Books to read in 2019

By no means is this an exhaustive list of books coming out this year that I am excited about, but it is an overview of books I am aware of – as they year goes on, I hope to spend more time reviewing publication catalogs and requesting ARCs. My hope is to review all of the books on this list on my blog.

It should go without saying that I have pre-ordered all the adult and young adult Star Wars books currently scheduled for publication — though I have started to cancel some of my Star Wars comics pre-orders, as I have not been reading them as they come in.

This is How You Lose the Time War
Amal El-Mothtar & Max Gladstone (July 2019, Saga Press)

The description gets me in its first line – “two time traveling agents from warring futures…” Time Travel is one of my favorite SF genres, and this one looks like good fun! It seems kinda like the Lake House plus cool sci-fi stuff.

Coda Vol 1
Simon Spurrier & Matias Bergara (March 2019, BOOM! Studios)

While I realize that I could easily just read this issue by issue right now, I have come to prefer trade paperback collections. In my comics experience, the convenience of immediacy has been overwhelmed by the inconvenience of storage combined with the convenience of fewer cliffhangers. I have had several friends rave to me about how good Coda has been so far, and I am excited to finally check it out this spring

A Memory Called Empire
Arkady Martine (Tor Books, March 2019)

This space opera debut looks fresh and fun, like a quick pop-y read, along the lines of Scalzi’s Collapsing Empire books. This is one of the books I am most excited about this spring. It is a debut novel, and published by one of my favorite publishers.

Motherland
Lauren Beukes (April 2019, Mulholland Books)

The last Beukes book I read blew me away, and while I missed a book since The Shining Girls, I still have a lot of enthusiasm for her writing (and it is very likely I will pick up Broken Monsters sometime this year). Dystopia is another favorite – just because it is so accesssible to compare and contrast, and Beukes style and sense of suspense is incomparable.

The Haunting of Tram Car 015
P. Djèlí Clark (February 2019, Tor.Com Publishing)

Tor.com Publishing has been knocking it out of the park with their novellas, and I really hope to see this effort expand to other publishers – nonetheless, The Black God’s Drums (the last story they published by Clark) was one of the most incredible stories I read in 2018. This entry looks fantastic.

The Ruin of Kings
Jenn Lyons (Tor Books, February 2019)

I have been trying to work my way back into epic fantasy for more exposure to dragons, and this seems like just the way – a long lost prince, lying storybooks and quests! What more could you want? I was lucky enough to acquire an eARC of this volume from Netgalley, and will have a review up in the next few weeks.

A Peoples Future of the United States
Ed. Victor LaValle & John Joseph Adams (One World, February 2019)

It has been awhile since I read collections with any regularity. As I write this, I am halfway through an eARC of this volume, and it is making me regret not reading more short story collections. The inspiration for this one is Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the US. I’ll have a review up for this by the end of this week.

The Redemption of Time
Baoshu (Head of Zeus, July 2019)

I just love that a famous fan fiction of Cixin Liu’s Three-Body Problem universe was so well beloved that the publisher and author decided to add it to the canon and have it translated by the same translator. I have not finished the trilogy that spawned this work, but my goal is to catch up in time for this release.

And of course there’s some books I have not read from previous years that I want to catch up on this year;

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
I have this out from the library right now, and am hoping to finish it in close enough proximity to the second book release (out in January). This looks like a fun romp through a fantasy kingdom not based on Western European culture, which often feels rare.

The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg
This looks like a quick and fun read, a suspenseful book that, when I told my wife I was interested in she responded with “well that seems out of your typical interest.” As I diversify what I read this year, I want to not just focus on SF/F as much, but be aware of what is happening in other genres.

How Long ‘til Black Future Month by N.K. Jemison
I have been horribly remiss in not reading any of N.K. Jemison’s writing – Broken Earth series included. I plan to rectify that this year, and likely starting with this volume.

Jade City by Fonda Lee
I bought this book for my Kindle right around the time it was released and still have not read it. A sequel comes out this year

She Would be King by Wayétu Moore
This was on my shortlist for winter 2018, and I was gifted a copy by my sister-in-law for our family Christmas Eve book gifting tradition — an intermingling of magical relapse and history tell a dramatic recreation of the founding of Liberia.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
At the end of my senior year of high school, my English teacher gave me this book as a gift – I struggled with being able to make it past the first few pages at the time. He understood and suggested I wait a couple years before trying again. This book has sat on my shelf for a decade. It’s time to read it or move on.