Books for a Happy 2018

So, the new year is coming, and the question is inevitably asked, "What are you looking forward to in the new year?"

And the answer for me is always: books.  But let's not talk about my books, which I certainly talk about plenty.  Instead, which books am I looking forward to reading in 2018?  Here's an incomplete list of the things on my radar, and they're all things I think you should be wanting to pick up in the coming year.  (In addition to the two I have coming out, but you've already got those wired in, yes?  Yes.)


Still So Strange by Amanda Downum
I've made no secret that Amanda is one of my favorite writers working in fantasy today, and one of my favorite people in the industry as well.  Her collection of short stories and poetry is coming out this year, and you should totally get your hands on it.


The Armored Saint by Myke Cole

Myke has been doing excellent things blending military fiction with urban, modern fantasy, and everything I've been hearing about his first dive into traditional epic fantasy has been incredible.  So I'm very excited to get my hands on this one.




Head On by John Scalzi
I've enjoyed just about everything John's written, including and especially Locked In, which this is the sequel to.  It's a very fascinating setting (in which a disease has rendered some people completely unable to use their bodies, but the use of robot avatars called "threeps" lets them interact with the world), and in the first book John did an excellent job of exploring the implications of the core ideas.  So I'm very intrigued to see where it goes.



Stone Mad by Elizabeth Bear
In another example of "Yes, more of that, please," I really enjoyed 2015's Karen Memory, so I'm looking forward to more western-steampunk adventures with Karen and her people.  I don't know if we'll get another steam-powered-sewing-machine-mecha fight, but a boy can dream.





From Unseen Fire by Cass Morris
This is the debut novel from the newest DAW Author, and it's been on my radar for a while now, so I'm quite excited to see it's going to come out this April.  It's set in an Ancient Rome With Magic, and everything I've seen from Cass Morris shows that she's really done the work in her research and worldbuilding, so I'm fascinated to see the results.  Plus, of course: she's DAW, so she's family.


Temper by Nicky Drayden
Nicky already has a follow-up to Prey of the Gods, but not a sequel.  Nicky is another one of my favorite-writers/favorite-people out there.  I swear, she once wrote a short story that was so funny it nearly killed me I was laughing so hard.  So, yeah, she writes so well, you could die.  This is definitely a book to get for next year.  It's a new book by Nicky Drayden, how could it not be?





The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

The Traitor Baru Cormorant was a fascinating work of worldbuilding and structure and defying expectations, and exactly the sort of book I want to see more of.  So of course I want to read the sequel.  I need to know what happens next, as Baru is possibly one of the most fascinating characters in fantasy in recent years.  We've already seen how far she'll go to achieve her goals.  I'm very curious what more there can be to get the title "monster".

So, what's on your radar for 2018?

Goodbye

It is my sincere wish that you all had a blessed holiday in whatever fashion -- or lack there of  -- that suits you best. 

And yes, this will be my final post as a regular member of the line up.

A few days shy of seven years ago, I clicked the button to publish My Very First Blog Post as a member of this group, back when we were the Word-Whores. 

This is the post that went live on January 5, 2011:

WHY AM I A WORD-WHORE?

I like to get the sheets dirty.

Ahem.

Sheets of paper, that is.

Everyone has something they are passionate about, something to which they willingly, eagerly, devote their time. Surfing. Sewing. Scrapbooking. Dumpster diving. Weight-lifting (which may be part of dumpster diving depending on what you find...). Jewelry making. Wood-working. Volunteering. Writing--ooo--that one's mine!

Sometimes these leisure pursuits make the leap into a life-long career. I've pursued this publishing dream since I was young, and I consider myself blessed to have my writing published. So yeah, I've exchanged my stories for money and that makes me a Word-Whore. That, and the fact that I love yielding my every spare moment to the intense pleasure I derive from writing.

Maybe it's masochistic...because being a Word-Whore sometimes means keeping your backside in the chair until your ass is flat because the muse has been drinking tequila and she's spewing ideas all over the place. It often means conceding that dinner won't make itself and that you don't really need it anyway because there's a pot of coffee you could finish. But it always means consenting to the daily challenge of being creative, engaging, entertaining, logical, and grammatically correct all at the same time--and on deadline.

It is not a goal for the faint-hearted. But then, I suggest that whoring in any form is not for those who are thin-skinned. Consider the fact that Word-Whores bravely release their product out into the wild world where our Johns, bloggers and reviewers will voraciously share their independent opinions...good, bad, and ugly...and writing with professional intentions surely could qualify as a kind of self-torture. (*note I've had really good reviews overall, but authors still experience a nail-biting period of time as a release looms where our inner voices speculate on what awful things they could say...)

Whether it's done for love or the thrill I get, I'm a happy Word-Whore and I hope I get to keep on putting out for happy readers. (Love all the pun-tential with our witty name!)

Your Hump-Day Word-Whore,

Linda

It was fun reconnecting with those long-ago sentiments...and to those words, I still hold. But I share them again with you now because, bittersweet, the time has come for me to go.

Leaving the blog will free up the time I spent (or didn’t) writing about the designated topics and the plan was for me to explore other writing options. But then, only days after I announced to my blog-matesmy intent to leave, I received notice that Ragnarok was dropping all contracts for 2018, including my contract for Immanence #2. 

I have to be honest, it hurt. A lot. And then it didn’t. A weight was removed from my shoulders and suddenly I realized that I didn’t owe anyone anything. I didn’t have a contract pending. I didn’t have a year’s commitment to weekly blog posts.

Now, my only commitments are to myself.

-

I’ve learned a great deal from being a part of this group-blog and I am grateful for the opportunity it has been. I’ll never forget my awesome blogmates, past and present.

Jeffe – It was my pleasure to hang out with you at the conventions we’ve both attended, just as it was my pleasure to watch your career blossom over the past six years. You’re smart and dedicated and I know you’re going up, up, up.

Jim – I was delighted when you joined our group because I already knew you and knew you were an awesome author and a good man. Since we run in many of the same convention circles, I know I’ll be seeing you again, and glad of it.

KAK- I will truly miss the pseudo-chocolate. We should absolutely send some to each other via messenger from time to time. Just because, yanno? Someday, we’ll cross paths at a convention and have some real chocolate together! Rock on!

Marshall – It was great to meet you at this past WFC, but wish we had more time to chat. I look forward to seeing you again at a con in the future and wish you the best with your Maradaine series.

Marcella and Veronica – Both of your websites cite that you started writing when you read through all the books to which you had access. That youthful determination to satisfy your story needs one way or another led to writing and that is something we all have in common. I hope we’ll eventually cross paths at a convention so we can talk about that, how our dads influenced our appreciation for sci-fi/fantasy, and where in the world this wild business is taking us.

I wish you all the very best in your writing careers. If you’re ever going to have to miss a post and need a fill-in, hit me up. If I’m able I’ll step in. (:

-

And to you, dear readers who follow this blog, I do not know who is filling my shoes, but I am confident that whoever the crew brings in will have much to offer.

To those of you who have visited my posts here because you’ve enjoyed the Persephone Alcmedi series or the Immanence series, thank you, thank you, thank you. If you want to keep up on what I’m doing, please subscribe to my monthly newsletter. The sign up is on the home page of my website HERE. www.authorlindarobertson.com

Thank you Word-Whores and SFF7. It’s been a wonderful seven years with you.

Thank you, readers and fans. I promise, there’s more to come.

Blessed Be.

A Wish at the Changing of the Year:

May we live every day of 2018 with courage, compassion, and charity ever-present in our intentions and actions. 

It's Christmas!

Go spend it with your family!

See you next year!

Happy Holidays from Jeffe

Happy Holidays from Santa Fe! May this season be restful and joyous, and may the coming year be merry and bright.

Memorable Books I read in 2017

(Sounds like a school book report assigned for the first day back from vacation, doesn't it?)

It’s always hard to pick books for end of the year lists because I read so many and I don’t keep a spreadsheet (sorry, Jeffe!) nor record them in Goodreads or anywhere else. I also reread my favorites a LOT. Shield of Winter by Nalini Singh would be a perpetual entry on any yearly list of mine!

I have to go by which books come to mind when I start thinking about the subject of a listing (and then just check to see that I read them for the first time this year!).

So my list is ‘memorable’, in no special order.

The Shift of the Tide by Jeffe Kennedy. I love her Twelve kingdoms fantasy world, I was blown away by the details of the shifter heroine’s experiences as various types of creatures, I LOVED how the hero became more and more and MORE wonderful as the book progressed and the ending was  FABULOUS. (I love her covers too...)

Quakeland by Katherine Miles. I’m quite an earthquake buff, having been a Caltech employee (on the business side of the house at JPL), living in Southern California and having had a very famous seismologist you see all the time on TV tell me at daycare one day as we were collecting our toddlers that my house sat directly ON a fault and would go up or down by at least 18’ if that fault ‘broke’. ULP! (I don’t live in that house any more, but not because of the fault LOL.) At any rate, author Miles had new information and some of her experiences in pursuit of her story were AMAZING.

Night’s Templar: A Vampire Queen Novel by Joey W. Hill. I’ve been enjoying her books for years and this one really grabbed me. I loved the relationship between the ancient Knight Templar vampire and the Fae Lord. Just all around cool and spicy hot as always with Ms. Hill’s books. And good glimpses of other favorite characters from earlier in the series.

I just discovered Tracey Cooper-Posey’s Endurance Series, about a generation ship on its way from Earth to a new colony and was fascinated by all the world building and the twists and turns of the plot. I loved jumping a few hundred years for each book and seeing what happened next to the ship and the people (and how I knew things they didn’t). Sadly she’s suspended writing these for the moment, to focus on other genres, but if she does return to the series I’ll be right there!

Found Girl by Pauline Baird Jones has a nice military flavor, with the USAFG ‘flying’ a captured alien ship as if it was an aircraft carrie, and a fascinatingly mysterious alien heroine who learned more about herself  and what she could do on practically every page. Usually any hint of an amnesia plot sends me fleeing for the exits, but this was so well done that I was utterly hooked and can’t wait for a sequel (although rest assured there was a HFN ending.)

I enjoyed the new offerings throughout the year from Anna Hackett (Galactic Gladiators and also her Hell Squad series), Cynthia Sax (Sizzling Cyborgs) and Michelle Diener (Calling the Change). I had fun with Mars Ho by Jennifer Willis, which combined reality shows with colonizing Mars in a very effective fashion…

And I’d better stop now that the memory floodgates are opening wider and wider (aided by a look at my kindle…)

I did also love my fellow authors' stories in our USA Today Best Selling Embrace the Romance: Pets In Space 2 scifi romance anthology. It's only going to be available through January and Amazon has it on sale for $.99 right now! Here's the LINK.  The book is on all major ebook retailer platforms but the sale is only on the Zon, as far as I know...

Best wishes for a Happy Merry Jolly Holiday Season and lots of time to read!

Favorite Books

Joyous Yule, northern hemisphere! Happy Litha to the southern hemisphere!

We do this every year - we write about our favorite books of the year as if there were any hope that I had read a single book that had actually come out this year. That's because the TBR pile is deep and wide. And this year, I managed to read something that was actually published this decade, so that's progress, right? A good portion of my problem is that for ten years, I had a secret TBR stash - paper books - all hidden away from the mildewing influence of saltwater and damp. 

So my two favorite books are the first two books in a trilogy by Ilona Andrews. 

Burn For Me and White Hot

The trilogy is a paranormal mystery series. Tortured, brooding, scary hero. Plucky, resourceful heroine. Add some romance, lots of sexual tension, magic, bad guys not afraid to kill millions of people, and clues that seem to lead nowhere and you have yourself a really fun time. Super enjoyable books. Love the characters. These are stories I look at when I want to take a finely crafted, well paced story. The last book in the series is also good, but it got a little bogged down in recapping the first two books and the story lost some of its edge for me. I still bought it, mind, but if I had to stack rank the series, book 2 is the best, book 1 is a damned close second and the third book is definitely third.

The other books I read this year that I would call favorites were books I read under some really terrible circumstances. They were whatever I could get my hands on that would take my mind off what was happening. They were 1980s historical romance novels with plots I couldn't possibly recount now. Nor could I tell you the titles or the authors. It wasn't that the books were stellar. It was that by picking them up to distract myself, I discovered that I'd stopped reading over the past few years because I was having trouble seeing my Kindle. Put a paper book in my hand and magic happened. I read. And I read and I read. For two weeks straight I made it through a book a day. A little making up for lost time, I think. Just for the sheer, physical pleasure of scanning a line of text for the joy of it. And have it not be some dire health assessment for someone I love. Those books were the best books because I got to remember how much I love to read and how very much I'd missed it. 

My Favorite Novel of 2017

It's the time of year when people are writing their "best of the year" lists and such.  Unfortunately, as a reader, I tend to be a bit slow and behind the times, so I'm hardly going to be able to tell you the best books from 2017 that I read. 

BUT, I'm going to tell you about one of the new releases from this past year, a spectacular debut, and definitely the book you should be looking at to give All The Awards to, and that's The Prey of the Gods by Nicky Drayden.

Now, full disclosure, I've known Nicky for a long time, and I even read Prey in rough-draft form way back when.  And I said then what I'll say now: It is delightfully batshit, and you'll enjoy the heck out of it:

In South Africa, the future looks promising. Personal robots are making life easier for the working class. The government is harnessing renewable energy to provide infrastructure for the poor. And in the bustling coastal town of Port Elizabeth, the economy is booming thanks to the genetic engineering industry which has found a welcome home there. Yes—the days to come are looking very good for South Africans. That is, if they can survive the present challenges:

A new hallucinogenic drug sweeping the country . . .
An emerging AI uprising . . .
And an ancient demigoddess hellbent on regaining her former status by preying on the blood and sweat (but mostly blood) of every human she encounters.

It’s up to a young Zulu girl powerful enough to destroy her entire township, a queer teen plagued with the ability to control minds, a pop diva with serious daddy issues, and a politician with even more serious mommy issues to band together to ensure there’s a future left to worry about.

And, I mean, look at the praise:
*A Wall Stree Journal "Summer Reading: One expert. One book" pick for 2017!
*The RT Book Reviews "June 2017: Seal of Excellence" pick!
*A B&N Sci Fi and Fantasy Blog "Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2017 So Far" pick!
*A Book Riot Best Books of 2017 Pick!

So I'm not alone in praising it.  Go get it, go read it.  You'll be glad you did.