skygiants | (no subject)

ceitfianna asked me to write about authors I will always read if they have a new book and why for the 28th.

This is a ever-shifting category, so 'always' is kind of an inexact term. There are authors I could have sworn five years ago that I would go on reading forever that I have not read a new book by in years.

Also, there are a couple of different reasons I will always read an author's new book! I mean, of course there are the authors in whom I have absolute trust that I will love everything they write, and will prioritize my life to acquire the book and then fit it into my reading list. Frances Hardinge is kind of leading this category right now. Everything she writes is so GOOD, and, also, so different from everything she has written before; unless something drastically changes, "new Frances Hardinge book!" will always jump to the top of my list of everything.

Then there are authors who have not yet written a book that I flat-out love, but whom I am convinced will someday write a book that I flat-out love. Alaya Dawn Johnson was one of these authors, and then she wrote The Summer Prince, and all my hopes were fulfilled. I will of course keep reading everything new that Alaya Dawn Johnson writes in hopes that she will write me another book as perfect as The Summer Prince.

There are very few people I expect perfect books from all the time, though, and I always feel a little guilty when I do (sorry, Frances Hardinge) because nobody can write perfect books all the time! When I've just read a truly amazing book, I try to make sure to manage my expectations about the next thing the author writes, because I know ALL TOO WELL that it is really hard to duplicate that kind of feat.

I think all of my must-acquire authors fall somewhere on the spec-fic spectrum, which I guess is a sign of affiliations at heart or something -- I try to read fairly broadly, but the authors I really latch onto enough to remember when they have something new coming out never tend to be the nonfiction authors or the Acclaimed Literary Fiction authors, or even the mystery authors (although, honestly, who can even keep up with the mystery authors?) But who knows, that could change in five years, too.

Who are your must-buys? Maybe they're the same as some of mine!

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/363875.html

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

bookblather

Tamora Pierce. Just. Automatically. She has a new book come out and I go to the bookstore and then I find myself at home halfway through the book. I DON'T KNOW HOW IT HAPPENS.

From:

luzula

Jo Walton! And I would say Ursula Le Guin, but that's not true, because the library stocks her books, so I often get them from there. But they don't do that with Walton.

ETA: I have not actually read Hardinge. Where would you recommend starting?

Edited Date: 2013-12-29 10:44 am (UTC)

From:

kd7sov

Brandon Sanderson is the one author whose stuff I will buy, unread, no questions asked. He's the author of the Mistborn books I recommended to you a while back, and he appears to be using his YA stuff to branch out of his usual Variant High Fantasy mold. (His latest, Steelheart,

inlovewithwords describes as a "dark-and-gritty supers dystopia" done much better than the Dark Knight movies.)

So he's the only one I auto-buy, but there are a couple of other authors whose books I make a particular effort to at least read. Diane Duane (specifically the Young Wizards stuff) and Elizabeth Moon come particularly to mind.

From:

ceitfianna

Seanan McGuire at least for the Toby Daye and Incryptid books, they just make me happy. Though I don't autobuy all the various anthologies that she shows up in. I've yet to buy a Hardinge book but I'm slowly reading through her backlist, which my library happens to have.

Lois McMaster Bujold isn't quite an autobuy, I own all of the Vorkosigan books but not all of her others.

From:

jinian

Even in my straitened economic circumstances I will definitely buy Tamora Pierce and Steven Brust. I think Bujold just fell off the list, sadly. And Patrick Rothfuss is in for at least one more book!

I have a few where I am very interested but still evaluate carefully, too -- I love the Sharon Shinn that I love, but I do not care about shapeshifters and actively dislike angels. Sherwood Smith is that way, too, with one progagonist I cannot stand but the rest excellent.

From:

rymenhild

Seanan McGuire writes my pure idfic. I will always buy her Toby books and probably her InCryptid too. I'm not so sure about her "Mira Grant" books, and her serial Indexing was quite disappointing. (Fairytale metatext, heavy on the overused Grimms like Snow White and Cinderella; I kept thinking about how much better Tutu did it.)

I was buying every Cat Valente book for a while, but then I got bored with the Fairyland series.

Elizabeth Wein has earned her way onto my Buy Them All list. I don't expect another Code Name Verity, but Wein's brilliant and she deserves her sales.

I think that's the current list.

From:

skygiants

Right now I am woefully behind on Tamora Pierce, but there was definitely a time when I zoomed through EVERY BOOK OF HERS I COULD GET at the library!

From:

skygiants

Hmmm. I think Hardinge's best book, hands down, is Gullstruck Island/The Lost Conspiracy (UK/US title); that said, I began on Fly By Night, it's her first book, and I think it's a pretty good introduction. (Also it's my favorite, even though Gullstruck Island is clearly better.)

But honestly, all of her books are amazing -- and with the exception of the two Mosca books (Fly by Night and Fly Trap), which do need to be read in order, any place is a pretty good place to start!

From:

skygiants

I still have yet to read any Brandon Sanderson, though half the people I know sing his praises to the skies. Some day!

From:

skygiants

Yeah, I've been sort of curious about Bujold's non-Vorkosigan books, but not yet curious enough to shuffle them into the queue. I guess I'm waiting for someone to give me a compelling reason to pick one up!

From:

skygiants

Oh, Sharon Shinn! She was a HUGE comfort read for me growing up -- I mean, the angel books are RIDICULOUS, and not . . . good . . . but nonetheless deeply enjoyable for me in a weird id way. What is her most recent series, is it shapeshifters? All I remember is the book where the star-crossed lovers angst for three hundred pages and then find out that more responsible people have quietly sorted out all their problems behind their back while they were busy pining. IT WAS GREAT.

From:

skygiants

I burned myself out a bit on Seanan McGuire, I think -- I need to wait until I've forgotten how her Default First-Person Protagonist Voice sounds before I can pick up another one, because they all blur together in my head at this point. (TUTU DOES IT BETTER THAN EVERYTHING.)

I am really curious to see what Wein's going to do next - like, I don't expect another Code Name Verity at all either, but Code Name Verity was such an interesting jump from where she'd been before, and I want to see where the next jump will be!

From:

ceitfianna

Years ago, I started reading one of the Chalion books when a friend lent it to me at a con but never picked it up again. I liked it, the hero was an older man trying to adjust after being out of the kingdom and pulled back in.

Also I started the Sharing Knife series because the first book was cheap as an ebook and couldn't get into it. It had a lot of bad romance novel tropes, older man, younger woman and things didn't work. I wanted to like it but ended up giving up on it. To me it felt like a book and series that she wanted to write but had to be successful before being let to write as its not her best.

Oh and if you haven't heard, I'm going to probably be apping Ivan Vorpatril in January.

From:

rymenhild

Fair enough.

From:

kd7sov

Ah, you definitely should. And now that I think of it there is actually a very easy way to do it that won't do anything to your library lists: one of his books, Warbreaker, is available entirely free of charge on his website

From:

lacewood

Hardinge is totally on my to-buy list too! Though admittedly I sometimes wait for the paperback (and borrow from the library in the meantime). Hardbacks are expensive AND ALSO they're huge.

DWJ is a "sort of" - sort of because she has such a big backlog and I borrowed at least half of it from the library/friends. But I'm thinking of slowly collecting the DWJs I especially like and don't already own. Terry Pratchett is a "always read" (I sometimes get backlogged but I INTEND to read everything eventually) but not usually "buy" because he's even more prolific than DWJ and I seriously don't have the space to OWN everything.

From:

luzula

Thanks! puts on to-read list

From:

jinian

The first angel book is kind of acceptable? They get really weird and uncomfortable later...

One current series is shapeshifters, which I haven't read, because I snootily feel that she is jumping on the annoying urban-fantasy-weres bandwagon and I will have none of it. However, she also recently published Troubled Waters, which I loved. There is a whole religious system to find out about, so of course that is great, and the romance stuff, though inevitably present, is largely sidelined in favor of "young woman tells the king to sod off, makes her own way in the world, figures out her magic, and re/connects with other women."

(oh, bad for my pocketbook, the next one in the series is finally out! WAIT I CAN TRADE UNWANTED XMAS PRESENTS FOR IT, brb buyin' a book)

From:

skygiants

Hardinge is just about the only author I'll immediately buy in hardcover, instead of checking out from the library. DWJ is a sort of for me too -- like, I do someday want to have a COMPLETE COLLECTION, but I have all of her books so backed up in my memory anyway that it's not a priority.

Terry Pratchett was a must-buy for me for most of my life, and I do have a nearly-complete collection from years of buying up all of Discworld (which came in useful when I did the big reread), but Unseen Academicals may be the last Discworld book I will end up owning. We'll see.

From:

skygiants

THEY GET SO WEIRD. I mean, none of them are really acceptable, they're all bizarre in one way or another, but they hit some weird soft spot for me all the same.

-- wait, which is the urban-fantasy-weres one? I was thinking of the ... kingdoms one with ... some kind of magic? I have no recollection about the actual KIND of magic but I'm pretty sure at least some of it is wolf-shifting. Maybe? Wow, I have very little actual recollection of this series except that I enjoyed it.

From:

skygiants

Yeah, I've sort of heard that the Sharing Knife is super romance novel-y, which is one of the reasons I haven't bumped it up. We'll see.

Oh, cool! Ivan is a character who I've always thought would be a ton of fun to play, you're going to have a great time with him. :D

From:

skygiants

Oh, handy! Thanks!

From:

ceitfianna

It is and I've gotten into reading romances so I could see some of the tropes, but they didn't work as well. I love when Bujold uses romance ideas in the Vorkosigan books but it didn't work in this one. I tried so hard to get through but it didn't work.

I've always loved Ivan and thought about trying to play him for a while and when the Simon Illyan appeared I went okay. TL helped me find a great PB, he's

vorpatril and I'm going to app him in January from probably before Vorpatril's Alliance.

From:

jinian

Oh, okay, you're thinking of the Twelve Kingdoms books probably. There are a couple of shapeshifters in there, but I really like the series overall, total comfort reads. (Warning if you go to reread: the newer Fortune and Fate is not a lesbian romance, no matter how much ALL KNOWN READERS want it to be based on the first chapter.)

There is some modern-day paranormal business called Shifting Circle now. It sounds terrible.

From:

skygiants

Aha yes, those are the ones! Except I forgot what they were called because there's . . . another Twelve Kingdoms series . . . which is way more important to me . . . anyway, yes, they're super comfort read for me too, but I never did get around to the last one. (I WAS SO DISAPPOINTED WHEN I FOUND THAT OUT. The summary totally made it sound like lesbians!)

From:

jinian

Oh hey, I think we are confused and it's Twelve Houses. That makes sense. -.-;

I had to wait to get the new one ordered to the store where my Xmas presents came from, but TOMORROW there will be READINGS.

From:

izilen

Like you, Frances Hardinge is TOP OF MY LIST, if I had such a list, and if I was any good at knowing when people are gonna release things. Generally I will find out like a month later and go!!! I NEED TO READ THIS!!1 IN THE NEXT TWENTY FOUR HOURS. EVEN THOUGH I WAS FINE WITHOUT IT FOR OVER A MONTH!!! Other people whose new books I am very much look forward to include: Courtney Milan, Megan Whalen Turner. Elizabeth Wein was on this list for all of like a week and then she was OFF the list, haha. DOES YUMI TAMURA COUNT? She's on the list.

From:

skygiants

This is my early-warning system for you: FRANCES HARDINGE HAS A NEW BOOK OUT THIS SPRING. *cough*

Yumi Tamura is SO on the list. I wish I had a magic wand I could wave that would instantly translate all Yumi Tamura available anywhere for me. Ditto Fuyumi Ono! Megan Whalen Turner is also on my list. Courtney Milan I tend to save for when I need a brain break and then binge-read.