BOOK NEWS FOR JAN. 10TH: UPCOMING FANTASY, THE TWILIGHT EFFECT, AND GALILEO

by Jessica Martin at SF Crows Nest: Future fantasy and science fiction novels for 2010
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Here’s a list of some of the best fantasy and science fiction novels coming out in 2010. They include Secrets Of The Fire Sea by Stephen Hunt, The Ruling Sea by Robert V S Redick, City Of Ruin by Mark Newton, and The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas.

JANUARY 2010: Twelve – Jasper Kent (Bantam UK) Supernatural Historical Novel, Pbk. British Author – Sussex

The Red Wolf Conspiracy – Robert V S Redick (Del Rey US) Fantasy Novel, Pbk. US Author

FEBRUARY 2010: Secrets Of The Fire Sea – Stephen Hunt (Harpercollins UK) Fantasy Novel. British Author (UK and Spain)

The Adamantine Palace – Stephen Deas (Gollancz UK/Berkley Ace US) Fantasy Novel, Pbk. British Author – Essex.

Jade Man’s Skin – Daniel Fox (Del Rey US) Fantasy Novel. British Author (Pseudonym).

The Ruling Sea – Robert V S Redick (Del Rey US) Fantasy Novel. US Author (US Title For The Rats And The Ruling Sea)

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from Lauren Daley at South Coast Today: Everything Bronte is cool again
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Thanks to “Twilight,” teen girls are buying “Wuthering Heights.” It seems the gothic romance by Emily Bronte is red-hot among teens because, well, Bella Swan reads it.

[Stephenie Meyer has] not only made a vampire the object of young female desire, but if she says Bella likes “Wuthering Heights,” well, every teen girl on the planet wants to like it.

Sales of “Wuthering Heights” shot up in France when it was marketed alongside “Twilight” books in shops, according to the British newspaper, The Guardian. In the United Kingdom, Harper Collins republished the gothic classic with a cover imitating the “Twilight” jacket; it bears the endorsement: “Bella & Edward’s Favorite Book.”

What other books have experienced renewed popularity simply by being referenced in pop culture?

Certainly, ABC’s “Lost” has contributed more than its fair share. There are quite a few book clubs dedicated to reading the books mentioned in “Lost,” including an online club at barnesandnoble.com.

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By Jim Higgins of the Journal Sentinel: Expanding sphere
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With his high-bandwidth imagination and mad research skills, Kim Stanley Robinson mastered the terraforming of the Red Planet in his Mars trilogy, and the re-creation of world history without Christianity and European hegemony in “The Years of Rice and Salt.”

Now, in “Galileo’s Dream,” he has written a novel that’s both sci-fi and historical fiction, and pleasing and challenging as both.

To non-scholars, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) probably is known as the Italian scientist who got in trouble with the Catholic Church for asserting that Earth revolves around the sun, was forced to publicly recant this belief to save his life, and (according to legend) muttered for history’s sake “Eppur si muove! (It still moves!).”

True enough, but Robinson broadens and deepens our sense of a man who is routinely called the father of modern science. Galileo, after all, did not invent heliocentrism, nor was this his only contribution to human knowledge. His work with pendulums, inclined planes, magnets and mathematics also fascinates. Robinson is especially good at capturing the driving curiosity and excitement Galileo brought to his experiments.

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