This is a list of books I have an eye on. I will never buy most of them, but it’s good to have titles in mind when browsing second hand book shops. This topic is updated regularly. The review/comment quotes are taken from mostly from Locus (http://www.locusmag.com), with a few from librarything, books without borders, sf site , sfreader, independent for books and amazon reviews. I try to keep the reference when i “snap” them for my reading list

Note: If this list makes you want to look up any of the books, I have a cute little amazon store with all of the books mentioned, and you can finance my book addiction while snatching a new or used copy of the book. Check it out: UK List | US List

Recently Added:

Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales (PS Publishing), by Garry Kilworth - from Locus: “Ever since reading Garry Kilworth’s collection The Songbirds of Pain in the 1980s, one of my favorite short-story collections ever, I’ve been a devoted fan of his short fiction. It was with great anticipation that I read the author’s first major collection in many years, Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales. I was not disappointed. Kilworth’s versatile skill at navigating between genres, his outré imagination, his deft and evocative handling of the exotic, his keen insights into human behavior, his affecting ability to inhabit and communicate an impressive breadth of perspectives across cultural and gender spectrums, and, finally but certainly not least, his deliciously elegant prose, all combine to present a selection of stories whose diversity, originality, and poignancy leave me breathless with awe. Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales stands as my favorite book of 2006.”

Mark Budz, Idolon (Bantam Spectra Aug 2006) - A police murder investigation merges with an amateur sleuth’s search for his missing cousin in this SF mystery set in a near-future San Francisco in a world where the masses are impoverished, while the decadent rich play with biodigital technology and nanoscopic e-skin that let them look like celebrities of the past.

Unimagined: A Muslim Boy Meets the West by Imran Ahmad (Aurum Press). from the independent books-for-christmas supplement “Unimagined is beautifully written, funny and endearing, and in its own quiet way, important.”

In Babylon - Marcel Möring, (Independent: It’s been a while since a Continental star of fiction shone over here in the Kundera or Eco style. Möring stakes a strong claim to that role with this quite magnificent novel. In the snowbound Dutch countryside, Uncle Nathan tells the fabulous tale of his eccentric clan: Jewish clockmakers-turned-thinkers, who drifted westwards from Lithuania to New York. Rich, Dickensian storytelling, warm and wise humour, a sweeping sense of history: a world-class performance from the new Dutch master. ) got it

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (Sort of Books, trade paper, 160 pages) - Creator of the marvelous Moonin series of books and comics for children, Jansson also wrote adult fiction. In this slim collection of stories about a grandmother and granddaughter living on an island off of Finland, Jansson conveys so much deep characterization that the book resonates long after you read it. Lovely vignettes about building miniature cities and the interweaving of folktale and tall tale give much of The Summer Book a fantastical feel.

And there’s loads more!

Michael Frayn’s The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of a Universe (Faber) - from the independent books-for-christmas supplement

The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril (Simon & Schuster), by Paul Malmont - Paul Malmont’s macabre genre-bending adventure novel features several real-life pulp writers, most prominently Lester Dent and Walter Gibson, the creators of Doc Savage and The Shadow. Also joining in the thrills are L. Ron Hubbard, Chester Himes, H.P. Lovecraft, and several surprise guest stars. In many ways, The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril reads like a collaboration between Dent and Gibson — both of whom are as outstanding as pulp heroes as they were as pulp writers — after having ingested a hefty dose of Weird Tales and terror pulps. This gripping yarn is a heartfelt and deft homage to the pulp era, with a special affection for the hero pulps.

Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth by Ben Peek (Wheatland Press, $14.95, large-sized trade paper, 152 pages) - Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth is a gently experimental text that uses a glossary of terms from A to Z to create vignettes, one-liners, and other supports for loosely connected narratives. Some are funny, some are most definitely not funny. All are lively and deserve your attention.

The Yacoubian Building - By Alaa Al Aswany (Translated by Humphrey Davies)(Fourth Estate 255pp £14.99) This is one of those novels that linger in the mind, its characters indelible and its atmosphere captivatingly distinctive. Alaa Al Aswany is a master observer of the human condition, unblinking but sympathetic, and unputdownable. got it

Karen Traviss, Matriarch (HarperCollins/Eos Oct 2006) - Earth’s efforts to deal with a variety of dangerously eco-conscious aliens continue in this fourth SF novel in the Wess’har Wars series begun in City of Pearl. “It’s a busy, multi-leveled book that is less about its plot… than about the political, philosophical, and emotional machineries that drive the five species…. there’s always a surprise, wonderful or terrifying, waiting to keep life, and the story, interesting.” [Russell Letson]

M. Rickert, Map of Dreams (Golden Gryphon Press Nov 2006) - The first collection from an author gaining acclaim for her magic realism and poetic exploration of the human heart, this presents 21 stories, two original, supposedly written by Annie Merchant, the protagonist of the title story. ‘‘The most impressive debut collection I’ve seen this year.’’ [Gary K. Wolfe]

Margo Lanagan, Red Spikes (Allen & Unwin Australia Oct 2006) - This collection of ten stories follows the critically acclaimed White Time and Black Juice and ‘‘…is no less brilliant. Its stories are unassumingly written yet dazzlingly original, full of moral force and unsettling psychological insight….’’ [Nick Gevers]

Matthew Hughes, Majestrum (Night Shade Books Oct 2006) - Hughes’ ‘‘witty and philosophically knotty’’ [Nick Gevers] tales of the Archonate — a tribute to Jack Vance’s Dying Earth — continue in this far-future science fantasy novel, the first in a trilogy about Henghis Hapthorn, freelance discriminator, as he battles the encroachment of wizardry on his scientific world.

Holly Phillips, The Burning Girl (Prime Books Jun 2006) - The first novel from an acclaimed Canadian short fiction writer, this dense, literary dark fantasy follows a woman with a mysterious past and a troubled ex-cop as they get caught up in a cross-reality war.

Rudy Rucker, Mathematicians in Love (Tor Dec 2006) - This charming romp has a serious center as two mathematicians in grad school travel to parallel universes, fight for the heart of the same woman, and try to save the world(s) from domination by a totalitarian government. “All the pleasures of a Rucker novel come forth abundantly: playfully weird higher physics and maths; bizarre conceptual psychedelia; distinctively Californian counter-cultural comedy; zany romance; doppelgangers; generally happy endings.” [Gary K. Wolfe]

Peter Watts, Blindsight (Tor Oct 2006) - from Locus: “An odd crew of enhanced and brilliant misfits is sent into space to try to contact uncommunicative aliens in this outstanding first contact novel.”

Charles Stross, The Jennifer Morgue (Golden Gryphon Press Nov 2006) - from Locus: “Lovecraft meets Ian Fleming in the latest dark fantasy thriller featuring nerdy CIA demonology expert Bob Howard, who must stop a billionaire’s efforts to raise an eldritch horror in this sequel to The Atrocity Archives.”

William H. Trotter, Warrener’s Beastie (Carroll & Graf Jul 2006) - from Locus: “A quest for a legendary sea monster fuels this fast-paced, epic fantasy adventure, a spellbinding mix of Moby Dick, mid-life crisis, and Norse myths.”

Gordon Dahlquist, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (Bantam Sep 2006) - from Locus: “Mad science mixes with Victorian manor house mystery and other genres as three unlikely allies team up to fight evil in an alternate world where magics are worked with a special kind of glass. A much-touted first novel.”

Miranda July No One Belongs Here More Than You (Scribner Book Company). from the independent books-for-christmas supplement “July has one of the strangest and most hilariously alienated (did I just put those two words together?) brains of anyone I’ve read, and at the same time her protagonists are all so hopeful that one day their very odd and desperate lives will change.”

Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day (Penguin Press Nov 2006) - from Locus: “The iconic great American writer again dabbles in SF, even offering a sort of alternate-history eulogy for pre-WWI genres, in this brilliant but exhaustingly dense novel of the early 20th century that includes elements of boys’ airship adventure, Westerns, scientific romance, and spy thriller”

Justina Robson, Mappa Mundi (Pyr Sep 2006) - from Locus: “Mapping the human brain leads to development of a mind-altering program designed to cure mental disorders – but the military and criminals have their own terrifying plans for mind control. A hard-hitting SF technothriller tackling some serious moral questions.”

Rusty Morrison & Ken Keegan, eds., Paraspheres: Fabulist and New Wave Fabulist Stories (Omnidawn Publishing Aug 2006) - The latest slipstream anthology gathers 50 stories

Jay Lake, Trial of Flowers (Night Shade Books Sep 2006) - from Locus: “Lake brings his own touch to the New Weird with this novel, a chronicle of the fantastic, decadent City Imperishable as it faces invaders, gods and monsters, and absent leaders.”

Tim Powers, A Soul in a Bottle (Subterranean Press Dec 2006) - from Locus: “Powers presents one of his rare works of short fiction in this dark fantasy novelette about a used bookseller who encounters an enigmatic woman. “A magnificent ghost story, full of convincing everyday detail and mesmerizing supernatural logic.” [Nick Gevers]”

The Unblemished by Conrad Williams (Earthling Publications, $45, limited edition hardcover, 367 pages) - from Locus: “This horrific, intense, and frightening tour de force evokes comparisons to the early prose style of Clive Barker and demonstrates a control of language comparable to M. John Harrison, among others. Williams’ honesty in his writing carries through to his portrayals of the often doomed characters. With its unwavering gaze, The Unblemished demonstrates that horror can be visceral and literary. Transgressive, unrelenting, but also oddly gentle and humane at times. You won’t be able to look away — or put it down.”

A Dirty Job (Morrow), by Christopher Moore - from Locus: “Satirist and fantasist Christopher Moore delivers one of his funniest works to date in this novel about a meek beta-male who unknowingly becomes a grim reaper. Moore’s reflections on gender are side-splittingly hilarious, and, as ever, his cast of oddball characters is terrifically intriguing and entertaining”.

Holly Phillips, The Burning Girl (Prime Books Jun 2006)- from Locus: “The first novel from an acclaimed Canadian short fiction writer, this dense, literary dark fantasy follows a woman with a mysterious past and a troubled ex-cop as they get caught up in a cross-reality war.”

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida - from Words without borders “Even while addressing rape, betrayal, and what makes us who we are, Vida somehow manages to write a book that is both achingly bleak and exceptionally funny.”

The Darkness That Comes Before, by R. Scott Bakker - from sfreader “Bakker has created a true epic full of intrigue and murder, political plotting and bloody battles, a generations-old need for revenge, and friendships that surmount prejudice.”

Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart - from sfreader, via librarything “This is a very fine novel, charming, amusing, moving, often strikingly beautiful, often rather horrifyingly bloody.”

Dave Duncan, Children of Chaos (Tor Jun 2006) - from Locus: “Four siblings, separated in childhood as political hostages, must find each other on an increasingly unsettled dodecahedral world in this entertaining fantasy adventure, the first volume in a duology.”

Elizabeth Bear, Blood and Iron (Roc Jul 2006) - from Locus: “Faerie creatures wander New York City in this ambitious urban fantasy, the first volume in the Promethean Age series, which both embraces traditional fantasy and turns its elements on their heads. A part-mortal Seeker hunts for an untrained wizard of great potential while the Faerie and the human Mages of the Prometheus Club struggle for power. “

William Dalrymple’s The Last Mughal (Bloomsbury) describes the siege and destruction of Delhi in 1857, drawing largely on hitherto untranslated material from the National Archives of India and often using the voices of people who were there. It is a book as important as it is impressive.

Atiq Rahimi’s Earth and Ashes (Vintage) from the independent books-for-christmas supplement “ a narrative twisted to indicate the tragedy of a nation where no move can be the right move any longer, where the perversity is so deep that even members of a family cannot but distrust each other.”

A Coffin for Demetrios by Eric Ambler - Extraordinary originality for a time when the anodyne Agatha Christie was a bestseller. Still fresh as new, it is a political satire and a travelogue round eastern Europe as well as a gripping thriller.

Blue Kansas Sky: Four Short Novels of Memory, Magic, Surmise and Estrangement - Michael Bishop (Golden Gryphon Press, ISBN 0-9655901-0-0 )

Declare Tim Powers - from Locus: “A coded message draws Professor Andrew Hale back into Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 1963. Elements from his past are gathering in Beruit, including ex-British counter-espionage chief and Soviet mole Kim Philby and a beautiful former Spanish Civil War soldier-turned-intelligence operative, Elena Ceniza-Bendiga. Rushing toward a deadly confrontation on Mt. Ararat—where a covert Soviet expedition is closing in on the biblical Ark—Hale suddenly finds himself a major player in an extraordinary game of global destiny...”

Jack Dann, Counting Coup (Forge 10/01) from Locus: “Contemporary fantasy meets the road novel in this off-beat tale of an aging handyman and a drunken Indian shaman who take off on an epic cross-country binge. It appeared earlier in Australia as Bad Medicine. Jack Dann, Bad Medicine - Native American mysticism mixes with the classic American road novel in this magical account of an alcoholic medicine man and a handyman who head cross-country to escape their dead-end lives.”

Dennis Danvers, The Fourth World - from Locus: “Danvers uses SF concepts to explore the inequities between the rich and poor in this novel of a newsman attempting to reveal the horrors and injustice of life in Third World Mexico who uncovers a plot reaching all the way to a Fourth - Mars.”

Nalo Hopkinson, Midnight Robber from Locus: “Once again, Hopkinson brings her distinctive, original voice to shock us out of our SF expectations. Caribbean customs and folklore and future technology combine on the planet Toussaint and its prison planet, where a desperate young woman takes on the persona of a Carnival character, the masked avenger called the Robber Queen”

Grimms Last Fairytale - Haydn Middleton - from SFX: “the last few weeks of the life of Jacob Grimm… a whole life of aspirations, yearnings and disappointments set against the polititcal background of german unification and rooted in a mythological past”

Broken Time Maggy Thomas -(SFW: In Broken Time, Maggy Thomas creates one of the most believable and appealing heroines to come out of science fiction in years.)

Katherine Kurtz, St. Patrick’s Gargoyle - from Locus: “Kurtz’s distinctive style of contemporary fantasy is evident in this sometimes dark, sometimes humorous tale of an elderly man in Dublin, a modern Knight of Malta, recruited by a gargoyle to help stop forces trying to free a demon bound centuries ago by the Knights Templar. As an aside, it includes a great tour of the city!”

David Barbour & Richard Raleigh, Shadows Bend - H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E.  from Locus: “Howard join forces to stop the ancient god Cthulhu in this amusing dark fantasy set in the American Southwest in the 1930s.”

Jerry Oltion, Abandon in Place - from Locus: “An unusual SF tale of ghostly space launches, quantum physics, and beliefs made real. Based on the Nebula Award-winning novella, this is the first novel from a noted author of short fiction”

The Wild Blue and the Gray, and Are We Having Fun Yet? by William Sanders - he just writes stuff that is different and entertaining and clever and yet makes you think a bit.

The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson - an “alien culture contact” story

The Autumn Castle by Kim Wilkins

Nekropolis by Maureen F. McHugh - recommended science fiction book

Indigo, Graham Joyce - another good “magical realism” book, it seems

Corrupting Dr Nice John Kessel - a cleverly worked out plot with entertaining ideas about time-travel, love, compromise, betrayal

Old Fish Hawk Mitch Jayne - audiobook about an old american indian

Stephen Dedman, The Art of Arrow Cutting & Shadows Bite (Tor 12/01) Martial arts dark fantasy.

The Sheep Look Up - John Brunner