Can’t Wait Wednesday: Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Title: Phoenix Extravagant 

Author:  Yoon Ha Lee

Publisher: Rebellion / Solaris

Genre: Fantasy

Length: 416 Pages

Release Date: June 9, 2020

Blurb: For generations the empire has spread across the world, nigh-unstoppable in their advance. Its power depends on its automata, magically animated and programmed with sigils and patterns painted in mystical pigments.

A symbol-painter – themselves a colonial subject – is frustrated in their work when their supply of Phoenix Extravagant dries up, and sets out to find the source. What they’ll discover is darker than anything they could have imagined…

Why I’m Excited for it:  Despite the difficult learning curve in Ninefox Gambit, I absolutely fell in love with the unique and complex world building and the flawed and yet weirdly lovable characters.  Though I am also eager to return to The Machineries of the Empire, I’m also excited to see what Lee does with a new world and new characters.

It also sounds like another fantastic blend of science fiction and fantasy with magic powered robot (dragons?).  Either way- I absolutely can’t wait for this!

Which new releases are you looking forward to?

Can’t Wait Wednesday: The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Title: The Evening and the Morning

Author:  Ken Follett

Publisher: Viking

Genre: Historical Fiction

Length: 720 Pages

Release Date: September 15, 2020

Blurb: It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages, and in England one man’s ambition to make his abbey a centre of learning will take the reader on an epic journey into a historical past rich with ambition and rivalry, death and birth, love and hate.

Thirty years ago, Ken Follett published his most popular novel, The Pillars of The Earth, which has sold over 27 million copies worldwide.

Now, this novel, the prequel, will take the readers on an epic journey that will end where The Pillars of The Earth begins…

Why I’m Excited For It:  This week I discovered that there are not one, but two new books in beloved series that are releasing this fall (the other one I’m saving for a future post).  The Pillars of the Earth and its sequels are some of my favorite books of all time.

They feature large casts swept up in endless drama, romance, scheming villains, the roller coaster ride of the character’s triumphs and defeats… I’ve often described these books as medieval soap operas, all centered around the same fictional church and town.

Now it seems this book is set during the Viking age, and you already know how I feel about that.  It’s the prequel I didn’t know I needed.

Have you read any of The Pillars of the Earth books?  Are you as excited for this as I am?

Can’t Wait Wednesday: Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Title: Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

Author:  Max Brooks

Publisher: Del Rey Books

Genre: Horror

Length: 320 Pages

Release Date: May 12, 2020

Blurb: As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier’s eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now.

But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town’s bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing–and too earth-shattering in its implications–to be forgotten.

In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate’s extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the legendary beasts behind it.

Kate’s is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity’s defiance in the face of a terrible predator’s gaze, and inevitably, of savagery and death.

Yet it is also far more than that.

Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us–and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.

Part survival narrative, part bloody horror tale, part scientific journey into the boundaries between truth and fiction, this is a Bigfoot story as only Max Brooks could chronicle it–and like none you’ve ever read before.

Why I’m Excited For It:  Guys.  Gals.  You know you have a problem when you start recognizing the face of like every cryptozoologist alive today.

I have that problem.

If there’s a show on Bigfoot, no matter how staged or awful looking, I’ve probably watched it.  I’ve heard every theory- Bigfoot is an alien, Bigfoot is an interdimensional time traveler, Bigfoot’s just trying to do his Bigfoot thang and we mere mortals are too slow to see it.

I don’t even care how crazy that makes me sound.  I realize your next question is: Do you believe?  And the answer is, No...but I want to. *cue X-Files music*

My ultimate feelings about Brooks’s last effort: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, were mixed.  It wasn’t quite what I was hoping for.  At the same time- when I started that book, I was looking very specifically for a thrilling and gruesome zombie book, like The Walking Dead or The Last of Us on paper. (Side note: the audio on WWZ one is full cast and brilliant).

I have really high hopes for this because there is really not enough Sasquatch fiction out there to satisfy my nerdy cryptozoological heart.  I needed this book like I needed another hole in my head and I’m not even remotely sorry that NetGalley and Del Rey granted my wish.

What new releases are you excited for?

Can’t Wait Wednesday: The Last Human by Zack Jordan

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Title: The Last Human

Author:  Zack Jordan

Publisher: Del Rey

Genre: Science Fiction

Length: 448 Pages

Release Date: March 24, 2020

Blurb: Sarya is the civilized galaxy’s worst nightmare: a Human.

Most days, Sarya doesn’t feel like the most terrifying creature in the galaxy.

Most days, she’s got other things on her mind. Like hiding her identity among the hundreds of alien species roaming the corridors of Watertower Station. Or making sure her adoptive mother doesn’t casually eviscerate one of their neighbors. Again.

And most days, she can almost accept that she’ll never know the truth–that she’ll never know why humanity was deemed too dangerous to exist. Or whether she really is–impossibly–the lone survivor of a species destroyed a millennium ago.

That is, until an encounter with a bounty hunter and a miles-long kinetic projectile leaves her life and her perspective shattered.

Thrown into the universe at the helm of a stolen ship–with the dubious assistance of a rebellious spacesuit, an android death enthusiast on his sixtieth lifetime, and a ball of fluff with an IQ in the thousands–Sarya begins to uncover an impossible truth.

What if humanity’s death and her own existence are simply two moves in a demented cosmic game, one played out by vast alien intellects? Stranger still, what if these mad gods are offering Sarya a seat at their table–and a second chance for humanity?

Why I’m Excited For It: Really- just everything about that blurb speaks to me.  The whacky, off-beat and colorful cast, the sense of adventure, and mostly the sense of humor.  (Am I the only one reminded of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?)  I mean an android death enthusiast?  This has to be a set up for many entertaining death scenes.  (I can laugh at that because he’s an android.. right?)

I also think this is a path not often chosen in Sci-Fi – humans being exterminated – which could lead to some very interesting revelations.

What about you?  Which new releases are you looking forward to?

Can’t Wait Wednesday: The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Title: The Book of Koli

Author:  M.R. Carey

Publisher: Orbit

Genre: Fantasy

Length: 496 Pages

Release Date: April 14, 2020

Blurb: The first in a gripping new trilogy, The Book of Koli charts the journey of one unforgettable young boy struggling to find his place in a chilling post-apocalyptic world. Perfect for readers of Station Eleven and Annihilation.

Beyond the walls of the small village of Mythen Rood lies an unrecognizable world. A world where overgrown forests are filled with choker trees and deadly vines and seeds that will kill you where you stand. And if they don’t get you, one of the dangerous shunned men will.

Koli has lived in Mythen Rood his entire life. He knows the first rule of survival is that you don’t venture beyond the walls.

What he doesn’t know is — what happens when you aren’t given a choice?

Why I’m Excited For It:  Honestly, I know better than to trust marketing ploys such as Book ABC meets Book XYZ, but that’s where this one had me: Station Eleven meets Annihilation.  I love the survival horror aspect of Annihilation, the looming dread I felt at not knowing what the heck was going on or where it was all leading, and I loved Station Eleven’s literary character building.

Although I haven’t read anything else by Carey, I’ve heard consistently good things about The Girl With All the Gifts and The Boy on the Bridge, so I’m hopeful that this book will live up to the standards he’s set.

What about you?  Which new releases are you looking forward to?

 

Can’t Wait Wednesday: Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Title: Escaping Exodus

Author:  Nicky Drayden

Publisher: Harper Voyager

Genre: Science Fiction

Length: 368 Pages

Release Date: October 8, 2019

Blurb: Escaping Exodus is a story of a young woman named Seske Kaleigh, heir to the command of a biological, city-size starship carved up from the insides of a spacefaring beast. Her clan has just now culled their latest ship and the workers are busy stripping down the bonework for building materials, rerouting the circulatory system for mass transit, and preparing the cavernous creature for the onslaught of the general populous still in stasis. It’s all a part of the cycle her clan had instituted centuries ago—excavate the new beast, expand into its barely-living carcass, extinguish its resources over the course of a decade, then escape in a highly coordinated exodus back into stasis until they cull the next beast from the diminishing herd.

And of course there wouldn’t be much of a story if things didn’t go terribly, terribly wrong.

Why I’m Excited For It: First I want to thank Acqua di more @ Acquadimore Books for bringing this one to my attention!  I hadn’t heard of it before.

Nicky Drayden is an author I’ve been meaning to try for awhile, and somehow just haven’t gotten around to reading yet. As soon as I saw it and heard “biological spaceships” I knew this had to be the one I read first.

I love books set on spaceships, especially when they are city sized, which to me says that there enough people living there that it’s possible to remain totally anonymous and not know every single living creature onboard.

I’m also super curious about “the beast” they are excavating.  Like – what kind of space monster has this crew dug up?

Escaping Exodus can be found on GoodReads or preordered on Amazon if you’re as excited about it as I am!

What about you?  What new books are you most excited about?  Leave me a link below so I can check it out!

Can’t Wait Wednesday: Dahlia Black by Keith Thomas

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Title: Dahlia Black

Author: Keith Thomas

Genre: Science Fiction

Length: 288 Pages

Publisher: Atria Books

Release Date: August 13, 2019

Blurb: For fans of World War Z and the Southern Reach Trilogy, a suspenseful oral history commemorating the five-year anniversary of the Pulse—the alien code that hacked the DNA of Earth’s population—and the response team who faced the world-changing phenomenon.Voyager 1 was a message in a bottle. Our way of letting the galaxy know we existed. That we were out here if anyone wanted to find us.

Over the next forty years, the probe flew past Jupiter and Saturn before it drifted into the void, swallowed up by a silent universe. Or so we thought…

Truth is, our message didn’t go unheard.

Discovered by Dr. Dahlia Black, the mysterious Pulse was sent by a highly intelligent intergalactic species that called themselves the Ascendants. It soon becomes clear this alien race isn’t just interested in communication—they are capable of rewriting human DNA, in an astonishing process they call the Elevation.

Five years after the Pulse, acclaimed journalist Keith Thomas sets out to make sense of the event that altered the world. Thomas travels across the country to interview members of the task force who grappled to decode the Pulse and later disseminated its exact nature to worried citizens. He interviews the astronomers who initially doubted Black’s discovery of the Pulse—an error that critics say led to the world’s quick demise. Thomas also hears from witnesses of the Elevation and people whose loved ones vanished in the Finality, an event that, to this day, continues to puzzle Pulse researchers, even though theories abound about the Ascendants’ motivation.

Including never-before-published transcripts from task force meetings, diary entries from Black, and candid interviews with Ballard, Thomas also shows in Dahlia Black how a select few led their country in its darkest hours, toward a new level of humanity.

Why I’m excited for it: I love first contact anything.  I love the unexpectedness of it- how it could go either way.  Maybe the extraterrestrials are benevolent beings, maybe they want to help us poor lost humans out, maybe they want to banish us from the universe and steal all Earth’s resources.

I also love seeing how the characters in the book/movie/whatever learn to communicate with each other.  Maybe it’s through math, maybe it’s through intercepted news and media signals, maybe it’s through music or language absorption or psychic powers.  Who knows?  First contact is a theme that comes with predetermined issues, but allows the author countless space to be creative and unique, and provide the reader with scenarios they might never have imagined.

I do find it a little odd the author used his own name as one of the character’s in the book though.  It totally threw me off and I had to keep looking to be sure it wasn’t some kind of typo in the blurb.  But I’m also hoping that’s a sign that the book is quirky and different.

This is going to be told in an oral history format, similar to World War Z by Max Brooks.  Sometimes this format works for me, sometimes it doesn’t.  World War Z which I listened to in fabulous full-cast audio, came off as a little dry.  The problem was, everyone who was telling their part of the story, you already knew they had lived. Still, I do like this format every now and then, and I’m hoping the different type of conflict will allow there to be more suspense.

Lastly- elevated humans?  I’ve only read a handful of books with elevated animals.  It’s kind of a bizarre thing but I like the possibility it provides for ethical discussion, and I can’t wait to see what the humans are being elevated to, exactly.

Dahlia Black can be found on GoodReads or preordered on Amazon.

What about you?  Which new releases are you looking forward to?

 

Can’t Wait Wednesday: Gamechanger by L. X. Beckett

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Title: Gamechanger

Author: L. X. Beckett

Publisher: Tor

Genre: Science Fiction

Length: 576 pages

Release Date: September 17, 2019

Blurb (from GoodReads): Neuromancer meets Star Trek in Gamechanger, a fantastic new book from award-winning author L. X. Beckett.

First there was the Setback. Then came the Clawback. Now humanity thrives.

Rubi Whiting is a member of the Bounceback Generation. The first to be raised free of the troubles of the late twenty-first century. Now she works as a public defender to help troubled indiviudals with anti-social behavior. That’s how she met Luciano Pox.

Luce is a firebrand and has made a name for himself as a naysayer. But there’s more to him than being a lightning rod for controversy. Rubi has to find out why the governments of the world want to bring Luce into custody, and why Luce is hell bent on stopping the recovery of the planet.

Why I’m excited for it: First and foremost- it’s Tor.  They are without a doubt my favorite publisher of Science Fiction and Fantasy.  I’m almost never disappointed with what they put out, and they publish many of my favorite authors (Jo Walton, Ada Palmer, and Ian McDonald to name a few).  They are also pretty good to their fans, with generally low priced ebooks, a new free ebook offering every month, a short fiction newsletter quarterly, and more short stories easily available on their website.

Something about this cover reminds me of Too Like the Lightning (I have a feeling the cover artist is the same) and I’m hoping the contents of the book will feel similar too.  What I loved about TLTL was the picture it painted of what the world might look like 400 years in the future.  Aside from all the cool tech- Palmer totally reimagined government and societal values which was the most fascinating piece (to me).  Gamechanger seems to be imagining a world 200 years in the future after it’s survived an apocalyptic event.  I can’t wait to see what the author does with it, but I’m hoping for something that’s a vast departure from the world we currently live in.

Additionally- with a title like Gamechanger, I’m hoping for a high-stakes political game, twisting turning secrets, and a plot that will make my head spin.  By the way- who decided September was the best month to release all the good stuff?  My TBR is already full for September!

Gamechanger can be found on GoodReads or pre-ordered on Amazon.

Which upcoming releases are you most excited about?  Leave me a link below so I can drop by and check it out!