My recent fiction reading has been a mix of new releases from authors and series I already know and the odd discovery from Amazon’s terrible recommendation engine.
Tanya Huff’s Peacekeeper series continues the story of Torin Kerr and her associates. The war over and retired from the marines, they’re now working for the Justice Department to address the new sorts of law enforcement problems: Humans First extremists, hostage takers, gun runners, etc. The first two books are An Ancient Peace and A Peace Divided.
Elizabeth Moon’s new Vatta’s Peace series follows on from Vatta’s War with two volumes released so far: Cold Welcome and Into the Fire. I got sick of waiting for the mass market release and bought the trade paperbacks of these two and they are next in my reading queue.
Mike Shepard’s Kris Longknife series is a long one: Kris Longknife - Admiral and Kris Longknife - Emissary are something like the 15th and 16th books that focus on Kris herself. Contrary to the adage, you’re pretty safe judging these books by their covers: an easier reading, more popcorn-y Honor Harrington with dirt-side gun fights instead of capital ship engagements.
Caitlin R. Kiernan’s Agents of Dreamland and the newly released Black Helicopters feature the operatives of several agencies dealing with Kafkaesque bureaucratic dysfunction and horrors from beyond. Think the X-Files versus Cthulhu, and something like the Atrocity Archives played straight.
Margaret Killjoy’s The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion and The Barrow Will Send What it May series follows travelling anarchist Danielle Cain and a few companions in some sort of anarchist Scooby Doo contemporary fantasy horror where the cops are at least as much a threat as the monsters.
Kylie Chan’s Scales of Empire is something of an odd one. Human settlement of other systems is just getting underway - news of the first few generation ships to reach their destinations is just getting back to Earth - when contact is made with a space-going dragons and the galaxy spanning empire they rule. I’d call it more fantasy in space and sci-fi.
I really enjoyed Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti and Binti: Home and have Binti: The Night Masquerade waiting for me in my to-read pile. Kabu Kabu is a collection short stories from a different, but still super great, vein.
Dick Francis was a jockey and then went on to write mystery novels which (as far as I know) all involved horses in some way. I recently re-read The Edge and Comeback after first reading them on paper when my uncle left them behind on a vist in the 90s.
In 2009 I supported Robin Sloan’s Kickstarter project to write and publish a book (I’d called it a novella). It was the only successful Kickstarter project I ever backed and produced Annabel Scheme (I still have a few copies somewhere). Sourdough is more recent and I bought and read it on my Kindle well after publishing. Both are great, but I enjoyed Sourdough quite a bit more.
Hiromi Kawakami’s The Nakano Thrift Shop (translated by Allison Markin Powell) is a slice of life novel with no particularly fascinating characters and no exciting or momentous events. Still a good read.
There was quite a lot more, but this is probably the cream of the crop. Feel free to contact me to discuss or suggest books.