Friday Reads: The Friends Edition

I like to think I’m a pretty good writer. I’ve been at it for a while now, and I’ve had some success. But sometimes I read something that makes me think, “Damn, I really need to up my game.”

And because I’m friends with some very good writers, that happens a lot when I read their stuff.

So, full disclosure: I know all these people. They’ve all been kind to me. But I’d recommend their books even if they were complete strangers. It’s just a bonus that I get to talk to them about writing on a regular basis.

First up, Joe Ide’s Fixit. This book, which came out last week, is the latest installment in the IQ series, about his streetwise detective Isaiah Quintabe. Isaiah solves problems for the people who can’t turn to the cops, who can’t afford the cover charge that justice seems to require in our courts. It is one of the best mystery series in years, tearing up new ground rather than recycling the same old tropes.

Fixit is the kind of showdown I love, featuring Isaiah going up against the psychotic hitman Skip Hanson. I am always a sucker for the good guy meeting his archenemy. And Joe makes Batman vs. the Joker seem like a water-balloon fight.

Next, I just finished an advance copy of Lavie Tidhar’s The Circumference of the World. Lavie writes three or four novels a year, multiple short stories and novellas, scripts, and games, and somehow still finds time to make horrible jokes and write about Winnie the Pooh as a hard-boiled detective.

This all might be forgivable if Lavie were a bad writer. But here’s the thing: he’s amazing. His prose is beautiful and his ideas are extraordinary.

The Circumference of the World is about a mysterious book written by a sci-fi writer that might be the secret key the universe, or might not exist. It leaps from the islands of Vanautu to the streets of London to a Siberian gulag to the event horizon of a black hole. Somehow, it all comes together. This is maybe my favorite of Lavie’s books so far.1

Finally, you can now pre-order Big Time, the latest book by Ben H. Winters. Ben is a fantastic writer and impossibly kind and generous person. His books are always worth the price of admission. They feature big ideas worthy of a high-concept action movie with deeply human characters. This one, about an amnesiac woman who finds a mysterious device implanted in her chest, is going to be amazing.

In other news:

• This past week also saw the release date of Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway, which I’ve recommended in the past. If you haven’t gotten it already, now’s your chance.

• Many thanks to the people who showed up at my panels and signing at the SFWA Nebula Conference last week. It was fun to get out of the house and talk about books again. It’s been a while.

• New books in the TBR pile: Ursala K. LeGuin’s The Dispossessed, Robert B. Parker’s Sunny Randall series, and Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink.

As always, your suggestions and reviews are welcome in the comments.