Tuesday, May 31, 2016

The G's Summer Reading List 2016

The glorious long days of summer are almost upon us, which means it's time again for my favorite nerds of a feather tradition: summer reading lists! Here's mine...



1. The Underground Is Massive: How Electronic Dance Music Conquered America by Michelangelo Matos [HarperCollins, 2015]

A history of modern electronic dance music, from its origins as a distinctly underground (and African-American) art form to its current status as a stadium-packing (and white) spectacle. But The Underground is Massive isn't just a history of the music, it's a history of the scene--chronicled through a series of parties from the early days of rave culture to the hollow, corporatized shell of rave culture that now dominates the festival circuit.




2. Way Down Dark (The Australia Trilogy) by JP Smythe [Hodder & Stoughton 2015/Quercus 2016]

Normally dystopian YA wouldn't really be on my radar--not because of any prejudice against dystopias or YA, but because the market is already quite saturated with that kind of thing, and the last few I've read have been tropey to a fault. But Smythe is a writer I trust, and Niall Alexander really likes it, so I don't think I can resist.





3. Synners (SF Masterworks) by Pat Cadigan

Cadigan writes complex, challenging and empathetic near-future science fiction, and this 1991 novel about a corporation that can implant its products directly into the heads of its customers (and the hackers who use the technology to spread viruses) is highly regarded as such. Unfortunately I never got around to reading this one for our cyberpunk series last year. So it's high time to correct that mistake.





4. The Tower of Swallows (The Witcher) by Andrzej Sapkowski [Orbit/Gollancz, 2016]

Gerald of Rivia is back, in what is either the fourth or sixth installment (depending on how you count it) of the best fantasy series currently being published in English. And I suspect that shit is about to get pretty fucked up. But what separates the Witcher Cycle from the glut of fantasy is its humanity and humor. Can't wait to get going on this one...





5. Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerny [Vintage, 1984]

It's no secret that I've been on a wee bit of an '80s retro kick lately, so why not go right to the source with the classic book about coke-sniffing stock brokers!









6. Planetfall by Emma Newman [Ace/Roc, 2015]

Missed this one when it came out, but I've been hankering for a good interstellar colonization book, and by all accounts this is a fresh take on the genre.











***

POSTED BY: The G--purveyor of nerdliness, genre fanatic and Nerds of a
Feather founder/administrator, since 2012.