Season's Greetings | The Fun of the Future

Four years to the day my time with Tigana compelled me to launch this blog, 2014 is here, and though I'm still very much in holiday mode, and of course, horribly hungover, I wanted to take a second to say: welcome to the future, folks!

I can only hope it's as bright as Orange promised.

So what's to come in 2014? Well, one wonders. For me at least, not knowing is perhaps half the fun of the future — and I don't, in any great detail — but plenty, I expect, including a few fairly major changes. 

Before all that, though, stay tuned for Top of the Scots. I already have my lists locked. All that remains is for me to explain, because I imagine my choices might surprise some of you. Expect more on that momentarily. And in the meantime?

Sincerely, readers dear: I hope you all have a happy New Year. :)

Status Update | A Lion King Christmas

I don't know about you, but with Christmas day just a week away, I'm finally feeling festive.

Not least because last night I realised a dream more than a decade in the making, when the entirety of my family got together to attend a performance of The Lion King live. Simba's spotty performance did not ultimately undermine what was a wonderful show overall; a real visual feast that I'm so pleased to have seen.

I've been humming 'Be Prepared' ever since leaving the theatre, and this morning it occurred to me that I could do worse things in life than take Scar's advice.

Which is my way of saying that though I'm usually one of the very first folks to bang on about the year's best books — Top of the Scots has in the past happened in early December — in 2013 my other obligations have regrettably had to take precedence. I've had to stockpile columns, including this morning's edition of the British Genre Fiction Focus, and ready a fair few reviews to run on Tor.com over the holidays. Truth be told, I've been so busy in November and December to date that it only just hit me that Christmas is coming.

And you know what? I want to enjoy it, so instead of spending the few days remaining to me this year putting together Top of the Scots, I'm going to give myself over to the Christmas spirit. To wit, I warrant you won't be hearing a whole lot from me over the holidays, but when I do get back to blogging, it will be worth the wait. Scots honour!

For a sneak peek at a few of my favourites, check out the Tor.com Reviewers' Choice, in which I count down the three best British books I've read in 2013. I've contributed to another end of year feature as well: Strange Horizons has a few hundred words from me about the books I've gotten most lost in this year.

Now to lose myself in festive merriment...

You all have a brilliant Christmas, and a happy New Year, you hear?

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.