Now lists are always odd things to make and some can be more controversial than others… but I’ve been looking at the new catalogues from a lot of UK publishers wondering what is going to be exciting to read. And there are a lot of exciting books. There are books that I know I want to read at some point, there are books coming out in a series that I’m catching up with (so would be more exciting if I was waiting for them) and there are books that are debuts that I wanted to try. There are loads of other reasons too why I’m excited but I hope you get the idea. I like new books full stop.
But I thought I’d start with sharing my list of books that I’d pay full-price hardback for without a pause for thought.
Now if you’ve been following this blog for a while I hope you’ll get why I want to read each one. The only mysterious entry is going to be is the Robert Rankin. And I’m very curious by that as I’m hoping I’m going to revisit the Rankin of my teenage years after being excitedly hand sold it a couple of weeks ago and being told you can safely read without knowing all his own intertextual self absorption of late. .
And in no particular order are my Top Five Books from July to December 2010:
The Fuller Memorandum (Laundry 3) by Charles Stross
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Orbit (1 July 2010)
Bob Howard is an IT specialist and field agent for the Laundry, the branch of Her Majesty’s secret service that deals with occult threats. Overworked and underpaid, Bob is used to his two jobs overflowing from a strict nine to five and, since his wife Mo has a very similar job description, he understands that work will sometimes follow her home, too. But when ‘work’ involves zombie assassins and minions of a mad god’s cult, he realises things are spinning out of control. When a top-secret dossier goes missing and his boss Angleton is implicated, Bob must contend with suspiciously helpful Russian intelligence operatives and an unscrupulous apocalyptic cult before confronting the decades-old secret that lies at the heart of the Laundry: what is so important about the missing Fuller Memorandum? And why are all the people who know dying …?
The Bride That Time Forgot (Brenda and Effie Series) by Paul Magrs
Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Headline Review (28 Oct 2010)
An outrageous adventure with the most terrifying villain Brenda has ever faced – her best friend, Effie.
Something is biting people on the streets of Whitby. In an ordinary town, this would be worrying. Here, it’s disastrous, and only Brenda has guessed why. She’s also trying to prepare for a packed festive break at her B&B, but her best friend Effie is in distracted mood: she just hasn’t been the same since her suave gentleman friend Alucard reappeared.
Meanwhile, Penny has joined a book group in the new mystery bookstore, the Spooky Finger. As she is drawn into the strange and fantastic works of Edwardian lady novelist Beatrice Mapp, she makes some very surprising discoveries. Discoveries that will soon impact upon the lives of all the ladies of Whitby. When unexpected help from the shadows of the past arrives to illuminate the dangers awaiting them all, Brenda realises that unless she can find a way to save Effie, the consequences may be eternal.
Empire of Light by Gary Gibson
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Tor (2 July 2010)
The nova war has begun to spread as the Emissaries wage a fierce and reckless campaign, encroaching on the area of space occupied by humanity and forcing the Shoal into a desperate retreat. While Dakota goes in search of the entity responsible for creating the Maker caches, Corso, left in charge of a fleet of human-piloted Magi ships, finds his authority crumbling in the face of assassination attempts and politically-motivated sabotage.
If any hope exists at all, it lies in an abandoned asteroid a thousand light-years beyond the Consortium’s borders, and with Ty Whitecloud, the only man alive with the skill to decipher the messages left behind by an ancient race of star travellers. Unfortunately Whitecloud is locked in a prison cell aboard a dying coreship adrift in space, awaiting execution for war crimes against Corso’s own people. But if humanity has any hope of survival, Corso is going to have to find some way to keep him alive – and that’s only if Dakota doesn’t kill him first …
The Japanese Devil Fish Girl and Other Unnatural Attractions by Robert Rankin
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Gollancz (2 Sep 2010)
The pickled Martian’s tentacles are fraying at the ends and Professor Coffin’s Most Meritorious Unnatural Attraction (the remains of the original alien autopsy, performed by Sir Frederick Treves at the London Hospital) is no longer drawing the crowds. It’s 1895; nearly a decade since Mars invaded Earth, chronicled by H.G. Wells in THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. Wrecked Martian spaceships, back-engineered by Charles Babbage and Nikola Tesla, have carried the Queen’s Own Electric Fusiliers to the red planet, and Mars is now part of the ever-expanding British Empire. The less-than-scrupulous sideshow proprietor likes Off-worlders’ cash, so he needs a sensational new attraction. Word has reached him of the Japanese Devil Fish Girl; nothing quite like her has ever existed before. But Professor Coffin’s quest to possess the ultimate showman’s exhibit is about to cause considerable friction amongst the folk of other planets. Sufficient, in fact, to spark off Worlds War Two.
The Technician by Neal Asher
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Tor (20 Aug 2010)
The Theocracy has been dead for twenty years, and the Polity rules on Masada. But the Tidy Squad consists of rebels who cannot accept the new order. Their hate for surviving theocrats is undiminished, and the iconic Jeremiah Tombs is at the top of their hitlist.
Escaping his sanatorium Tombs is pushed into painful confrontation with reality he has avoided since the rebellion. His insanity has been left uncured, because the near mythical hooder called the Technician that attacked him all those years ago, did something to his mind even the AIs fail to understand. Tombs might possess information about the suicide of an entire alien race.
The war drone Amistad, whose job it is to bring this information to light, recruits Lief Grant, an ex-rebel Commander, to protect Tombs, along with the black AI Penny Royal, who everyone thought was dead. The amphidapt Chanter, who has studied the bone sculptures the Technician makes with the remains of its prey, might be useful too.
Meanwhile, in deep space, the mechanism the Atheter used to reduce themselves to animals, stirs from slumber and begins to power-up its weapons.
So that’s my personal selection. What’s yours?
