Books, Books!

Two of my favorite authors have released new books this season.  If we have similar tastes in fiction (fantasy, magic, strong female characters, intrigue, a suspenseful frollic that looks nothing like my life), then you may enjoy these as well.

Jim Butcher writes the very popular (and very good) Harry Dresden series, but I fell for him in his Codex Alera series, a consistant Must Read on my top 10 list.  Here is his first in a new series:

Celebrity endorsements are usually fairly meaningless, unless the celebrity is a far more famous fantasy writer (who really needs to be near the top of your list).  Patrick Rothfuss writes this about The Aeronaut’s Windlass:

So Jim Butchder is writing futuristic dystopian steampunk?  You had me at Jim Butcher, actually.  But the rest is cool too….great action scenes, a fascinating world, a characters of a sort I’ve never seen before.  Yup.  This is everything I’ve come to expecct from Jim Butcher, but in a delightful new flavor.

Outside of Rothfuss, the only other fantasy writer who truly gives me tingles and “Book Buzz” is Michael Sullivan, who I’ve raved about before.

Currently, I prefer Sullivan’s Riyria Revelation  trilogy over Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Trilogy, but it’s not quite a fair comparison since Rothfuss hasn’t published the 3rd book yet.  However, the Riyria Revelations had such a marvelous completion that it still gives me thrills to think about it.  I’m currently reading the second book, Rise of Empire, aloud to the entire family.  The kids got addicted to it by second-hand smoke—I always read it aloud to Dwayne when we drive somewhere. 

The trilogy was so perfect that it couldn’t be added to without ruining it, so he began writing really good prequels.  This is the third book of the Riyria Chronicles, and it just opened up a wormhole to another series he’s writing, taking us back in time 3000 years before Royce and Hadian accidently save the world.  It comes out next June, and I’ve already preordered my summer time buzz.

 

Happy Reading to you in 2016!

Love,

Denise