A Little "Bloodsucking Hordes" and "Save the Children," Please

Recently I picked up a bunch of paperbacks from Angry Robot, a new-ish SF-fantasy imprint with attitude to spare. Case in point: instead of giving us a tired old genre label on the spine, each Angry Robot book includes a helpful "File Under" tab, which provides hyper-specific subgenre labels.

For instance, the brand of science fiction in Lauren Beukes' Moxyland includes "digital natives," "corporate wars," "future tech" and "teenage riot."

Which is not quite the same brand of science fiction as Colin Harvey's Damage Time, which includes "a decaying USA," "brain reading," "wrongful arrest," and "murderous secrets."

And that's not to be confused with the science fiction of Thomas Blackthorne, whose Edge concerns itself with "devastated Britain" (why should the USA have all of the fun?), "legalized duelling," "corporate atrocity," and, somewhat strangely, "save the children" (though to be fair, I haven't read the book yet.)


Not only are the labels on Dan Abnett's forthcoming Embedded awesome ("anything for a story" and "stay alive!"), but the book has one of the best high-concept premises I've heard in a long, long time.

And while I'm not the world's biggest fantasy reader, the labels on Andy Remic's Kell's Legend reeled me in. How can you resist "a city besieged," "a dangerous hero," "bloodsucking hordes," and "sweeping battles."

Dude. Bloodsucking hordes. Say no more. Here's my credit card.

Angry Robot also scores major points with me for suggesting other genre novels from other publishers. If you like Blackthorne's Edge, the cover copy suggests you give Koushun Takami's Battle Royale, Michael Marshall Smith's Spares and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club a whirl. (And, of course, gives you more insight into what to expect with Edge.) It's always cool when publishers promote books across the board, not just titles on their own imprints.

I'm liking the cut of your jib, Mr. Robot. Stay Angry. Stay weird.