New releases, one year anniversary, and last post...

With September right around the corner, this post marks the one year anniversary of my book blog. The best part of this for me has been the new releases, I mean, who can resist tracking down upcoming books? I learned quite a few things about writing reviews, which has given me even more appreciation for reading. Sadly, I've also learned that at the moment I do not have sufficient time and motivation to continue this blog. I had several problems this past summer making regular posts thanks to flooding and traveling. Also, my personal time has become more limited as I seek new employment. Another problem however is motivation and I find that I have not felt compelled to review every single book that I now complete. I have decided that a break from this blog will serve me well and perhaps in the near future I can return with a fresh start. I think it is entirely appropriate to end the current incarnation of this blog in the same way I started it: with a new releases list. As always, have fun reading!

Hardcover:
> The Van Rijn Method, Poul Anderson
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Belisarius I: Thunder at Dawn, Eric Flint, David Drake
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Icarus at the Edge of Time, Brian Greene
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> God Emperor of Dune, Frank Herbert
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> The Bell at Sealey Head, Patricia A. McKillip
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Duainfey, Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, Victor Pelevin
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Paperback:
> Budayeen Nights, George Alec Effinger
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Break of Dawn, Chris Marie Green
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Pyramid Power, Eric Flint, Dave Freer
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Heaven’s Net is Wide, Lian Hearn
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Debatable Space, Philip Palmer
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Inferno, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Stalking the Unicorn, Mike Resnick
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> We, Yevgeny Zamyatin
(Barnes & Noble)

New York Times bestsellers for August 31st

Hardcover:
Sean Williams’ Star Wars: The Force Unleashed makes its debut on the New York Times bestseller list at the very top spot. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Stephanie Meyer’s The Host is back up another point to number 5 in its sixteenth week. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Karen Traviss’ Star Wars: The Clone Wars is down eight ranks in week four to number 27. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Paperback:
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is still going strong into its 73rd week on the charts, down one to number 7. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Patricia Briggs’ Cry Wolf is also down one position to number 9 in its fourth week. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Terry Brooks’ The Elves of Cintra ends its fourth week on the charts at number 21, down five. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union slips four points to number 23 in week seventeen. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

R.A. Salvatore’s The Orc King tumbles a whopping twelve positions in its third second week on the list to stop at number 34. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

New releases for the week of August 26th

Spotlight:

> The Ten Thousand, Paul Kearney
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Synopsis:
The world of Kuf, an ancient Assurian Empire, dominant, prestigious and thought to be invincible, is about to be shaken to very foundations. An exile from the empire, the Great King’s brother hires a force of Ten thousand elite mercenaries of a legendary race known as the Macht to take the throne by force. But when their employer is killed, The Ten Thousand find themselves abandoned. This is the story of their fight for freedom.


Hardcover:
> The Gypsy Morph, Terry Brooks
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Paperback:
> Wanderlust, Ann Aguirre
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> The Last Days of Krypton, Kevin Anderson
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> The New Space Opera, Gardner Dozois
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Acacia, David Anthony Durham
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Eulalia!, Brian Jacques
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> The Phoenix Unchained, Mercedes Lackey, James Mallory
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Emissary, Fiona McIntosh
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Fleet of Worlds, Larry Niven, Edward M. Lerner
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Yellow Eyes, John Ringo, Tom Kratman
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Set the Seas on Fire, Chris Roberson
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Legacy, Jeannie C. Stein
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Heroes: Saving Charlie, Aury Wallington
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

New York Times bestsellers for August 24th

Hardcover:
Stephanie Meyer’s The Host slips another point in its sixth week on the charts to number 6. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Karen Traviss’ The Clone Wars is down in its third week to number 19, down three from the previous week. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Paperback:
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is steady at number 6 at the end of its 50th week on the paperback list. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Patricia Briggs’ Cry Wolf inches up two ranks to number 8 in its third week. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Terry Brooks’ The Elves of Cintra is up a comfortable eight positions in week three to reach number 16. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is back up another four spots to number 19 in week fourteen. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

R.A. Salvatore’s The Orc King makes its third debut on the New York Times bestseller list at number 22. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

And last, but not least, John Scalzi’s The Last Colony makes its debut on the paperback list at number 33. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

New releases for the week of August 19th

Spotlight:

> Sly Mongoose, Tobias Buckell
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Synopsis:
Welcome to Chilo, a planet with corrosive rain, crushing pressure, and deadly heat. Fortunately, fourteen-year-old Timas lives in one of the domed cities that float 100,000 feet above the surface, circling near the edge of a monstrous perpetual storm. Above the acidic clouds the temperature and pressure are normal. But to make a living, Timas like many other young men, is lowered to the surface in an armored suit to scavenge what he can.

Timas’s life is turned upside down when a strange man crash lands on the city. The newcomer is fleeing an alien intelligence intent on invading the planet and discovering the secret hidden deep inside the perpetual storm—a secret that could lead to interplanetary war.

As the invaded cities fall silent one by one, Chilo’s citizens must race against time to stop the enemy. And Timas will find out what kind of man he has become in the harsh conditions of Chilo’s surface.

> Zoe’s Tale, John Scalzi
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Synopsis:
In the touching fourth novel set in the Old Man's War universe, Scalzi revisits the events of 2007's The Last Colony from the perspective of Zoë, adopted daughter of previous protagonists Jane Sagan and John Perry. Jane and John are drafted to help found the new human colony of Roanoke, struggling against a manipulative and deceitful homeworld government, native werewolf-like creatures and a league of aliens intent on preventing all space expansion and willing to eradicate the colony if needed. Meanwhile, teenage Zoë focuses more on her poetic boyfriend, Enzo; her sarcastic best friend, Gretchen; and her bodyguards, a pair of aliens from a race called the Obin who worship and protect Zoë because of a scientific breakthrough made by her late biological father.

Hardcover:
> Ill Met in the Arena, Dave Duncan
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Sean Williams
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

New releases for the week of August 5th

Spotlight:

> The Night Sessions, Ken MacLeod
(Amazon.co.uk, Book Depository)

A bishop is dead. As Detective Inspector Adam Ferguson picks through the rubble of the tiny church, he discovers that it was deliberately bombed. That it's a terrorist act is soon beyond doubt. It's been a long time since anyone saw anything like this. Terrorism is history ...After the Middle East wars and the rising sea levels - after Armageddon and the Flood - came the Great Revulsion. The first Enlightenment separated church from state. The Second Enlightenment has separated religion from politics. In this enlightened age there's no persecution, but the millions who still believe and worship are a marginal and mistrusted minority. Now someone is killing them. At first, suspicion falls on atheists more militant than the secular authorities. But when the target list widens to include the godless, it becomes evident that something very old has risen from the ashes. Old and very, very dangerous...

Hardcover:
> Harmony, C.F. Bentley
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Listener, Warren Ellis
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Marsbound, Joe Haldeman
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Wreck of the Godspeed, James Patrick Kelly
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> The Last Theorem, Arthur C. Clarke, Frederik Pohl
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Exile-And Glory, Jerry Pournelle
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Stalking the Vampire, Mike Resnick
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> The Last Centurion, John Ringo
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Pirate Sun, Karl Schroeder
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Paperback:
> Hell and Earth, Elizabeth Bear
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait, K.A. Bedford
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Gale Force, Rachel Caine
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Fatal Revenant, Stephen R. Donaldson
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Between Planets, Robert A. Heinlein
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Path of Revenge, Russell Kirkpatrick
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> The Sleeping God, Violette Malan
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

> Forgotten Realms: Passage to Dawn, R.A. Salvatore
(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Europe:
> The Steel Remains, Richard Morgan
(Amazon.co.uk, Book Depository)

New York Times bestsellers for August 3rd

Hardcover:
Stephanie Meyer’s The Host is still going strong in its twelfth week, up one spot to number 3. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Devid Weber’s By Schism Rent Asunder makes its debut on the New York Times bestseller list at number 18. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Paperback:
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road slips a rank to number 8 in its 47th week on the charts. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Dennis O’Neil’s The Dark Knight on the bestseller list at number 15. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

R.A. Salvatore’s The Orc King is down six positions to number 16 in week four. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union maintains its position at number 19 with no change at the end of its thirteenth week. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Kevin Anderson’s and Brian Herbert’s Sandworms of Dune cancels out last week's seventeen-point gain with a sixteen-point in its fourth week to finish at number 24. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

The Inverted World

Christopher Priest is one of the most underrated authors I know of, perhaps only matched by Paul Kearney. Priest writes some of the best work I’ve ever read yet his books can be extremely hard to find. So when I saw that New York Review Books was reprinting one of his earliest novels, The Inverted World, I of course jumped at the chance to get my hands on it. 

Because of the way the book is written, it’s difficult to give a summary without going too heavily into spoiler details. The book’s main character, Helward Mann, grows up unaware of the details of the City’s existence and circumstances. He is then inducted into one of the guilds that govern the city’s administration and slowly learns the details of the city’s situation. The City is winched along on tracks through a harsh, unyielding land full of hostile peoples. Rails must be laid ahead of the city and removed in its wake. Terrain such as rivers and mountains present extreme challenges for the city’s engineers, but if the city fails to move, it falls further behind the “optimum”. To fall behind means the destruction of the city and all its inhabitants. Or does it? This is the mystery behind The Inverted World. 

One of Priests hallmarks is the vividness and reality of the characters he creates. The Inverted World has all the indications of this trait, although being an earlier work it stands to reason that Priest’s technique is not as developed as in later novels. Because most of the plot is revealed through Helward’s experiences as they happen, there is just as much emphasis on setting as on the character. So solving the mystery of the book’s premise takes up a large portion of the story. The physics behind it is sometimes hard to grasp but I like how the reader only understands as much of it as Helward himself does. As with all Priest books, perception of reality plays a role in the novel and an important part of the climax. And then I was surprised at how quickly the ending was resolved. 

The Inverted World is not as strong as some of Priest’s later work, but even his weaker stuff is heads above other books out there. Highly recommended. 

Rating: 8/10.