Just a quick hitter as I just got this in the mail and I haven’t opened it yet, but I am interested and will get to it right after I read some illustrated Cormac McCarthy.
I’m guessing this is the publicity cycle for a hardcover, as apparently many people have already picked up and read M.L. Wang’s Blood Over Bright Haven ahead of the hardcover’s late October release.
I haven’t read any of Wang’s other novels, I’ve sort of been reading more literary fiction and comics lately though of course I love fantasy, and of course, fantasy can be and often is literary, and what I like about this position is a lot like watching a movie and knowing nothing about it, not watching a trailer, never reading a review -and because I spent so much of the early part of the 2000s reading almost everything coming out (the interviews I have available here are not even half of what I conducted) – I now enter reading with the same kind of excitement I did as a kid, where even if I end up not liking something, there is a story of where I was and how I encountered a book, and why I picked it up because they were almost always chance encounters, adventures of their own in a way.
Typically everything seems more fresh to me and beyond books; the world and being in it are just more exciting when it’s not part of the grind and something you aren’t always prepared for. I’m fairly excited because while I wouldn’t say I rarely read new authors, I’m definitely more prone to see if my favorites have something new out. I just earlier today checked to see if Rikki Ducornet or Jeff VanderMeer had something new out.
Anyway, if it moves me I’ll be back in a bit with thoughts on Blood Over Bright Haven.