- Southern Reach – Jeff VanderMeer. A series that was very talked-about a couple of years ago (it featured in the 2015 Tournament of Books) and sounds simultaneously terrifying and intelligent. From what I can tell, it’s about a mysterious jungle area that springs up somewhere in Florida, and the gradual deterioration of the teams that go in to investigate it.
- Dominion of the Fallen – Aliette de Bodard. This is slightly cheating given that the first book, The House of Shattered Wings, is already on my TBR; but that title is a draw all on its own.
- The Parasol Protectorate – Gail Carriger. Steampunk!
- Sookie Stackhouse – Charlaine Harris. The Sookie Stackhouse series is one of those cult series that seems to have become something of a cultural touchstone for certain online communities. It’s a series of vampire books revolving around the troubles of the eponymous Sookie, and it sounds like it could be fun.
- The Orphan’s Tales – Catherynne Valente. I will read anything by Valente; she is perhaps my only “auto-buy” author at the moment. To be honest? I would have read them without knowing anything about them.
- Dune – Frank Herbert. One of the series I keep meaning to start without ever working up the impetus to do so; I think their very canonicity puts me off – what if they’re old-fashioned, irritating, a chore? But they’re classics, and I’d like to get round to them someday.
- Earthsea – Ursula Le Guin. See above. I have so many doubts, but I feel like I shouldn’t miss them.
- Oryx and Crake – Margaret Atwood. Atwood’s famously dismissive about SF as a genre, which is irritating, because, um, SF is exactly (and fairly exclusively) what she writes. The Oryx and Crake series seems right up my alley, anyway: SF that thinks. It might be too dystopic for me. We’ll see.
- Xenogenesis – Octavia Butler. I’ve heard good things about Butler, and I’ve never read any of her work. Again, her SF sounds really interesting, and from what I’ve heard does some fairly radical thinking about gender and sexuality.
- Terra Ignota – Ada Palmer. The second book in the duology is coming out fairly soon, I think? Anyway, it looks like a utopian story, timed for the 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s Utopia. I’ve read mixed reviews, but it sounds different enough that I’m curious about it.
(The theme for this post was suggested by the Broke and the Bookish’s weekly meme Top Ten Tuesday.)
The English Student 