New books

This manuscript review of the upcoming Richard Morgan fantasy novel (!) the Steel Remains is a bit over the top in its praise, but it does look like Morgan is taking a new tack, which is good news. And it is Richard Morgan, so it will be worth reading.

Scott Bakker, he of the bleak Prince of Nothing trilogy, has decided to write a bleak thriller called Neuropath. It involves a serial criminal who kidnaps people and re-architects their brains so they become different people.

After all that heaviness, it is nice to read something with a sunnier side. In Jim the Boy, Tony Earley wrote a coming of age tale that didn't involve incest, adultery, exploratory straight sex, exploratory gay sex, alcoholism, drug use, accidental death, or any other form of transgression. Rather it showed a young man coming to learn about death in the way that most people do, when a grandparent dies. Scott Turow reviews the sequel in the NYT.