8/25/10

The non-results of my Cybils sff poll, plus Waiting on Wednesday - Invisible Things, by Jenny Davidson and other Cybils sequels

A couple of days ago I threw up a poll to see which Cybils shortlisted sci fi fantasy book was the best beloved. The results were, as expected, inconclusive--only 41 of the 97 people who've looked at it to date were able to pick a favorite (I found it almost impossible to do so myself), and of the 40 books in the list, all but 15 have at least one vote. Because the votes are so scattered, no clear favorite has emerged--Graceling is in the lead, with 4 votes.

One of the books I would have voted for if I'd had a few more votes to scatter around was The Explosionist, by Jenny Davidson (my review). The sequel, Invisible Things, comes out this November (yay!). Here's what Davidson had to say about it back in February 2009 (goodness--what a long time ago that seems...)
"The book takes up with Sophie in Copenhagen at the alternate-universe version of Niels Bohr’s Institute for Theoretical Physics, which was possibly the most exciting of all possible places to be in our own world’s real historical 1930s, and follows her on a strange and stressful journey first to Sweden and then up north to Lappland and the island of Spitsbergen, where she encounters the Snow Queen in her ice palace. The story is very loosely based on the fairy tale of the same name, one of my favorite ones by the nineteenth-century Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen."

There are several other exciting sequels/follow ups/companions to the Cybils sff books coming out:

Ptolomy's Gate, by Jonathan Stoud, and Incarceron, by Catherine Fisher, each got more than one vote, and each has a prequel/sequel coming out this fall (The Ring of Solomon, in November, and Sapphique, in December respectivly). There's a new Skulduggery Pleasant out next month (enigmatically/portentously, the wikipedia entry for it says that it is "the first of the Skulduggery Pleasant novels to be published in a September"). Part three of D.M. Cornisth's Monstor Blood Tattoo series, Factotum, is out this fall (and it's on my tbr pile--yay!). Sarah Prineas has written a fourth book in the Magic Thief series (see this interview) , but I dunno if its been officially acquired by HarperCollins....I hope it has (note to self--write review of the third book of the series (which was very fun) for crying out loud). Scumble, the companion to Savvy, by Ingrid Law, just came out. (So did Mockingjay). And Bitterblue, the eagerly awaited companion/sequel to Graceling, is (according to wikipedia) coming out next April.

And even though this sequel has been out a while, I've been following this book's availability with great interest--The King Commands, sequel to Northlander, by Meg Burden (one vote) is up on Amazon again for its regular price of $8.95.

Did I miss any?

(Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine)

11 comments:

  1. You know, I meant to go back and vote after I finished Ptolemy's Gate (which I had just started), because I had a suspicion I would have chosen that. I did finish it last night, and I adored it -- and probably would have voted for it. Love that series! I can't believe I almost didn't continue after book 1 because I liked it but didn't love it. But I loved books 2 and 3. Looking forward to the prequel, now, and writing mental fan-fiction about what might happen after Ptolemy's Gate ended.

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  2. It is never too late to vote, Deva! If I remember my reading of the series correctly, I had a harder time with the second book, when it became clear that "likeability" character-wise was going to become an issue.

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  3. Oh, good, I will go vote!

    And re:likeability, that's funny, because it was my lack of affection for Nathaniel that actually kept me from going on initially. :-) But in Book 2, even though he became *more* unlikeable, I found Kitty's introduction and Bartimaeus' continued presence to more than compensate.

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  4. I think I was assuming that Nathaniel would find redemption in book 2, and become the brave orphan boy good guy I wanted him to be, and so I was dissillusioned (although I kept hoping). Truly, thank goodness for Kitty and Bartimaeus!

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  5. Yeah I think the series is a little tricky because of our tendency as readers to view the orphan magic boy as the hero and expect him to be a good guy (that was behind my issues with the first book). In the second, I realized I should probably be viewing Nathaniel as the (redeemable) villain of the piece (so he's more the Darth Vader than the Luke Skywalker, and Bartimaeus is Han Solo, heh). I think the fact that my mind had reoriented that way really made the third book strike me hard too.

    Always very interesting to see how different reading experience are!

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  6. I also thought the first book in the Bartimaeus series was good but I wasn't inclined to continue

    I am okay with a main character who isn't always the good kid just don't be brat or prickish and if I remember correctly Nataniel was both.

    Ilysis by Pearl North comes out Nov 9. I am really looking forward to this one. Recently read Libyrinth. It was really good.

    I am finally going to read the first book in the Monster Blood Tattoo series.

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  7. Oh, that's exciting about the new Pearl North book, Doret! thanks!

    I'll be curious to know what you think of Monstor Blood!

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  8. Thanks for the update on THE KING COMMANDS. I've had this on my Amazon wishlist for a while, wondering why it wasn't available.

    --Parker

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  9. How can there be a 5th Skulduggery? I cannot find a publication date for the US edition of the 4th yet! I have kids (ok, mainly just one kid) bugging me for it! I told him to get his mom to buy it for him off Book Depository for his birthday, b/c I cannot find it!

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  10. from Widipedia: "The second book: Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing With Fire , third book: Skulduggery Pleasant: The Faceless Ones and fourth book Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark Days are currently available. A fifth book, entitled Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Coil, is due out by September 2010."

    So yep, Book Depository seems the way to go!

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  11. from Widipedia: "The second book: Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing With Fire , third book: Skulduggery Pleasant: The Faceless Ones and fourth book Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark Days are currently available. A fifth book, entitled Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Coil, is due out by September 2010."

    So yep, Book Depository seems the way to go!

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