Right now, I’m about a quarter of the way into Robert V.S. Redick’s The Ruling Sea, the sequel (second of a planned four book sequence) to The Red Wolf Conspiracy.  I’m reading this in part for an SF Site review, where I previously took a look at the first volume. My interest in Redick stemmed from seeing him at the 2009 Virginia Festival of the Book, held annually in my home base of Charlottesville.  To quote myself,

I was struck by how intense Redick was, how much he cared about his characters and the world he created and how eager he was to share it (and how he struggled to cover as much as he could within the constraints of his allotted time). He didn’t strike me as a “Tolkien by the numbers” kind of guy. So I was mainly intrigued by his personality to read his book.

BlackGate fans should probably put it on their summer reading lists, even if they aren’t reviewing it. Things  I’m looking forward to reading this summer that I’m not reviewing include:

• The Magicians by Lev Grossman
• Horns by Joe Hill
• Angelology by Danielle Trussoni
• Bright Dark Madonna by Elizabeth Cunningham
• The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen

Of course, that’s just the tip of my tottering to-be-read pile.  But I’m optimistic that I’ll manage to make a dent in it.