What I Did at BookExpo

I spent most of last week at BookExpo America, the annual trade show where publishers large and small try to generate excitement among booksellers for what’s coming out over the next few months. I was filing dispatches from the convention floor for Shelf Awareness, but I also participated in two author showcases where my background as the science fiction and fantasy reviewer for Shelf came in handy.

On Wednesday afternoon, I moderated a discussion with three authors from Tor’s summer lineup. Carrie Vaughn told us about the stories in Kitty’s Greatest Hits, a short story collection which explores some of the side paths she doesn’t normally have a chance to pursue in her popular urban fantasy series about Kitty Norville, a werewolf with a call-in radio talk show. My pal John Scalzi was promoting his just-released Fuzzy Nation, which has just debuted on the extended New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller lists. And Vernor Vinge shared some insights into The Children of the Sky, a sequel to his award-winning classic A Fire Upon the Deep which fans have been awaiting for nearly two decades.

Tor.com has an excellent write-up of this panel; there was a lot for us to talk about and not a lot of time to do it, but we still managed to have a very freewheeling discussion. Each of the three books is fantastic in its own particular way; I wasn’t even familiar with Vaughn’s urban fantasy series—although I’m very much looking forward to reading another recently published book of hers, After the Golden Age—but you can walk right into the stories with no confusion whatsoever. And I don’t want to spoil the fun of the Vinge too much for you, because that’s not out until October, but since Scalzi’s book is out now, I can tell you that he does his usual bang-up job of using a riveting story to slip a philosophical time bomb under your brain’s radar. Like much of his fiction, Fuzzy Nation is easy to read, but it stays with you.

The next day, I was on a similar panel with authors of middle-grade fantasy, including Matthew J. Kirby (Icefall), Lisa McCann (The Unwanteds), and N.D. Wilson (The Dragon’s Tooth). Younger fantasy fans will find a lot to enjoy in each of these novels; heck, I think older fans of, say, Neil Gaiman might also get sucked into Wilson’s story about two orphans forcibly recruited into a magical secret society. I really enjoyed this conversation, too—there’s some highlights in a Shelf Awareness BookExpo wrap-up. And with everything I learned about upcoming releases wandering around the display booths when I wasn’t up on stage, I’ve got plenty of reading to keep me busy until I find out who I’ll be interviewing at next year’s show…

31 May 2011 | events |

May 16: Helon Habila at Greenlight Bookstore

I’m gearing up for another author/blogger event at Greenlight Bookstore next Monday, May 16—this month, M.A. Orthofer of The Literary Saloon, the blog component of The Complete Review, will chat with Helon Habila about his new novel, Oil on Water. Habila is one of the most highly-regarded African writers of his generation; he won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for his debut novel, Waiting on an Angel. He currently divides his time between his native Nigeria and the United States—he’s been a writing fellow at Iowa and Bard, and is currently teaching creative writing at George Mason University. And Michael is one of the smartest book bloggers I know; very few people are paying the kind of attention he pays to international literature, and fewer still are doing it as well as he does.

I’m about a third of the way into Oil on Water, which is about two Nigerian journalists (one young and idealist, the other older and more toughened by experience) who travel upriver in search of the kidnapped wife of a British oil executive, and I’m hooked not just by the story but by the voice of the young journalist, Rufus. And, yes, I suppose if the plot of a novel is “a journey up an African river in search of a missing person,” the comparisons are fairly obvious—maybe that’s something Michael can ask Habila about at the store.

Greenlight Bookstore is located at 686 Fulton Street in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene nieghborhood, right next to the C train, one block away from the G train, and a five-minute walk from all the trains that stop at Atlantic and Pacific Avenues. The reading will begin shortly after 7:30 p.m., followed by a conversation and then a Q&A session with the audience. You don’t need to RSVP to attend, but it’s always helpful to have an idea of how many people might show up, so consider checking in on Facebook if you can. I hope to see you there!

9 May 2011 | events |