Black Gate

I’m such a sucker for paperbacks. Seriously, put a rogue with a sword and a ship on the cover, and I’ve got that thing to the cash register faster than you can say, “Paper or plastic?”

I think it’s partly because I find paperbacks very inexpensive. That wasn’t always the case. When I  made my weekly pilgrimage to downtown Ottawa bookstores in my teens, clutching ten bucks of hard-earned babysitting money, that was barely enough to get 2-3 paperbacks — if I was selective.

I agonized over each choice. Keith Laumer’s The Time Bender, or Fritz Leiber’s Swords Against Death? Edgar Pangborn’s West of the Sun, or Arthur C. Clarke’s Imperial Earth? These are the life choices that kept me up at night.

Today things are easier. For one thing, paperback prices haven’t budged in over 15 years. I paid $7.99 for a paperback copy of Connie Willis’s To Say Nothing of the Dog in 1998, and I paid $7.99 for the copy of Juliet E. McKenna’s Dangerous Waters I bought last week.

That’s an incredibly long period for anything to be stable in publishing — look at how paperback prices quadrupled in the 15 years between 1965 (around a buck) and 1980 (around 4-5 bucks).

Paperback prices won’t stay this way for long. But while they do, I’m enjoying them. $7.99 (minus my 10% Barnes & Noble member discount) is still an impulse buy for me. Which means I can pick up a book based on nothing more than a cool cover, and take it home guilt free.

I have no idea what it says on the back of Dangerous Waters, but I think I’ll read it now and find out.

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We work in a genre ruled by series. It makes for some tough choices sometimes.

Case in point: I just received a review copy of M.J. Scott’s new novel Iron Kin. It looks like a fun, quick read with an intriguing setting and what could be a genuine POC on the cover:

Imagine a city divided. Fae and human mages on one side, vampire Blood Lords and shape-shifting Beast Kind on the other. Between these supernatural forces stands a peace treaty that threatens to shatter at the slightest provocation….

I was raised to do the right thing. But to my family that means staying safe behind the walls of human society. To be a respectable metalmage and never put myself at risk. But the treaty is faltering. And if it fails, nothing is safe. To help save the city and everyone I care about, I will use whatever means I can to ensure the negotiations to renew the treaty are successful — even if that means forging an alliance with a man who is the very opposite of the right thing….

Fen is trouble. Wild. He would rather bind himself in iron and drink himself into oblivion than learn to master the visions that come to him. Those visions might just hold the key to peace, and it seems that my power might hold the key to his control — if I can keep it around him….

Normally I’d plop down in my big green chair with my dog Pepper at my feet, and give it a try. Except for these tiny words at the bottom: A novel of the Half-Light City.

In the fantasy world, that’s code for: This isn’t the first book, dummy. According to a hasty Amazon search, Iron Kin is actually the third book, following Shadow Kin (2011) and Blood Kin (2012), neither of which I have.

And that brings us to those tough choices I mentioned. Do I set it aside and set out on a quest for the first one? Or do I settle in with Iron Kin, and figure things out as I go?

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I attended the launch party for Mary Robinette Kowal’s Without a Summer here in Chicago this week. I don’t get to go to many launch parties — I  tend to eat all the hors d’oeuvres, and word gets around.

The venue was fabulous, the company and conversation were marvelous, and everyone pretended not to notice when I pocketed the leftover cheese. Best of all, my review copy of Without a Summer had just arrived, and Mary told me it was the first copy she had ever autographed. (She wrote a tidy “#1” and “Thanks for being my first” on the title page, which is the kind of thing which makes up for every party you’ve ever missed in your life.)

Without a Summer is the third novel in the Glamourist Histories, which began with the Nebula nominees Shades of Milk and Honey and Glamour in Glass.

Regency pair Jane and Vincent Ellsworth go to Long Parkmeade to spend time with Jane’s family, but quickly turn restless. The year is unseasonably cold. No one wants to be outside and Mr. Ellsworth is concerned by the harvest, since a bad one may imperil Melody’s dowry. And Melody has concerns of her own, given the inadequate selection of eligible bachelors. When Jane and Vincent receive a commission from a prominent family in London, they decide to take it, and take Melody with them. They hope the change of scenery will do her good and her marriage prospects — and mood — will be brighter in London.

Once there, talk is of nothing but the crop failures caused by the cold and increased unemployment of the coldmongers, which have provoked riots in several cities to the north. With each passing day, it’s more difficult to avoid getting embroiled in the intrigue, none of which really helps Melody’s chances for romance. It’s not long before Jane and Vincent realize that in addition to getting Melody to the church on time, they must take on one small task: solving a crisis of international proportions.

Without a Summer was published by Tor Books on April 2, 2013. It is 364 pages in hardcover, priced at $24.99 ($11.99 for the digital edition). Josh Wimmer reviewed the first book in the series, Shades of Milk and Honey, here.