Two of my most anticipated books are coming this week: Broken Angels by Richard Morgan and Pandora’s Star by Peter Hamilton. Both are sci-fi and I need a good fix of the good stuff :). I really enjoyed Altered Carbon by Morgan, and although Hamilton is extremely inconsistent I felt Fallen Dragon had flashes of brilliance (and one of the crappiest disconnection/endings in sci-fi history). Pandora’s Star sounds like a good space opera and I’ve been sorely deprived of those.
Anyone else eagerly anticipating a recent or imminent release?
Dan
(Now if only GRR Martin would finish A Feast for Crows and they would also start publishing Steven Erikson’s books in the US, then I could have a fantasy fest too).
I have to stop liking authors with health problems, because it’ll be at the very least another year until the concluding book in the Deverry series is out.
I’ve read Broken Angels and loved it. It’s not noir like Altered Carbon-
it’s a lot more violent and more space opera-ish. Morgan didn’t
suffer from the sophomore slump, that’s for sure.
Ah I haven’t gotten to that point yet. Gallow’s Thief and the Grail series have been decent shifts away from Sharpe, but I still buy the newer Sharpe ones nonetheless.
Just the last two Dark Tower books by King, even though I didn’t really like the last one. There are too many old books to get through. I have a neverending list that I want to pick up.
I think Dan should have included “Other than A Feast of Crows…”
I, too, have tons of suggestions from threads here and looking ahead would be pointless. Other than already looking forward to the book following A Feast of Crows.
All this talk of Erikson has me chomping at the bit for the release of his books in the States. As I always say, CANADA RULES!
The new China Mieville due out in the summer time, I believe.
Apparently it’s set ten years after Perdido Street Station and the Scar. With hope against reality, I hope the two principle characters of the former have found some kind of happiness.
All this talk of Erikson has me chomping at the bit for the release of his books in the States. As I always say, CANADA RULES!
Why don’t you order them from Amazon Canada or UK, if you don’t mind me asking? I see this sentiment a lot and I don’t understand. You can get the first book now in paperback to see if you like it (not everyone does)- it won’t be available in paperback here until next year. They are currently five books behind. If Erikson keeps to his current schedule, when all ten books are completed, Tor may only have released the first five here. If you do like the first, why wait another year for Book 2’s American release when you can go ahead and order the Next 4 from Canada or England?
I still like to thumb through a book at the local brick and mortar store before picking it up
and/or ([size=2]really, #1 was just a cover for this one[/size])
I never really thought of it as I am a moron. :oops:
Honestly, I have never had the need to order anything from outside of the US and it never occured to me to do so for books via the internet. The internet being so new and all. The world revolves around America, right? :wink:
It can be handy to pay attention to UK releases. It is not uncommon for books to come out six months or more earlier in the UK just because of differences in publishing schedules. Then there’s the case of authors like Erikson who can take awhile to get an American publishing deal.
Another popular novel in line with Erikson’s work is The Darkness that Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker. Its currently only available in Canada, though a UK edition is due out any day now. It should be available in America this summer but by then the second book will have been published in Canda.
Now that I’ve nearly finished the fourth book I’ve decided to take a break from Erikson for a while… the world he designed is fascinating but his writing actually seems to get worse over time, and he seems to increasingly pull irrelevant characters and arbitrary super-ancient races out of his hat just to get the story going.
Frankly, the cycle should have closed with the third book. I have a little trouble imagining him going on for another six books. Robert Jordan, anyone?
That’s gotta be a mistake. Those Erikson books are in the sci-fi/fantasy section of every bookstore in Canada, even the dinky little Coles at my dinky little local mall. Ordering from the UK seems crazy, with the money difference and the much higher shipping, unless that’s the only place you can get the book.
I should add that I wouldn’t recommend it, either way, because I didn’t much care for Gardens of the Moon. I finished it, as it seemed quirky enough to be more memorable than the usual fantasy crap, but it never really went anywhere. Over the course of reading the book, I went from “I’ll have to buy the sequel the next time I’m in a bookstore” to “this isn’t going anywher” to “I’ll just scan pages till I get to the end.”
To his credit, some of the story threads Erikson keeps creating do go somewhere in the sequels. I thought that books 1-3 present a fairly well-rounded story.
Frankly, the cycle should have closed with the third book. I have a little trouble imagining him going on for another six books. Robert Jordan, anyone?
I don’t think it’ll be like Jordan. Erikson has had a very specific outline from the beginning and its been ten books all along- it hasn’t changed since he started writing them.
The titles of all ten books are:
Gardens of the Moon
Deadhouse Gates
Memories of Ice
House of Chains
Midnight Tides
The Bonehunters
Reaper’s Gale
Toll the Hounds
Dust of Dreams
The Crippled God
To his credit he changes the location/characters frequently. The fifth book takes place on a new continent and features an almost entirely new cast. Another thing he does better than most fantasy series authors is making each novel stand on its own fairly well. You can’t really read them out of order, but each book tells its own story and doesn’t leave you with a cliffhanger ending.
That’s gotta be a mistake. Those Erikson books are in the sci-fi/fantasy section of every bookstore in Canada, even the dinky little Coles at my dinky little local mall. Ordering from the UK seems crazy, with the money difference and the much higher shipping, unless that’s the only place you can get the book.[/quote]
Amazon.ca now has a staus of “ships within 24 hours” for Gardens of the Moon. So it was a mistake or they just re-stocked. Hooray!
