(1) These new bookshelf superheroes appear to save your favorite reads on Colossal:
Created by Artori Design, these fun metal bookshelves give the impression a stealthy superhero is saving your books from certain doom. The sideways version uses a magnet to harmlessly attach the end of the books, while the other model is a wall-mounted floating shelf that gives the impression a caped crusader is giving your books a boost from below. The shelves are currently available through Designboom.
(2) Amazing Stories continues its survey of what’s eligible for the 1941 Retro Hugo Awards with Part 3 – The Cover Artists:
The artists represented on the covers of 1940 run the gamut from the iconically familiar to the obscure:
- Earle Bergey
- Jack Binder
- Hannes Bok
- Howard V. Brown
- Margaret Brundage
- Edd Cartier
- A. Drake
- Virgil Finlay
- Robert Fuqua
- Gilmore
- H.R. Hammond
- CL Hartman
- M. Isip
- William Juhre
- Julian S Krupa & Leo Morey
- Gabriel Mayorga
- H.W. McCauley
- Leo Morey
- Stockton Mulford
- Frank R. Paul
- Ray Quigley
- Hubert Rogers
- George Rozen
- Charles Schneeman
- J.W. Scott
- Bob Sherry
- J. Allen St. John
(3) Yesterday’s installment of Pearls Before Swine has been accused of being a Feghoot.
(4) Mark Ciocco reviews The End of All Things by John Sclazi on Kaedrin Weblog.
The End of All Things When John Scalzi started his little serialized publishing experiment a few years ago with The Human Division, it felt a little like a television series. Each story was self contained and episodic in nature, and Scalzi even went as far as to call each installment an “Episode”. The book (unexpectedly and distressingly) even ended on a cliffhanger, and when he announced the sequel, he did so by saying that it had been “renewed for a second season“. Well, the new season has finally arrived, in the form of The End of All Things.
(5) While I’ve only made one attempt ever to get a blurb for something, I wish I had read John Scalzi’s blurb policy first. He wasn’t the one I asked, but based on what I learned here I would have gone about it differently.
All blurb requests must come through editors/publishers, not authors. This is to avoid me having to tell an author I don’t like their work enough to blurb it. That’s awkward. I will pre-emptively turn down requests from authors. So if you’re an author who wants me to blurb your work, ask your editor to take care of it.
(6) Deidre Kitcher would like to raise $55,000 to make a movie of Star of the Guardians.
Do you love Sci Fi movies? Well, we’ve secured the rights to the best selling book series “Star of the Guardians” by author Margaret Weis and have a script ready to go! Our vision for this epic story could be described as “Game of Thrones” meets “Battlestar Galactica”.
Her Indiegogo appeal has 23 days left to run and has raised $4,151 so far.
(7) The R2-D2 themed Boeing 787 Dreamliner rolled out the other day. It will go into service on All Nippon Airways (ANA).
Star Wars theme music played and Storm Troopers held guard as the hangar doors began to open. Within moments, a Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” painted with likeness of R2-D2 emerged to a cheering crowd at Boeing’s wide-body assembly line facility in Everett.
The airplane featuring images of the loyal droid from the Star Wars franchise belongs to Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways (ANA) and will begin flying paying passengers Oct. 18. The jet’s first revenue flight is scheduled for a run between Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to Vancouver, Canada.
Saturday’s unveiling had been eagerly anticipated by both aviation and Star Wars enthusiasts since plans for the R2-D2-themed Dreamliner were first announced in April.
(8) The Museum of Pinball actually isn’t that far from me – down the road in Banning, CA. I should pay a visit.
Long before video games found their way into the home, arcades across America were filled with the lights and sounds of mechanical pinball machines and the young people who were enamored by them. These machines are now finding their way back into the spotlight in barcades, private collections, and professional pinball tournaments.
They broke the Guinness World Record on January 17 with 331 people playing pinball simultaneously.
And here are some other impressive numbers associated with the museum.
- 40,000 square feet designated for the first phase of the Museum of Pinball and another 87,000 square feet we’ve already leased to a local business (which we hope to expand to in the future with more pinball and arcade games).
- 800 pinball machines and arcade games (both vintage and modern).
(9) On this day in history:
According to Martin Grams’ book The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic, the final scene of “Kick the Can” was filmed on September 14, 1961.
[Thanks to Dave Doering, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit to File 770 contributing editor the day Nigel.]
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@Kendall: NP. I often listen to SF audiobooks and play pinball simultaneously. Almost every subculture of interest seems to cross-cut a lot of other ones, and I find it hard not to evangelise pinball to the SF crowd, SF to the boardgamers, and boardgames to the pinballers….
@McJulie: Would that be Full Tilt Ballard? It’s quite well regarded in the pinball community. Seattle has probably the 2nd or 3rd best location pinball scene in the US these days.
Apropos of pinball and SFF, a Game of Thrones pinball was announced last week. The art is.. uninspired… but we’ll see how it plays and if they capture the feel of it properly.
You try to launch the ball, every control on the machine locks up, The Rains of Castamere plays, game over.
Devin: Apropos of pinball and SFF, a Game of Thrones pinball was announced last week. The art is.. uninspired… but we’ll see how it plays and if they capture the feel of it properly.
Iphinome: You try to launch the ball, every control on the machine locks up, The Rains of Castamere plays, game over.
You try to launch the ball, every control on the machine locks up, a blade swings out of the top and beheads you, The Rains of Castamere plays, game over.
There. FTFY.
And now your game has ended.
Remarkable how many pairings for which I’ve only read one. Cheating in some cases below, also adding to my list of maybe-purchases when my finance recover from the last splurge.
4. Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone
6. Life After Life, Kate Atkinson
8. Range of Ghosts, Elizabeth Bear
10. Cuckoo Song, Frances Hardinge
11. City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett
13. The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison
Someday I will figure out how to do a “Best Of” bracket which matches only personal favorites against hated works that can easily be voted against, for every person, in every round.
@Kyra
*soothing Jedi hug*
> “And now your game has ended.”
I really, really want “When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die” to be written on the side of this machine.
Ooh, a new bracket. I know slightly more in this one, perhaps because this is the period in which I got into the Hugos.
4. BUREAUCROMANCY
Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone
7. TRAVEL TO A TROUBLED LAND
A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar
8. QUITE A PAIR
The Golem and the Djinni, Helene Wecker
9. CRYPTOZOOLOGY
A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan. (Is SF, but I’m not complaining.)
11. CHILDREN OF PRIVILEGE
City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett
12. SECRETS AND CONSPIRACIES
I have read both of these, but don’t think either quite brings it off. Constructive abstention.
13. TROUBLED RULERS
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison
HEAT FOUR – RECENT REVELATIONS
Well, I’ve at least heard of some of these (and a couple are even on my TBR pile), but this is the worst heat yet for me… 🙁
2. The Heroes, Joe Abercrombie
13. The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison
I was thinking of casting a vote where obscurity has kept the voting particularly low, but I checked and in two cases my vote would be a tiebreaker, at least at the moment, and I really, really hate doing that when I’m the bracket runner …
Kyra, you don’t need a “best of” bracket, just to seed your brackets from the beginning. I mean, instead of having things with some similarity face off, put what you think is the strongest title “play” what you think is the weakest. I do not mean to malign your brackets in any way — it’s just that my programme husband works with sports and writes programs to pair teams for the post-season based on their season wins and losses and points scored and scored against and that sort of thing. My vet’s office does it with breeds of cats and dogs in March (“March Madness” time) and they also seed everything so that the Maine Coon is paired against the Devon Rex or something lot less popular. Of course, the Devon Rex could be more popular than I think and upset the Maine Coon, depending on the voters….
You had the right number of books (64, right?) for a big ol’ bracket, but you would need to decide which book you think is strongest, second strongest, all the way to the bottom, and then pair 64 with 1, 63 with 2, 62 with 3, etc. Or you can split the 64 into 4 brackets of 16 and pair 16 with 1, 15 with 2, etc, down to 8 and 9 facing off. Then when you get into the second round, if the seeds hold, 8 will be facing 1, 7 will be against 2, and down the line to 4 against 5. It’s basic brackets like they do in college and high school sports to determine one champion.
But you probably already knew that and I am just driving you crazy even mentioning it because you knew and you discarded the idea before you started your fabulous brackets for some very good reason… I just thought I would mention it since you seemed to want to have the strongest books meet in the final, which is what a seeded system is intended to do.
BigelowT, as I understand it, Kyra breaks down her ballots into heats by date grouping (to keep from having to do all 128 books at once), and then uses dice to pair the contenders. The clever titles are because she’s brilliant, not because she’s trying to pair similar works.
Then, based on performance in the first round, she seeds the inter-heat brackets.
(I welcome correction correction from Kyra if I’m incorrect.)
The preliminary rounds this time seem to be done by theme, but that’s – I think – mainly because they’re preliminary rather than the Real Deal.
Cassy B, I did know that, although I had momentarily forgotten that she was pairing by dice. I was simply suggesting that seeding her brackets from the get-go (based on strength of book, as Kyra considered that strength) could help avoid two very favorite books battling it out in the first round and thereafter the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth when something so very favorite falls out early. On the other hand, many people seem to enjoy the drama of the weeping and wailing, and Kyra may very well not want the extra work of trying to decide if things should be No. 9 or No. 10 seeds and ladeda, so I shouldn’t be starting with this sort of how-they-do-sporting-events nonsense…
I hope to vote later today !
BigelowT, honestly, half (well, ok, 25%) of the fun is hurling imprecations at Kyra’s dice… <grin>
Even if it was the overall most popular work against the overall least popular, it would end up being someone’s two favourites in the whole competition. 😉
I really have been reading more books recently, so I was hoping I might have a more informed opinion on this last batch, but instead I manage 4 books in my list of “to be read, really truly I mean it, they’re right up there in the top 20 which means I might have a chance of actually reading them unless lots of other good books get published in the mean time”. One book actually read. Oh, and one I wrote. I will abstain on the last item. So it’s down to:
HEAT FOUR – RECENT REVELATIONS
13. TROUBLED RULERS
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison
> “Even if it was the overall most popular work against the overall least popular, it would end up being someone’s two favourites in the whole competition.”
This pretty much nails it … seeding helps keep *overall* favorites from going against each other in the early rounds. It does nothing to keep *individual* favorites from going against each other, at any time. I could put Citizen Kane against The Toxic Avenger and I guarantee someone would be going “Arg! My two favorite films!”
That being said, I do use seeding as much as I think is feasible because of the first issue, although it only works to a certain extent.
The problem I find is that going forwards I have pairings where I have read just one side of the pair. I think I did OK on the first 2 heats but since then there have been a lot of match-ups where I have only read one side of the pair – and that one lost.
Hope I’m not too late!
7. A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar
9. The Bees, Laline Paull
13. The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison
And to confirm, yes, Heats are by publication date this time around, pairing is random, and then seeding is based on performance in the Heats. (Although a number of pairings this time around have been bizarrely apposite.)
I don’t know if I’d take steps to make a separation if two I thought were “obvious contenders” ever got paired in the Heats, especially since I don’t believe my judgement of “obvious contenders” is necessarily accurate …
Not only you made me snort water through my nose but I am at work on a computer that isn’t mine!
Bad, bad people!
> “The problem I find is that going forwards I have pairings where I have read just one side of the pair.”
That was always a worry doing a bracket of recent works. I do think that as things progress, it will tend in general more and more towards works which have been more widely read.
Bracket, now that I’ve gotten over the shock of how many things I haven’t read and the surprise of finding out that Graydon wrote two books. Oh, to not be broke!
HEAT FOUR – RECENT REVELATIONS
1. I AM A BAD, BAD PERSON
Chime, Franny Billingsley
4. BUREAUCROMANCY
Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone (I love this book!)
10. STRICTLY FOR THE BIRDS
The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater
Cuckoo Song, Frances Hardinge
I haven’t read Hardinge (yet), but I don’t even care: write in for The Scorpio Races.
11. CHILDREN OF PRIVILEGE
City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett, the book I will never forgive the Puppies for skunking this year.
Books I wanted to vote for, but have not read their opposites: Daughter of Mystery, Stranger in Olondria, Range of Ghosts. I’ll just sit here and pet them.
Forgot to GODSTALK.
You know, if I didn’t typo my own name in the comments field, it wouldn’t end up waiting for moderation! *sigh*
1) Chime
(Chime is amazing. Amazing. The dice pairing it against A Monster Calls is one of the great injustices of the world and everyone should go read that too, but CHIME!)
10) Cuckoo Song
@Heather Rose Jones,<headdesk> I *knew* your name looked familiar. <blushing> Sorry ’bout that. Somehow I didn’t put it together. You know how you see someone in a completely different context from normal and you just don’t recognize them? It’s like that….
I’m a bit surprised A Monster Calls isn’t getting more votes. It had huge buzz in the YA community when it came out because its a memorial book of sorts; Siobhan Dowd’s last idea, given by her editor to Patrick Ness to write after she died of cancer. But maybe I’ve just been missing them!
I didn’t read it because of Ness’ proven ability to do horrible things to my stress levels (I haven’t read the sequels to Knife of Never Letting Go, either, although it should definitely be in the sci fi version of the current bracket), but I’ve heard great things about it, and of course the sentimental boost is there, too.
@ Meredith If the Knife of Never Letting Go messed you up in a bad way, it’s safe to say that a Monster Calls will do the same (and the rest of the Chaos Walking trilogy is seriously fucking upsetting). Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great book but it’s definitely not an easy one. Choosing between it and Chime was easily the hardest choice I’ve seen so far.
Cassy B. — And here I was hoping that you fondly remembered some of my short fiction!
@CKCharles
I will happily tell anyone who likes their fiction dark that Ness is brilliant, probably one of the finest YA writers alive today, but I’m veeeery unlikely to ever, ever read anything by him again without some really clear and specific “this is Ness but he’s making it fluffy” recommendations. Possibly sworn in blood, with terrible penalties for misleading statements. I don’t really do dark, generally speaking. (I don’t like GRRM-style stuff, either, although GRRM for all the death isn’t as soul-crushing as Ness is.)
Question for Kyra: have you read all of the books in these brackets? Most? I can’t recall if you’ve been asked/answered that before. I assume not all, as you take recommendations.
Looks like voting hasn’t closed yet, so here is all I have to give…
HEAT FOUR – RECENT REVELATIONS
2. CANNONS AGAINST THE BATTLE-SHEEP
I really want to vote for Abercrombie, but it sounds like Saunders’ work is very strong from what people have been saying, so: abstain.
5. MADNESS AND DEATH
I haven’t managed to get through The Drowning Girl I started it some time within a year after its publication, but got bogged down. This novel seems even more personal than Kiernan’s usually are (and they always seem pretty personal to me), but it ended up being a lot of work to read and I bounced off it. The Red Tree, on the other hand, is my favorite thing she’s ever written. I’d be interested in how it would do against House of Leaves, as there are some thematic parallels, at least in my head.
And then I haven’t read Maplecroft, but it looks fun, so I guess all that verbiage was just to say: abstain.
11. CHILDREN OF PRIVILEGE
City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett
So good. Deserved a shot at the Hugo.
13. TROUBLED RULERS
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison
I’ve seen some people complain about the action taking place off-stage, particularly the detective sub-plot, but that was one of the elements I most enjoyed. The main character was a little too saintly to believe, but I don’t mind a little escapist fantasy in my escapist fantasy.
@ Meredith
I worked in a children’s bookstore for about 10 years and my pleasure reading is still heavily centered in middle grade/YA stuff, but I’m pretty widely read in all genres and the dark stuff in middle grade/YA can be so pitch black and YES soul-crushing.
Ness is a prime example of an author that I would have gone out of my way to warn people about; not “stay away” but “heads up, you might be really, really upset after reading this.”
> “I’m veeeery unlikely to ever, ever read anything by him again without some really clear and specific ‘this is Ness but he’s making it fluffy’ recommendations.”
“The Crane Wife” is … much less harrowing than most of his other stuff? I still wouldn’t call it fluffy, though, so, well, um, no swearing in blood.
Oh, but that’s easy. You just have to limit the voting pool to people whose precise tastes you already know, eliminate people who have incompatible likes (I assume based on how much you like the individuals in question), and then you’re good to go. What could be simpler?
@Kyra
There’s a 2015 Ness book out, The Rest Of Us Just Live Here, that’s supposedly lighter that I need to persuade people to read and then do some swearing in blood. It’ll be eligible next year, so if it is up to snuff (and isn’t horribly traumatising, and no I’m never, ever forgiving him for the end of Knife, never, that was awful even though it was also brilliant) it might be a nomination option.
> “Question for Kyra: have you read all of the books in these brackets? Most?”
Most. But since I started opening it up to suggestions, there’s always ones I haven’t gotten to. That’s as it should be, since they’re “best of [thing]” brackets, not “best of [subset of things Kyra has read]” brackets, so I try to pay attention to suggestions and have options for “write-ins” of various kinds. For the ones I haven’t read, I try to familiarize myself with the plot, characters, themes, etc. so I can come up with bracket titles and feel like I know what I’m doing.
Frankly, the one I’m a bit worried about for these lines is the presumably coming 21st century SF bracket; my reading for the past ten years or so has tended more towards fantasy than SF. While I think I’ve still got a decent grounding in recent SF, I know there’s going to be stuff that Needs to be on the ballot that I haven’t read and therefore won’t necessarily know Needs to be on it. I’ll have to rely on suggestions there more than I have up until now.
Going to close the voting and post results fairly soon.
All right, voting closed, here we go …
HEAT FOUR – RECENT REVELATIONS
Except for about four matchups with especially well-known title, voting in this round was quite low, reflecting that as we get closer to the present, a lot of these books have had less time to make their way around and get read. That probably led to our first shutouts of the brackets on this round. There were also, however, still some breakout stars here.
1. I AM A BAD, BAD PERSON
WINNER: Chime, Franny Billingsley – 3 votes
A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness – 1 vote
This may be the lowest-voted round of the brackets. Both of these are, frankly, great books to add to a TBR pile, though. Chime is going to move on to the Big Round, and honestly you can almost certainly expect to see Patrick Ness pop back up for his depressing, amazing YA whenever the 21st century SF bracket rolls around.
2. CANNONS AGAINST THE BATTLE-SHEEP
WINNER: The March North, Graydon Saunders – 7 votes
The Heroes, Joe Abercrombie – 5 votes
A close match, but the book by USENET SF newsgroup regular Graydon Saunders narrowly edged out Abercrombie’s trope-upending battlefield stand-alone.
3. INHERITED VISIONS
WINNER: Seraphina, Rachel Hartman – 9 votes
The Lost Sun, Tessa Gratton – 2 votes
Seraphina made a splash when it came out and is well-liked on the site; could the low vote score be because few read its opponent? Possibly, but The Lost Sun did have at least some vocal admirers here, too. But Seraphina will join the group of books proceeding forward with DRAGONS.
4. BUREAUCROMANCY
WINNER (seeded): Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone – 18 votes
The Archived, Victoria Schwab – 2 votes
Max Gladstone’s much-admired debut novel is the first book which can definitely be pinned as a breakout star of the heat. The Archived is a well-regarded YA work, but it was up against a powerhouse here.
5. MADNESS AND DEATH
WINNER: Maplecroft, Cherie Priest – 7 votes
The Drowning Girl, Caitlin R. Kiernan – 6 votes
By a razor-thin margin, Maplecroft edges out The Drowning Girl and will go on to the Big Round. There was, however, one vote for Kiernan’s The Red Tree.
6. The 1920’S VS. THE 1940’S
WINNER (tie): The Diviners, Libba Bray – 3 votes
WINNER (tie): Life After Life, Kate Atkinson – 3 votes
A tie! Both will move on. I’m slightly surprised by the low voting here, since Atkinson’s work, at least, was fairly high-profile. But with Libba Bray perhaps being best known for her YA fantasy titles, and Atkinson at least as well known for literary fiction, they may not have the name-recognition here that they do in other circles, which could tell in later rounds.
7. TRAVEL TO A TROUBLED LAND
WINNER: A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar – 8 votes
Froi of the Exiles, Melina Marchetta – 0 votes
Our very first shutout of the brackets, albeit in a low-voting round, with Samatar’s debut novel handily winning a victory over the second book in Marchetta’s Lumatere Chronicles.
8. QUITE A PAIR
WINNER (seeded): Range of Ghosts, Elizabeth Bear – 14 votes
The Golem and the Djinni, Helene Wecker – 4 votes
Many said this one was a tough, tough choice, but the great majority of those who made the decision came down on the side of Range of Ghosts. Bear’s Bone and Jewel Creatures also got a vote.
9. CRYPTOZOOLOGY
WINNER (seeded) A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan – 19 votes
The Bees, Laline Paull – 1 vote
Brennan’s book is another site favorite (plus DRAGONS), so it’s probably not surprising that it racked up a big win here.
10. STRICTLY FOR THE BIRDS
WINNER: Cuckoo Song, Frances Hardinge – 5 votes
The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater – 3 votes
A close vote, with low voting once again. Cuckoo Song is gradually making the rounds, though, and managed to eke out a victory here. Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races also got a vote.
11. CHILDREN OF PRIVILEGE
WINNER (seeded): City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett – 16 votes
Prince of Thorns, Mark Lawrence – 1 vote
City of Stairs is one of the most admired recent fantasy novels, and it wins a convincing victory here with a decently high vote score.
12. SECRETS AND CONSPIRACIES
WINNER: Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson – 8 votes
The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell – 3 votes
G. Willow Wilson wins over David Mitchell’s weighty tome – another victory for genre fantasy over lit fantasy? Hard to say. For those who did not immediately recognize the name G. Willow Wilson, you might be more familiar with her work writing a comic book series called Ms. Marvel.
13. TROUBLED RULERS
WINNER (seeded): The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison – 37 votes
Kings of the North, Elizabeth Moon – 3 votes
The recent Hugo nominee is unquestionably the biggest winner of this heat, racking up as many votes as the next two biggest winners combined. Kings of the North got a lot of praise here, but it could not stop the juggernaut.
14. CONNECTING ACROSS A DIVIDE
WINNER: Daughter of Mystery, Heather Rose Jones – 7 votes
A Corner of White, Jaclyn Moriarty – 0 votes
A site favorite well before she started commenting here, Jones’ move to the Big Round comes as no surprise, with a shutout against A Corner of White. The low voting here once again probably once again reflects a lack of people who have read both the one and also the other more than anything else.
DRAGONS YAY
(Also I would have read Daughter of Mystery by now but holy cow that book is expensive in the UK.)
Kyra: Frankly, the one I’m a bit worried about for these lines is the presumably coming 21st century SF bracket… I’ll have to rely on suggestions there more than I have up until now.
Brain Plague, Joan Slonczewski (2000)
Calculating God, Robert J. Sawyer (2000)
Darwin’s Radio, Greg Bear (2001)
The Chronoliths, Robert Charles Wilson (2001)
Cosmonaut Keep, Ken MacLeod (2001)
In the Company of Others, Julie E Czerneda (2001)
Kiln People, David Brin (2002)
Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold (2002)
Blind Lake, Robert Charles Wilson (2003)
Singularity Sky, Charles Stross (2003)
The Algebraist, Iain M. Banks (2004)
Accelerando, Charles Stross (2005)
Spin, Robert Charles Wilson (2005)
Learning the World, Ken MacLeod (2005)
Old Man’s War, John Scalzi (2005)
Glasshouse, Charles Stross (2006)
Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge (2006)
Eifelheim, Michael F. Flynn (2006)
Blindsight, Peter Watts (2006)
Little Brother, Cory Doctorow (2008)
Anathem, Neal Stephenson (2008)
God’s War, Kameron Hurley (2010)
Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey (2011)
Embassytown, China Miéville (2011)
The Red: First Light, Linda Nagata (2012)
A Calculated Life, Anne Charnock (2013)
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (2013)
The Disestablishment of Paradise, Phillip Mann (2013)
Nexus, Ramez Naam (2013)
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North (2014)
@Meredith: You’re building up Ness’s series for me; I have the first, but haven’t read it yet. So I’m a little nervous I won’t find the ending brilliant.
On the other paw, wow, your comments make me want to drop The Martian and pick up The Knife of Never Letting Go immediately! Not that I’m looking to read (nor avoid) gut-wrenchingly dark stuff . . . but I’m thinking this is required reading (ETA: er, for me, anyway).
(trying to figure out how to shuffle TBR shelves & e-folders without collapsing under the weight of it all) 😉
I’ve got two bracket titles to go before I post the next one. I swear this is about the most I’ve ever been tempted to use “Two Works That Have Absolutely Nothing To Do With Each Other”.
I’ve got to say that I’ve been super-impressed with your bracket titles, and wouldn’t blame you a bit for using “Two Works That Have Absolutely Nothing To Do With Each Other”.
Kyra, frankly, I’m amazed you’ve managed so many witty bracket titles. I couldn’t do it… (I’m a past master at thinking of the perfect thing to say well after the perfect time to say it. L’esprit d’escalier, as the French have it.)
Dang, didn’t make it to this page before the voting closed.