Nothing will prevent a person from keeping up with the things she loves like university courses. And to think that I imagined a second degree would be a good idea. Time will tell. . . .

Needless to say, trying to read the books that I want to review is problematic when it’s coming up against the requirement to read whole books on the history of rhetoric and visual rhetoric and every other kind of rhetoric you can think of. And then there was that issues in publishing course which, while incredibly fun, assigned rather detailed projects like creating a magazine prospectus and putting together a publisher’s seasonal catalog.

Yet the prospect of having even more troublesome classes next semester does nothing to diminish my delight over the announcement of Pyr’s Fall/Winter releases for 2010-2011. I’m going to be a very, very busy reader during the fall, and not just because I’ll be taking Japanese I.

Not only are two books that I’d previously heard about finally getting released—Vampire Empire: The Greyfriar, Book 1 and The Buntline Special—but so are a slew of other books that sound absolutely fantastic. I’ll admit, I had to stop myself from printing out the entire post and organizing what I want to read using multi-colored highlighters.

I’m sure by now that most of my friends know that I intend to read through the majority of the Pyr catalog despite what my university classes may require of me. But Pyr makes it so very easy to want to. As it is, I’ve only been delaying my purchase of Ghosts of Manhattan because I needed to wait until payday. But payday is today. . . so I expect you’ll know where to find me later.

On the listing for the upcoming season, I’m especially looking forward to The Cardinal’s Blades and The Scar-Crow Men (I’m a sucker for period settings and historical characters, what can I say?), The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, The Horns of Ruin, Tome of the Undergates, Legends of the Raven, Cowboy Angels, and the Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov books. And, of course, The Greyfriar and The Buntline Special.

And if you think that I’ve just named everything on the list, you’d almost be right. As for the rest, I simply haven’t read the first ones in the series yet . . . but I’ll get there.

With intriguing new titles from our friends at Pyr, it’s going to be a great season.

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Ever since I learned how to use Google Reader (properly, that is), I’ve found it so much easier to keep track of the blogs that have been languishing, unseen, in my bookmarks folder. Not only that but, because I’ve actually been able to read new posts as they come out, I’ve stumbled across several articles and new blogs that I plan to add to the list.

This morning on BSCreview, I read a great article about book reviews and reviewers entitled “The Paradox of Book Reviewing.” The author, Charles Tan, makes an excellent point: readers should be discerning about which reviewers they choose to believe. Not because any reviewer’s opinion of a book is wrong, but because some will jive better with a particular reader’s tastes. Readers should find reviewers who enjoy similar things; after all, it would be pointless to take suggestions from someone who dislikes the very things that you do like.

Definitely read this article. It’s engaging, well-written, and makes a sensible argument.

Additionally, reading this article on BSCreview directed me to Charles Tan’s blog Bibliophile Stalker. Here he keeps a series of links to blogs, articles, and news as well as, interviews, reviews, and rants of his own. I’ll definitely be watching this site–I find Charles Tan’s writing to be both professional and engaging, not to mention that the list of links that he posts each day are extremely useful (I’ve wasted hours browsing them already…). I can only imagine the time that it takes for him to organize and post them all; I can’t let all that work go unappreciated, now can I?

One of the first things that I noticed when browsing Bibliophile Stalker was the new book Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. Now, I knew that I’d heard of Cherie Priest before, but I couldn’t put my finger on where. A search of her books yielded nothing that I’d ever read before, but it did produce more information on Boneshaker. There are already several reviews posted about the book–which releases on September 29–all of which are quite positive. The summary alone was enough to peak my curiosity (not to mention the book cover, which given my interests was quite eye-catching), but the more I read about it, the more determined I became to buy a copy when it comes out.

I then became curious about the author herself, so I visited her website as well as her blog, both of which I enjoyed reading.

After that, I went back to Amazon.com in order to look at another book that I’d noticed while looking up Boneshaker. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld also sounds like something I might pick up on its release date. Of coure it’s a hardcover, so I may need to save a few dollars. But it sounds like an interesting alternate history meets steampunk novel, and I’d like to see how Westerfeld handles this altered version of the world.

Speaking of steampunk, I also came across the article (or rant…whatever you prefer to call it) “Getting Back Up to Steam (Hold the ‘Punk’)” via one of the sites I visited today (though which one, specifically, I can no longer remember). The writer here makes a few good points about genre naming conventions. I’m not sure that I agree with everything he says about moving the SF genre into a more “literary” sphere, but it gives you something to think about nevertheless. Especially when considered next to this article from SciFi Wire. While I’ve never had a problem with the terms “steampunk” and “cyberpunk,” I have to admit that it’s getting a little silly when you pull in terms like “elfpunk,” “greenpunk,” “mannerpunk,” and “nanopunk.” Can’t we think of any more accurate, not to mention more interesting, descriptors?

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A few days ago I realized that most of the books I’ve been scoping in the store, recently, are all published under the Pyr imprint of Prometheus Books. I’m not certain how I managed to miss this before–I suppose my attention was directed more at the cover blurb than it was at the publishing company.

Only last week I was on the Pyr website browsing their upcoming titles, many of which seem to be offering fresh versions of an otherwise familiar genre. I became somewhat dismayed to realize that I hadn’t yet read any of the books in their catalogue despite how often I find myself looking at them. But now that I do know, I have plans to pick up one or two on my next bookstore run.

These are the books on my list, and I’ll probably purchase them in this order:

Cyberabad Days (Ian McDonald)
The Blade Itself (Joe Abercrombie)
Midwinter (Matthew Sturges)
Age of Misrule #1: World’s End (Mark Chadbourn)
Gradisil (Adam Roberts)

And, from Pyr’s list of forthcoming books:

Swords of Albion #1: The Silver Skull (Mark Chadbourn)

My recent research into Pyr’s catalogue was prompted by two recent announcements at SFscope that caught my attention:

Clay and Susan Griffith sell vampire novel to Pyr: Now, I’m not a huge fan of vampire
novels–especially after all of the over-hype of the last year or two–but, after
reading the description of Greyfriar, I can honestly say that I’ll definitely set aside my general predjudices in order to read “an alternate history steampunk vampire novel”–oh yes. I’m definitely excited about this, and I’ll be visiting Pyr’s site with alarming frequency until they publish a release date (which will, no doubt, be further in the future, but that won’t stop me).

Also, Mike Resnick sells steampunk novel to Pyr: I’m more than a little curious about this book as well (according to SFScope, it’s entitled The Bluntline Special: A Weird West Tale). I have a particular affinity for cross-genre fiction, and I think steampunk plus western is one I’ll especially enjoy (for that matter, I haven’t heard the words “tall tale” used to describe a story since the fourth grade). I’ll be putting this one down on my calendar, too, as soon as a release date is announced.

Additionally, I’m happy to see an influx of steampunk work recently. When I was attempting to find steampunk fiction earlier this year, I felt that the genre had very few examples of full-length novels. But the number of books I’ve seen advertised as “steampunk” of late have been rapidly increasing (although, we’ll see if I agree with the genre label–it would be disappointing for a book to imply that it’s steampunk when, in fact, it’s nothing of the kind). I’m excited that Pyr has chosen to explore this genre with these two books, and I’m looking forward to any others they might decide to publish in the future.

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