The Scotsman Abroad | Smugglivus and the Future of Speculative Fiction

Today, it's my pleasure to point you all in the direction of a post I wrote recently that, in a turn up for the textbooks, wasn't for either The Speculative Scotsman or Tor.com.

We'll talk more about my plans for Top of the Scots 2013 in time, but rest assured that I have been devoting a lot of thought to the prospect of the blog going forward, not least how to handle our annual accounting of the best books and movies and video games of the previous year. 

Indeed, I've been thinking so seriously about these things that when I received an email from Ana and Thea about contributing for the third time in three years to their festive feature, I decided to do something a little different.

To wit, this morning on The Book Smugglers, an overview of the most exciting science fiction and fantasy forthcoming in 2014... according to me, at least:

Fantasy fans have Fall of Light to look forward to, the second volume of The Kharkanas Trilogy by Steven Erikson. The mighty mind behind Malazan also has another new novel on the cards — a spacefaring farce with the working title Willful Child — which brings us neatly to our next category: the science fiction of the future! 

The Echo by James Smythe will be the first such specimen to arrive. I’d had the pleasure of reading this one already, so I can say with certainty that it’s a fully realised sequel which takes what was great about The Explorer and makes it bigger, better, and still more momentous. Meanwhile a second Smythe is poised to be published in the UK in late May: No Harm Can Come to a Good Man is about something called ClearVista, a revolutionary new technology which purports to predict probabilities.

Please do pop on over to The Book Smugglers' blog to read the rest of the post, and if you like, let us know what you and yours are looking forward to reading next year.

And hey: hang around! Not just because Smugglivus is always a bunch of fun — though, you know, it is — but because this week alone there will be guest posts by some of the very finest of my fellow bloggers, including Jared of Pornokitsch, Stefan Raets of Far Beyond Reality, and Justin Landon of Staffer's Book Review. 

Good reading: guaranteed.

The Scotsman Abroad | Smugglivus Some More!

With winter officially here, and Christmas equally near, Smugglivus has begun again over at The Book Smugglers, and however hard we mere mortals might try, nobody does December better than Ana and Thea.

Last year, for my first Smugglivus, I contributed a post entitled Twelve for 2012. This year, it was with immense pleasure that I received a second invite to the site, so I embarked upon a similar but different endeavour, casting my net slightly wider to include forthcoming films and TV series alongside the usual selection of exciting new books. 

Lucky 2013 went live yesterday, and I'd urge you to pop across to The Book Smugglers' blog to read my epic guest post in its entirety. Here's a bit from my first pick:

"There are a couple of authors whose work I practically worship: foremost amongst them, K. J. Parker and China Mieville, both of whom have had new novels released every year for at least the last three. In all probability, there will be books bearing their names in 2013 – for once in my life, I'm hoping each begins a series after so many standalone narratives – but as yet no-one knows what or when or even if these will be. 

"So forgive me, but for my first pick, I’m going to plump for something that actually exists. Guy Gavriel Kay is another firm favourite of mine, right up there alongside the previous pair in the great fantasy food chain, plus he publishes rather more rarely than they. Thus, though there’s been no word on a date for the UK, the release of River of Stars in North America in early April is especially exciting."

I go from the great Guy Gavriel Kay to Stephen King's sequel to The Shining, by way of the new Superman movie and the final season of Starz' Spartacus — and that's hardly the half of it.

You know where to go!

The Scotsman Abroad | Twelve for 2012

So do you folks read The Book Smugglers' blog?

If not, why not?

Ana and Thea are just such lovely sorts that I've found it impossible not to follow their regular adventures in the land of literature. Truth be told, half of what they cover over there is a little outside of my usual ball-park, but that's half the fun! Were it not for Ana and Thea's perceptive and refreshingly frank perspectives, I'd have missed out on any number of novels I wouldn't otherwise have looked twice at.

Now Top of the Scots is all well and good - I put a lot of work into it, yet I am, alas, only one man - but I'll gladly go on record and say no-one does the whole year-end celebration like The Book Smugglers do. Their Smugglivus runs all month long, and it sees contributions from almost every corner of the book blogging community.

I only say almost because before now, there was no me!

Well now there's me. :D

It was an incredible pleasure to be invited to take part in Smugglivus - an honour and a privilege, hand on heart - so I put my thinking cap on and considered what the most awesome thing I could contribute would be.

Given that I've announced my favourite books of the year already, I thought: why not talk some about what's to come? Then, coincidentally - or not - The Book Smugglers slotted me in for today, the twelfth day of the twelfth month. Things came together from there.


But enough of my burbling. It gives me tremendous pleasure to point you in the general direction of my contribution to Smugglivus, wherein I look at twelve of the books set to be published in the year 2012 that I'm most excited to see.

Some of the highlights include Sharps, Railsea and A Red Country... though I realise now that I totally neglected to mention The Twelve by Justin Cronin - that is to say the sequel to The Passage - which would have been a perfect fit, wouldn't it?


Ah well. You'll just have to make do!


All told, though, it's looking like it'll be a fine year, don't you think?


As ever, I'm sure I'm missing approximately a million things, so please do fill me in, folks: what books are you most eagerly anticipating?