Some Highly Anticipated 2012 Books: April-July (by Liviu Suciu)

As 2012's publishing schedule starts becoming clearer, I plan to talk about what books I am looking forward to for the next year. Since I like variation, this time I will do it in several posts for Jan-March (HERE), April-July, the rest of 2012 including presumed but unsure titles.

For the full schedule as known to us at a given time, you can visit the Upcoming Releases page. As usually schedules change unexpectedly, wrong dates spread fast online, so while we try to be as accurate as possible, let us know of any mistakes.

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My top five anticipated releases for April-July 2012 are:

1.“Sharps” by KJ Parker. Release Date: July, 2012. Published by Orbit. (FAN).
2.“Caliban's War” by James S.A. Corey. Release Date: June, 2012. Published by Orbit. (SF).
3.“The Master of Heathcrest Hall” by Galen Beckett. Release Date: April, 2012. Published by Del Rey. (FAN).
4.“The King's Blood” by Daniel Abraham. Release Date: May, 2012. Published by Orbit. (FAN).
5.“The Night of the Swarm” by Robert V.S. Redick. UK Release Date: May, 2012. Published by Gollancz. (FAN).

For the reasons behind choices 1-5, I direct you to the Review Index and my seven reviews of works by KJ Parker plus reviews of all the previous installments in the series that contain the novels ranked 2-5. I also will direct you to the FBC Best Of page and my ranking pretty much all the above mentioned reviewed works in my top 20-25 of their respective year, while in several cases in the top 5 or 10 too.

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My next five anticipated novels from April-July 2012 are:

6.“The Twelve” by Justin Cronin. UK Release Date: May, 2012. Published by Orion. (SF).
7.“Thousand Emperors” by Gary Gibson. UK Release Date: June, 2012. Published by Macmillan. (SF).
8."No Going Back” by Mark L. Van Name. Release Date: May, 2012. Published by Baen. (SF)
9.“Weapons of Flowers” by Liz Williams. Release Date: June, 2012. Published by Prime (SF/FAN?).
10.“Caine’s Law” by Matthew Stover. Release Date: April, 2012. Published by Del Rey. (FAN)."

Here the choices 7/8 are again clear if you check the Review Index, while I am a huge fan of Liz Williams' non UF work and while I have no information about this one, it seems not to be UF/Inspector Chen but the start of a new series.

Despite my reservations about The Passage, it was still a mostly gripping - if way overlong - and superbly written novel and I am really curious where the story goes next.

Caine's Law on the other hand is a bit of a reverse. If you would have asked me in 2008-9 about it, it would have been one my top 5 choices as my reviews of the previous three Caine novels show, but in the meantime I have read much more dark/gritty than at that time and I started getting tired of much of it so I am unsure how the book will stand now.

"The Viscount and the Witch" by Michael Sullivan (Reviewed by Liviu Suciu)

Official Michael Sullivan Website
Get "The Viscount of the Witch" HERE (author's site) or
Order It HERE(Kindle)
Read FBC Review of The Crown Conspiracy
Read FBC Review of Avempartha
Read FBC Review of Nypron Rising
Read FBC Review of The Emerald Storm
Read FBC Review of Wintertide

INTRODUCTION:In the space of two years, Michael Sullivan has moved from a small press debut author that was featured in one of my first "Indie Spotlight Reviews" to a "name" in the fantasy field who sold-out his first novel and is getting both critical acclaim and fan appreciation. In my 2009 end-of-the-year rankings, Avempartha went head to head against the "big names" and made both my Top 2009 Books list and Cindy's Top 2009 Book list, while The Crown Conspiracy made Mihir's Top 2009 Reads too. Last year's Wintertide was a top 10 novel of mine and Percepliquis the much awaited conclusion to the Ryria Revelation series which will be released in early 2012 is my top awaited fantasy of the first quarter of 2012.

ANALYSIS: "The Viscount and the Witch" is a fast and fun short story set in the Ryria universe some 10 years previous to start of the main story and it details the fledgling partnership of Royce and Hadrian meeting with the impoverished viscount and expanding Ryria's reach into the intrigues of the nobility. There is a little extra background for the characters and the story serves as a very good introduction to the author's style and to his wonderful universe.

Royce's world weariness and even cynicism and Hadrian's optimism and his "I want to do good" attitude are on display and they show again why the two form such a great pair. Even more characters of the series are hinted at too!

In a nice bonus addition, the first chapter of Theft of Swords - the Orbit omnibus release on November 23 of the first two novels, The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha - is included. Since this chapter has a new first half that introduces Royce and Hadrian in action, rather than starting with Archie's misadventures with some stolen letters as in the original release of The Crown Conspiracy, you can regard this as a "new story" too if you have previously read only the original novel, while you can see "what's this fuss about about Ryria?" if you have not.

And to top it all there is a great introduction where the author talks about the series at large! So get The Viscount and the Witch and enjoy!