2012 Upcoming Releases-Fantasy & Horror

[Kazz Wylde]

I enjoy stories along this line, like Lieber's "Smoke Ghost" and Our Lady of Darkness, also Ellison's "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" and T. E. D. Klein's "Nadelman's God." I'm curious what Ellis does with the premise.

Randy M.

I'll have to check those books out, Randy. Have you read Duane Swierczynski's stuff yet?

[Randy M.]

I'll have to check those books out, Randy. Have you read Duane Swierczynski's stuff yet?

All but Our Lady of Darkness are short stories.

I've heard about Duane Swierczynski's work -- actually, I've seen mention of it since pronouncing his name presents a hurdle to verbal discussion -- but haven't read anything by him yet. Isn't he more of a mystery/suspense/crime writer? Does his work fall into the noir category? A lot of urban fantasy appears to stem from that.


Randy M.

[Kazz Wylde]

All but Our Lady of Darkness are short stories.

I've heard about Duane Swierczynski's work -- actually, I've seen mention of it since pronouncing his name presents a hurdle to verbal discussion -- but haven't read anything by him yet. Isn't he more of a mystery/suspense/crime writer? Does his work fall into the noir category? A lot of urban fantasy appears to stem from that.


Randy M.

I haven't read Duane's stuff yet either, I think most of his stuff is wild noir, kinda far fetched like a Quentin Tarantino movie I guess.
Ah, His name is a piece of cake to pronounce huh?
Not real big on short stories, but might have to check them out, thanks Randy.

[mjolnir]

With thanks to Mith, who pointed this out in the thread devoted to Kay: I figured that it might be helpful to have this news in here as well [though I guess we've technically been off topic for a while now, as the news coming in has been largely about books for 2013.] Guy Gavriel Kay's next novel, River of Stars, now has a release date in the States, and that date is April 2, according to amazon. Very wonderful.

The updated forthcoming books list on Locus also yields some potentially interesting, if in some cases unlikely, news:

A new book by Caitlin R. Kiernan, entitled Blood Oranges, is listed as coming out in February/March. Given that The Drowning Girl just came out recently, and also given the complexity of Kiernan's novels, this seems optimistic to me, but would be fantastic if true.

Karen Lorde, who wrote Redemption in Indigo, has a novel called The Best of All Possible Worlds apparently coming out from Jo Flecher in March. Investigation seems to show that Del Rey has bought North American rights [as Tor, I think, has for another forthcoming Flecher book, Blood's Pride by Evie Manieri, about which I know nothing, but the quality and experience of the publisher make me inclined to be interested.] Foreign rights sales seem to be popping up regularly for Lorde's book, and Redemption in Indigo was very promising, so this might be a big deal.

If anyone's read Paul McAuley's Quiet War books, one or two places on the web are listing his next novel, Evening's Empires [which is a nice title], as connected to that setting. Can't find absolute confirmation of that, though.

Locus is listing Nalo Hopkinson's Sister Mine for March. Hopkinson's a major sf talent who's started moving fairly strongly into fantasy, it seems, but before her young adult novel this year she hasn't had a book in some time. If true this ... well, might not excite vast numbers of people, but is huge news, as Hopkinson's books are often very very good, like award good.

Locus lists Elizabeth Bear's Shattered Pillars, the sequel to Range of Ghosts, for March, which is good, because I crave it, and if Tor had kept their coils wrapped around it for too long -- as has been their wont occasionally -- I would've been very sad. According to the Locus list Tor's winter season appears to be heavy on new authors again, which is awesome, but does leave one wondering -- again -- about some of the publisher's long-delayed books, which are once again nowhere to be seen. Ah well, I suppose they can't release them if they're not done.

For those who follow Peter V. Brett's Demon Cycle, it's sounding like February 2013 is now pretty definitely the release date for book three, The Daylight War. I'm ... not sure if we were one-hundred percent on that before.

It should be noted that, though Locus is listing the March 2013 date that's been floating around for Scott Lynch's The Bastards and the Knives, Lynch himself has told us [on the Wertzone] that this is not the book's release date, that no such date exists, and that whenever it is it'll be after The Republic of Thieves comes out, whenever that, in turn, ends up being.

[Randy M.]

Carroll, Jonathan -- The Woman Who Married a Cloud
Joshi, S. T., ed. -- Black Wings 2
Guran, Paula, ed. -- The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2012 Edition
Harrison, M. John -- Empty Space
Joyce, Graham -- Some Kind of Fairy Tale
Weller, Sam, & Mort Castle -- Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
Ford, Jeffrey -- Crackpot Palace
Johnson, Kij -- At the Mouth of the River of Bees
Kiernan, Caitlín R. -- Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart
Mamatas, Nick -- Bullettime
Campbell, Ramsey -- The Kind Folk
Copper, Basil -- Curse of the Fleers
Joshi, S. T. -- The History of Supernatural Fiction, Vol. 1
Lane, Joel -- Where Furnaces Burn
Phillips, Holly -- At the Edge of Waking
Sedia, Ekaterina, ed. -- Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top
Williams, Conrad -- Open Heart Surgery
Jones, Stephen, ed. -- The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 23
McKillip, Patricia A. -- Wonders of the Invisible World
Mosley, Walter -- Merge/Disciple
Wolfe, Gary K., ed. -- American Science Fiction: Volume 1: 1953-1956
Wolfe, Gary K., ed. -- American Science Fiction: Volume 2: 1956-1958
Sedia, Ekaterina -- Moscow But Dreaming
Kiernan, Caitlín R. -- Blood Oranges
Datlow, Ellen, ed. -- Hauntings


Not really all I'm interested in, but plenty enough to go broke. I'm pleased to see the Library of America picking up on genre fiction. Their collections of Lovecraft, Dick, Hammett, Chandler and compilations of mysteries are heartening.

I notice they don't include Paula Guran's Prime Books anthology, Ghosts: Recent Hauntings coming out in September, but that's certainly another anthology that will compete for my money. (I'm not 100% positive of this, but from what I've heard I have the impression that Guran and Datlow compared notes so their ghost story collections wouldn't overlap, or wouldn't overlap much, anyway.)


Randy M.

[Mithfânion]

Joyce, Graham -- Some Kind of Fairy Tale
Weller, Sam, & Mort Castle -- Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
Ford, Jeffrey -- Crackpot Palace
Johnson, Kij -- At the Mouth of the River of Bees
Campbell, Ramsey -- The Kind Folk
Randy M.

Definitly getting these ones from your list. The Bradbury tribute anthology I had not heard of but that has a strong table of contents. I don't know anything yet about the Campbell book, but it sounds intriguing.

[Randy M.]

Definitly getting these ones from your list. The Bradbury tribute anthology I had not heard of but that has a strong table of contents. I don't know anything yet about the Campbell book, but it sounds intriguing.

About the Bradbury tribute, I didn't, either, but the idea intrigues me and you're right about the list of contributors: I'm not sure how many anthologies we're likely to see where a work by Audrey Niffenegger is mixed with Ramsey Campbell, or Margaret Atwood with Gary Braunbeck, or David Morrell with Alice Hoffman. Bradbury's influence is so wide and ubiquitous.

As for Campbell, I've only read four of his novels. The one I liked the least I still admired. I've also read and enjoyed probably 15-20 of his short stories, and only disliked one. That's a pretty good track-record for me. (I suspect the one I didn't like was less about the story than about my denseness.)


Randy M.

[AmethystOrator]

It looks like Battle: A Novel of the House War by Michelle West (#5 in the series) may sneak into 2012 with a December 31st release date.

If so, imo that will be an especially impressive accomplishment. This year, the author will have had two BFF installments published (at 656 and 608 pages), one F/UF installment (at 384 pages) and a YA novel (at 256 pages).

[beniowa]

It looks like Battle: A Novel of the House War by Michelle West (#5 in the series) may sneak into 2012 with a December 31st release date.

If so, imo that will be an especially impressive accomplishment. This year, the author will have had two BFF installments published (at 656 and 608 pages), one F/UF installment (at 384 pages) and a YA novel (at 256 pages).

Did she actually write them all within the last year or are they just released this year?

And I suppose it's impressive depending on how you felt at how long it took for her finish The Sun Sword.

[AmethystOrator]

Did she actually write them all within the last year or are they just released this year?

She wrote them all within the last year.

And I suppose it's impressive depending on how you felt at how long it took for her finish The Sun Sword.

It was just over 6 years, from start to finish, for the 6 books. Did people complain about that?

[beniowa]

It was just over 6 years, from start to finish, for the 6 books. Did people complain about that?

It may have been just about 7 years overall, but it was 3-4 just for Sun Sword since she hadn't originally planned to write Riven Shield. By then I had moved on and only read the book for completion's sake.

But yes, I suppose four books in one year is impressive.

[mjolnir]

There is now an excerpt from Jay Kristoff's Stormdancer up on tor.com, for those interested -- this is the shogunate Japan-influenced epic fantasy/steampunk book we were discussing a little while back.

Necessary Evil by Ian Tregillis is now listed on amazon as coming out in April next year. This is just amazon, of course, but it does match up with what we've been told was the plan previously, which given how often the plan has had to change in the case of this series is good news in itself.

[Kazz Wylde]

I wonder if Stormdancer will be good, seems kinda YA to me.
That is good news about the Tregillis book.

[sullivan_riyria]

Necessary Evil by Ian Tregillis is now listed on amazon as coming out in April next year. This is just amazon, of course, but it does match up with what we've been told was the plan previously, which given how often the plan has had to change in the case of this series is good news in itself.

The number (and length) of times that Ian's series had been delayed is very depressing. I'm can't even imagine how frustrating it has been on him, and glad to see things seem to be moving along better now.

[Rob B]

FYI, I created a thread for discussion of the 2013 releases in Fantasy & Horror:

2013 Upcoming Releases-Fantasy & Horror