Month: January 2016


Jan
2016

Anticipated Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016

categories: Forthcoming books

The explosion in publishing for science fiction, fantasy and horror makes me believe that 2016 will be an amazing years for these genres.  Orbit has stated they are expanding their publishing efforts, Houghton Mifflin has added a new SFF imprint, Marvelous SFF podcast/book club Sword and Laser seem to have started up a publishing endeavor, and of course there is the ongoing boom in self-publishing.  I have so many books I want to read, and I’m lucky enough that my gig as the science fiction and fantasy columnist for Library Journal means that I will probably not only get to read most of these, but I can share my joy (or occasional disappointment) with them in my reviews for librarians around the country.  But let’s face it. I’d read most of these even if I didn’t have to. Of course, print magazine publishing being what it is, my deadlines mean that I’ve actually read some of these, which I will note throughout. So without further ado, here are the titles I am most excited about for the first half of 2016. There’s a couple of titles scheduled later in the year (Crosstalk by Connie Willis, Cloudbound by Fran Wilde are just two examples) that I will undoubtedly devour, but that’s so far out that you never know if the pub dates will shift. I’m sure there are so many more great ones coming, so if I missed something you’re dying to read, feel free to tell me in the comments!

JANUARY


All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders  (Read, LOVED)
City of Blades (The Divine Cities, book 2) by Robert Jackson Bennett (Read, LOVED)
This Census-Taker by China Mieville
Medusa’s Web by Tim Powers (Read, LOVED)
Feverborn (Fever) by Karen Marie Moning

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Jan
2016

Favorite Reads of 2015

categories: Best Books

As a librarian and a book reviewer, I read a lot of books.  This year I actually read fewer books than I have in a long time, due to a perfect storm of moving, changing jobs, and dealing with a serious illness. I got some help on the reviewing front, sharing my Library Journal column on science fiction, fantasy, and horror with a co-columnist which helped quite a bit. I still managed to read about 175 books in 2015, reviewing 146 for Library Journal.

Looking back at all that reading, some titles float right to the top as favorites. I participated in the twitter hashtag #libfaves15, which was fun but difficult to limit to only 10 titles.  I also ran down my favorites for Library Journal, but that was an even more torturous limit of 5 titles.  So here I thought I would run down my favorites in several SFF genres, NO LIMITS!  I’m not going to give full reviews here as i reviewed all of these in Library Journal, but I’ll just give a brief note about why I loved them.  It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a lot of my favorites were genre blends!

Urban Fantasy
            

Owl and the Japanese Circus (The Owl Series) by Kristi Charish

Why? This had a great Indiana Jones vibe with adventuress heroine Owl and plenty of exotic locales. Owl is prickly and difficult, giving the author plenty of room for character growth over this new series.

Killing Pretty: A Sandman Slim Novel by Richard Kadrey

Why? Because Kadrey has managed to turn this series in a new direction, more of an old-skool urban fantasy with Stark as a supernatural P.I. Of course, he’s still Stark (aka Sandman Slim) so there’s all the seediness and profanity that series regulars love.

Vision in Silver: A Novel of the Others by Anne Bishop

Why? This is one of my favorite urban fantasy series (although it’s not really urban), with a fascinating world and a continuous storyline (don’t jump in here) with tension building slowly to a major showdown between humans and Others.

Menagerie (The Menagerie Series) by Rachel Vincent

Why? I like the angsty melodrama of this new series. Delilah’s struggles when she realizes she is not human and her imprisonment in the carnival is dark, dark dark. Not a bad readalike for Bishop’s Others series, actually.

Dragon Coast (Daniel Blackland) by Greg Van Eekhout

Why? After the amazing California Bones, the second book (Pacific Fire) was a bit of a disappointment. But Van Eekhout brings it back with this final volume. Another heist plot (yay!) and more of the character bonding that I loved so much makes this a great ending for the series. (more…)