Reviewing the Mail: Week of 1/2

Apparently, not everyone has been as lackadaisical over Christmas week as I've been -- I thought I wouldn't have any books to write up this week, but two snuck in on Friday, proving the hardworking publicists of Big Publishing are still at it, and that the days of Big Publishing having Christ,mas week off ended long ago.

Anyway, I have two books here, both hardcovers from Tor, to tell you about. I haven't read them -- I should say that up front -- but here's what I can tell you about them.

All the Birds in the Sky is, I think, the first genre novel by io9 founding editor Charlie Jane Anders (who has an author photo in which she rocks an Elric vibe, minus the big black sword -- though could be just out of frame, so I'd better not cause her any trouble!). I say "genre" because it seems to be both SF and Fantasy, focusing on two young characters who each embody one of them -- Fantasy is female and SF male, which I suspect is the most conventional thing about the book -- and on their lives as they intersect over the years. Oh, and they may determine the fate of the world, because this is a genre novel. You can read All the Birds in the Sky on January 26th -- maybe sooner, if you, too, are on Tor's publicity list.

The other book I have here is Brandon Sanderson's The Bands of Mourning, third in the steampunky "Wax and Wane" subseries in his Mistborn universe. In it, the legendary magical artifacts of the title, through destroyed or permanently lost since long mythological ages ago, are found and immediately start causing trouble. It will be available on January 26th.