An Addendum to Up and Coming (and Essential?) in May: Above the Snowline

These lists always turn out to bite me in the ass a bit. By the time the month's over, without fail, I will have discovered at least one thing that is just as necessary as anything on the list. As April rolled around, I saw Shine on a shelf and realized it came out far earlier than I realized. A few days ago I finally got around to looking up some of Ligotti's work, and what do you know, his Songs of a Dead Dreamer was (theoretically) rereleased in March.

This time's a bit different, though. I knew about this book at the time, but I didn't throw it up for the same reason that I didn't put Hobb's new releases up, despite my enjoyment of Hobb: I feel really uncomfortable having a latter book in a series that I haven't read. What happens if I read the series and it turns out to be shit? Now, I haven't read the whole series, here, but I've read the first book, and, from what I can see, this release is (wholly?) absent in the parts of the 'net that I frequent. The author is Steph Swainston, and the book is Above the Snowline:


I can't say much about it, having not read the preceding two volumes, but I will have quite a bit to say about her debut, The Year of Our War, in the coming days, and, if this is anything approaching that novel's quality, this is something to watch out for.

Up and Coming (and Essential?) in May

I quite liked The City and the City, but it only felt tangentially like a Mieville novel. The weirdness and interesting themes were there, but everything felt quite muted. Even if it’s not set in Bas Lag, Kraken looks like it’s going to be a lot closer to Mieville’s more colorful works. There’s a decently sized sample floating around I haven’t read the whole thing (I generally prefer to devour something in a few sittings, rather than taunt myself with excerpts), but I couldn’t resist the opening, and I love the writing there. Several reviews of this are out so far, all glowing, including Wert's and The Speculative Scotsman's.


Apartment 16 looks like a dark, claustrophobic horror novel, but what’s got me most excited are the great reviews. James came first, and he convinced me that this was something I had to look into. When the Speculative Scotsman joined him, I knew I needed to read this sooner rather than later. If you’re into horror, this seems like a pretty safe bet from where I’m sitting.


Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet was an excellent read and just the kind of thing that makes me desperate to read more of an author’s work. The prose was both beautiful and precise throughout, the characterization superb. Leviathan Wept is a collection of his short stories (some of which are award winning) that looks perfect for filing that urge. You can get one of the stories, the The Cambist and Lord Iron, here for free.

UPDATE

And, finally: