To celebrate the release of Picks & Shovels by Cory Doctorow (the prequel to Red Team Blues) we’re rounding up some other book series that don’t abide by chronology. Check it out!
The Martin Hench Novels by Cory Doctorow
New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow returns to the world of Red Team Blues to bring us the origin story of Martin Hench and the most powerful new tool for crime ever invented: the personal computer.
The year is 1986. The city is San Francisco. Here, Martin Hench will invent the forensic accountant–what a bounty hunter is to people, he is to money–but for now he’s an MIT dropout odd-jobbing his way around a city still reeling from the invention of a revolutionary new technology that will change everything about crime forever, one we now take completely for granted. When Marty finds himself hired by Silicon Valley PC startup Fidelity Computing to investigate a group of disgruntled ex-employees who’ve founded a competitor startup, he quickly realizes he’s on the wrong side. Marty ditches the greasy old guys running Fidelity Computing without a second thought, utterly infatuated with the electric atmosphere of Computing Freedom. Located in the heart of the Mission, this group of brilliant young women found themselves exhausted by the predatory business practices of Fidelity Computing and set out to beat them at their own game, making better computers and driving Fidelity Computing out of business. But this optimistic startup, fueled by young love and California-style burritos, has no idea the depth of the evil they’re seeking to unroot or the risks they run.
In this company-eat-company city, Martin and his friends will be lucky to escape with their lives.
The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone
Set in a phenomenally-built world in which lawyers ride lightning bolts, souls are currency, and cities are powered by the remains of fallen gods, Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence introduces readers to a modern fantasy landscape and an epic struggle to build a just society.
Dune: Legends, Heroes, Schools by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson
Frank Herbert’s Dune series is one of the great creations of imaginative literature, science fiction’s answer to The Lord of the Rings. Brian Herbert–-Frank Herbert’s son–-and coauthor Kevin J. Anderson have continued the series, keeping the original author’s vision alive, bringing the saga to millions of new readers, and carrying on this brilliantly imaginative epic of high adventure, unforgettable characters, and immense scope.
Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire
The Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire is the story of Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children, a boarding school for children who come home from portal fantasy worlds and can’t adjust to their new lives.
The reviewers said about the first novella Every Heart a Doorway: “This is a gorgeous story: sometimes mean, sometimes angry, and always exciting.” –Cory Doctorow for BoingBoing, “A mini-masterpiece of portal fantasy that deserves to be shelved with Lewis Carroll’s and C. S. Lewis’ classics.” –NPR
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
In Legends & Lattes, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time after a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed. The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success — not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is. If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won’t be able to go it alone. But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family, and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.
Bookshops & Bonedust takes us on a journey of high fantasy, first loves, and secondhand books. Viv’s career with the notorious mercenary company Rackam’s Ravens isn’t going as planned. Wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer, she’s packed off against her will to recuperate in the sleepy beach town of Murk—so far from the action that she worries she’ll never be able to return to it. What’s a thwarted soldier of fortune to do? Spending her hours at a beleaguered bookshop in the company of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted, but it may be both exactly what she needs and the seed of changes she couldn’t possibly imagine. Still, adventure isn’t all that far away. A suspicious traveler in gray, a gnome with a chip on her shoulder, a summer fling, and an improbable number of skeletons prove Murk to be more eventful than Viv could have ever expected. It’s a delightful prequel!
This is one of the best lists I’ve seen. Time as dimension. Time as casualty paradox. There may only be matter whose gravitational attraction is multiplied (and generalized) because nonlocal connections in space-time demand it. Chronology is fluid. This directly challenges the perception that A proceeds to B. Time as a clock. Time is not a clock. Time is a black eye on the face of entropy. It’s entanglement that is itself, faster than the speed of light. An imagination is a witness to itself. It is why we are here. We are not in orbit around a nucleus. They wave hello and goodbye. In the crazy filter of waves. The universe has no mind. Of itself or us. It’s too universal. This gives free reign for science fiction to glow. And thrive. At one timeline after another. Pick one. Or one is going to pick you. Time as a toy for writers to chew on. I love it. This list asks a lot of questions. Beginning with what is identity. How is it that time has an identity. The brain is water. Which is comparable to three fourths of the universe’s matter-energy. And the rest is mainly silence. Chronology laid bare. There are endless options. And do not touch that mirror. You might fall in.
Thank you, Tiana Tolbert, for spotlighting creative series.