kings of the North) quite a bit and last year I read (and thoroughly enjoyed) the first trilogy set in this world, The Deed of Paksenarrion) which is now in my Omnibus Hall of Fame [© PeterWilliam]. For reasons that I can’t explain even to myself, I didn’t yet get around to reading the third installment, Echoes of Betrayal. Hopefully, I’ll catch up in early 2013

Elizabeth Moon is back with the fourth adventure in her bestselling fantasy epic. Moon brilliantly weaves a colorful tapestry of action, betrayal, love, and magic set in a richly imagined world that stands alongside those of such fantasy masters as George R. R. Martin and Robin Hobb.

The unthinkable has occurred in the kingdom of Lyonya. The queen of the Elves—known as the Lady—is dead, murdered by former elves twisted by dark powers. Now the Lady’s half-elven grandson must heal the mistrust between elf and human before their enemies strike again. Yet as he struggles to make ready for an attack, an even greater threat looms across the Eight Kingdoms.

Throughout the north, magic is reappearing after centuries of absence, emerging without warning in family after family—rich and poor alike. In some areas, the religious strictures against magery remain in place, and fanatical followers are stamping out magery by killing whoever displays the merest sign of it—even children. And as unrest spreads, one very determined traitor works to undo any effort at peace—no matter how many lives it costs. With the future hanging in the balance, it is only the dedication of a few resolute heroes who can turn the tides . . . if they can survive.

2012 Best of Lists are Appearing...

With December fully upon us, many outlets are putting forth their best of the year lists.  Hell, some outlets did this in October and November.  I'm currently working on the annual round-up for SFFWorld with Mark, Nila, and Kat while also cribbing together the annual review post for this blog.

The short of it is, Tor.com posted their round up: Reviewers’ Choice 2012: The Best Books We Read This Year, and as I've contributed three reviews/appreciations to the site, I was invited to contribute. I won't reveal what I slotted as my top three (we were asked to limit the list to three choices, but some of us cheated a bit), you'll have to click over there to see what I thought.  I'll say it is pretty neat to be one of the part of this post with some of Tor.com's more visible and respected reviewers (folks like Jo Walton, Liz Bourke, Ron Hogan, Stefan Raets and Niall Alexander whose reviews have always been insightful and some of the most thoughtful in the genre) in specific, and on the whole to be a contributor for Tor.com

Sarah Chorn of Bookworm Blues Interviewed

As I've said a few times here at the 'o Stuff, I'm helping out with the Triumph over Tragedy anthology. One of the lead editors on the project is Sarah Chorn, who runs the terrific blog Bookworm Blues.

As such, I've conducted an e-mail interview with Sarah, which I posted in two parts to SFFWorld:

Interview with Sarah Part 1

Interview with Sarah Part 2

Malice, The Coldest War, and Redshirts Reviewed at SFFWorld

Another high fantasy debut for one Mark’s review, I take a look at the (long-delayed) second installment in an ambitious alternate history/SF/horror hybrid, and Mark's review of the UK release of a popular SF novel round out this post.


A book that’s been generating a fair amount of buzz on both sides of the Atlantic is the subject of Mark’s review. While Malice; John Gwynne’s debut novel. Mark wasn’t quite as happy with this debut fantasy as he was with the previous

For all its length, and, to be fair, the pages can turn, my feeling at the end was that it doesn’t bring anything new to the table that I haven’t read before. Nor indeed anything I couldn’t see coming. For new Fantasy readers, this may be fine. If it helps, I will say that I had similar issues with Brent Weeks’ Night Angel series and Michael J Sullivan’s Riyria Revelations series. (And, conversely, that might mean that if you enjoyed those two series, you might like this novel.)
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In addition, whereas books of this type usually show a progression towards an epic climax to create tension and anticipation, in Malice it didn’t. Instead, I found myself wanting to hurry things along, not because I wanted to read what happens, but because I wanted it to finish, never a good sign when reading a book.

I’ve had The Coldest War on Mount To'be-Read (© Fred Kiesche) for quite a few months and finally read it last week. Tregillis really managed to render sorrow and anger in this volume and has me very anticipated for book three Necessary Evil:

In The Coldest War, Ian Tregillis picks up the story threads from his debut novel Bitter Seeds to bring readers back into the lives of Raybould Marsh and Will, the former British spies who worked for the Milkweed group. In the twenty years since, Marsh married Liz and had a son, John, while Will married Gwendolyn and is a prominent member of society. All is not rosy; however. Will has been working for the Soviets providing information on the warlocks whose contact with the eldritch Eidolons allowed for the British victory. With the help of Gretel and Klaus, two of the super soldiers created by Nazi mad scientist von Westarp Marsh attempts to halt the growing power and influence of the Soviets.
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While I enjoyed The Coldest War a great deal, the overall tone of darkness, anger, and bitterness was inescapable. As a result of the efforts of Marsh and Will during the war, their lives have changed irrevocably. Tregillis does an amazing job of conveying the stress of post-war trauma on both of these men, especially with Marsh and his wife Liz. The two were very happy and hopeful at the conclusion of Bitter Seeds, but here in The Coldest War there is nothing but blame and hatred in their marriage and the primary symbol of this is their despondent, (seemingly) mentally handicapped son John.

Last week, Mark posted his review of John Scalzi's Redshirts:

Here Scalzi follows it through to a logical literary development. Andrew Dahl is a newly assigned crew member to the Universal Union Capital Ship Ensign. Working in the Xenobiology Department, he soon realises that the ship has a fast turnover of crew, often in bizarre and quite imaginative ways. He soon realises that being assigned to an away team is not a privilege but a means of making up the numbers, with the chances of coming back increasingly unlikely. Most of the story is about how Dahl and his other newly-assigned friends survive, and avoid being put on an Away Mission.
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The main problem is that Scalzi can’t keep it all quite going at the very end. What he does about 80 pages in is do something that is either ‘crazy’ or ‘genius’. There is a moment for what many readers will be where the story ‘jumps the shark’ and fiction in another medium is connected to this literary tale. Dahl has a Truman Show moment, and he and his colleagues become aware that they are slaves to the Narrative in an alternate timeline.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2012-12-08)

Only a few books this week, and two of them from the same author in the same series...


The Orphaned Worlds (Book Two of Humanity’s Fire) by Michael Cobley (Orbit Mass Market Paperback 10/30/2012) – I read the first in this trilogy a couple of months ago and thoroughly enjoyed it so I’m looking forward to where Cobley takes the series. This here’s book two with more great Steve Stone cover art.

The fight is on. So let the battle begin.

Darien is no longer a lost outpost of humanity, but the prize in an intergalactic struggle. Hegemony forces control the planet, while Earth merely observes, rendered impotent by galactic politics. Yet Earth's ambassador to Darien will become a player in a greater conflict as there is more at stake than a turf war on a newly discovered world.

An ancient temple hides access to a hyperspace prison, housing the greatest threat sentient life has never known. Millennia ago, malignant intelligences were caged there following an apocalyptic struggle, and their servants work on their release. Now a new war is coming.



The Ascendant Stars (Book Three of Humanity’s Fire) by Michael Cobley (Orbit Mass Market Paperback 11/20/2012) – I read the first in this trilogy a couple of months ago and thoroughly enjoyed it so I’m looking forward to where Cobley takes the series. This here’s book three with more great Steve Stone cover art.

War erupts in the depths of space...


Battle-ready factions converge above Darien, all with the same objective: to control this newly discovered planet and access the powerful weapons at its heart. Despotic Hegemony forces dominate much of known space and they want this world too, but Darien's inhabitants are determined to fight for their future.

However, key players in this conflict aren't fully in control. Hostile AIs have infiltrated key minds and have an agenda, requiring nothing less than the destruction or subversion of all organic life. And they are near to unleashing their cohorts, a host of twisted machine intelligences caged beneath Darien. Fighting to contain them are Darien's hidden guardians, and their ancient ally the Construct, on a millennia-long mission to protect sentient species. As the war reaches its peak, the AI army is roaring to the surface, to freedom and an orgy of destruction.


Darien is first in line in a machine vs. human war -- for life or the sterile dusts of space.

Called to Darkness (A Pathfinder Tales novel) by Robin Laws (Paizo Mass Market Paperback 01/13/2013) – These Pathfinder novels have been coming out regularly and seem to capture the world fairly well. Byers has penned quite a few Forgotten Realms novels so he’s got the chops to handle a setting like Pathfinder.

Kagur is a warrior of the Blacklions, fierce and fearless hunters in the savage Realm of the Mammoth Lords. When her clan is slaughtered by a frost giant she considered her adopted brother, honor demands that she, the last surviving Blacklion, track down her old ally and take the tribe’s revenge. This is no normal betrayal, however, for the murderous giant has followed the whispers of a dark god down into the depths of the earth, into a primeval cavern forgotten by time. There, he will unleash forces capable of wiping all humans from the region—unless Kagur can stop him first.

From acclaimed author Richard Lee Byers comes a tale of bloody revenge and subterranean wonder, set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

The Red Knight by Miles Cameron and Embedded by Dan Abnett

Mark takes a look at a hot new Epic/High Fantasy from an established non-genre author trying something new under a slightly changed name and I pull a review from the (not so old) archives. Let’s take a look, shall we?


A book that’s been generating a fair amount of buzz on both sides of the Atlantic is the subject of Mark’s review. While The Red Knight; the first installment of Miles Cameron’s The Traitor’s Son Cycle publishes in the US in early 2013, Mark reviewed the UK edition (logically since he lives there) which published this past October (2012):

In essence we have a siege tale that starts simply but becomes increasingly more epic, both in scale and complexity. The book begins with The Red Knight setting out with his company of men and women to help people in need. A convent has been attacked and the people inside killed by something monstrous.
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In terms of characters there is an impressive range, from the King and his knights to the lower class mercenaries, and from those in court to those living in the Wild. Fantasy readers usually enjoy such a complicated setup, as such a technique does give that impression of a broad canvas. However, some may find the stylistic conceit used here of moving from one character’s perspective to another, often after a mere paragraph, can be a challenge. I must admit that initially with each change it did take me a while sometimes to remember who each character was, what they were doing, and where a character had got to and why. It was a little annoying to find that sometimes once I had then remembered all of this, I was whisked off to another character to start the process again, although given time the characters become recognizable.

I pull a review from the archives today since I don’t yet have a review for the book I’m currently reading (The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis). Last year I read Dan Abnett’s original SF debut and the short review I wrote disappeared from its original place on teh intarwebs so rather than let it be relegated to The Nothing, I beefed up a bit for SFFWorld. Here's the standard linkage, cover, and review preview for Embedded:

In this milieu, the United Status (US) has settled worlds far beyond Earth, and it is on one of these planets in which the action in Embedded takes place. The planet designated Settlement 86, where conflict has existed between the US and the Central Bloc (Russian powers) for 300 years is where protagonist Les Falk has his consciousness literally embedded in the body of Nestor Bloom, a soldier on the front lines of the conflict. When Bloom’s body is shot, then Falk personality becomes the dominant mind in the body. This gives the first person narration familiar to many military SF novels a new twist and one that works very well over the course of the rather than just a change to the norm for change’s sake.
…
Abnett’s greatest skills in this novel are two fold –his ability to keep the tension high through minimal details. Not that the novel isn’t layered and detailed, but Abnett manages to hold enough information from the reader to keep the curiosity level very high, which translates into rapid page turns. The other skill that is readily apparent was his pacing, although the mystery/tension did help to build great pace.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2012-12-01)

Just three books this week, but they all look VERY interesting, one of which is an absolute must read.


The Daylight War (Demon Cycle #3) by Peter V. Brett Del Rey, Hardcover 11/27/2012) – This is one of my most anticipated 2013 book releases, I really enjoyed the first two installments of the series The Daylight War and The Desert Spear

With The Warded Man and The Desert Spear, Peter V. Brett surged to the front rank of contemporary fantasy, standing alongside giants in the field such as George R. R. Martin, Robert Jordan, and Terry Brooks. The Daylight War, the eagerly anticipated third volume in Brett’s internationally bestselling Demon Cycle, continues the epic tale of humanity’s last stand against an army of demons that rise each night to prey on mankind.

On the night of the new moon, the demons rise in force, seeking the deaths of two men, both of whom have the potential to become the fabled Deliverer, the man prophesied to reunite the scattered remnants of humanity in a final push to destroy the demon corelings once and for all.

Arlen Bales was once an ordinary man, but now he has become something more—the Warded Man, tattooed with eldritch wards so powerful they make him a match for any demon. Arlen denies he is the Deliverer at every turn, but the more he tries to be one with the common folk, the more fervently they believe. Many would follow him, but Arlen’s path threatens to lead to a dark place he alone can travel to, and from which there may be no returning.

The only one with hope of keeping Arlen in the world of men, or joining him in his descent into the world of demons, is Renna Tanner, a fierce young woman in danger of losing herself to the power of demon magic.

Ahmann Jardir has forged the warlike desert tribes of Krasia into a demon-killing army and proclaimed himself Shar’Dama Ka, the Deliverer. He carries ancient weapons—a spear and a crown—that give credence to his claim, and already vast swaths of the green lands bow to his control.

But Jardir did not come to power on his own. His rise was engineered by his First Wife, Inevera, a cunning and powerful priestess whose formidable demon bone magic gives her the ability to glimpse the future. Inevera’s motives and past are shrouded in mystery, and even Jardir does not entirely trust her.

Once Arlen and Jardir were as close as brothers. Now they are the bitterest of rivals. As humanity’s enemies rise, the only two men capable of defeating them are divided against each other by the most deadly demons of all—those lurking in the human heart.



Fade to Black (Rojan Dizon Book One) by Francis Knight (Orbit Trade Paperback 11/13/2012) – Debut novel from Knight which has an interesting concept (a vertical city) in a proven genre (Urban Fantasy in the China Mieville vein). This one looks pretty cool.

From the depths of a valley rises the city of Mahala

It's a city built upwards, not across - where streets are built upon streets, buildings upon buildings. A city that the Ministry rules from the sunlit summit, and where the forsaken lurk in the darkness of Under.

Rojan Dizon doesn't mind staying in the shadows, because he's got things to hide. Things like being a pain-mage, with the forbidden power to draw magic from pain. But he can't hide for ever.

Because when Rojan stumbles upon the secrets lurking in the depths of the Pit, the fate of Mahala will depend on him using his magic. And unlucky for Rojan - this is going to hurt.



Bones of the Old Ones (Book II of The Swords and Sands Chronicles ) by Howard Andrew Jones (Thomas Dunne Books, Hardcover 12/11/2012) – I’ve seen very good things about Jones’s brand of sword and sorcery duo in The Desert of Souls. Although this is the second in the series, it is billed as a stand alone. Jones has done lots of good things for the fine fantasy magazine Black Gate plus this one has a cool title.

A thrilling, inventive follow-up to The Desert of Souls by Howard Andrew Jones, a "rare master of the storyteller’s art" (Greenmanreview.com)

As a snowfall blankets 8th century Mosul, a Persian noblewoman arrives at the home of the scholar Dabir and his friend the swordsman Captain Asim. Najya has escaped from a dangerous cabal that has ensorcelled her to track down ancient magical tools of tremendous power, the bones of the old ones.

To stop the cabal and save Najya, Dabir and Asim venture into the worst winter in human memory, hunted by a shape-changing assassin. The stalwart Asim is drawn irresistibly toward the beautiful Persian even as Dabir realizes she may be far more dangerous a threat than anyone who pursues them, for her enchantment worsens with the winter. As their opposition grows, Dabir and Asim have no choice but to ally with their deadliest enemy, the treacherous Greek necromancer, Lydia. But even if they can trust one another long enough to escape their foes, it may be too late for Najya, whose soul is bound up with a vengeful spirit intent on sheathing the world in ice for a thousand years...