Discovered Authors 2014

[J-Sun]

I guess it's time for a follow on to the previous threads, including last year's.

I hate when this happens - I can't remember what turned me on to it in the first place. But on Dec. 21 I saw Madeline Ashby's vN (2012) in a store, went home and read a story of hers I had in an anthology ("The Education of Junior Number 12", set in the same world) and one or two from online, decided she might be worth a try, and went back the next day and picked up the book. So she might barely, technically be a "2013 discovery" but I only finished reading the book today. It's about a sort of robot that has basically one law - seeing humans in pain causes them to glitch and eventually bluescreen. They just have to obey humans in every way to keep them happy. While there are some nods towards actual technology, this is a more new wavy "robot as symbol" than golden age "robot as actual freakin' machinery" story and it's fairly poorly plotted in the sense that something freaky happens, our heroine goes on the run, we flee and get caught and flee and get caught for awhile and eventually it ends. So those are two strikes. But I thought she did an excellent job of creating a non-human non-machine consciousness in a non-showy way. (Karl Schroeder's blurb hits on this aspect - the "excluded middle" between "people and objects".)

Anyway, this is, of course, the first volume in a series, the second volume of which came out in 2013 and features the "Javier" character from the first volume. If I saw it used in good shape cheap, I'd probably pick it up but have no burning desire for it. The first book was an interesting read and might appeal to some folks, though.

 

[ralphkern]

Andy Weir: The Martian. I understand it was released last year as an SP, but now been bought up apparently, so has been pulled from all outlets and will be re-released in March I believe. I downloaded the sample last night and blasted through it. I am dying to get my hands on the full version. It essentially covers a Mars mission in which one of the crew ends up being left behind. The sample is very compelling.

And obviously there is the inspirational side in the fact that Weir has clearly done rather well for himself.

 

[J-Sun]

Past time for a new 2015 thread which anyone's welcome to start but, given the state of this thread, I don't guess there's much demand for it.

I've heard good things about the Weir, too, but never tried it.

As always, it's difficult to say who was "discovered" in 2014 in that I almost always read a story somewhere somewhen before picking up a book but don't usually think of them as fully discovered until I've read that book (or more). Two exceptions were the two peas in a pod of Ann Leckie (Ancillary Justice) and Larry Correia (Monster Hunter International). The first won a Hugo and a Nebula while the second was on the Hugo slate with a different novel under circumstances many objected to. I certainly had more fun with the Correia but the Leckie was certainly better but both are firmly in my "no more, no thanks" category. The hype and adulation of the Leckie is ludicrous. But I've already gone over that elsewhere in this forum.

I can actually pin down "discovering" Brad R. Torgersen to 2013 but didn't get the first book until 2014 (Lights in the Deep) and thoroughly enjoyed it - if you like fairly hard SF with character and an earned upbeat-ness, then he's your guy. I'd discovered Tony Daniel maybe in '98 or so but was never really blown away. Didn't dislike him either, though, so when I came across reviews of Guardian of Night that made it sound cool, I gave it a try. It's not exactly 100% great but it's pretty good and I enjoyed it. I love the movie of The Hunt for Red October (never read that book) but it was only later that I came across people comparing it to that. I can see it (alien tries to defect to the human side) but that's about all there is to the comparison. The Daniel also has a wild imagination with aliens communicating by smell and with wild tech and it's a pretty exciting book. So those were the positive book discoveries for the rest of last year.

(I have a lot of authors waiting to be "discovered" deep in the TBR but I don't tend to get to many at this point and just whittle down the backlog of know quantities. I hope that changes in the next year or two if I get a little more caught up.)

Anybody else discover an author last year? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

 

[Randy M.]

Sarah Waters. Her The Little Stranger is a well-written psychological ghost story with credible characters in a well-delineated setting.


Randy M.

 

[Bick]

Hmm, tricky, I guess for me there are several authors I first read in 2014. Leckie, as well - though I liked what I read; Alastair Reynolds I think - pretty good, and I shall finish the Revelation Space Trilogy (I read the first two), but not sure how much more I'll read after that, we'll see. I suppose I also 'discovered' Allen Steele (I enjoyed Coyote), Jack Chalker and Brian Stableford. Stableford was perhaps the best 'discovery' for me last year. I intend reading a lot more Stableford. But then I said the same thing to myself about Bob Shaw a year or two back and its not come to fruition yet - too many books and authors to read.

 

[Vince W]

Liu Cixin was my main discovery in 2014. The Three-Body Problem should be on your tbr list. Great stuff in the vein of Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov. I hope that the rest of Mr. Liu's work is translated.

 

[J-Sun]

For what it's worth - I realize I left out dates and relations: the Leckie was a 2013 first book (novel) and the Torgersen was a 2013 first book (collection). The Correia happened to be a first book (novel), but from 2009 and he'd written several later ones before I got to it. The Daniel was a 2012 novel but already his fifth one and sixth book overall.

IMO, this thread is about who's new to you but a side angle (and primary focus of some earlier threads in this series) was just discussing newer authors and at least Leckie and Torgersen qualify from that angle, too.

Oddly, I also realized that the Correia and Daniel were Baen books and Torgersen has had his first novel (fixup) published by Baen. Proportionally, I don't read much Baen but they had a pretty good year in my universe last year. Two out of three (out of four) ain't bad.

Bick: which Stableford(s) did you read? I've read some of his stories and came this close to picking up one of his books once, but didn't. And glad to hear you liked Coyote - I read some of the stories it's based on and I've already read Hex which is a kind of pendant to the series but I've really just read almost all the Near Space stuff (and some stray stories and novels) but beginning to move fully into the Coyote universe was next on the agenda.

 

[Bick]

Bick: which Stableford(s) did you read? I've read some of his stories and came this close to picking up one of his books once, but didn't.

I read his first novel (I think) called Cradle of the Sun and his first Hooded Swan novel, Halcyon Drift. Sometimes folk here ask for 'literary' SF, and I think Stableford probably qualifies. There's nothing especially deep about them, but he writes in a way that suggests he's spending a good deal of time crafting his prose. It reads easily enough - it's not dense - but there's a sense of depth and simile that you wont find in lessor works, in my opinion. Cradle of the Sun is a short 'quest' novel across an alien landscape, and the Hooded Swan series books seem to be fun reads. I quite like the protagonist, who is a dry-humoured cynic. I have a few others on the tbr shelf that I found on eBay.

And glad to hear you liked Coyote - I read some of the stories it's based on and I've already read Hex which is a kind of pendant to the series but I've really just read almost all the Near Space stuff (and some stray stories and novels) but beginning to move fully into the Coyote universe was next on the agenda.

Coyote is the only Steele I've read to date, but I expect to read the next in the Coyote series at some point. I have Clarke County, Space sitting on the shelf, but I'm less drawn to it for some reason.

 

[J-Sun]

I read his first novel (I think) called Cradle of the Sun and his first Hooded Swan novel, Halcyon Drift. Sometimes folk here ask for 'literary' SF, and I think Stableford probably qualifies. There's nothing especially deep about them, but he writes in a way that suggests he's spending a good deal of time crafting his prose. It reads easily enough - it's not dense - but there's a sense of depth and simile that you wont find in lessor works, in my opinion. Cradle of the Sun is a short 'quest' novel across an alien landscape, and the Hooded Swan series books seem to be fun reads. I quite like the protagonist, who is a dry-humoured cynic. I have a few others on the tbr shelf that I found on eBay.

Hm - sounds good. I'll keep an eye out.

Coyote is the only Steele I've read to date, but I expect to read the next in the Coyote series at some point. I have Clarke County, Space sitting on the shelf, but I'm less drawn to it for some reason.

Good call. Clarke County (#2 in the Near Space novel series) isn't quite bad, maybe, but it's easily my least favorite of the first four Near Space novels (haven't read the much later fifth - and so far, last - one). A definite "sophomore slump". Orbital Decay (#1) was great, though, and Lunar Descent (#3) was very good, too. Labyrinth of Night (#4) was okay. My favorite of all was really the collection, Sex and Violence in Zero-G, but Orbital Decay was right with it.