Books to Watch Out For

Or sometimes just authors. The news is the same -- it's even gotten to my net buddy Scoot, who is also going to take some time off from blogging about current events. (Poor thing -- has to fit in that vacation to London somehow.)
Books. I love books (in case you hadn't noticed). I find myself becoming a more and more sophisticated reader, which means sometimes that I'm a terribly demanding reader. Not always. If you're not visiting Green Man Review every two weeks when the new issue is posted (why aren't you?), I thought I'd start a more-or-less regular feature about new books (and sometimes music) that I run across there (or anywhere else, for that matter).

To start, I'd like to mention the late George Alec Effinger, whose series about Marid Audran is being reissued by Orb Books. When Gravity Fails and A Fire in the Sun are out, and the third, The Exile Kiss, is due out this fall. I've reviewed the first at GMR (and may do the second at Epinoins.com, if I ever get my crap together), and am planning on doing an omnibus on all three for GMR when the final volume comes out. It's a dizzy kind of universe he's built, quasi-Arabic (although based, it seems, on his home town, New Orleans), post-Western, cyber/drug-laden and pretty much anything goes. Marid is an inhabitant of the Budayeen, the redlight district and/or slum, a small-time muscle, sometime investigator, negotiator, what-have you. The series chronicles his rise in the world, and is excellent. I've never read Effinger before. Now I have to.

I just finished a new book by Tanya Huff, Smoke and Ashes. Look for the GMR review on July 2. It's the third of a new series based on the characters Tony Foster and Henry Fitzroy from her Blood series, and I think it marks a breakthrough for Huff. She's one of my favorites anyway, and I'm really excited to see her putting out this polished and sophisticated a novel. She's been heading this way a while. I now have to go find the first two, Smoke and Shadows and Smoke and Mirrors. Call them supernatural thrillers with a gay protagonist who also comes across as a real, breathing young man trying to figure it all out. Very well done.

Samuel R. Delany is deservedly a legend in science fiction circles. I recently read a book of . . . mmm -- call them critical studies, About Writing. It's not a "writing book," but it is. I think I said in my review that Delany is bringing the tools of criticism into the making of fiction, finally. To see how this works in real life, read Dhalgren and then go back and read everything else he's written. Delany did what the New Wave were reaching for, and put science fiction on the map as a legitimate literary mode.

Somewhere down the line (and probably not too far in the future) will be an omnibus for GMR of Steven Brust's Khaavren Romances -- all five volumes. Two things about Brust: he's a terrifically sophisticated stylist and parodist, and he has fun doing it. Read anything by him. Even Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grill, generally recognized as his big flop, is not as bad as everyone says.

OK -- that's a start. Look for more of these, because there are a lot of interesting books out. Right now, however, Ben is yelling for his morning constitutional and we are catering to him a little: he's been a little under the weather this week, but seems to be feeling better. He says it's the chicken he had for dinner last night, which is much more nutritious than kibble. Somehow, I'm not convinced.

Later. . . .