Looking Forward to 2010

Here are some of the sci-fi releases that I'm especially looking forward to in 2010. While most of them are parts of a series that I'm already reading, there are a few stand alone books in there. I think 2010 has the potential to be a great year fro sci-fi literature, but getting around to all the best books will be a job in itself!

The Evolutionary Void by Peter F Hamilton (Tor UK)
This is my most highly anticipated novel of the year by a fair distance. I've thoroughly enjoyed the first two books in the Void trilogy, The Dreaming Void (review) and The Temporal Void (review) and if this isn't the best book I read this year I'll be shocked. Due in August/September this year on both sides of the atlantic.

Gabbleducks/The Technician (Title TBC) by Neal Asher (Tor UK)
Until a month or so ago I was expecting the first book in Neal's new Owner series to be released this year, but with a change of plan we're now going to be getting a new polity novel. I'm not complaining at all, I've not yet been disappointed by anything Neal has written so will eagerly await the release of this one. Due in September.

The Black Lung Captain by Chris Wooding (Gollancz)
The sequel to Retribution Falls (review) which took a worthy second place on my favourite reads of 2009, this is a book I couldn't be more excited about. Due in July.

Welcome to a rip-roaring action-packed story of heists, double-crosses, double-double-crosses, adventure, shoot-outs and a touch of romance along the way. In the first Ketty Jay novel, RETRIBUTION FALLS, Frey and his crew were framed for murder, and had to use all their criminal talents to try to clear their names - and turn a profit! Here, in the second novel in this series of standalone adventures, they're asked to help retrieve a mysterious lost ship full of treasure, which turns out to be slightly more complicated than expected . . .

The Orphaned Worlds by Michael Cobley (Orbit)
The sequel to Seeds of Earth (review), I've already got a review copy sitting on the shelf which I'm planning on reading next month. The first was hugely enjoyable and was a great start to a new space opera series. Due in April.

Darien is no longer a lost outpost of humanity, but the prize in an intergalactic power struggle. Hegemony forces have a stranglehold over the planet and crack troops patrol its hotspots while Earth watches, passive, rendered impotent by galactic politics. But its Darien ambassador will soon become a player in a greater conflict. There is more at stake than a turf war on a newly discovered world. An ancient Uvovo temple hides access to a hyperspace prison, housing the greatest threat sentient life has ever known. Millennia ago, malignant intelligences were caged there following an apocalyptic war. And their servants work on their release. However, Darien's guardians have not been idle, gathering resistance on the planet's forest moon. Knowledge has been lost since great races battled in eons past, and now time is short. The galaxy will depend on the Uvovo reclaiming their past - and humanity must look to its future. For a new war is coming.

Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz)
Here's another that is sitting on my shelf in review copy form and one that I'll be reading very shortly. I've got high hopes for this one after I was disappointed by House of Suns (review). From what I've heard this could very well be one of the releases of the year! Due in March.

Spearpoint, the last human city, is an atmosphere-piercing spire of vast size. Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different - and rigidly enforced - level of technology. Horsetown is pre-industrial; in Neon Heights they have television and electric trains . . . Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue. But when a near-dead angel drops onto his dissecting table, Quillon's world is wrenched apart one more time, for the angel is a winged posthuman from Spearpoint's Celestial Levels - and with the dying body comes bad news. If Quillon is to save his life, he must leave his home and journey into the cold and hostile lands beyond Spearpoint's base, starting an exile that will take him further than he could ever imagine. But there is far more at stake than just Quillon's own survival, for the limiting technologies of the zones are determined not by governments or police, but by the very nature of reality - and reality itself is showing worrying signs of instability . . .

Blood and Iron by Tony Ballantyne (Tor UK)
Here's the sequel to the highly enjoyable Twisted Metal (review) and a book that I'm very much looking forward to. Things got interesting at the end of the first book and I'm trying to work out where things will go from here! Due in June.

Appointed Commander of the Emperor’s Army of Sangrel, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do of Ko tries to establish relations between the existing robot population and the humans who have recently arrived on Yukawa.
On the continent of Shull, Kavan forms the Uncertain Army and is marching to Artemis City. Upon discovery that the city’s generals have made an alliance with the humans, he retreats to Stark where he plans the eventual overthrow of Artemis and the humans.
Meanwhile, Karel is heading South, hoping to be reunited with Susan, his wife. As he walks, he hears more of the stories of the robots, and begins to understand something about his place on the world of Penrose.
But with limited resources and tensions growing between robot and human it’s only a matter of time before problems arise. And it’s becoming more and more apparent that the humans are a lot more powerful than the robots first expected…

Transformation Space by Marianne De Pierres (Orbit)
I'm really enjoying this series from Marianne and after three books - Dark Space (review), Chaos Space (review) and Mirror Space (review) - that have built up the story to the point it's at now this is a must read. Due in December.

Empire of Light by Gary Gibson (Tor UK)
The last book in the Shoal Sequence and following on from Stealing Light (review) and Nova War (review), this has all the promise to deliver an action packed finale. Time will tell, but it could be one of the best of the year. Due in July.

The nova war has begun to spread as the Emissaries wage a fierce and reckless campaign, encroaching on the area of space occupied by humanity and forcing the Shoal into a desperate retreat. While Dakota goes in search of the entity responsible for creating the Maker caches, Corso, left in charge of a fleet of human-piloted Magi ships, finds his authority crumbling in the face of assassination attempts and politically-motivated sabotage.
If any hope exists at all, it lies in an abandoned asteroid a thousand light-years beyond the Consortium's borders, and with Ty Whitecloud, the only man alive with the skill to decipher the messages left behind by an ancient race of star travellers. Unfortunately Whitecloud is locked in a prison cell aboard a dying coreship adrift in space, awaiting execution for war crimes against Corso's own people. But if humanity has any hope of survival, Corso is going to have to find some way to keep him alive - and that's only if Dakota doesn't kill him first ...

Here are some more books that sound interesting, but I don't have many more details on the newer ones at present - when I do I'll be sure to post them! You'll see a couple of omnibuses in there which I will be trying to get around to as I've never read the originals:

1. Guardians of the Phoenix by Eric Brown (Solaris)
2. The Noise Within by Ian Whates (Solaris) | May
3. The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi (Gollancz) | September
4. Veteran by Gavin G. Smith (Gollancz) | June
5. Absorption by John Meaney (Gollancz) | May
6. Xeelee: An Omnibus by Stephen Baxter (Gollancz) | March
7. Vernor Vinge Omnibus: A Fire Upon the Deep, A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge (Gollancz) | October