It’s another cold, wet, miserable Sunday—perfect weather for reading and blogging. Due to getting the blog up and running this week, as well as sticking with the programme for writing Gathering (The Wall of Night Series, Book Two), I have fallen a little behind on the reading. Which means I’m still reading Trudi Canavan’s The Ambassador’s Mission, whereas normally I would have expected to be well finished by now.

But I’m close—and I have to say it’s exactly the kind of Fantasy fiction I enjoy, so it’s easy to get into the story and race along once I do get a  few moments with the book. There’s not just the magicians (& not only in the Magician’s Guild city of Imardin, but also in, or from other lands) with their varying forms of magic—and a Rogue wizard to hunt—but also the overlapping thieves’ world. I have always loved thieves’ worlds in Fantasy and have encountered some wonderful thief characters and worlds over the years: from Tamora Pierce’s Upright Man, first encountered in Alanna: the First Adventure; PC Hodgell’s Tai-tastigon in Godstalk, and more recently Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora.

What thieves’ or magician societies have you particularly enjoyed in your SciFi-Fantasy (SF-F) reading?

Once I’ve finished The Ambassador’s Mission, the SF-F “to be read” list is still looking very high. That is because I am hoping to read all the shortlisted books for both the Hugos and the Mythopoeic Awards. I’ll definitely be reading for the Hugos, because this year, for the first time ever, I am registered for Worldcon and so am eligible to vote.  So I feel I have to read the nominated books. And I always read as many as I can of the Mythopoeic Award finalists because I have loved so many competition winners  over the years.  From books like the very first winners, Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave and Joyce Chant’s Red Moon and Black Mountain, in 1971 and 1972 respectively, through favourite books and authors such as Orson Scott Card’s Seventh Son (1988), Patricia McKillip’s Ombria In Shadow (2003) and Robin McKinley’s Sunshine (possibly my favourite vampire book—paranormals, magic and baking!) in 2004, and Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys (gotta love that title, don’t you?)

Anyway, you can check out the list of previous Mythopoeic winners for yourself, here. And feel free to let me know if there’s any of your favourites there.

As you will see, the 2010 Mythopoeic Award finalists are:

Children’s:

Kage Baker, The Hotel Under the Sand (Tachyon)
Shannon Hale, Books of Bayern consisting of The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, and Forest Born (Bloomsbury)
Grace Lin, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Little, Brown)
Malinda Lo, Ash (Little, Brown)
Lisa Mantchev, Eyes Like Stars (Feiwel & Friends)

Adults:

Barbara Campbell, Trickster’s Game trilogy consisting of Heartwood, Bloodstone, and Foxfire (DAW)
Greer Gilman, Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter’s Tales (Small Beer Press)
Robert Holdstock, Avilion (Gollancz)
Catherynne M. Valente, Palimpsest (Spectra)
Jo Walton, Lifelode (NESFA Press)

Sadly, in terms of “so many books to read: so little time” there is only one overlap to the Hugo Awards, and that is with Catherine M. Valente’s “Palimpsest.” So Palimpsest is definitely there on my reading table, and in a quick skim of the back cover blurb I am intrigued to see the story described as a “lyrically erotic spell …”  But I’m starting with the Kids/YA books first and currently have Kage Baker’s The Hotel Under the Sand and Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon on the table.

And I will post my personal winner here before the Mythopoeic Society make their final announcement—but I won’t be able to do that with the Hugos, given that I’ll actually be voting on that one.

Just for all those NZ readers, if you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned the finalists for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards, it’s because I’ve already read ’em. I even nominated a couple and am definitely going to be voting. But you can check out the 2010 list of finalists  here. In the Best Novel: Adult and Young Adult categories, in particular, I’d love to know which books you personally have loved reading.