Summer Reading List 2019: Paul

While winter is for reading and trying to stay warm in the Great White North when the Ice Giants and the White Dragons roam the wastelands of Minnesota, summer is for getting out there and enjoying the all too brief warm weather. That hardly means, however, that reading comes to an end, far from it. It does mean that reading time on weekends is while having lunch somewhere on the North Shore, or even more distant destinations, and audiobooks consumed to eat up the miles driving on the highways and byways in search of photographic subjects. So here, find a list of six of the books I am looking forward to getting to before Summer turns to Fall, and green shifts to hues of red, gold, and orange before a clattering change to brown.

I read five out of the six on my 2018 list. Let’s see how 2019 stacks up!

1. Priest of Lies, Peter McLean.

I was favorably impressed with McLean’s debut novel, Priest of Bones, which worked very well as a cross between The Godfather and The Prince, set in a Renaissance fantasy world. There were hints of a greater and wider scope in store for the characters and the world by the end of the first volume, and I am looking forward to the fulfillment of that in the second book of the series.

2. Empress of Forever, Max Gladstone.

I came about a year late to the start of Gladstone’s Craft sequence, and have been rapidly playing catch up ever since. The high concept, an Elon Musk like character who is catapulted into the future and becomes a central figure against a tyrannical Empire, seems to foreground themes of freedom and justice that Gladstone puts in all his works, and I look forward to seeing what  his deft hand with worldbuilding can do.

3. Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir.

I’ve heard nothing but good things about this debut novel, which has, as one of its pitches as “Lesbian Necromancers in Space”. That sort of peanut butter and chocolate mixiing of science fiction and fantasy tropes is, quite frankly, catnip to me, and I am very curious as to where that concept will lead the author.

4. The Outside, Ada Hoffman.

Another debut author, this novel has been pitched as AI Gods force a scientist to hunt post-human angels on their behalf after one of her experiments badly warps reality. It sounds a bit like the gonzo work of Hannu Rajaniemi, combined with something of a Lovecraftian mentality.

5.The Gossamer Mage, Julie Czerneda.

Czenerda is one of the small select group of authors that, after years of buying and reading her stuff, is now on my auto-buiy list, even if its in a subgenre she is not known particularly for. While most of her work is SF in genre, the author has written a couple of fantasy novels, and this, The Gossamer Mage, looks to be a new world and a new series in that tradition. Mage vs tyrannical Goddess with heavy consequences if the Mage succeeds? Yes, please and thank you!

6. A Sword Named Truth, Sherwood Smith.

Smith’s fantasy novels are set in a complex and intricate world with realistic politics, strong characters and intriguing situations into which she dumps her protagonists. She loves to put young, wet behind the ears protagonists into the deep end, and this forthcoming novel, which sets a number of untested rulers against an enemy arrayed against them. Misunderstandings, inexperience and a lack of trust between the young rulers makes it sound like it will be a tough row to hoe for  the protagonists.

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.