What new science fiction books are you anticipating?
I’m excited about:
Olympos, Dan Simmons (available next week!)
Judas Unchained, Peter F. Hamilton (was due this summer but Amazon is now showing February 2006)
Fledgling, Octavia Butler (Amazon says October)
Actually, I got a copy a few days ago, but I don’t think I’ll read it. I found the first book quite tedious and my reading queue is much too long.
What’s this one about. I usually like her stuff but havn’t heard of this one.
Well, Harry Turtledove has a sequel to Days of Infamy, the next book in his American War series and his first Videssos book in a long time all coming out by the end of the year, so I’m looking forward to those.
I’m tickled about Olympos as well. I enjoyed Ilium – it was my first exposure to the story of The Iliad, so it was all new to me. (I’d heard of Helen and Achilles and a Trojan horse, but that’s about it.) 
A Feast for Crows by George R R Martin
The Protector’s War by S M Stirling
the aforementioned Turtledove books
and (yes I admit it) the next Robert Jordan tome
Mammoth by John Varley, until a couple days ago when I picked it up at the bookstore.
Turek, you might be saving me a few bucks. Not good?
No, I meant I WAS anticipating it, but now I’m reading it.
I’d pretty much read anything Varley wrote down. Hell, I’d read his grocery list if he’d publish it in a paperback. I’m about half through this one. So far it’s been pretty run-of-the-mill. It ain’t an 8 Worlds story, and it seems like it’s kind of missing some of his normal writing style, which is what attracted me to his writing in the first place. (The first thing I ever read from him was Steel Beach, and from the opening line of “In 5 years the penis will be obsolete,” he really grabbed me.)
Pick up a copy Auntie, and we can talk about it when you’re done.
I had a pleasant surprise two weeks ago when I saw there was a new Lois McMaster Bujold novel out (The Hallowed Hunt). I hadn’t known she was due for a new release.
I plan on buying the new Varley book (Mammoth)and the new Robert Charles Wilson book (Spin), hopefully before I go on vacation next week.
Joe Haldeman (Old Twentieth) and S.M. Stirling (The Protector’s War) have new books coming soon. (Max, did you see the first nine chapters are posted on Stirling’s website?)
David Brin doesn’t have any new works on the horizon.
I will. I haven’t read Varley since Titan, Wizard, and Demon, and that was many years ago, so anything by him will be new to me.
I have no idea what Butler’s Fledgling is about, but I have liked everything else she has written.
As much as I like Dan Simmons’s books, I get the feeling I’d like them even more if I were an English Lit major.
Connie Willis has a new novella coming out, Inside Job, but it’s a hardback priced like a full-sized novel.
I’m also looking forward to the release of Olympos - I read Ilium and the tie-in short story, The Ninth of Av, and it was enough to get me hooked.
Quite apart from the tantalising references to the Voynich manuscript and the mystery of the final fax, how can you not look forward to a war between the classical gods and an army of men and literature obsessed robots?
I read this a couple of weeks ago. I liked it. If you liked her other books (Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls) set in this universe, you should like this one.
It didn’t knock me over, but I liked it.
I read on the boards a while back that Robin Hobb had a new book coming out in the fall, but I haven’t seen any other info about it yet.
I think Connie Willis has a new novella coming out before too long.
Shaman’s Crossing, due out in the US on September 1. Hobb’s website has a book tour starting in July, in Australia and thereabouts, so the UK edition might be out sooner than that.
There are some reviews up on the SFF World site, where Hobb has her own forum on the message board.
You underestimate my threshold for buying books. I took home the Bujold book and read it the next day.
I pretty much agree with your opinion. I didn’t like it as well as CoC but thought it was better than PoS. But overall, I prefer her science fiction novels to her fantasy work.
I’m most interested in John Crowley’s latest: Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land, which looks like an alternate history fantasy novel (that is, a fantasy novel written in an alternate history, with commentary). I love that sort of literary game.
Can anyone recommend a good online source of news about upcoming science fiction/fantasy books? I know about Locus, but that’s about it. I’m way out of the loop on new genre fiction, and I’d like to have an ongoing source of news about it.
I doubt there’s a better source than Locus, but this is the place to ask – someone will know.
I get most of my fantasy and SF news from here
Everybody has an opinion. I liked PoS better than either CoC or THH. However, I thought the intricacy of the plot in THH is pretty terrific. Further this is a new (to us) culture in the Chalionverse. And a fascinating one, to anyone who has studied either anthropology or religion - much less both! Dunno what Sayers would have thought about how Lois has used her guidelines, but she’s certainly used them consistently.
I suspect that she had a purpose in having one of the featured characters with a link to Chalion that we will see in a subsequent book. After all, there will be at least two more books in this universe. Dunno whether the next book will be about the Mother or the Father. I do most devoutly hope she’ll take us back to Chalion. I do want rather badly to find out how the Royina’s Traveling Circus fares. :dubious:
Will she ever return to the Vorkosiverse? I dunno. I don’t think she does, either. I do think she’s entitled to give it a rest. I dare anyone to name another equally long series in which the writing is even half as good.
Sorry to be a bit late commenting on this, but I just found it.