Rogues

This is a collection of short stories about various rogues written by a range of writers, with the notable selling point of containing a World of Ice and Fire historical novel. But it's far from filler - there are some great stories in here. Joe Abercrombie's Tough Times All Over is a whirlwind adventure following a package that is stolen by one rogue after another, and would make a great movie. Carrie Vaughn's "The Roaring Twenties" is a great episode, and made me want to read more of these characters' exploits. George R. R. Martin's The Rogue Prince is written as a history text, and so is rather dry, but adds more interesting depth to the world of A Game of Thrones. I don't think there were any stories in the rather weighty tome that I'd suggest skipping - it's a very solid anthology.

The Magicians

Lev Grossman's The Magicians is essentially "what if the Harry Potter world was populated with actual teenagers who are messed up and obsessed with sex like real teenagers are. Also Narnia". It works surprisingly well, with Grossman throwing in references to many other stories and ideas without going over the top or seeming inauthentic or corny. It's very much set in our modern world, except when the characters sometimes step out into more magical worlds that are related to our world in various ways. It's an excellent read.

The Expanse Novellas

In addition to the long series of long novels, there are a collection of novellas and short stories set in the expanse universe:

• Gods of Risk
• The Churn
• The Vital Abyss
• Drive
• The Butcher of Anderson Station

Each adds interesting background to the characters and setting. A couple of these (The Churn and Drive, in my opinion) are excellent, and collectively they have made me more keen to continue reading the series (my enthusiasm was starting to wane a little as the series dragged on).

Lovecraft Country

Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country is an excellently done take on a Lovecraftian story of scheming sorcerers told from an outsider perspective. It also neatly parallels the otherworldly horror of the Cthulhu mythos with the terribly real-world horrors of Jim Crow era racism in the US. It even manages to convey a bit of the disconnected flow of 30's pulp fiction, with each section of the novel being told from the perspective of a different member of an African-American extended family. It's the 1950s, and Atticus Turner, a veteran of World War II, finds a cryptic message from his uncle, and with his uncle and a friend travels up into the backwoods of New England to find him. This gets him and the extended family tangled up in the affairs of sorcerers, and the rest of the story details how they try to extract themselves from this mess. But the real horror is the routine danger of being black in a country of grinding and omnipresent racism. It's a very well done novel, and delivers its message deftly and effectively.

All the Birds in the Sky

Science vs. Magic! Two nerds befriend each other in school, one a latent witch, and the other a developing technological genius. But life separates them and they grow up apart, each fully developing their power and training it as much as possible. Then, naturally, science and magic go to war and they find themselves on opposing sides, which could end everything.

All the Birds in the Sky is the first of Charlie Jane Anders' stories I've read (I used to be a devoted reader of io9.com, so I've like her writing for a long time). It's cleverly done, and is a really well realized world of magic and science (though the science feels rather magical throughout). Well worth a read.

Nemesis Games

This latest installment in the Expanse series takes a different turn, with the previously inseparable crew of the Rocinante each going their separate ways to deal with issues from their past. It's a good change, adding much needed depth to the characters. A lot of backstory for each character is added, and all of them (except the obnoxiously good and noble and fair Holden) have a lot of their seedy background revealed to the reader as they each try to resolve some unresolved aspect of their past.

But, being the Expanse series, this puts each of them into exactly the most critical part of the solar system so they can be key players in the next big round of ramping-up-the-epicness (which seems to kind of happen every second novel in the series). I can't say pretty much anything without spoilering the book, but this was a refreshing improvement to the series, and much more enjoyable than the previous book, and it sets the stage for even vaster epicness coming up while staying true to the series' basic premise that the four main characters have to be present when anything important happens in the universe.

Cibola Burn

The Expanse series has an odd oscillation between huge, sweeping cosmic visions which affect all of humanity, and tight, focused, small events that affect a small group of people. This fourth book in the series swings back to that tight focus, when James Holden and his crew are sent to deal with a conflict on the first planet outside the solar system that is settled by humanity. There are two groups - some free settlers who have asserted squatters rights and set up a mining colony on the planet, and a large Earth corporation that wants to survey the planet and study it scientifically. Things immediately get nasty between these two groups, and they stay nasty, nearly leading to the deaths of everyone involved. Again, the mystery of the civilization that made all this is touched on and more information is gradually revealed, but at the end, we are still left with just tantalizing clues and more questions. This episode of the series isn't one of the strongest, since it seems to focus on characters, and that has never been the strong point of the series.