Fantasy Book Critic: Some Updates and More 2011 Titles of Interest

With The Sea Watch read and reviewed, The River of Shadows in my hands and to be read soon and with Embassytown in the mail, I have 3 of the 5 books of my top original top 5 expected list.

Also the Greg Egan Orthogonal series debut has a name and cover - The Clockwork Rocket - and a firm publication date in July from Night Shade, while The Last Four Things is now the one near future book (UK release is April) that is a must for me.

A little to my surprise, How Firm a Foundation has a September publication date despite being finished only recently and still in edits - no cover yet though - and of course Heirs of the Blade is due in August.

Right now the new revised top expected books from 2011 that I do not have are:

The Last Four Things by Paul Hoffman
How Firm a Foundation by David Weber
Heirs of the Blade by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan

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As noted before I keep and continually update a post with all the 2011 releases I finish with links to reviews and/or comments - with the limitations mentioned there (essentially I include only English language novels or anthologies/collection published in 2011 regardless of genre, but not non-fiction or foreign language books) and as of today I have read 30 such titles with several more I started and will finish in the near future.

So far in fantasy there are three books that have a claim at my number 1 of 2011 and three more that will be a top 25 for sure, with Naamah's Blessing currently being the tentative top 2011 book of mine, so wonderful it was. Of course The Hammer and The Sea Watch are the other two, while The Soul Mirror, The Book of Transformations and The Dragon's Path are the top 25 A++ caliber fantasies of 2011 in addition to the previous three.

In sf Leviathan Wakes reigns unchallenged for me so far but next week comes Embassytown, so we shall see. So far no other genres (historical or literary fiction) have a book in my expected top 25, though I've read two excellent historical fiction ones that will be in my highly recommended list for sure.

Also this year has been a strong independent authors books for me with two such already on the highly recommended list and quite a few ones I expect later in the year with great potential, not to talk of the unexpected ones...