As I look forward into what's coming this year, I find it odd that movies, television, and even video games are not what I'm looking forward to most. The Avengers and Hobbit movies, the return of Homeland and Game of Thrones, and even Thief 4 and Dishonored don't excite me quite as much as the selection of books that should be coming out this year.
Firstly, Mira Grant's Blackout, sequel to Feed and Deadline. The Newsflesh series is excellent, and I couldn't put down either of the books. This May, the third book in the series comes out. After the cliffhanger on which the second book ended, I'll be at the brick and mortar bookstore on release day to grab my copy.
It's been twenty-two years since Robert Jordan's The Eye of The World was released. As far as epic fantasy fiction goes, the Wheel of Time series is on the absolute top of the list. About three books in the series suffered from too many characters and needless uninteresting exposition, but overall the series is amongst the best fiction I've read. On 1/8/2013, the fourteenth and final volume in the series will be released. Given how Brandon Sanderson has rejuvenated the series, I'm very excited for the culmination of Jordan's masterpiece.
I'm always looking forward to another Dresden Files book. Changes was the best book I read in 2011, and Jim Butcher hasn't ramped back the intensity much since then. I don't know exactly when Cold Days will be released, or whether it will be this year, but when it's out, I'm gonna eat that book up like a famished beagle going after a hamburger that just fell off the grill.
I'm the first to admit that I've got Cory Doctorow on a pedestal. From his roots with the EFF to his BoingBoing posts on privacy, copyright, and DRM to his coining of the term whuffie, Doctorow is a visionary and a damn good author. He also touts the importance of technical proficiency, and lives what he preaches. He's no computer programmer, but Cory likely knows a good bit more than I do about subjects such as software encryption and jailbreaking phones.
Little Brother is one of my top ten favorite books of all time. I've read it twice and convinced nearly a dozen other people to buy copies of the book. It's a young adult novel, but that designation is no longer a deterrent to adult readers, as series like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games have shown. Cory hasn't yet announced an official name or a release date for his sequel, but he's mentioned it more than once. It's coming.