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Uber User
Posts: 154
| Has anyone else had a chance to scope out 2014 publications?
So far I've read or attempted to read and put down about 8 books. Of those I would def classify as award-worthy:
Among the Thorns, Veronica Schanoes (novelette)
The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, Genevieve Valentine
I've also got three in my TBR pile that I'm quite excited about: The Bees by Laline Paull; The Three by Sarah Lotz; and The Memory Garden by Mary Rickert.
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Uber User
Posts: 448
| So far, 2014 feels like it's been off to a slow start. The new Walton, My Real Children was somewhat disappointing, and there hasn't been much else that I was looking forward to. Still, I'm looking forward to reading VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy after the third books comes out, and I do have both The Bees and The Memory Garden coming to me, so hopefully things will pick up.
Walton's nonfiction What Makes This Book So Great was itself great - it made me want to go back and read/reread lots of the books she was writing about. So far, it's the clear frontrunner for the Hugo Nonfiction category.
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Uber User
Posts: 154
| Glad to hear it, Engelbrecht. :D
So Sarah Lotz' The Three was amazing. It's a combination of an epistolary novel and an oral history -- the narrative is presented as interviews, blog posts, newspaper articles, chat logs, self-recordings for a memoir... It's pretty wild, and there's a lot going on literary-wise for such a pageturner. Definitely award-worthy.
I started reading The Bees, which is pretty good so far. For a debut it's stunningly imaginative. And another 2014 debut novel I'm looking forward to is Monica Byrne's A Girl in the Road, a far-future story set in India and Ethiopia. |
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Member
Posts: 12
Location: west virginia | I don't like to start the first of an announced series until at least a sequel is available. I used to be addicted to Piers Anthony, but was usually disappointed after he became so redundant that it ruined my memory of the enjoyment from the first of the series. I agree about My Real Children. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 548
Location: Great Lakes, USA | I was looking on the link of newly published books that Illegible_scribble posted on the 2013/2014 thread and found Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Thomas Sweterlitsch. I have no idea if it's any good, but it takes place in post apocalyptic Pittsburgh. I have to read that, since I'm originally from there.
I was going to make a private challenge of books published in 2014 to keep track of the ones that I've read, since there was talk of suggesting potential Hugo nominees for 2015. I can make it a public challenge if people are interested - running from July 2014 through August 2015? |
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Uber User
Posts: 1057
| I would love to see that, daxxh, because I always have a hard time coming up with nominees to submit (they are usually due around 15 March, I think). I do try to seek out sources of recommended new SFF books, but it's not always easy. So it would be great to have a challenge collection to provide a list of eligible books, plus easy access to reviews of what other people thought of them. Great idea. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 548
Location: Great Lakes, USA | I set up a New Books of 2014 Challenge. I had it set to private until I could figure out how to put a banner on it, but once again, what I though was private is actually public. Oh well. It can stay that way. If someone wants to make a banner for it, that would be great, since I can't seem to get anything from my computer to show up (I don't have a blog or a web page to put these things on and it seems like that is what is needed.) |
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Uber User
Posts: 263
Location: Gunnison, Colorado | My only "award-worthy" pick so far this year would be Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon. I have high hopes for the new Paul Park, and Hannu Rajaniemi's The Causal Angel, which popped up on my Kindle this morning, but we shall see...
Now to sign up for that 2014 challenge... |
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Uber User
Posts: 154
| Figured I'd post a round-up of my 2014 reading so far, i.e. if I had to nominate stuff today this is what I'd pick. Listing in order.
Novels:
1. Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine
2. The Three by Sarah Lotz
Novellas:
1. Scale-Bright by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
2. Sleep Donation by Karen Russell
3. A Necessary Being by Octavia Butler (from Unexpected Stories)
4. Unlocked by John Scalzi
5. The Mothers of Voorhisville by Mary Rickert
Novelettes:
1. "Among the Thorns" by Veronica Schanoes
I'm not sure if there are awards where you can nominate anthos but for the record:
1. Phantasm Japan
2. Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History
3. Solaris Rising 3
I have had several novel DNF's for various reasons. Not having good luck there at all. |
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Uber User
Posts: 1465
Location: The Netherlands | For the people who are following this thread, I've added a lot of 2014 books this weekend. Mostly September and October releases but a few I missed earlier in the year too. |
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Uber User
Posts: 1057
| valashain - 2014-09-28 6:44 PM For the people who are following this thread, I've added a lot of 2014 books this weekend. Mostly September and October releases but a few I missed earlier in the year too. I noticed that, and I thank you for all your hard work. |
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