2014: New Year’s (Reading) Resolutions…

Last year, I resolved to read at least the first book in four fantasy series. I managed to read the first of only two of them… Thankfully, these sorts of thing are not binding, but nevertheless, I’ve decided to (belatedly) come up with another four fantasy series I would like to at least try, if not finish, in 2014. I will include the two I failed to read in 2013, and hopefully keep them high on the TBR list. So, here are the 2014 Fantasy Reading Resolutions…

Margaret Atwood – MaddAddam Trilogy

Celia Friedman – The Coldfire Trilogy

Tom Lloyd – Twilight Reign (from 2013)

Brandon Sanderson – Mistborn (from 2013)

As before, and always, there are no doubt going to be tens of new fantasy, sci-fi, urban fantasy and horror novels series that I will want to read. Even need to read, in my weirdly-wired mind. They will probably get in the way of my fulfilling these reading resolutions (which makes you wonder if these types of posts have any value whatsoever, but there we go). It’s impossible to read all the novels I want to read. But I will do my best to read at least the first in the above series. It certainly helps that I have already bought them. I’ll use the weekend Upcoming posts to highlight stand-alone novels, and also hitherto unmentioned or unrevealed SFF series that catch my attention. In the meantime, though, here is some information about the above-mentioned series…

Books Received (November 2013)

Another impressive book-haul, this month. Also rather varied, too, which is always nice. As per usual, I can’t read them all instantaneously, so here is an initial, first-look at the books that are coming soon to the blog and to bookstores/-shelves near you.

Catching up with TOM LLOYD

Tom Lloyd is the author of the Twilight Reign epic fantasy series, which was completed earlier this year. Today, Gollancz publish the first in his new series, Moon’s Artifice. To mark the occasion, I caught up with Tom to get an update since my first interview with the author…

Your first fantasy series, The Twilight Reign, came to an end this year. How does it feel to have it finished?

Weird – damn good, but still weird. I started on the project when I was 18, so it’s been the major constant of 12-14 years of my life! Even when I was signed up by Gollancz I don’t think I appreciated just how much of my life was going to be devoted to one set of characters, one plot. It was just always there, so to suddenly realise you’ve written the last words puts you into mourning.

Of course, the very last words of Dusk Watchman are the inscription on a memorial stone – I can’t remember if I’d finished all the stories of God Tattoo by then, but most of them. Certainly in my mind, that final part of the epilogue was what really brought it home to me. When I wrote the last words and typed the inscription, I think I might have needed a few moments to myself... And again when I did the second draft of it and finally got the tone of those last couple pages as I really wanted it.

So yeah, years of my life and the voices in my head that had become my friends, all gone. I think that’s one reason why I didn’t want to go straight into an epic again. I didn’t want to have a project that I’d compare so directly with Twilight Reign. Plus I was knackered and the idea of planning a series-spanning plot was exhausting. I wanted a stand-alone book and handily had the bones of one already sketched out. I have an epic (or maybe two) idea at the back of my mind, but there’s the Empire of a Hundred Houses series and then another both ahead of them in the queue.

Appreciation: Tom Lloyd on Terry Pratchett

This is the first post in a mini-series focused on the work of Terry Pratchett, which will go up on the blog over the course of this week. Here, Tom Lloyd (author of the Twilight Reign series) discusses the impact of Pratchett’s writing on his own…

“On Terry Pratchett” by Tom Lloyd

Terry Pratchett has an entirely unique position in my book collection. I’ve got beautiful folio editions of Tolkien, a hardback collection of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, several first editions by BB I’m saving to read to my daughter, but the tatty, much-read Pratchett paperbacks still reign. For starters, I own more of his books than anyone else’s – they almost rival my own for the number of copies I have – and secondly, they’ve been read more than any other’s. I rarely re-read books, I’m a slow reader and simply don’t have the time, but whenever I’m stressed or too tired to keep up with a new book, I’ll grab a Pratchett as I head to bed. It’s a habit my wife’s taken up and a testament to the quality that some have had over a dozen re-reads and remain enjoyable. They’re not perfect, with fluctuations of style and missteps aplenty, but still I’m not convinced millions of readers and a knighthood is sufficient recognition for his body of work, given the sniffy attitudes of the large chunks of the reading public.

2013: New Year’s (Reading) Resolutions – Fantasy

Last year, I promised myself that I would read at least one of Joe Abercrombie’s novels. Thankfully, I just managed it. For 2013, I’ve decided to come up with a similar resolution, to address a few more gaps in my SFF reading. In this post, I give you the four fantasy series I hope to read at least one novel from in 2013:

Robin Hobb – Farseer Trilogy

James Barclay – Chronicles of the Raven

Brandon Sanderson – Mistborn

Tom Lloyd – Twilight Reign

There are, of course, many other established and completed series I wish I had tried by now. These are just four of the fantasy series I’ve decided to single out for this year. Allow me to share some details about these series, in case you haven’t managed to get around to them yourself. If you have already read any of these series, please do share your own thoughts and impressions, in the comments. (Or, alternatively, share suggestions for other fantasy series you think I and other readers need to try out.)

Recent Acquisitions (November/December)

A pre-Christmas selection of books that I’ve received or purchased over the last few weeks. A very nice selection, all told – only one book probably won’t be reviewed, and that’s because it’s the fifth book in a series I’ve never read. [See below – I’m offering it to a US/Canadian in return for a guest review.]

An Interview with TOM LLOYD

With the release of The Dusk Watchman, Tom Lloyd’s Twilight Reign is now complete. Which seems like a perfect time to catch up with him for an interview, see how he feels about finishing his first series, what plans he has for the future, and the danger of working as an author with a puppy in the house…

Upcoming: “Latecomer” Reviews on CR

As some readers may already know, I’ve not been reading fantasy or science fiction for very long. Because of this, most of my SF/F reviews have been of newly or recently released titles.

In 2011, this will change.

I’m not going to stop reading and reviewing new titles (far from it – there are just too many exciting novels published this year to forgo), but I am going to do something I’ve been meaning to do for some time now – that is, catch up on the ‘classic’, ‘great’, and established fantasy titles and series. The reviews will all be prefixed as “Latecomer”, so should be easy to find as and when they start arriving.

I haven’t got them all picked out, yet, but here is a first selection of titles I’ll be reading (please feel free to leave suggestions in the comments):

James Barclay, Dawnthief (Gollancz)

George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones (Voyager)

Tad Williams, Shadowmarch & The Dragonbone Chair (Orbit)

Neal Asher, Gridlinked (Tor)

Adrian Tchaikovsky, Empire in Black and Gold (Tor)

Joe Abercombie, The Blade Itself (Gollancz)

Robin Hobb, Assassin’s Apprentice (Voyager)

Brandon Sanderson, The Final Empire (Gollancz)

Tom Lloyd, Stormcaller (Gollancz)

Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World (Orbit)

Steven Brust, The Book of Jhereg (Ace)

Whether or not I get to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series will depend on how much I like the latter’s The Way of Kings, which I have already bought for my Kindle.

So, there’s the selection I’ve come up with for the moment. I’m sure there are others, and there’s no set order in which I’m going to read them, and there’s no guarantee that I will end up in the mood for them, but they’re all series I’ve been meaning to read for some time, and I just don’t want to keep putting them off for much longer. If I had to put money on it, I’d say James Barclay and Joe Abercrombie are the certainties, with Tom Lloyd and Adrian Tchaikovsky the two most likely after them.

Anyway, watch this space…