jennIRL

note: i know i owe y’all a couple “read ‘em”s, but for some reason i am blocked on that, so instead you get a snapshot, as it were, of my TBR pile.

RICE BOY, Evan Dahm: found this at Bergen Street Comics (holla!), dude is local and self-published and his graphic novels are STUNNING. was advised that this is the one to start with.

DIAL H, China Mieville: his first comic! holy shit! i am actually going to read something in issues for the first time in my life.

365 SAMURAI AND A FEW BOWLS OF RICE, JP Kalonji: can you tell i spent a lot of time/money at Bergen? i did. this one, the art and sparse text suckered me in.

LAURA LAMONT’S LIFE IN PICTURES, Emma Straub, September 4 2012: Emma is smart and funny and i love her short stories, am going to break into this one as soon as i get my brain back from Jacqueline Carey and NK Jemisin.

BRING UP THE BODIES, Hilary Mantel: i loved WOLF HALL, cannot wait to see what she does with Anne Boleyn.

i recently recommended a bunch of sf/f to a friend, and the interwebs has asked for the list. your wish is my command, here it is in all its dashed-off glory:

• Jacqueline Carey, SANTA OLIVIA is the one with the boxing but in the militaristic future-setting
• Octavia Butler, FLEDGLING is the first one i read of hers, but they’re all great
• NK Jemisin, THE KILLING MOON is the new one, sort of ancient-Egypt-ish
• Ursula Le Guin (who you maybe have already read? but if not), THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS is a masterpiece
• Felix Gilman’s HALF-MADE WORLD is something i regularly recommend to people who like Mieville/Harkaway — and Le Guin blurbed it, which is kind of unheard of
• Brian Francis Slattery (newest book is LOST EVERYTHING, but i think LIBERATION is my favorite) is on my top 10 list as well

note: these books are not out yet, release dates noted. please don’t yell at me for teasing you with books you can’t read yet k thx bye!

GONE TO THE FOREST, Katie Kitamura, August 7 2012: if you’ve read LONGSHOT (why haven’t you yet??) you might think you’d have an idea what to expect from Kitamura’s second book, but you’d be wrong. the prose is just as clean, the pacing just as steady, but there’s a whole new level complexity at work here — inevitable, considering the subject. GONE TO THE FOREST is the story of a father and son, managing an estate in a colonized country, who are falling apart at the same time as the political situation around them spirals out of control. tense and vivid and satisfying in that AAAAHHHH WHY IS EVERYONE CRAZY way.

THE DARK UNWINDING, Sharon Cameron, September 1 2012: When Katharine Tulman is sent by her (seriously awful) aunt to declare her estranged uncle (related by marriage) incompetent, so that their side of the family can regain control of the inheritance and the estate, it’s an opportunity to both get some breathing space and, hopefully, prove her use and assure her place in the family. BOY IS SHE WRONG. things are not what they appear, at pretty much any point in this utterly captivating book. clockwork and ghosts and espionage and YOU GUYS IT HAS ALL THE THINGS. it’s almost like ANGELMAKER for kids, actually. fantastic.

RAILSEA, China Mieville, May 15 2012: i have already said everything i can say about this book over on tumblr, more to come in an official review on Shelf Awareness

note: sorry i’ve been such a slacker! also i lost my phone that had notes on all the books i’d been reading, which makes blogging about them difficult. but, new spreadsheet has been started and look, you get an extra long post, that helps right?

SHADOW OPS: CONTROL POINT, Myke Cole: the first book in a new series that a cover blurb describes as “X-Men meets Black Hawk Down”, which i think is pretty apt. the concept is that people who have magical powers are required to join up, otherwise they’re on the run/enemies of the state. a career soldier, who previously was pretty happy with things, discovers some latent abilities of his own, plunging him into the weird world of magic in the military. entertaining as all get-out, although if you are like me you also periodically will want to yell at/throw things in the direction of the main character, who makes some catastrophically terrible decisions.

BLUEPRINTS OF THE AFTERLIFE, Ryan Boudinot: that one i wrote up for Tor.com and you can believe that i will link the hell out of it when it goes live, but until then i will just say that if you enjoy absurdity and weird technology, you will enjoy this book.

SWAMPLANDIA!, Karen Russell: i had a very conflicted relationship with this book, as evidenced by our discussion on Bookrageous, but the short version is that if Russell hadn’t done such a good job creating characters that you care about i wouldn’t have had such strong feelings, and also wow can she write a sentence.

THE VOICE OF THE RIVER, Melanie Rae Thon: a quiet gem of a book. a boy walking his dog in winter falls into a frozen river; the town turns out to search for him; and all the rescuers bring all their own baggage to the search. gorgeous writing.

I HUNT KILLERS, Barry Lyga, out April 10: my review of this one will be in Shelf Awareness’s reader edition soon, and i know you guys, it’s technically not out yet, but so soon! gory and angsty and not to be read at night and full of OMG I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT JUST HAPPENED.

THE LONGSHOT, Katie Kitamura: i read this book when it first came out in 2009 and loved it, so much so that it got me into watching MMA (which is not something people ever expect to hear about me). having recently met the author for the first time (NYC FTW), i reread it, and it was every bit as good as i remembered. Kitamura’s writing is one of the best responses i can think of to female-authors-vs-male-authors stereotyping — she writes like a Really Good Writer, and will not be put into a tidy little box. it’s a little harder to get ahold of these days, but never fear, she’s got a new book coming out in the fall.

THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, Norton Juster: i blame all the people who never gave this book to my child-self for the fact i didn’t read it until last week when i was cat-sitting for a certain someone who owns FOUR COPIES. it was awesome enough that i now understand the necessity.