A 2009 Book Preview
By Brian Prisco | Posted Under Book Reviews | Comments (26)
While 2009 may not be a great year for movies yet, I’ve been pretty excited on the book front. My biggest motivation for plowing through the Cannonball Read Canon (and I’m clocking out on Book 80 tonight, we hope) was to get to all the other books that I’ve been purchasing and adding to a pile, waiting to read with great patience. It’s hard to appreciate Steinbeck or Fyodor when you’ve got a heaping plate of Butcher waiting for you. Never again with the recommendation requirement. Never again. You motherfucks have been setting me up with all these new series, much to the consternation of the missus. And I think every author I enjoy is releasing a book some time this year. I would squee with delight, but I think I pulled that muscle in prepping this entry.
I don’t know what series y’all follow, so if you know of any other interesting tomes due out, plop ‘em on in the comments. Having foresook my bookselling career for the toiling of the shitty desk job — though I do have my own closet office — I don’t often get to know about new releases unless other people tell me. So this post is pretty much entirely self-serving and pointless. Enjoy!
Earlier this month, Jim Butcher released the latest Harry Dresden adventure, Turn Coat, which I believe is number 11. But if I’m wrong I’m sure twice that many folks will correct me. Just the tagline, that one of his mortal enemies shows up at the door covered in blood, and says, “Hide me.” Shivers, kids, shivers.
Also, Harlen Coben finally added a new Myron Bolitar novel to an already outstanding mystery series, Long Lost. If you’ve not had the chance to sample Coben, whose stand-alones are also magnificent thrillers, get yourself a copy of Deal Breaker. Bolitar is a sports agent turned detective, and the books are hilarious and tense. The best day of my life as a bookseller, other than demanding James Patterson tell me he’s got an army of underwear gnomes chained to typewriters, was discovering this series.
Next Tuesday, Chuck Palahniuk releases Pygmy. I hated Snuff, but I think everyone did. However, this sounds even better than Rant, which I enjoyed. Pygmy is being described as a cross between the Manchurian Candidate and “South Park.” It’s about a teenage terrorist cell bent on blowing up D.C. with a science project. Fuck. Yeah. All is forgiven for the porno misstep, baby.
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child wrote another Agent Pendergast novel called Cemetery Dance, which further chronicles the strange mystical world traveler bent the series has been taken. It started in New York, and has gone through Italy to Tibet. I await with trepidation.
Michael Connelly continues his Harry Bosch series with The Scarecrow. I’m so backlogged on those, but I know he’s been bringing in the lawyer character of Mickey Haller from the Lincoln Lawyer, so it’s a pretty solid crossover series.
China Mieville: If this name means nothing to you, I’m sorry for your parents’ failure at education. The New Crozubon fantasy series is like Blade Runner snorted The Dark Crystal. Also, just buy King Rat. Right fucking now. Just do it. Anyway, he’s got a new one, that’s not Crozubon but is called The City & The City.
Guillermo Del Toro has decided to jump into the novel game with a new zombie horror series called The Strain. The first one of those is due the beginning of June. Read the description and get moist in your underthings.
Jeffrey Deaver has decided to start working a follow up to the spinoff Kathryn Dance series from his successful Lincoln Rhyme. Remember the Bone Collector? They fucked up Lincoln Rhyme by forcing a love story on the crippled pathologist. But they’re still fucking fun reads, so whatever. The second dance novel is called Roadside Crosses.
James Rollins continues to battle good taste and common sense with his delightfully batty Sigma Force novels. I’m a sucker for scientists with guns, what can I say? The new Sigma Force, The Doomsday Key, promises to be just as wonderfully awful. TK, pick this one up.
July 7th, right around my birthday — ahem — shows the release of Cherry Bomb, by JA Konrath, who I lambasted on this very site for ending his novel on such an awesomely evil cliffhanger. So finally I’ll be able to find out what happened with Jack Daniels. Knowing him though, he’s going to dance around it like a nymphet. Fucker. I love you. Hold me.
Furrinnners, take heed. You’ll get this one earlier, and some of you blessed few already have it, but Stieg Larsson’s second novel gets released in America the end of July, The Girl Who Played With Fire. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was already outstanding, so get it.
P.J. Tracy, the mother daughter team behind the excellent Monkeewrench series, may be releasing a novel in this year. It could be called Disconnected or Memento or something entirely different. I love vaguerie. Also, Charlaine Harris will be kicking out another Sookie Stackhouse any minute now. Also, as I typed this, James Patterson wrote four new books. Including the 8th Confession.
Some guy’s making National Treasure 3. What can Brown do for me? Like everyone else in America, except the faithful few who shun both Da Vinci and Harry Potter, I’ll have my copy. Sorry, Taste Jesus. I gots to.
The last few are fantasy nerdlinger news. George R.R. Martin is supposedly finishing up A Dance with Dragons, Book 5 of the Song of Ice and Fire. It’s allegedly going to be released on September 29th. But I’ve already been lied to that Patrick Rothfuss’s A Wise Man’s Fear was due out when it’s not even fucking done yet. And Joe Hill’s being coy about his Horns, which may or may not be the Surrealist’s Glass? So I don’t know what the fuck. But this book has been feverishly awaited for a while.
Not to be outdone, TOR finally gave a release date for A Memory of Light, Book 12 of The Wheel of Time. Instead of the monster tome as promised, or the 13 books as we speculated, it’s going to be three volumes released over two years. Burn. The first, A Gathering Storm, comes out November 3rd or so. I’m in the middle of Lord of Chaos right now, and yeah…it’s gonna be hard to finish. Gotta eat that broccoli.
And finally, Uncle Stevie is finally publishing his new novel, Under the Dome, which basically sounds like he took all his medication while watching The Simpsons Movie, woke up during Doomdsday and Mad Max, and scribbled 12000 pages about it. It comes out in November.
And probably Xmas brings the arrival of the last Codex Alera book, First Lord’s Fury, from Jim Butcher. It’s a neat fantasy series, kind of like Avatar: The Last Airbender without the bald kid.
Anyone got anything else to add? Go for it. Me? I’m gonna be downloading Katorga, by some slick character named Steven Lloyd Wilson. I hear he’s hung like a bullmoose and writes like a Russian William Gibson. Word.
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Comments
Posted by: Robert at April 30, 2009 7:38 PM
New China Mieville? Hot diggity!
New Palahniuk? All depends on whether or not I can actually read what's on the page. I want to hate Snuff like everybody else, but the brown text on yellow paper gave me a migraine in the bookstore.