Now that I've finished looking back on my favorite books of 2022, it's time to look ahead to the books I'm anticipating in the first half of 2023:
→ THE TERRAFORMERS by Annalee Newitz (January 31): I always enjoy encountering Newitz's ideas, whether in fiction, journalism, or the podcast they co-host, Our Opinions are Correct. Their two previous novels, AUTONOMOUS and THE FUTURE OF ANOTHER TIMELINE, explore artificial intelligence and time travel in wild and unusual ways. THE TERRAFORMERS is of course about terraforming another planet, a subject I'm interested in, and the description mentions a whole lot of additional things I can't wait to read about.
→ MERU by S.B. Divya (February 1): Divya's debut, MACHINEHOOD, skillfully weaves together multiple story threads following characters in a near-ish future Earth. MERU goes far into the future and out into space, where humans must work together with "posthuman descendants called alloys". This is the first book in a planned series, and I'm eager to see where it goes.
→ THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS by Matt Ruff (February 21): Ruff has been one of my favorite authors for a long, long time. His imaginative books range across genres and always feature excellent characters. This sequel to LOVECRAFT COUNTRY marks the first time Ruff has returned to one of his story worlds. I'm looking forward to spending more time with Atticus and his family and friends as they fight more horrors, both supernatural and all too human.
→ LONE WOMEN by Victor LaValle (March 28): LaValle's most recent novel, THE CHANGELING, fascinated me with the unexpected ways a realistic family story morphed into horror. It appears LONE WOMEN begins as a historical Western, and what follows is sure to be cleverly creepy and will probably keep me up at night.
→ YELLOWFACE by R.F. Kuang (May 16): I was recently impressed by Kuang's magical alternate history, BABEL. This new novel is something utterly different, a contemporary story set in the real world of publishing, about a writer who steals another's manuscript, as well as her Asian identity. The manuscript-theft plot isn't a new one (and this sort of cultural appropriation isn't confined to fiction), but I'm excited to see what Kuang does with it.
→ TRANSLATION STATE by Ann Leckie (June 6): I'm a big fan of everything Leckie writes, so any novel is great news. When I learned the focus of this latest novel set in the Imperial Radch universe, I was extra thrilled. This book centers on the Presgr and their translators, who provided such memorable characters in ANCILLARY SWORD and ANCILLARY MERCY. I can hardly wait.
Good Stuff Out There:
→ At the Los Angeles Times, Mark Athitakis considers how 2022 became the year of the fragmented-identity novel: "Throw in some overall social and cultural atomization, and it's coming to feel like we've become rhetorically unstuck in time. Fiction is usually a lagging indicator of global crises... but much of the prominent fiction of 2022 met the moment and captured this fragmentation, thick with code-switching, style-shifting and cacophonies of anxious narration."
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