The Gunslinger by Stephen King

Driven by vengeance, Roland Deschain, the last Gunslinger, must catch the man in black. The pursuit leads the last gunslinger across the Mojave desert to the end of the known world, for he will allow nothing to deter him from discovering the secret of the Dark Tower. Or will he?

My synopsis will join the ranks of thousands of variations on "The man in black flees across the desert, and the last Gunslinger follows." And there's a reason we've all used that line to build from: you just can't say much of anything else about the story without giving things away. It's quite short. The Gunslinger is the first part of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, which he regards as a single long work, rather than a series. It is part Western, part fantasy, part horror. But don't think Cowboys and Aliens; I did say it was part horror.

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson

The year is 2312 and the exodus from earth has begun. With the discovery of terraforming and interplanetary travel, humanity has colonized the solar system in an attempt to preserve their ways of life. Swan er Hong has lived her life on Mercury as an artist, often using her own body as a canvas. When her grandmother dies, she inherits data on a little-known conspiracy and is launched on a dangerous investigation with strange new allies. And all the while she must grapple with the implications of the modifications she's made to herself over the years, modifications which now may threaten the integrity of her investigation.

Kim Stanley Robinson was first brought to my attention by a guest post on this blog, and when I saw 2312 on the list of Nebula nominees (and since I had a hankering for some hard SF) I nominated it for my book club and it was selected. Fast forward to now: my hankering for hard SF has been sated, and I'm reminded why I often stay with YA and fantasy. 2312 was interesting--I got through its 561 pages in about a week, which says something about the quality of the writing--but I'm left without a really strong impression of the story, which says something else entirely.

Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey

Life has become very different in the Belt. It's gone beyond the oddly elongated bodies of the Belters and their tolerance to low gravity: in an abandoned ship, a new lifeform is growing. Jim Holden has to watch his friends and shipmates get nuked when they stumble too close to the secret; the fall-out of which is potential inter-planetary war. And Detective Miller is on the hunt for a missing Earther with important connections. Both are on a trajectory toward a gruesome discovery, but what will happen to human civilization when they arrive?

The book jacket describes Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey as a "kick-ass space opera." Now, I don't know what a space opera is; when I imagine it, I see fat aliens wearing pig-tailed wigs and viking helmets, and somehow I don't think that's what they're going for. So, after reading this book, I would say a space opera is genre-bending sci-fi, since this book is equal parts sci-fi and noir, with some horror thrown in.

Against All Things Endingby Stephen R. Donaldson

Against All Things Ending opens as Linden Avery realizes that she's doomed the Land. At the close of the previous book, Fatal Revenant, she brings Thomas Covenant back to life and thereby awakens the Worm of World's End. Linden and her companions (giants, Ramen, a Stonedownor, Haruchai, and a madman) are forced to accept the aid of an Insequent named the Harrow, who takes them deep beneath Mount Thunder to save Linden's son Jeremiah, and thereby perhaps stop the Worm.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

This is a guest post
by Jessica Kirby

Snowman—lover to Oryx, friend to Crake, monster-god to a manufactured tribe—sleeps covered in a mangled bedsheet at the top of a tree. In his waking hours he reveals his unremarkable self by fantasizing about long-lost women, devising ways to trick fish from the natives, and pissing on the crickets. His narration of Margaret Atwood's 2003 tale, Oryx and Crake, is a twisted version of his otherwise mundane reality in a futuristic world of people with citrus-flavoured pheromones living in aristocratic, bubbled communities.