The Sword and Laser discussion

The Walking Dead, Vol. 20: All Out War Part 1 by Robert Kirkman (Out Now)
I have a feeling that stuff is about to get real.

Saga, Volume 3 by Brian K. Vaughan (Out Now)
If Vol. 3 has more of the same I am assured to enjoy this next installment.

Shipstar (Bowl of Heaven #2) by Larry Niven, Gregory Benford (Out Now)
I didn't exactly enjoy the first book, but I need to read on just to know what happens next.

Robogenesis (Robopocalypse #2) by Daniel H. Wilson (Out Now)
Same situation here. I really did not enjoy the first book, but I am still curious to see how the story continues.

Cibola Burn (The Expanse #4) by James SA Corey (Out Now)
This on the other hand, I am thoroughly excited to see how this series continues. Loved the first 3 books. And glad to hear there are multiple books still to come from this universe.

The Long Mars (Long Earth #3) by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter (Out Now) [Not pictured]
I am kind of luke warm on this series. But the original idea at its core of stepping into an infinity of parallel Earths keeps me coming back. Curious to see how going to Mars complicates things.

The Living Dead: The Beginning by George A. Romero (???)
This title has been previously listed as released in audio format. Now it's coming out in print? Anyway, Romero's debut as a novelist in his own zombie universe is something to behold. I've taken a break from zombie fiction, but for this I'll gladly dip into it again, just this once anyway.

Sins of the Father (Fringe #3) by Christa Faust (Out Now)
The first two books in this series were a bit of a disappointment. Just trying to keep a continuity with the show while still telling stories about the main characters from the show decades before the time of the series was always going to be a crap shoot. The stories of the previous novels would have been fine by themselves, but when taken in context with the show they just fall apart. Still, curious how she handles a Peter storyline.

Armada by Ernest Cline (Delayed to July 28, 2015)
Cline's follow-up to "Ready Player One," which was my favorite read of 2012. So, yeah, I am excited about this one.

Oct 21, only 672 pages, not sure about a story in the Void though:

I'm so pumped this is finally getting an English release:

Words of Radiance March
Skin Game May

The Doubt Factory by Paolo Bacigalupi
Defenders by Will McIntosh
Burning Chrome by William Gibson
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
The Revolutions by Felix Gilman
Half a King by Joe Abercrombie
Rogues edited by George RR Martin

I wasn't aware of a new Ernest Cline release... cool!

Seeing as Words of Radiance is out now, my next most anticipated release is Cibola Burn.

Others:
The Sixth Extinction by James Rollins
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
The Widow's House by Daniel Abraham
Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
Revival by Stephen King

Cibola Burn and Half a King

Did The Last Dangerous Visions ever come out?

I'm looking forward to the rest of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, all of which is coming out this year.

Also looking forward to Monica Byrne's debut novel, The Girl in the Road...

and The Man with the Compound Eyes...

not to mention Haruki Murakami's new book...Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

No, The Last Dangerous Visions never came out.

Tamahome wrote: "Did The Last Dangerous Visions ever come out?"

Not even holding out any hope that it ever will at this point.

I've got a few books I pre-ordered for 2014. Since I rarely pre-order, I guess this counts as "looking forward to" hehe :)

Words of Radiance, which came out earlier this month
Fool's Assassin, due out in August
Hounded, due in July (a total guilty-pleasure series for me)
The Broken Eye, another August release
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, out in early September. I love the blog and can't wait for the book.

A lot of interesting books came out already, but the ones I'm still looking forward to in 2014 are:

Half a King
Cibola Burn
Prince of Fools
Unwrapped Sky
The Falcon Throne
The Shadow Throne
The Goblin Emperor
Jani and the Greater Game
The Crimson Campaign

and of course Steven Erikson's Fall of Light, if it comes out this year.

Cibola Burn and The Magicians Land!

Andy wrote: "I wasn't aware of a new Ernest Cline release... cool!"

Yeah, I was purty excited when I heard about it as well.

Oh yea, totally forgot about Fool's Assassin. I'm also looking forward to Cibola Burn, The Shadow Throne and The Crimson Campaign as well.

I'll probably be picking up Half a King, but I probably won't be reading it right away.

Im not sure how much of these I'll be able to order this year, but my list:

Miles Cameron - The Fell Sword [reading]
Ben Kane - Hannibal: Clouds of War
Brandon Sanderson - Words of Radiance [was amazing]
Mark Lawrence - Prince of Fools
Joe Abercrombie - Half a King
Giles Kristian - God of Vengeance
K. V. Johanson - The Leopard
Brandon Sanderson - Shadows of Self [scheduled for December but probably January 2015]

Normally I'm just trying to catch up to reading other must reads that have been out for years (or decades), but as for brand new most anticipated books that will be coming out THIS year, here are my picks. This is going purely by the cover and summary and I really hope they're as good as I think they will be. Funny enough they're all in April. I haven't really check out summer picks yet till it gets closer to the dates sooo let's just say this is most anticipated releases this month. ^_^;

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (April 1st)
Unwrapped Sky by Rjurik Davidson (April 15th)
The Forever Watch by David Ramirez (April 22nd)

For the Whole of 2014

The Burning Dark Already started it last night

Attack the Geek Ree Reyes Series 2.5 Comes out April 7th. If your a True geek its hard not to love the magic of the Geekomancy series. Only downside is available E-Book Only.

ArmadaYeah More Ernest Cline the Author or Ready Player One.

Cibola BurnBook 4 in the amazing Expanse series

All You Need Is KillThe Graphic Novel version of the book I've already read and loved and is now being turned into a Movie Hollywood will ruin called Edge of Tomorrow by putting in Tom Cruise as the lead in this great Japanese book

Endsinger Cover Not up Yet But Book 3 in the lotus war series By Jay Kristoff

Unbound Book 3 in the Magic Ex Libris Series by Jim C Hines. No cover yet

Also as a Honorable mention Rogues Anthology Because the range of Authors in this is FANTASTIC. Even Jillian Flynn has a fantasy story in here

And Some Love for Shattered Book 7 in the Iron Druid Chronicles By Kevin Hearne It Only Gets Honorable Mention though since I still Need to read Book 6 Shhhh

There are a few others but these are my tippy top picks

terpkristin wrote: "I've got a few books I pre-ordered for 2014. Since I rarely pre-order, I guess this counts as "looking forward to" hehe :)

Words of Radiance, which came out earlier this month
[boo..."

I am so excited for Fool's Assassin. I might have pumped it up too much in my mind, but I hope it's as good as I imagine it will be!

I'm also really excited about The Widow's House by Daniel Abraham which is ALSO coming out in August (it's gonna be a good month). Does anyone else read The Dagger and the Coin? Things are finally starting to pick up in those books, I feel like it's gonna get really crazy in this next one!

Paul wrote:

ArmadaYeah More Ernest Cline the Author or Ready Player One.

Does this book synopsis seem just like the old move "The Last Starfighter" (which is not a bad thing ...)?

Mark wrote: "Paul wrote:

ArmadaYeah More Ernest Cline the Author or Ready Player One.

Does this book synopsis seem just like the old move "The Last Starfighter" (wh..."

Yeah Months ago I made that post Starfighter meets enders game. but remember he's an 80s fanatic so it was probably a little intentional and Im still more than ok with it.

Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada.

Loved that movie :)

Nick Harkaway's Tigerman
and
William Gibson's The Peripheral

Ernest Cline posted a picture of the Armada manuscript on his blog. Behold!

Need in my hands not his blog

Hawk by Stephen Brust
by P.C. Hodgell

And thanks keidy for pointing out the Addison book! I really liked her writing as Sarah Monette.

kvon wrote: "And thanks keidy for pointing out the Addison book! I really liked her writing as Sarah Monette."

No problem. ^_^v

Steles of the Sky by Elizabeth Bear just came out today and moved very close to the top of my list.



(Cover image added for gorgeousness even though I'll never see it because I'm getting it for Kindle.)

Skin Game, Cibola Burn, and The Magician's Land.

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore comes out at the end of the month. It's a sequel to Fool. He's one of the funniest writers working right now.

Paul wrote: "Need in my hands not his blog"

SOON

comes out next month and I can't wait to pick up my copy.

I'm looking forward to The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. Have heard great things about it.

The three body problem came extremely highly recommended to me by a friend from China. I have the author's novella "The Wandering Earth" already sitting on my kindle, but I've never gotten around to it. The three body problem sounded way more interesting.


Otherwise I'm excited for the next installments of the Kingkiller and Song of Ice and Fire. I means certainly by the end of 2014 there will at least be announcements about the next installments, right? Right?!

I just received an email that my copy of Next Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko is in the mail to arrive for the release date. I've been looking forward to this for some time.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

This just shot all the way to the top of my list:
The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Nothing for 2014, so far. But eyes and ears open for anything I might want to snatch up.

I see lots of new releases, but they all seem to be of the "if you're a fan of genre X, this is for you" moreso than "this is something new, something original" and I voraciously pursue the latter.

Kenneth wrote: "Nothing for 2014, so far. But eyes and ears open for anything I might want to snatch up.

I see lots of new releases, but they all seem to be of the "if you're a fan of genre X, this is for you" mo..."

You might want to keep an eye on these for later this year:
The Mirror Empire
The Fifth Season
Going by the authors previous books these'll be some pretty original takes on the Epic Fantasy genre.

Edit: Apparently The Fifth season is pushed back too 2015.

I can't wait for Skin Game by Jim Butcher come out 2 days before my birthday

New Green Rider Book... New Green Rider Book...



Finally!

Mark wrote: "Paul wrote:

ArmadaYeah More Ernest Cline the Author or Ready Player One.

Does this book synopsis seem just like the old move "The Last Starfighter" (wh..."
Sounds like it but I'll still read it. But if he does one based on Leisure Suit Larry I'm going to have to pass.

I'm pretty shocked only one person mentioned Rothfuss' new book! I'm also painfully aware that his name, abercrombie, Murakami and sanderson were were the only ones I recognized...

folly to me... my To Read shelf is filling faster than I can read, LoL

ok dumbness correction. 2 people, Rob and Kevin mentioned kkc. also on my second scroll through I saw a new book by Hobb, and (the God) Sir Terry Pratchett.

Jasper Fford should be coming out with something new this year... I forget which series though. personally I'm looking forward to his next Shades of Grey book

I think Kenneth you might enjoy Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer which came out earlier this year, lots of depth and perhaps his best written book I have come across so far. Although this if very much complete in itself two follow up books are also due out later in the year.

Looking forward to Neil Clarke's Upgraded anthology due out in May - it has some of my favorite authors and Neil will I am sure get some very interesting stories from them.

I am potentially excited about Caitlin Kiernan's second best of short story collection - I love her work and I am very keen to read it but need to see what it will cost by the time international shipping is added on (there probably wont be a UK or digital edition). Also there is a chance that by the time I have spent a day or two deciding whether to go for it the anthology will sell out.

Fearful Symmetries looks another great anthology to check out although I didnt spot the kickstarter till it was too late and I dont know if there will be a UK or digital edition.

I was excited about Sleep Donation by Karen Russell - but then I read it and was only mildly entertained.

Ben wrote: "I was excited about Sleep Donation by Karen Russell - but then I read it and was only mildly entertained."

I had a feeling that the only good thing about the book was the cover. The cover art and type is really lovely. ^_^;

Yeah - I loved the cover, just wish the story had worked better for me. At some point I am going to try the SFnal Leaving the Sea: Stories by Ben Marcus - hopefully that will live up to the hype and superb cover.

Nancy wrote: "New Green Rider Book... New Green Rider Book...



Finally!"

Well, nuts. I didn't realize this series was on-going. I just recently got my hands on the first book, but now I don't know if I'm even going to open it up. Apparently, 4 years between books is the norm for this author? That's a heck of a long-term commitment to ask of a guy who's already committed to other long term commitments.

Another that just came out (at least here in the US):