Yes, I know that everything I seem to post lately is about books. But that’s my escape. Work is keeping me busy with working with a design team to redesign both the company’s logo but also our website. And it’s about to start snowballing, as we are looking at an April/May go-live. So I’ll need more escapes. Hence more books…

Yesterday, io9.com posted an entry regarding more non-english speak authors delving into the English language Science Fiction. They cited Israeli author Lavie Tidhar‘s newest (and as best I can tell first English language I’m wrong, not his first English-Language book, sorry) steampunk novel “The Bookman” which comes out today overseas. The title intrigued me, and after reading the book description and an early review, I knew I wanted to read it. So since I already had a pre-order item with Amazon UK I decided I might as well have that added to my order too (Since the American edition will not come out until frakin’ June or July…). How could I not buy this with a description like this

A masked terrorist has brought London to its knees – there are bombs inside books, and nobody knows which ones. On the day of the launch of the first expedition to Mars, by giant cannon, he outdoes himself with an audacious attack. For young poet Orphan, trapped in the screaming audience, it seems his destiny is entwined with that of the shadowy terrorist, but how? Like a steam-powered take on V for Vendetta, rich with satire and slashed through with automatons, giant lizards, pirates, airships and wild adventure, The Bookman is the first of a series.

And a review like this:

The punkgenre has a new term, BookPunk. The Bookman pokes at the fat and waddled body of steampunk with its walking cane and leaves it on the roadside with its fresh take on Victorian London without loosing any steam on its way.

From loudmouthman.com

And it’s a series, and I LOVE books in a series (Get back to writing Dahlquist!)

And well, if I’m going to buy TWO books overseas, I might as well buy three…

So I added Paul McAuley‘s book Cowboy Angels, which I can’t remember how, where or why I heard about this book, but I believe it was shortly after having my head bent around the storyline Iain M. Bank‘s Transition which involves rogue reality-hopping, and multiple character storylines for people who may or may not be the same people later in the timeline… So when I came across a book about a government agency hoping across time lines and dimensions to shape the fate of other Americas, I was needless to say intrigued. And of course, it doesn’t seem an American publisher ever picked it up… I’ve had it in my saved cart for awhile and figured now is as good a time as any to buy it.

Technorati Tags: books, Science Fiction, Lavie Tidhar, steampunk, The Bookman, BookPunk, Paul McAuley, Cowboy Angels, Iain M. Bank, Transition, Alternate Reality

After pre-ordering Secrets of the Fire Sea by Stephen Hunt from Amazon UK yesterday, and a really sexy new cover for my Kindle, I discovered two other books being published later this year that I will definitely have to get my hands on:

• Kraken by China Miéville: China’s not big on describing what his books are about before they are released, but from a few sources I was able to track down this little bit:
  

  Deep in the research wing of the Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears? For curator Billy Harrow it’s the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates and assassins. It might just be that the creature he’s been preserving is more than a biological rarity: there are those who are sure it’s a god. A god that someone is hoping will end the world.

  Perdido Street Station was one of my favorite books this year and I thoroughly enjoyed The City & The City, so I’m really looking forward to anything and everything I can get my hands on by him.

• Pinion by Jay Lake: My awesome brother-in-law and soon to be sister-in-law gave me the hardbound editions of Mainspring and Escapement for Christmas this year, and I plowed through Mainspring in about 2 days and really, really loved it. I’ll soon read Escapement (I have other books on my list and I don’t want to burn out on any one type of thing, plus I tend to pace my self with books in a series), so I really want to see where Lake takes his Clockpunk universe next.

Again, I’m sure I’ll add more later…

Technorati Tags: Secrets of the Fire Sea, Stephen Hunt, Kraken, China Miéville, Perdido Street Station, The City & The City, Pinion, Jay Lake, Mainspring, Escapement, Clockpunk

It seems my list of future book releases is rivaling my upcoming album list. 2010 seems like it’s going to be an interesting reading year:

• Dreadnought & Clementine by Cherie Priest: Two new novels expanding on Cherie’s The Clockwork Century world that was introduced in her last novel Boneshaker. The books themselves are set to be independent works from each other, sharing a few characters and what-not, but set in the steampunk America circa the late 1800′s, where the civil war still continues 20+ years later, adventure ensues. Oh, and there’s the occasional zombie… If these to are as engaging as Boneshaker, I’m gonna be a happy man.
• For the Win and With a Little Help by Cory Doctorow: I’ve read AND LOVED all of Cory’s novels (it certainly doesn’t hurt that he releases them digitally for free and I have a Kindle; thought I have bought 3 of them too). If he writes it, I’ll read it. Rather than trying to describe these books, I’ll just block quote from his site:
  

  His next two books are WITH A LITTLE HELP, an audacious experiment in print-on-demand publishing (Feb 2010), and FOR THE WIN, a young adult novel about macroeconomics, video games and the labor movement, out from Tor/HarperVoyager in May 2010.

• Johannes Cabal the Detective by Jonathan L. Howard: I found his first bookJohannes Cabal the Necromancer sitting quietly in the new fiction section of the local Borders bookstore and frankly, the dust-jacket art grabbed my attention first (I’m a book fetishist, make no mistake). But the story really pulled me in; a man bargaining with the devil to regain his soul (He’d initially sold it to learn the art of necromancy). Given one year and twisted itinerant carnival, he has to collect 100 souls in exchange for his. And the ending, which I’ll not spoil, has me wanting to learn the rest of the story.
• Secrets of the Fire Sea by Stephen Hunt: The fourth book in Hunt’s Jackals series pitched that has been pitched “Charles Dickens meets Bladerunner” (Do you really need more that that…). This is essentially a steampunk adventure taking place in a world that is passably similar to Victorian England, replete with conspiracy, communists, magic and spiritual steam powered beings called SteamMen. The hardbound UK editions of these are well worth picking up for the dust-jacket are alone, but you won’t be disappointed by the books; he spins a great yarn.
• The Immorality Engine and The Ghosts of Manhattan by George Mann: Ok, these are effectively Steampunk pulp fiction. But their predecessors (The Affinity Bridge and The Osiris Ritual) are great, action-packed novels. The Immorality Gate follows the continuing adventures of Newbury & Hobbes, a Sherlock/Watson style duo (complete with a Laudanum addiction) working as secret agents for an unnaturally old and artificially preserved Queen Victoria in an world of automata, mad scientists, and dark beings. Ghosts of Manhattan takes that world and fast forwards it to the Roaring ’20 in America and presents noir style mystery/detective novel (Something vaguely akin to “The Shadow”). Again, it’s worth it to pay the couple extra dollars to get the limited edition slipcase hardbacks; they are numbered, signed, and typically have some small extras.
• Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld: The follow up to Westerfeld’s Young-Adult novel Leviathan release just a few months ago. Another steampunk novel (Are you seeing a trend in my reading…); this time in a Steampunk mired World War I. The Allied forces, called “Darwinists” have bio-engineered giant war beasts to assist in the war effort, where as the the central powers now called “Clankers” have perfected humongous steam power battle mechs. The story follows the son of Franz Ferdinand fleeing into hiding with an unlikely ally of a girl disguised as a British air officer. Adventure ensues.

I’m sure I’ve left something out or I’m not aware of it yet, but this is definitely a good handful of what I’m really looking forward to reading this next year. I’ll post additions as I discover them.

Technorati Tags: reading, Dreadnought, Clementine, Cherie Priest, The Clockwork Century, Boneshaker, steampunk, For the Win, With a Little Help, Cory Doctorow, Johannes Cabal the Detective, Jonathan L. Howard, Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, Secrets of the Fire Sea, Stephen Hunt, The Immorality Engine, The Ghosts of Manhattan, George Mann, The Affinity Bridge, The Osiris Ritual, Newbury & Hobbes, Behemoth, Scott Westerfeld, Books, Science Fiction, Novels, base2wave