June Reading List Poll

In January and February, I ran two highly successful polls where I asked all the readers of the blog to help me pick my reading list for the following months. The first one was for novels, the second one for comics. I managed to meet the reading goals for the first of those polls, but am still progressing through the second one, mostly because I’ve been traveling a bit too much of late, and reading time has generally been at a premium due to work and more time devoted to my writing.

However, I should be done with it by the end of this month, so keep an eye out for updates on that.

In the meantime, here’s my next reading poll, and this one is for novels once again. Hit the break to find out more.

NANP: The Deeper Truth

Today’s guest on Names: A New Perspective is Zachary Jernigan, the debut author of No Return, being published by Night Shade Books, a publisher who put out some really off-field, strange, and, generally, different stuff. Most of which I’ve liked since I began reading their books last year. Zachary’s debut is just another on that list, and something that I’m really looking forward to, in fact, it is my next read! Zachary has become a great friend and I have high hopes for his book. I’ve got my fingers crossed, and all the early feedback I’ve seen has me jumping up and down with excitement. Anyway, here’s Zachary’s post on the topic.

NANP: Using Names In Fiction

This has been a while in coming, and I’m really excited to host Guy Haley on the blog today for Names: A New Perspective. I first met Guy last year on Twitter after reading his first two Richards and Klein Investigations novels for Angry Robot (reviews here and here). And when I read his stand-alone novel Champion of Mars (review) from Solaris Books, all I wanted was for him to one day write for Black Library. I thought he’d be a perfect fit for them, since Champion of Mars had the type of style and substance I want in a Black Library book. And lo behold, it was announced a few short months later that he was going to be writing three novels for them! Three! Super excited to read his books. Anyway, here’s the man himself on the topic of names. Enjoy!

51 Most Anticipated Releases For 2013

With regards reading, 2012 was a fantastic year for me. It was the year that I stepped out of my comfort zone and read in genres that I normally would not read, such as urban fantasy (involving angels, vampires, werewolves etc) and historical fiction. It was also the year that I read more than the traditional fantasy, and tie-in fantasy at that. My experiments seem to have mostly been successful as I’ve started to really like reading these kind of books.

My goal for this year is to continue on that same path and read as widely as I can. Which is why this massive list is so huge in scope, with tons of variety. I went through the catalogues for most of these publishers and picked out things I liked,and which caught my eye. Getting through the entire list this year will probably not happen, but then again, never say never!

Best of the Best Part 2

I last did something like this in July for the six months from January 1st all the way to June 30th. This list is for July 1st and all the way through to December 30th (the last day doesn’t count!). As I mentioned at the end of that list, this isn’t going to be regurgitation of my “Reading Awards” page, but something more varied. The list takes into account everything I’ve read in the last six months.

Let’s see what makes the cut and which comes close then!

Advent Reviews Day 23: Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey

For the second-last day of the “Advent Reviews” series, I have another novel that I read earlier this year, but never got around to reviewing, mostly because I did not enjoy the book at all and was somewhat reluctant to do a negative review at the time. Plus, I already had too much of a backlog in that regard (still do), so I passed over it. I love reading SF set within the solar system, such as Orson Scott Card’sEarth Unaware or Katy Stauber’s Spin The Sky, and that’s one of the reasons I picked up this book, in addition to the striking cover art. But the book failed to impress me and it left me pretty disappointed as a complete experience. Once again, this is a review from memory, so I do apologise for any details that I get wrong.