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Recent Additions: SF Masterworks
The SF Masterworks is a series of science fiction books published by Orion through its imprints Millennium and Gollancz. The idea was to bring the best out of print titles back into circulation so they could be enjoyed by new generations of readers. The series features some excellent books and some really great covers – two factors that make them extremely collectible.
Many of the books in the series were already in our database, as winners and nominees for the awards we cover, and the remainder has now been added to bring us to a total of 73. I’ve also gone in and replaced all the existing book covers with the Masterwork covers to complete the set. We’ve built a SF Masterworks page to display them all together so you can easily see how many you’ve read. Sounds like a good reading challenge to me. I’ve only read 11 from the list so far but I found that I already had 7 more on my reading list.
The folks at Orion really like Philip K. Dick. There are 14 PKD books in the series – far more than any other author – but you’ll find many other greats in the list like Alfred Bester, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Silverberg to name a few. I’m also excited to be adding many new authors including H.G. Wells to our database. The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, The First Men in the Moon and The Invisible Man all pre-date the awards by many years but remain among the most familiar classics of the genre.
Take a look at the list and let us know what you think. How does this list compare to the awards? How many have you read? I’ll be adding more lists going forward to complement and fill in some of the gaps from our awards coverage. For next week I’m already working on the companion Fantasy Masterworks list – to cover both sides of the SF/F aisle. What other lists should we consider?
Recent Additions – Locus Magazine 2009 Recommended Reading List
This week I took a break from the usual series updates to do a major addition to WWEnd, namely the Locus Magazine 2009 Recommended Reading List. We’ve now got all the novels on the Locus list for you to review – 61 new books and over 40 new authors!
In case you’re not familiar with the list, it’s Locus’ annual run down of the books that they think merit your attention from the previous year – and this year’s list is a doozy! You’ll be seeing many of these books on the short lists for the big awards this year, in fact several are already on the BSFA Short List, so add ’em to your reading list now before awards season starts in earnest.
And speaking of awards, now is the time for you to vote in the Locus Poll. Anyone can vote but subscriber votes count double so if you’ve been thinking about subscribing, now is a great time to do it. So now, without further ado, the list:
Novels – Science Fiction
- The Empress of Mars, Kage Baker (Subterranean Press; Tor)
- Transition, Iain M. Banks (Little Brown UK; Orbit)
- Ark, Stephen Baxter (Gollancz)
- The Devil’s Alphabet, Daryl Gregory (Ballantine Del Rey)
- Buyout, Alexander C. Irvine (Ballantine Del Rey)
- Under the Dome, Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton; Scribner)
- Steal Across the Sky, Nancy Kress (Tor)
- Chronic City, Jonathan Lethem (Doubleday)
- Gardens of the Sun, Paul McAuley (Gollancz; Pyr 2010)
- The Walls of the Universe, Paul Melko (Tor)
- Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
- Yellow Blue Tibia, Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
- Galileo’s Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson (HarperVoyager; Ballantine Spectra 2010)
- The Sunless Countries, Karl Schroeder (Tor)
- This Is Not a Game, Walter Jon Williams (Orbit UK, Orbit US)
- Julian Comstock, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
Novels – Fantasy
- The Price of Spring, Daniel Abraham (Tor)
- Last Days, Brian Evenson (Underland Press)
- Dragon in Chains, Daniel Fox (Ballantine Del Rey)
- Gears of the City, Felix Gilman (Bantam Spectra)
- Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter’s Tales, Greer Gilman (Small Beer Press)
- Avilion, Robert Holdstock (Gollancz)
- The High City, Cecelia Holland (Forge)
- The Red Tree, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
- Green, Jay Lake (Tor)
- Madness of Flowers, Jay Lake (Night Shade Books)
- Audrey’s Door, Sarah Langan (Harper)
- The City & The City, China Miéville (Macmillan UK; Ballantine Del Rey)
- Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett (Doubleday UK; Harper)
- Spell Games, T.A. Pratt (Bantam Spectra)
- Canticle, Ken Scholes (Tor)
- Drood, Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)
- The Revolution Business, Charles Stross (Tor)
- Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
- Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland Press)
- Lifelode, Jo Walton (NESFA Press)
- The Painting and the City, Robert Freeman Wexler (PS Publishing)
- In Great Waters, Kit Whitfield (Jonathan Cape; Del Rey)
Young Adult Books
- The Hotel Under the Sand, Kage Baker (Tachyon Publications)
- Going Bovine, Libba Bray (Delacorte)
- Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press)
- Sacred Scars, Kathleen Duey (Atheneum)
- The Lost Conspiracy (HarperCollins)
- Liar, Justine Larbalestier (Bloomsbury)
- The Ask and the Answer, Patrick Ness (Walker UK; Candlewick Press)
- Heroes of the Valley, Jonathan Stroud (Hyperion; Doubleday UK)
- Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse)
First Novels
- The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade Books)
- The Manual of Detection, Jedediah Berry (Penguin)
- Soulless, Gail Carriger (Orbit)
- The Adamantine Palace, Stephen Deas (Gollancz; Roc 2010)
- Total Oblivion, More or Less, Alan DeNiro (Ballantine Spectra)
- Blood of Ambrose, James Enge (Pyr)
- Ash, Malinda Lo (Little, Brown)
- Rosemary and Rue, Seanan McGuire (DAW)
- Lamentation, Ken Scholes (Tor)
- Harbinger, Jack Skillingstead (Fairwood Press)
- Spellbent, Lucy A. Snyder (Ballantine Del Rey)
- Living with Ghosts, Kari Sperring (DAW)
- Lightbreaker, Mark Teppo (Night Shade Books)
- Norse Code, Greg van Eekhout (Ballantine Spectra)
Recent Additions: Random Reads
This week I’ve added 20 more books to the WWEnd DB to finish out 13 series. My thanks to member mkearl who told me about The Temeraire Series by Naomi Novik. There are now 5 books available (of a projected 9) beginning with 2007 Hugo nominated His Majesty’s Dragon. Napolean era with dragons! Thanks also to whargoul for pointing out the missing books from the Takeshi Kovacs Series. Broken Angels and Woken Furies have been added to 2003 PKD winner Altered Carbon. Don’t know how I missed the Kovacs series… Altered Carbon is one of my favorites!
- The Temeraire Series by Naomi Novik
- Takeshi Kovacs Series by Richard K. Morgan
- Psycho Series by Rober Bloch
- Rama Series by Arthur C. Clarke & Gentry Lee
- Abarat by Clive Barker
- Andrea Cort by Adam-Troy Castro
- The Russian Stories by C.J. Cherryh
- The Great Alta Saga by Jane Yolen
- The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson
- Apotheosis by S. Andrew Swann
- The Moties by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournell
- Dream Park by Larry Niven & Steven Barnes
- The State by Larry Niven
Happy reading and keep ’em coming.
Recent Additions: One’s and Two’s
This week I’ve added 17 new books, mostly one’s and two’s, to finish out 8 series. The largest addition is Ursula K. LeGuin‘s Hainish Cycle. I’ve added the 4 volumes that fall between The Dispossessed (1974 Nebula, 1975 Hugo & Locus SF winner and 1975 Campbell nominee) and The Left Hand of Darkness (1969 Nebula and 1970 Hugo winner).
- Hainish Cycle by Ursula K. LeGuin
- The Answered Prayers Sextet by Jonathan Carroll
- The Von Bek Trilogy by Michael Moorcock
- Chet Kinsman by Ben Bova
- The Finnbranch Trilogy by Paul Hazel
- Marîd Audran Series by George Alec Effinger
- The Godhead Trilogy by James Morrow
- The Legends of Camber of Culdi by Katherine Kurtz
There are some great books in this new list so check ’em out.
On a side note, I’m running out of series to update. This is mostly a good thing. It means I’m almost done and I can move on to some other books. The bad news is that there are many series that I’m unaware of and I need your help. If you find any books that you know to be part of a series and we don’t have the series info listed please let me know. There is an email link in the series dropdown on the novel page that you can use to set us straight.
Happy reading.
Recent Additions: Perfect 10
We’ve got 28 new books for you this week to complete 10 more series. We added 8 new books to The Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson (love the cover art for this series) and 5 volumes to Lois McMaster Bujold‘s Vorkosigan Saga bringing the total to 13 books. We’ve also got the 4-part Rifters Trilogy from author Peter Watts. Book 3, Behemoth, is in 2 parts so you get a bonus book if you read it. The rest are one’s and two’s to finish out.
- The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
- The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold
- The Era of Rapprochement by C. J. Cherryh
- The Rifters Trilogy by Peter Watts
- The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham (schweet covers on these too!)
- The Jump 225 Trilogy by David Louis Edelman
- The Viriconium Sequence by M. John Harrison
- Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
- The Gene Wars by C. J. Cherryh
- Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear
Happy reading.
Recent Additions: Vampires and Sundry
Well, the holidays are over and it’s back to work. This week I’ve added 38 new books to complete 11 different series by 10 authors. We’ve got a wide variety of new books for you to check out including a whole coven of vampire books:
- The Vampire Chronicles – Anne Rice
- The Vampire World Trilogy – Brian Lumley
- A Princess of Roumania – Paul Park
- The Starbridge Chronicles – Paul Park
- The Majipoor Cycle – Robert Silverberg
- The Merchant Princes – Charles Stross
- Return to Nevèrÿon – Samuel R. Delany
- The Nova Trilogy – William S. Burroughs
- The Nulapeiron Sequence – John Meaney
- The Saga of Pliocene Exile – Julian May
- The Trigon Disunity – Michael P. Kube-McDowell
Recent Additions: Holdstock and Jones
This week has been a bit hectic with the Holidays coming on so we don’t have a lot of additions to talk about but what we lack in quantity we make up for in quality.
Robert Holdstock passed away last month unexpectedly at the age of 61. From all accounts he was a genuine and lovely man in life and an excellent writer with a loyal following. There are some nice articles about his life and writings including this one from David Barnett in The Guardian.
Holdstock is perhaps best known for his multiple award-winning Mythago Cycle. The first book, Mythago Wood, won the British Science Fiction Association award in 1984 and the World Fantasy Award in 1985. He followed that up with Lavondyss which also won the BSFA award in 1988. Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn, book 6 of the series, was nominated for the British Fantasy Society’s August Derleth Award in 1999. We’ve just completed the cycle with the addition of The Bone Forest, The Hollowing, Merlin’s Wood and the last volume, Avilion, which came out just this year.
Last week we completed a bunch of trilogies including Gwyneth Jones’s Aleutian Trilogy. This week Gwyneth makes another appearance with her Bold As Love Cycle. The first 3 books in the series all had nominations starting with Bold as Love which won the 2002 Arthur C. Clarke Award and also garnered nominations from the BSFA in 2001 and the BFS in 2002. Castles Made of Sand (2002 BSFA nominee) and Midnight Lamp (2003 BSFA and 2004 Clarke nominee), books 2 and 3 respectively, have been joined by 2005’s Band of Gypsies and Rainbow Bridge from 2006.
These two series would make excellent gifts for any SF/F fan you’ve got on your last minute list… including yourself. Happy reading.
Recent Additions: A Trilogy of Trilogies
In past weeks we’ve been seeing a lot of big series coming into WWEnd with The Grand Tour, Discworld and The Dragon Knight counted among them. This week the magic number is three. Three for trilogy. We’ve added 22 new books to the WWEnd database completing nine trilogies.
Let’s start with The Well-Built City Trilogy by Jeffrey Ford. The Physiognomy won the 1998 World Fantasy Award and to that we’ve added Memoranda and The Beyond in the reprint editions from Golden Gryphon Press. The cover art for this edition is a superb triptych from artist John Picacio. Very nice indeed.
Spider Robinson and wife Jeanne Robinson bring us The Stardance Trilogy with 1980 Locus SF Nominated Stardance and its 2 sequels Starseed and Starmind.
Gwyneth Jones‘ Aleutian Trilogy is complete with the addition of Phoenix Café to 1992 Clarke Nominated White Queen and 1994 BSFA and 1995 Clarke nominated North Wind.
Jeff Carlson‘s Plague Year Trilogy is now complete. We already had the middle volume, 2008 PKD Nom Plague War, to which we added Plague Year and Plague Zone. I’m feeling a bit woozy all of a sudden.
The Broken God, 1994 Clarke Nominee, is the first book of David Zindell‘s A Requiem for Homo Sapiens. We’ve added The Wild and War in Heaven, books 2 and 3 respectively.
The Marathon Trilogy by D. Alexander Smith is all in with Marathon and Homecoming added either side of 1988 PKD Nom Rendezvous. Never judge a book by its cover they say. Well these covers are pretty bad ass so be sure to check them out anyway. I love big spaceships.
We’ve finished out The Jewelfire Trilogy by Freda Warrington with The Sapphire Throne and The Obsidian Tower. They join 2000 BFS Nominated The Amber Citadel.
The Grigori Trilogy by Storm Constantine is made up of Stalking Tender Prey,
1997 BFS Nominated Scenting Hallowed Blood and Stealing Sacred Fire. Fallen angels live among us… interesting.
Last, but not least, we have The Minotaur Trilogy by Thomas Burnett Swann. This trilogy is different from most in that for reasons unknown Mr. Swann wrote the stories backwards. He started with book three 1967 Hugo Nominee Day of the Minotaur, then followed it with book two The Forest of Forever in 1971 and ended with book one Cry Silver Bells in 1977. How’s that for confusing?
Recent Additions: The Grand Tour arrives at WWEnd
The Grand Tour series by author Ben Bova deals with the exploration and colonization of the solar system. Each book tends to focus on a different planet with some common themes and characters appearing across the series. Exploration, colonization, amazing discoveries, corporate espionage, murder, space battles… this series has got something for everyone.
Strangely, Dr. Bova has not had much luck in the awards department despite a large and faithful following. The only Grand Tour book to garner a nomination was 2006’s Titan which won the 2007 Campbell Award. There are 18 total books in the series including the short story collection Tales of the Grand Tour and the 4 volumes that make up the Asteroid Wars: The Precipice, The Rock Rats, The Silent War and The Aftermath. We’ve got them listed in the author’s preferred chronological order though many of the stories overlap in time.
One of the nice things about this series is that despite the character and time overlaps most of the books can be read independantly or out of order. The exceptions would be the Asteroid Wars and the Mars trilogy: Mars, Return to Mars, and Mars Life which should be read in sequence as each novel builds on what went before. I cherry picked my way through most of the planets reading Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Venus and enjoyed them all. I really like the nice cover art as well. They’ve got a classic SF look.
Odds and Ends
It’s been a few weeks since I last posted an update with new books. We’ve been busy with site updates this last month so I had to put them on hold. This latest addition is a bit thin with only eight new books but it does complete four series.
First up is Sheri S. Tepper‘s Arbai Trilogy:. I’ve added Raising the Stones, the middle volume between 1990 Hugo and Locus nominee Grass and 1993 Campbell nom Sideshow.
For Michael Moorcock I added 2 books to complete The Dancers at the End of Time trilogy. An Alien Heat and The End Of All Songs bookend 1976 BFS Winner, The Hollow Lands. I looked high and low for synopsis and excerpts for these with no joy. The older books are such a pain to find info for.
Tanith Lee‘s Tales from the Flat Earth series is now completed with the addition of three books: Delusion’s Master, Delirium’s Mistress and Night’s Sorceries. Book 1 Night’s Master was nominated for the 1979 WFA and book 2, Death’s Master, was the 1980 BFS Winner.
Last, but not least, is His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. I added in the first 2 books of the trilogy: The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife. The Amber Spyglass was a double nominee in 1997 for the WFA and Locus Fantasy awards.
Until next time… Stay curious my friends. ™
