Tuesday, January 28, 2014
sf/f/h books 2014

I always pay attention to new science fiction and fantasy (and to a lesser extent, horror) releases each year. The "speculative fiction" genre umbrella is the literary place I call home. This year, I'm going to attempt to not only keep up with the news but actually READ as many new titles as I can. I've had a good start in January, keeping up with most of the short fiction periodicals, but I haven't started any 2014 novels yet. I'm currently in the middle of Gunn's Transcendental (from last year) and Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (from longer ago). Once I finish those two, I'm planning on dedicating most of my non-Libripox non-Simak reading to 2014 titles. Of course, I'll be happy if Ben agrees to a few 2014 sf titles for future Libripox picks.

Here's a list of what I'd like to read:

Short Fiction

I'd like to keep up with (in the order that I prefer them): The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Subterranean Magazine, Clarkesworld, Asimov's, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lightspeed, and Analog. I'm not too impressed by the fiction in Strange Horizons and I haven't yet tried Apex. But all those I've just listed are the major mags. I'll have a post soon about a few of my favorite stories so far.

There are also several upcoming anthologies that look promising:

Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds edited by Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois
The Book of Silverberg edited by William Schafer and Gardner Dozois
Lovecraft's Monsters edited by Ellen Datlow
Reach for Infinity edited by Jonathan Strahan
Strahan's next "Fearsome" antho
Rogues edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

(I'm also looking forward to the new KJ Parker collection, the next NESFA Anderson reprints, and whatever Centipede Lafferty titles we get, but none of those qualify as new 2014 releases.)

Novels

Hang Wire by Adam Christopher (out today!)
Wolves by Simon Ings
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (and the two that follow it)
Afterparty by Daryl Gregory
Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea by Adam Roberts
Bete by Adam Roberts
My Real Children by Jo Walton
Lock In by John Scalzi (I dislike Scalzi, but everyone reads him so I guess I have to)
The Severed Streets by Paul Cornell (maybe)
Descent by Ken MacLeod
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Pilgrims by Will Elliott
Beautiful Blood by Lucius Shepard (maybe this is releasing this year?)
War Dogs by Greg Bear (also not much info about this one)

(I'm most excited about Subterranean Press's limited edition of Drawing of the Dark, one of Tim Powers' best novels, but that also doesn't count as a new release)

And a few other books that I'm keeping an eye on. And probably a whole lot that I haven't even heard of yet. I don't know if I'll actually get around to reading many of these, but I'm going to try! I'm hoping to start Hang Wire soon and then Annihilation. Not sure what I'll read after that.
Posted by trawlerman at 1:37 PM
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