Upcoming Releases- 2009

So instead of reading or writing or really doing anything remotely productive, I spent the evening browsing Amazon and checking out upcoming releases by my favorite writers. I already have Anne Bishop's new book The Shadow Queen (which I'm not as pleased with as I had hoped, unfortunately) which snuck under my radar until I stumbled across a copy at Barnes & Noble. To keep this from happening again, I decided to compile a list here for books I'm gonna have to order A.S.A.P!

First off is Jeff Vandermeer's Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer. Though I normally avoid books on writing like the plague on society they are, I think I'll have to break my own rules and check this one out. Vandermeer's non-fiction is, strangely enough, the reason I started reading him in the first place, and this book looks like it's going to deal with issues that actually are important for modern day writers including, as Amazon.com claims, "personal space versus public space, deadlines, and networking, [and] the benefits of interacting with readers through new technologies". This one is due out in October, so I've got a while to wait before I can get my hands on a copy.

China Mieville's new novel, The City & The City, is coming out this May. I'm fighting the urge to pre-order it...at least until it gets a little closer to the release date and my willpower breaks. I'm a little behind on my Mieville books, but this one looks pretty intriguing and I just might have to bump a few things down on my reading list to make room for it.

I was hoping to get a copy of Catherynne M. Valente's Palimpsest at one of my local bookstores, but once again I forgot how weak the fantasy sections in my Hastings and Barnes & Noble are. I'll be buying this one off of Amazon before long, I fear.

Neil Gaiman has another children's book (Crazy Hair) due out at the end of May. I already have a copy of his other new children's book, The Blueberry Girl, and I love it. Charles Vess' artwork is unbelievably beautiful in The Blueberry Girl, and I'm sure Dave McKean's illustrations in Crazy Hair will be as odd and wonderful as they always are.

Oddly enough (for me), I'm greatly tempted to read Drood by Dan Simmons. Like books on writing, I tend to avoid fiction about writers, but I think Simmons may be on to something with his novel about Charles Dickens and his last, unfinished manuscript, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Besides, this is one giant sucker of a freaking novel, which hopefully translates into plenty of reading entertainment for me!

I'm also looking out for a copy of Steve Berman's Mr. October's Naughty Bedside Reader, which doesn't have a release date yet, sadly. Like Valente, I'll probably have to order this one off Amazon, since my local bookstores don't know who he is, either (ugh! I need to have a chat with the people who pick stock. Whoever these Robert Jordan and R.A. Salvatore guys are, they need to quit taking up so much room on the store fantasy shelves!).