The Roadmap: What To Read Next?

Do I always know what to read next? Yes. At any given moment, I know exactly what my next book is going to be. The fact that I regularly get/buy more books than I can read doesn't mean I don't have a list in my head. And it's also nice to do a recap every now and then. Here's how it looks today:

• Like Mayflies In A Stream by Shauna Roberts (waiting for the ARC to arrive)
• Tyrant's Blood by Fiona McIntosh (waiting for the review copy to arrive)
• Songs Of The Dying Earth by George R. R. Martin (editor) & Gardner Dozois (editor)
• House Of Chains by Steven Erikson
• Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
• Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb
• Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson
• Starfish by Peter Watts

Obviously this list keeps changing, mostly according to the review copies I get therefore I only commit to the first 2-3 :).

Cover Art: Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

Guy Gavriel Kay is one of my favorite writers. I blogged about his upcoming book 3 months ago and now we have the pictures of its cover for the UK and the US edition:

US Cover	UK Cover

In general, I like the UK covers of books however this time, without a doubt, I prefer the US cover. I like its subtlety and its quiet suggestion of a far eastern setting.

Free On-line Reading: Nekropolis by Tim Waggoner

About Nekropolis

His mean streets are the city of the dead, the shadowy realm known as Nekropolis. And in this first case, Richter must help a delectable half-vampire named Devona recover a legendary artifact known as the Dawnstone, before it’s used to destroy Nekropolis itself. That is, if he can survive the myriad horrors that infest the city itself.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

You can also watch Nekropolis' trailer on Tim Waggoner's site.

Free e-Books: The Best of Robert E. Howard, Vol 1: Crimson Shadows...

Suvudu's November free e-books include Robert E. Howard's Crimson Shadows. I, for one, am looking forward to reading it. And as usual, the e-books are in multiple formats.

The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume 1: Crimson Shadows by Robert E. Howard

PDF - Kindle - Sony Reader - BN.com - Scribd

Robert E. Howard is one of the most famous and influential pulp authors of the twentieth century. Though largely known as the man who invented the sword-and-sorcery genre-and for his iconic hero Conan the Cimmerian-Howard also wrote horror tales, desert adventures, detective yarns, epic poetry, and more. This spectacular volume, gorgeously illustrated by Jim and Ruth Keegan, includes some of his best and most popular works.

Inside, readers will discover (or rediscover) such gems as "The Shadow Kingdom," featuring Kull of Atlantis and considered by many to be the first sword-and-sorcery story; "The Fightin'est Pair," part of one of Howard's most successful series, chronicling the travails of Steve Costigan, a merchant seaman with fists of steel and a head of wood; "The Grey God Passes," a haunting tale about the passing of an age, told against the backdrop of Irish history and legend; "Worms of the Earth," a brooding narrative featuring Bran Mak Morn, about which H. P. Lovecraft said, "Few readers will ever forget the hideous and compelling power of [this] macabre masterpiece"; a historical poem relating a momentous battle between Cimbri and the legions of Rome; and "Sharp's Gun Serenade," one of the last and funniest of the Breckinridge Elkins tales.

These thrilling, eerie, compelling, swashbuckling stories and poems have been restored to their original form, presented just as the author intended. There is little doubt that after more than seven decades the voice of Robert E. Howard continues to resonate with readers around the world.

Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon

PDF - Kindle - Sony Reader - BN.com - Scribd

Kylara Vatta is the only daughter in a family full of sons, and her father's only child to buck tradition by choosing a military career instead of joining the family business. For Ky, it's no contest: Even running the prestigious Vatta Transport Ltd. shipping concern can't hold a candle to shipping out as an officer aboard an interstellar cruiser. It's adventure, not commerce, that stirs her soul. And despite her family's misgivings, there can be no doubt that a Vatta in the service will prove a valuable asset. But with a single error in judgment, it all comes crumbling down.

Expelled from the Academy in disgrace-and returning home to her humiliated family, a storm of high-profile media coverage, and the gaping void of her own future-Ky is ready to face the inevitable onslaught of anger, disappointment, even pity. But soon after opportunity's door slams shut, Ky finds herself with a ticket to ride- and a shot at redemption-as captain of a Vatta Transport ship.

It's a simple assignment: escorting one of the Vatta fleet's oldest ships on its final voyage . . . to the scrapyard. But keeping it simple has never been Ky's style. And even though her father has provided a crew of seasoned veterans to baby-sit the fledgling captain on her maiden milk run, they can't stop Ky from turning the routine mission into a risky venture-in the name of turning a profit for Vatta Transport, of course.

By snapping up a lucrative delivery contract defaulted on by a rival company, and using part of the proceeds to upgrade her condemned vehicle, Ky aims to prove she's got more going for her than just her family's famous name. But business will soon have to take a backseat to bravery, when Ky's change of plans sails her and the crew straight into the middle of a colonial war. For all her commercial savvy, it's her military training and born-soldier's instincts that Ky will need to call on in the face of deadly combat, dangerous mercenaries, and violent mutiny...

A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton

PDF - Kindle - Sony Reader - BN.com - Scribd

"My name is Meredith Gentry, but of course it's not my real name. I dare not even whisper my true name after dark for fear that one hushed word will travel over the night winds to the soft ear of my aunt, the Queen of the Air and Darkness. She wants me dead. I don't even know why."

Meredith Gentry, Princess of the high court of Faerie, is posing as a human in Los Angeles, living as a P.I. specializing in supernatural crime. But now the Queen's assassin has been dispatched to fetch her back-whether she likes it or not. Suddenly Meredith finds herself a pawn in her dreaded aunt's plans. The job that awaits her: enjoy the constant company of the most beautiful immortal men in the world. The reward: the crown-and the opportunity to continue to live. The penalty for failure: death.

Free Short Fiction: People of Leaf and Branch by Jay Lake

Maribel ran along the top boards. The planks went from roof to roof, along the ridges, with a jumping-space to reach the peaks of the round huts. She didn’t have the skill of a danseuse, nor the grace of the best of the girls from the stone city below her, but among the woodkin, she was often accounted the most lithe and best.

The Tower Wander was ahead, with Shrike House clinging to its neck like a collar. The old wall had long since been swallowed by the spread of the stone city, gone from defense to landmark to landform in the space of a few generations. The Duke of Copper Downs had forbidden the woodkin to enter the abandoned towers, but their exteriors had never been under such a rule.

So the seven surviving towers acquired names, and superstructures, and held the long, narrow village that ran from the Broken Gate to the Tower Harbor. The towers were part of the stone city, but the houses were the woodkin’s memory of another time and place.

She slipped through the roof of Shrike House, dropping to the floor in a shower of dust and straw.

You can read the rest of the story here...

World Fantasy Award Winners 2009

As Science Fiction Awards Watch reports, here is the list for World Fantasy Award Winners 2009:

Lifetime Achievement: Ellen Asher & Jane Yolen

Best Novel (tie): The Shadow Year, Jeffrey Ford (Morrow) & Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin; Knopf)

Best Novella: "If Angels Fight", Richard Bowes (F&SF 2/08)

Best Short Story: "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss", Kij Johnson (Asimov's 7/08)

Best Anthology: Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, Ekaterina Sedia, ed. (Senses Five Press)

Best Collection: The Drowned Life, Jeffrey Ford (HarperPerennial)

Best Artist: Shaun Tan

Special Award – Professional: Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant (for Small Beer Press and Big Mouth House)

Special Award – Non-Professional: Michael Walsh (for Howard Waldrop collections from Old Earth Books)

The judges for 2009 were: Jenny Blackford, Peter Heck, Ellen Klages, Chris Roberson & Delia Sherman.

Free Short Fiction: Ghost Technology From the Sun by Paul Jessup

Master told us that the earth was hollow, and that we lived on the inside of it, clinging to the top of the crust. Below us was another world, a world inside the world, a glowing bright sun of a place. What Master called the summerlands. That is where the dead live, he said. That is how we can talk to them, he said. They send us signals across the air, and the mediums pick them up and drink them in.

And when the words came in, we had to speak them. We cannot deny the dead our voices–the dead would be angry if we did. And nobody wanted the angry dead to fly their zeppelins up from the sun and attack us crust dwellers.

That wouldn’t do anyone any good.

Master knew this because he is an ambassador to the land of the dead. At night he walked through the door of the dead, and it beamed his body down above us, into the summer sun inside of the earth. That is where he talked to them, worked out trade between our two peoples.

The dead have a lot to offer the living.

He came back with schematics.

Ways of building circuit boards.

Ghost technology from the sun.

You can read the rest of the story here...