New Serials
I love a good serialized story. Hell, I love the format so much, I'll put up with some pretty awful stories. (Heroes, say.) At their best, serials give you all the fast pace and efficiency of short stories plus the protracted character development of novels, which is awesome. But the print serial's been on life support for a while now (the occasional NYT Magazine Fritz Leiber pastiche notwithstanding), so the recent mini-revival of web-based genre serials is all the more badass.
All three of the serial novels/novellas below are experiments of sorts; the first two arose out of financial hardship, and attempt something like Radiohead's initial payment scheme for In Rainbows. Free to read, pay what you like; the money goes straight to the author. Makers is more of an experiment in marketing. It'll be posted in 81 parts through January of 2010, with the printed book (and ebook, presumably) coming out in November of '09. If you're hooked by November, surely you'll buy the thing to get at the ending ASAP; Doctorow's usually a little more miss than hit for me, but this is genius marketing.
Bone Shop
by Tim Pratt
Novella taking place before Pratt's Marla Mason novels. Stands alone, and is so far on par with the best of the novels. I recommend the hell out of it.
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
by Catherynne M. Valente
Title sort of tells you everything you need to know, at least as far as tone and content are concerned. Very kid-friendly, and all sorts of intertextual with Valente’s last novel, Palimpsest.
Makers
by Cory Doctorow
The completion of a once-stalled serial called "Themepunks." So there you go. Back from the dead. Zombie serial.