Abraham, Priest, Scalzi, and Kemp

Apparently, four of my favorite authors have decided to start a law firm together. Ok, not really. But they all have posted some book announcements and updates over the past few days. I don't know about you but substantive book news is one of my favorite things to see on author blogs.

Daniel Abraham

Daniel Abraham is one of my favorite new authors. Over at his livejournal, Daniel provides updates on not 1 but 8 of his projects, including updates on his upcoming epic fantasy series The Dagger and the Coin and his Urban Fantasy series, Black Sun's Daughter (as M.L.N. Hanover)

Here are the highlights.

Price of Spring will not be released in MMPB. IMO, Tor has made some questionable decisions lately and I guess they don't feel like pushing The Long Price Quartet now that Abraham is now going to be writing for Orbit. This angers both the bibliophile in me and the Daniel Abraham fan. The Long Price Quartet is one of the most criminally underread series published of the last 10 years and it's upsetting to see it get harder to find.

Next Abraham (or is it MLN Hanover) notes that Vicious Grace (Book 3 in Black Sun's Daughter sequence) is currently in production. While I'm not sure exactly what that means, I'd say it's safe to assume that it's on track to meet the Nov 30th publication date. Book 4, Killing Rites, is also in progress, which bodes well for the success of the series as a whole. Plus MIDIAN, the scene stealing vampire from Unclean Spirtis, will return! I'm very excited to see him rejoin the series. I thought the first two books were a lot of fun although I was a bit disappointed by the amount of development in the series arc in Darker Angels (Book 2). If you are interested in knowing more, see my reviews for Unclean Spirits and Darker Angels.

Abraham also provides a strange link to an Amazon UK entry for Leviathan Wakes by one, James S. A. Corey. I'm assuming it's another pseudonym especially given some of Daniel's comments in the interview I did with him last year. When asked if he was planning on diversifying into different subgenres, Daniel replied "Oh yes. I'd love to. I have things on the back burner for a space opera, a mystery series, and a semi-literary horror/popular science book." Could this be the space opera moved to the front burner? Very curious to learn more on this book, which is also blurbed by GRRM. GRRM is a member of Critical Mass, the same writing group to which Abraham belongs. Stay tuned on this one.

Speaking of leviathans, Abraham's Subterranean Press collection, Leviathan Wept and Other Stories, is supposedly out and available. I think I need to have a discussion with mailman.

And finally, and possibly most importantly, an update on the much anticipated The Dagger and The Coin

The first draft of The Dragon's Path is complete and has been turned in to Darren and DongWon at Orbit. They're looking it over, and I should have the revisions done shortly. It'll be out around this time next year. The first reader reactions have thus far been decent, and will, I suspect, only get better.

Where can I sign up to supply a reader reaction? There are a few other notes about short stories and comic books plus a lot more detail so head on over to Daniel's page and check it all the news.

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Cherie Priest

I've never really respected Steampunk. It seemed like everyone was talking about it but no one was writing it. Can you name 5 Steampunk novels written before 2009? But now it looks like the Steampunk wave is finally rolling in and Cherie Priest is leading the way. Last year's Boneshaker earned absolutely fantastic reviews and the blogosphere is very excited for the follow-up novella Clementine and novel Dreadnought.

But it's time to get even more excited because Cherie has announced that there will be not one but two more Clockwork Century books published by Tor in the coming years. 2011 will see the release of Ganymede and 2012 will bring us Inexplicable. It looks like Steampunk is here to stay. 

Clementine also has a new cover more in tune with the grungy look of Boneshaker. If you didn't preorder the limited edition, Subterranean Press will be putting out a TPB version next year. Very cool stuff indeed.

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John Scalzi

Over at Whatever, John Scalzi provides a run down on the likelihood of seeing sequels the books he's written. Here's a quick summary.

• Old Man's War: Probable but no plans at the moment. More short stories also likely.
• The Android's Dream: Planned but not for another book or two. As a side note, The Android's Dream is absolutely soulcrushingly fantastic if you haven't read it.
• Agent to the Stars: Unplanned and unlikely although more modern era SF is possible.
• The God Engine: Unplanned and unlikely. Scalzi says he might like to write 3 more stories of similar subject and length and publish as an anthology of novellas.
• Fuzzy Nation: While this book hasn't even been released yet, Scalzi has some ideas if it ends up being a success.

If you like SF and haven't read Scalzi's work, you are doing yourself an injustice.

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Paul Kemp

And lastly, over at Paul Kemp's slick new website, he made the announcement that next year's sequel to January's Croscurrent (review here) is entitled RIPTIDE. Why Riptide? Here's what Kemp had to say:

Initially, I wanted to go with something containing “cross” but couldn’t come up with something everyone liked. So I tried to find something containing “current,” but had the same problem. Finally I hit upon Riptide and everyone seemed to like that. I liked it, too, because it suggested a dangerous, unseen current that tears one away from safety and out to sea, where one is left to sink or swim, alone and bereft. Symbolically, that works quite well with the novel’s story.

Not Riptide but awesome.

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Long story short, 2011 has a lot of good stuff in store for us genre readers. And that's not counting the fantasypalooza from Abercrombie, Rothfuss, Lynch and possibly even GRRM.