The Books We Are Expecting in 2011

[Jussi]

Spectra/Del Rey summer 2011 catalog:

http://a1018.g.akamai.net/f/1018/19022/1d/randomhouse1.download.akamai.com/19022/pdf/SU11_RHPG_HC_Catalog.pdf

No sign of The Republic of Thieves.

[Werthead]

Spectra/Del Rey summer 2011 catalog:

http://a1018.g.akama..._HC_Catalog.pdf

No sign of The Republic of Thieves.

Or ADWD. I can understand those two not being in it, but the absence of the new HBO tie-in edition of GoT which is locked for 22 March seems weird.

[Padraig]

I think its more superstitious at this stage. Don't give a publication date until we know. :P

[Relic]

I think its more superstitious at this stage. Don't give a publication date until we know. :P

meh. i find it best to assume it's NEVER coming out and being pleasantly surprised if it does.

[Werthead]

So correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me like you are far from bullish on a 2011 release for ADWD....

After speaking to George in Belfast in 2009, it seemed pretty implausible that the book wouldn't be out at least sometime in 2010. Since that didn't happen, I am exercising far greater caution, even statistically the chances of the book making it out in 2011 are far greater than any previous year (erm, since the chance of it coming out in previous years is now 0%, but you get what I mean).

However, the Bantam catalogue does seem odd in not mentioning the new edition of AGoT, since that should be pretty much set to go (we'll likely see the new cover art for it soon) in just three months time.

[Werthead]

Now with pictures. And no, the list is not meant to be exhaustive.

[kkemikk]

Wert, do you have any additional info on the limited edition of Son of Heaven by David Wingrove? Google failed here. What's the difference with the regular hardcover?

[ogbebaba]

meh. i find it best to assume it's NEVER coming out and being pleasantly surprised if it does.

:agree: yeah that's what I do too...

[polishgenius]

Is it just me, or is there less in the way of hyped debuts in the coming year than in 2010? That would make sense, I suppose, what with the amount of much anticipated books coming, especially before the end of April which is when quite a few debutants did seem to break cover last year.

[Werthead]

Wert, do you have any additional info on the limited edition of Son of Heaven by David Wingrove? Google failed here. What's the difference with the regular hardcover?

I'm not too sure, and there seems little on the website about it. So far it just appears to be coming out a month earlier than the regular hardcover.

I am concerned about the lack of genre press for the book though. I've covered it a bit, but outside of that there seems to be zero activity amongst bloggers despite the ARCs being sent out a few weeks ago now. I'm still finding big Chung Kuo fans who were completely unaware this re-release was happening, and presumably they'd be the primary audience for the limited edition (though even they seem to be a bit sceptical about the pricing and the need to split the books already released in seven volumes as fourteen). I think the publishers using hyperbolic reviews from the 1980s comparing it to Dune may also be a mistake and slightly disingenuous (especially since the first two books are completely 100% new).

Is it just me, or is there less in the way of hyped debuts in the coming year than in 2010? That would make sense, I suppose, what with the amount of much anticipated books coming, especially before the end of April which is when quite a few debutants did seem to break cover last year.

Aside from Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns, I'm not hearing much from publishers about new authors. I think Gollancz have a couple more coming late in the year though.

[Jussi]

Aside from Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns, I'm not hearing much from publishers about new authors. I think Gollancz have a couple more coming late in the year though.

There is some hype around The Unremembered by Peter Orullian. The book is coming out in April.

http://sf-fantasy.suvudu.com/2010/11/new-author-sighting-peter-orullian.html

[polishgenius]

The Orullian hype is odd - like Tor know it's a prime opportunity to fill a WoT shaped gap in the market but they're not really sure. It doesn't seem to have caught fire yet, and it's coming quite soon.

I've started the short story and didn't much like the writing, but the book proper may be more polished and I like the whole idea of the series.

[Mjolnir]

Yeah, the Orullian book and series does sound very WoTesque doesn't it? Like not just "traditional fantasy" but very directly WoT-inspired. Tor's already got what is probably from a marketing standpoint a tailor-made successor to WoT in the shape of Sanderson's Stormlight Archive, but I suppose another one never hurts and Tor seem to have been trying to get a new hot epic fantasy going for the last couple years.

A detail-obsessed point about The Unremembered: This seems to be a return on Tor's part to the fat debut, which they've very much been moving away from in recent years. Ken Scholes' Lamentation, Blake Charlton's Spellwright, Beth Bernobich's Passion Play [sample chapters and short story were quite good, shame about the rubbish title]: all these new epic fantasy series openers were nice and short, under 400 pages. Daniel Abraham's Long Price books are too. But -- and I've got no real information so I may very well be talking out my ass -- none of these seem to have really taken for Tor from a sales perspective. Scholes is doing well, but not as well as hoped. Charlton seems to be doing pretty well too, but not the stuff of marketing departmenteers' sweaty dreams or anything. Maybe Tor feels it's time to try another big fat epic debut of the kind they helped train the market to like in the 90s? End silly random speculation.

[Werthead]

Same in the UK, a lot of fantasy debuts have recently been under 400 pages, some of them very good. This has mostly been a positive thing, but it's also backfired. Most notably with Gollancz, who let Sam Sykes's flabby and eminently cuttable Tome of the Undergates stand as a 600-page book (it could have been 300 pages and a lot stronger for it) whilst insisting that Stephen Deas's The Adamantine Palace stay very short, with the result that a lot of worldbuilding and characterisation had to be left out to pack the huge, epic story into it. Both books would have been served better, IMO, if their positions had been reversed.

But yeah, after The Passage did really well as a big, fat book where the size was part of the appeal and the same for The Name of the Wind and The Way of Kings, you can see some of the publishers swinging back the other way. It's also paid off nicely for Tor UK with Tchaikovsky, whose series has done very well.

[Gabriele]

Adam, do you have any knowledge about the planned release of C.S. Friedman's third Magister book? The trilogy was planned for a book a year schedule but the third didn't come out in 2010 and I can't find any traces of it for 2011, either (except an Amazon date for October 2011 :P but I'd rather believe in flying pigs than Amazon dates).

[Jussi]

According to UK publisher, Friedman's Legacy of Kings will be released in December 2011.

http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/Title/9781841495354

[Gabriele]

Almost a year then? *sniff*

Damn, I'm really not going to start any more unfinished series. ;)

[Garlan the Gallant]

So other than Peter Orullian's Unremembered, Kameron Hurley's God's War, and Elspeth Cooper's Song of the Earth, are there any notable debut authors that are getting any buzz?

[Larry.]

Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife is one upcoming debut that's drawing quite a bit of attention, especially after she was selected as one of the National Book Award's 5 Under 35 recipients.

[Mjolnir]

And Prince of Thorns that was being talked about upthread, don't forget. Going by what Werthead's said and some of the early rumblings apparently publisher's pretty crazy about it. We shall see, I guess.

There's an sf novel from Tor here in North America called Up Against It by one M. J. Locke. Apparently it's deep space hijinx on an asteroid work station [can't remember if it's a mining station or what exactly] which has a benevolent computer minder. I dunno if it's getting buzz exactly, but unless I'm remembering incorrectly it's got a GRRM blurb.

In secondary world fantasy there's a book called Among Thieves by Douglas ... something. Starts with H, one moment please. Googling ... Hulick, Douglas Hulick. From Tor UK with, far as I know, no US deal yet.

Solaris has an interesting sounding debut, a John Jerrold literary agency press release tells me, Babylon Steel by Gaie Sebold, but that's quite a bit later in the year. And I think Gollancz has something, by one Ray Carson, but again that's later.

And, as probably the biggest start-of-year debut far as I can tell, there's Deborah Harkness's A Discovery of Witches, which sounds interesting to me but could go very much either way depending how it's executed.

Must check out the Hurley. Was initially not that interested, as it's tagged as "bugpunk" and if I see just one more damn thing get the word "punk" attached to it just because it sounds hip... but the synopsis sounds really cool, it recently got a nice review from Publishers Weekly and I hear Jeff Vandermeer's said nice things about it, so I'll definitely want to try it. The Cooper too; Gollancz, like all publishers, is hit-or-miss with debuts for me, but they've printed some of the best ones these last few years.