Perhaps the most overused phrase in science fiction publishing (besides “space opera”) is “eagerly awaited.” It’s not a claim that’s easily disproved—after all, every book is eagerly awaited by someone, if only its author. But that’s not how the marketers want you to see it. They want to give the impression that hordes of rabid fans are lined up for blocks in front of bookstores, in the fashion of Harry Potter or Twilight, counting the seconds until they get the new title in their hot little hands. In this way they hope to build excitement, which leads to more sales.
And we really can’t blame the marketers; it’s their job to sell books. But let’s be honest for a moment . . . very few books are actually “eagerly awaited” by more than a comparative handful of readers. If that phrase is to mean anything useful, there ought to be some ground rules. Let’s count the ways that science fiction can legitimately be “eagerly awaited.”
First, consider the science fiction magazines. As far back as the pulp era of the 1930s, readers impatiently anticipated each new issue. Isaac Asimov told of filling school notebooks with calculations of how many seconds remained until the next issue of Astounding hit the stands. To judge from the message boards, modern subscribers to Analog know exactly how he felt. Here, then, is our first category of “eagerly awaited”: magazines—or, indeed, anything that’s published periodically on a more-or-less regular schedule (and now you know why librarian-types often call magazines “periodicals.”) Periodic anthologies also count, like the various “best of the year” reprint volumes or well-regarded original anthologies like George Mann’s Solaris Book of New Science Fiction or Roby James’ Warrior Wisewoman.
A second kind of “eagerly awaited” book is one that continues a story begun in an earlier book (or books). Cliffhanger endings are particularly effective in building eagerness; if you leave your characters in jeopardy at the end of one book, you’ll have readers salivating for the next one. But even without a cliffhanger, a continuing story has its own built-in appeal.
In the same vein, a book that completes a story can be awaited even more eagerly. Think of Return of the Jedi, E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Children of the Lens, or Anne McCaffrey’s All the Weyrs of Pern. This is the classic pattern of the trilogy: A popular first book is followed by an eagerly awaited sequel that continues the story; next comes the more eagerly awaited third book, which brings the story to a satisfactory ending.
With an ongoing series, where there is no natural end to the story, the “eagerly awaited” status comes less automatically. All things being equal, the eighth book of a series is less eagerly awaited than the concluding book of a series. In some cases, a lengthy series can even decrease the eagerness for each successive book—how often have you felt that an author ran out of steam around book six, and everything since then has been sub-par? And since we’re being honest, how many times have you stopped reading a series after book seven or eight? Now we’re into negative eagerness.
Elapsed time can help (you might think of this as the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” category). Isaac Asimov published the third Foundation book in 1953, and it wasn’t until 28 years later that the fourth book appeared. In the interim, whole generations of readers devoured the original trilogy and begged for more. Foundation’s Edge was certainly one of the most “eagerly awaited” SF novels ever. Even a lapse of a seven or eight years can ratchet the eagerness up to pretty high levels, as we’ll see below.
A good enough writer can produce high eagerness without the help of cliffhangers, continued stories, or series at all. One classic example is Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote mostly standalone novels that certainly fell into anyone’s definition of “eagerly awaited.” Here, too, a hiatus can boost eagerness—how often have you seen a book advertised as “So-and-so’s first novel in x years”? Alfred Bester and Theodore Sturgeon were both stellar writers who produced books so irregularly that each one was most “eagerly awaited.”
Finally, there are eagerly awaited books that come out of nowhere. Sometimes the eagerness stems from the author—Carl Sagan’s first SF novel, Contact, wasn’t “eagerly awaited” because the world wanted another First Contact story. If Stephen Hawking or Neil deGrasse Tyson were to write a science fiction novel, you can bet that book would be “eagerly awaited” indeed. Sometimes a movie or TV show can generate an “eagerly awaited” book, as with Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, which was marketed in 1978 as a continuation of the Star Wars story. And sometimes the subject of a book builds expectations all on its own, even if the author is relatively unknown in the field—again, we’ll see an example below.
With all this buildup, I’m sure you’re waiting to hear about some books that truly are eagerly awaited. So let’s begin.
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Cryoburn
Lois McMaster Bujold
Baen, 345 pages, $25.00 (hardcover)
Baen Webscriptions: $15.00 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-4391-3394-1
Series: Miles Vorkosigan 16
Genre: Adventure SF |
Cryoburn
This may be the most eagerly awaited book here. Lois McMaster Bujold’s last Miles Vorkosigan book came out in 2002, and with each passing year readers have become more and more eager for the next. In eight years, more and more new readers have discovered the series, read all the books, and wanted more. They can’t help it, it’s a law of nature: to read a Bujold book is to want more.
If you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Miles Vorkosigan, you might wonder what all the fuss is about. I know I did, for I came to the series late, after friends had been after me for years to give it a try. First, there is Miles himself: A man born small, weak, and fragile due to congenital deformities, but with quick wits, unconquerable will, and an ability to get himself into and out of trouble by taking the least direct routes. The son of a nobleman, Miles triumphs over adversity and obstacles and makes his own way in the universe.
Then there’s Bujold’s writing, which is like a refreshing drink from a cold, clear mountain spring. Her words sparkle and delight with ingenuity and cleverness; you’ll drive everyone around you crazy by reading the better passages aloud (and there are lots of them). She is a mesmerizing storyteller. And she’s funny to boot.
In the seven years since we last saw Miles, he’s become a father and had various adventures, but he still holds the post of Auditor for the three-planet Barrayaran Empire. He and his armsman Roic have come to a non-Imperial world, Kibou-daini, to investigate strange goings-on. Kibou-daini is dominated by the Cryocombs, where millions of citizens are frozen awaiting immortality. Huge companies—cryocorps—maintain the sleepers and, incidentally, hold their proxies for voting in planetary elections. One of these cryocorps wants to start operations in the Barrayaran Empire, which is what brought Miles to Kibou-daini.
Except things went wrong, as they do when Miles is around, and he finds himself in the company of a boy who loves animals and a group of off-the-grid rebels operating their own cryo-facility. In no time at all Miles is up to his neck in the complex and deadly politics of this strange world. Once again it’s Miles against the universe . . . and the universe is fearfully outmatched.
Read this book. If you’ve read Bujold before, you don’t need me to tell you that. If you haven’t, this is as good a place as any to jump on . . . you’ll soon be reading all the others as well.
The first edition comes with a CD that contains e-book versions of most of the other Vorkosigan novels, which makes it quite a bargain if you’re an e-book person.
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Mockingjay
Suzanne Collins
Scholastic, 398 pages, $17.99 (hardcover)
Kindle, Nook: $7.58 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-439-02351-1
Series: Hunger Games 3
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic, Teen SF
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Mockingjay
Mockingjay is the concluding book of the enormously popular Hunger Games series, awaited eagerly by teens and adults alike. In the previous two books (The Hunger Games and Catching Fire) Katniss Everdeen has twice survived the Hunger Games, in which teens from the Twelve Districts of the country Panem (post-apocalypse North America) fight to the death in the Arena. In the process, Katniss became the living symbol of revolt against the despotic Capital.
Now Katniss and her family are safe in the secret District Thirteen, long thought destroyed and the base of the rebels. All of Panem is in open revolt. Katniss’ home District, Twelve, has been firebombed and its inhabitants killed. The rebels, seeing possible victory for the first time in centuries, want Katniss—in her victorious and inspirational persona of the Mockingjay—for their propaganda efforts. They tell her that she can turn the tide of battle so the Capital can be defeated once and for all. Can she trust them any more than she can trust the Capital?
Everyone wants to use the Mockingjay for their own purposes. But Katniss is her own person, and if the rebels try to control their Mockingjay, they just might be sorry.
This book brings the story to an end, and shows us the final fate of Panem and the Mockingjay. It’s as exciting and compelling as the previous two books. Don’t blame me if you find yourself staying up late to finish it.
All Clear
Connie Willis
Spectra, 641 pages, $26.00 (hardcover)
Kindle, Nook: $14.30 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-553-80767-7
Series: Oxford Historians 4
Genre: Trips in Time
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All Clear
It hasn’t even been a year, but to anyone who read the previous book, Blackout, All Clear is surely one of the books most eagerly awaited. Actually, they aren’t really even two separate books, any more than The Lord of the Rings is three—the two are clearly one (enormous) novel published in two volumes for convenience.
And what a novel! As a quick recap, for those who missed Blackout: Polly, Mike, and Eileen are time-traveling historians from the 2060s, stranded in London during the Blitz. Something has gone wrong with time travel, their scheduled return portals have not opened, and they must find some way to get back to their own time . . . while also surviving the worst days and months of German bombardment of London.
The main story is intercut with glimpses of various other eras and other historians, including the crew back in future Oxford who are desperately trying to rescue the timelost trio.
In a previous issue (March 2010, to be precise) I talked about the two basic theories of time travel: the multiverse and the “invariant timeline.” In the Oxford Historians books, the timeline is supposed to be invariant . . . but there are hints that maybe things aren’t as invariant as everyone thought. I’m not going to ruin it for you by telling you which side Willis ultimately comes down on, but the tension between the two definitely informs the books.
Connie Willis is a master artist at the height of her craft. You’ll find yourself glued to the text . . . and when you’re finished, you’ll feel as if you, too, were present during those dark times of World War II. Until we get real time travel, these books will do nicely.
Stargate Atlantis: Homecoming
Jo Graham & Melissa Scott
Fandemonium, 320 pages, $7.99 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-90558650-9
Series: Legacy 1
Genre: Media SF, Space Opera
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Stargate Atlantis: Homecoming
In the “eagerly awaited” competition, this one has two things going for it. First, it’s a continuation of a one of the best SF television shows in a long while. Second, it’s Melissa Scott’s first book since 2001. Let me handle these in reverse order.
Melissa Scott is best known for her Roads of Heaven trilogy (Five-Twelfths of Heaven, Silence in Solitude, and Empress of Earth) and intelligent cyberpunk novels like Trouble and Her Friends and The Jazz. Scott is one of the most inventive and intelligent authors in SF; I would easily stack her up against Samuel R. Delany and Robert J. Sawyer. That she hasn’t had a new book out in ten years is a pity. (Her co-author, Jo Graham, is an up-and-coming author of marvelous historical fantasies; it’s great to see her playing on the SF side of the fence.)
Stargate Atlantis was a spinoff of its older brother, Stargate SG-1. Unlike the current spawn of the franchise, Stargate Universe, Atlantis and SG-1 were both intelligent science fiction presented with true sense of wonder, the most authentic-sounding technobabble anywhere, and more than a dollop of good humor. Atlantis was cancelled after its fifth season; what Scott and Graham have done is to plot out the unaired sixth season, and they’ll be presenting it in a series of books of which Homecoming is the first.
It was worth the wait.
At the end of the series, the flying city Atlantis had returned to Earth from the Pegasus Galaxy. In this book, set a few months later, the scattered crew comes together (along with some new faces) to take the city back to Pegasus. There they will continue the fight against the vampiric Wraith who threaten the human populations of that galaxy.
Make no mistake, this is real science fiction. Sure, the authors capture the voices and personalities of the various characters very well, and they stay faithful to the background established in the two shows—but they go beyond all that, adding new depth as only the printed word can.
Fan of Stargate or not, if you like good, intelligent space opera, you’ll like this book.
Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century: Volume 1
Remember when I said that a book could be “eagerly awaited” because of its subject matter? Here is a perfect case in point: volume one of the authorized biography of Robert A. Heinlein.
To a large degree, science fiction is what it is because of Robert A. Heinlein. He gave shape to the field during the Campbell Revolution, he spread SF out of its pulp ghetto and into popular culture. His teen SF books brought multitudes of new readers to the genre (and, not incidentally, multitudes to careers in science and technology). He blazed trails that the rest of us are still following, nearly a quarter-century after his death.
Yet this cornerstone figure was an intensely private man, and only the barest outline of his private life was known. In a field in which writers have always had intimate connection with their readers, Heinlein was something of an enigma.
No longer.
William H. Patterson, Jr. starts at the very beginning, and takes us through Heinlein’s childhood, his training at the Naval Academy, two of his three wives (everyone thought there were only two!), and his subsequent career up to the postwar years and his marriage to Virginia. In between we learn of his health problems, his adventures and misadventures in politics, and a great deal more of the influences that made the man who was rightly called “the Dean of Science Fiction.”
If you know Heinlein’s writing at all, you’ll have a grand old time pointing and saying “So that’s where that came from!” every few pages. If you think you know something of Heinlein’s philosophical or political beliefs, you’ll find yourself surprised more than once. And if you just want to read about the fascinating life of an amazing man, you’ll get that, too.
This volume one was certainly “eagerly awaited” in the SF field. And volume two will surely be the most eagerly awaited science fiction biography . . . well, ever.
. . . And I promise that in the future, I’ll be more sparing of the term “eagerly awaited.”
Don Sakers is the author of All Roads Lead to Terra and The Leaves of October. For more information, visit www.scatteredworlds.com.
"The Reference Library" copyright © 2011, Don Sakers
