Reviewing the Mail: Week of 10/1

Until the Post Office actually gets driven out of business by your choice of a) the inevitable forward movement of Teh Internetz and the magnificently destructive forces of capitalism or b) government meddling and the requirement to prepay retiree expenses seventy-five years ahead, there will continue to be mail. And some of that mail comes to my house, in the form of physical books -- and that's another choice of destructions that I'll spare you -- sent by eager publicists who cherish even such minor recognition as a mere blogger as I can bestow.

These, then, are those books; the ones received during the past week. I haven't read any of them, but here's what I can tell you about them.

Mirror Maze is the first novel-published-as-a-book by Michaele Jordan [1] -- a prior work was serialized in Jim Baen's Universe -- a Victorian fantasy novel with curses, demons, and what I strongly suspect may be true love. Pyr is publishing it on October 4th -- which is tomorrow, for those of you terribly impatient types.

John Ajvide Linqvist is a major Swedish writer (of books and television) best known in the English-speaking world for the novel Let The Right One In, which was made into two movies, and had its title slightly altered on US publication to match the second movie. [2] Harbor is his new novel in English -- originally published in 2008 -- about a man who is shattered when his young daughter disappears mysteriously on a small island, and then discovers that she was not the first. (The flap copy promises "a dark and deadly secret" and that "his fellow islanders, including his own grandmother, know a lot more than they're telling.") The Thomas Dunne Books imprint of St. Martin's Press is publishing Harbor in hardcover this month.

And last this week is the new Vernor Vinge novel, The Children of the Sky, which is a direct sequel to his 1992 (Hugo-winning) novel A Fire Upon The Deep. I have to admit here that I've never read any of Vinge's novels -- back in my SFBC days, I mostly got the Joan Vinge novels, since my boss Ellen Asher and I essentially divided the field in twain between us -- but I will say, brightly, that perhaps this is an opportunity for me to catch up! If you read SF at all, I'm sure you're familiar with Vinge's name, which is good, since I doubt I can tell you anything coherent about the long-awaited sequel to a complicated far-future book I never read. This one is a Tor hardcover, hitting stores next week.


[1] One might think that name implies a post-1984 origin, but a quick glance at her website argues otherwise. It must be quite annoying to be minding your own business and suddenly have a ridiculously famous person co-opt your name.

[2] I haven't read the book or seen either of the movies, though I have mildly serious intentions of repairing at least two of those lacks.