What should I read next???

Since I'm still waiting for my review copies of Tad Williams' The Dirty Streets of Heaven ((Canada, USA, Europe), Mark Lawrence's King of Thorns (Canada, USA, Europe), And James S. A. Corey's Caliban's War (Canada, USA, Europe), I felt that the time was just about right for a new survey regarding novels that I'm considering reading.

I need a break from speculative fiction for a short while, so in the near future I'll be reading James Clavell's Shogun (Canada, USA, Europe) and Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Prisoner of Heaven (Canada, USA, Europe). In addition, during my trip to Turkey I was intrigued by the works of author Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize, and bought two of his novels. My Name is Red (Canada, USA, Europe) is pretty high on my list of books to read.

As we speak, I'm plowing through Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (Canada, USA, Europe), but I'm afraid that Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie (Canada, USA, Europe) totally killed that novel for me. Indeed, after reading such a touching and thought-provoking work, Marquez's masterpiece feels trite. . . I'm also halfway through Jeff Salyards' Scourge of the Betrayer (Canada, USA, Europe), which is kind of a mix of Joe Abercrombie and Glen Cook.

There are quite a few other speculative fiction titles vying for my attention, so let's find out which one of these nominees you'd like to see me read and review in the near future.

You can vote in the top left corner of the homepage!

The nominees are:

- Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff (Canada, USA, Europe)

A dystopian steampunk fantasy with a flavour of feudal Japan.

Griffins are supposed to be extinct. So when Yukiko and her warrior father are sent to capture one for the Shōgun, they fear that their lives are over. Everyone knows what happens to those who fail him.

But the mission proves less impossible and more deadly than anyone expects. Soon Yukiko finds herself stranded: a young woman alone in her country’s last wilderness, with only a furious, crippled griffin for company. Alhough she can hear his thoughts, and saved his life, all she knows for certain is he’d rather see her dead than help her. Yet trapped together in the forest, Yukiko and Buruu form a surprising and powerful bond.

Meanwhile, the country verges on collapse. A toxic fuel is choking the land, the machine-powered Lotus Guild is publicly burning those they deem Impure, and the Shōgun cares for nothing but his own dominion. Authority has always made Yukiko uneasy, but her world changes when she meets Kin, a young man with secrets, and the rebel Kagé cabal. She learns the horrifying extent of the Shōgun’s crimes, both against her country and her family.

Returning to the city, Yukiko and Buruu are determined to make the Shōgun pay – but what can one girl and a flightless griffin do against the might of an empire?

- Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton (Canada, USA, Europe)

In Newcastle-upon-Tyne, AD 2142, Detective Sidney Hurst attends a brutal murder scene. The victim is one of the wealthy North family clones – but none have been reported missing. And the crime’s most disturbing aspect is how the victim was killed. Twenty years ago, a North clone billionaire and his household were horrifically murdered in exactly the same manner, on the tropical planet of St Libra. But if the murderer is still at large, was Angela Tramelo wrongly convicted? Tough and confident, she never waivered under interrogation – claiming she alone survived an alien attack. But there is no animal life on St Libra.

Investigating this alien threat becomes the Human Defence Agency’s top priority. The bio-fuel flowing from St Libra is the lifeblood of Earth’s economy and must be secured. So a vast expedition is mounted via the Newcastle gateway, and teams of engineers, support personnel and xenobiologists are dispatched to the planet. Along with their technical advisor, grudgingly released from prison, Angela Tramelo. But the expedition is cut off, deep within St Libra’s rainforests. Then the murders begin. Someone or something is picking off the team one by one. Angela insists it’s the alien, but her new colleagues aren’t so sure. Maybe she did see an alien, or maybe she has other reasons for being on St Libra ...

- Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald (Canada, USA, Europe)

Everett Singh has escaped with the Infundibulum from the clutches of Charlotte Villiers and the Order, but at a terrible price. His father is missing, banished to one of the billions of parallel universes of the Panoply of All World, and Everett and the crew of the airship Everness have taken a wild, random Heisenberg Jump to a random parallel plane. Everett is smart and resourceful, and, from a frozen earth far beyond the Plenitude, he plans to rescue his family. But the villainous Charlotte Villiers is one step ahead of him.

The action traverses the frozen wastes of iceball earth; to Earth 4 (like ours, except that the alien Thryn Sentiency occupied the moon in 1964); to the dead London of the forbidden plane of Earth 1, where the emnants of humanity battle a terrifying nanotechnology run wild—and Everett faces terrible choices of morality and power. But Everett has the love and support of Sen, Captain Anastasia Sixsmyth, and the rest of the crew of Everness—as he learns that the deadliest enemy isn't the Order or the world-devouring nanotech Nahn—it's yourself.

- Infidel by Kameron Hurley (Canada, USA, Europe)

The only thing worse than war is revolution. Especially when you're already losing the war...

Nyx used to be a bel dame, a government-funded assassin with a talent for cutting off heads for cash. Her country's war rages on, but her assassin days are long over. Now she's babysitting diplomats to make ends meet and longing for the days when killing people was a lot more honorable.

When Nyx's former bel dame "sisters" lead a coup against the government that threatens to plunge the country into civil war, Nyx volunteers to stop them. The hunt takes Nyx and her inglorious team of mercenaries to one of the richest, most peaceful, and most contaminated countries on the planet -- a country wholly unprepared to host a battle waged by the world's deadliest assassins.

In a rotten country of sweet-tongued politicians, giant bugs, and renegade shape shifters, Nyx will forge unlikely allies and rekindle old acquaintances. And the bodies she leaves scattered across the continent this time... may include her own.

Because no matter where you go or how far you run in this world, one thing is certain: the bloody bel dames will find you.

- The Watchers by Jon Steele (Canada, USA, Europe)

Beneath Lausanne Cathedral, in Switzerland, there is a secret buried before time began, something unknown to angels and men, until now...

Marc Rochat watches over the city at night from the belfry of the cathedral. He lives in a world of shadows and "beforetimes" and imaginary beings. Katherine Taylor, call girl and daydreamer, is about to discover that her real-life fairy tale is too good to be true.

Jay Harper, private detective, wakes up in a crummy hotel room with no memory. When the telephone rings and he's offered a job, he knows he has no choice but to accept.

Three lives, one purpose: save what's left of paradise before all hell breaks loose.