UK December Releases by John Berlyne
Check out theses and other titles at: Amazon
UK
Only a handful of shopping days until Christmas and Santa has given us a very modest bunch of seasonal releases here in the UK. Not to disparage what is coming out here this month, but the feeling is very much of the year winding down, almost as if the publishers are taking a rest before next year's battles for our hard earned cash.
The forthcoming year has some stunning titles in store - new books from China Miéville and Neal Asher will be published by Macmillan; Gollancz have works from Alastair Reynolds and newcomer Richard Morgan amongst many others; HarperCollins will be giving us new books by Kim Stanley Robinson and Michael Marshall Smith; Orbit offer works from Sean Russell, J.V. Jones, Brian Aldiss and Tad Williams; Earthlight publish the new Jon Courtney Grimwood, the latest from prodigy Anselm Audley and a new John Whitbourn and last but not least Transworld will release a new Anne McCaffrey, a new John Meaney and a second book from Ricardo Pinto. This, of course, merely scrapes the surface of what looks to be a bumper year in British genre publishing. I look forward to bringing you the news as it happens!
So,
to December... Fans of Steve Erikson's epic fantasy Malazan Book of the
Fallen series finally see the release of the long-awaited third volume. Memories
of Ice, the biggest volume thus far is a hefty trade paperback
priced at £12.99 and is published by Transworld. Though certainly a
major title, this is the only genre release this month from the Transworld
empire, which includes the Bantam, Corgi, Corgi Yearling and Doubleday UK
imprints.
Pan Macmillan too release only one title this month - The Cure of Souls by Phil Rickman (see our review this issue). This is the latest supernatural thriller from Rickman and is released in hard cover priced at £16.99.
Only
one book also from Hodder Headline. Harry Turtledove's latest alternative
history series kicks off with American Empire Vol. 1 - Blood and Iron.
Released in hard cover, it is priced at £18.99. Turtledove's previous title
sees its mass market paperback release from New English Library. Colonisation
Aftershocks is priced at £6.99. Incidentally, the Hodder press release
states that Turtledove will be one of the guests of honour at next year's UK
Eastercon - Helicon 2, which takes place in Jersey from March 29th to April 1.
Check out their web site at <http://www.helicon.org.uk/index.html>
for further details.
Orbit,
thankfully, breaks this singular cycle with the release of three noteworthy
titles. The ninth volume in the hugely popular Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter
series gets its UK outing. Obsidian Butterfly by Laurell K. Hamilton will
no doubt delight fans of this Buffey-esque heroine. The release is a 
paperback
priced at £6.99. December also sees the release of The Crystal Desert, The
Guardian Cycle Book 3 by the pseudonymous Julia Gray (paperback, priced at
£6.99) and the fourth volume in Australian author Ian Irvine's The View From
the Mirror series. The Way Between the Worlds is a paperback priced
at £7.99. Orbit also publish J.V. Jones in spades this month. The three titles
comprising The Books of Words series are released - The Baker's Boy,
A Man Betrayed and Master and Fool are all paperbacks priced at
£6.99. Also released in paperback is The Barbed Coil, priced at £7.99.
Nothing at all this month from Earthlight!
Gollancz,
in keeping with their usual voluminous output, have much to offer, though
notably, with the exception of Terry Goodkind's The Pillars of Creation,
all releases are reprints. The Goodkind novel is the seventh in his Sword of
Truth series and is issued as an impressive hard cover priced at £17.99.
Mass market paperback releases are issued of K. W. Jeter's Bladerunner 4:
Eye and Talon and Alastair Reynolds' superb Chasm City (see my
review in our archives) - both these titles are priced at £6.99. The
Invisible Man by H.G.Wells becomes the 47th title in the SF Masterworks series
- released as a trade paperback, it is priced at £6.99. The Fantasy
Masterworks series sees Fritz Leiber's The Second Book of Lanhkmar as
#24. This too is a trade paperback. This is priced at £8.99.
John Berlyne
UK Associate Editor
john.berlyne@sfrevu.com
© 2001 Ernest Lilley / SFRevu
sa 12.16.01