Mass-market paperback genre fiction recs
August 14, 2020 8:20 PM Subscribe
I am looking for good recommendations of post-2010 fiction, especially genre fiction. Specifically, it has to be available in mass-market paperback.
I am looking for recommendations for any good fiction that came out after 2010. I'm sort of envisioning sci-fi or fantasy but I'm open to books in any genre or setting. The date is not a hard cutoff, just the rough time when for various reasons I sort of fell off of reading new stuff. Assume even seemingly obvious recommendations are worth making.
However, I specifically want mass-market paperbacks. Not trade paperbacks -- too floppy and cumbersome. I want cheap, rough paper that will eventually turn yellow. Also, mass-markets are a better size to read in bed. Unfortunately, it seems like there's been a big shift towards trade paperbacks, I assume due to some kind of economic incentives in the publishing industry.
I'm hoping that books still eventually end up being published in this format, even though it seems like at bookstores you don't see them nearly as much.
I am looking for recommendations for any good fiction that came out after 2010. I'm sort of envisioning sci-fi or fantasy but I'm open to books in any genre or setting. The date is not a hard cutoff, just the rough time when for various reasons I sort of fell off of reading new stuff. Assume even seemingly obvious recommendations are worth making.
However, I specifically want mass-market paperbacks. Not trade paperbacks -- too floppy and cumbersome. I want cheap, rough paper that will eventually turn yellow. Also, mass-markets are a better size to read in bed. Unfortunately, it seems like there's been a big shift towards trade paperbacks, I assume due to some kind of economic incentives in the publishing industry.
I'm hoping that books still eventually end up being published in this format, even though it seems like at bookstores you don't see them nearly as much.
Martha Wells' latest fantasy series, The Books of the Raksura, whose first volume came out in 2011, started getting a mass-market paperback release at the end of last year. Looks as if the first one (The Cloud Roads) is out of print already(!), which is unhelpful, but you might want to pick up volumes two (The Serpent Sea) and three (The Siren Depths) anyway. She's an outstanding writer, and while it would be a shame to miss out on the start of the story, it would be an even bigger shame to miss out altogether. Besides, you might happen upon a second-hand copy of book 1 at some point.
This one's from 2008, so you might already have it, but The Atrocity Archives is the first book of the excellent and alarmingly timely Laundry Files series by Charles Stross. Cthulhu Mythos meets British bureaucracy. Volumes two (The Jennifer Morgue, 2009), three (The Fuller Memorandum, 2011), four (The Apocalypse Codex, 2013), five (The Rhesus Chart, 2015) and six (The Annihilation Score, 2016) are also available in mass-market paperback. Unfortunately, seven through nine appear not to be.
You're not alone in regretting the decline of the mass-market paperback, incidentally. Trade paperbacks are just too big - and too expensive to tempt me into taking a chance on an unfamiliar author.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 2:52 AM on August 15, 2020
This one's from 2008, so you might already have it, but The Atrocity Archives is the first book of the excellent and alarmingly timely Laundry Files series by Charles Stross. Cthulhu Mythos meets British bureaucracy. Volumes two (The Jennifer Morgue, 2009), three (The Fuller Memorandum, 2011), four (The Apocalypse Codex, 2013), five (The Rhesus Chart, 2015) and six (The Annihilation Score, 2016) are also available in mass-market paperback. Unfortunately, seven through nine appear not to be.
You're not alone in regretting the decline of the mass-market paperback, incidentally. Trade paperbacks are just too big - and too expensive to tempt me into taking a chance on an unfamiliar author.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 2:52 AM on August 15, 2020
Some of Ilona Andrews (husband and wife writing team of Ilona Gordon & Andrew Gordon) is available in mass market paperback, and also Seanan McGuire.
posted by gudrun at 12:50 PM on August 15, 2020
posted by gudrun at 12:50 PM on August 15, 2020
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Places to start if you haven’t read them would be:
The Curse of Chalion (fantasy) or Shards of Honor or The Warrior’s Apprentice (sci fi) for Bujold.
Old Man’s War or The Collapsing Empire for Scalzi.
The Way of Kings or Mistborn for Sanderson.
The Furies of Calderon or Storm Front for Butcher.
His Majesty’s Dragon for Novik.
These are the beginnings of series but many of these authors have had new books in these series or in other series come out in the last ten years, so even if you’ve read some, you may not be fully caught up yet.
Happy reading!
posted by bananacabana at 8:54 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]