2008: A Year in (Pre)view

1. 2008 is the year that disappointed ICE Kunion readers will finally find closure, as Yen Press promises to restart their abandoned titles sometime this spring. We’re also looking forward to several Tokyopop releases, including Gakuen Alice and I Wish.

2. There’s going to be some great titles coming out for kids. Meg Cabot (who’s moving to a new publisher) has a new series aimed at the 9-12 set, and we’re really excited about Wendelin Van Draanen’s new standalone title, Confessions of a Serial Kisser.

3. Sourcebooks is releasing several more Georgette Heyer titles. False Colours, Lady of Quality, Black Sheep, and Friday’s Child should all be out before June, as well as a few of her non-Regency romances. We’d really like to see some of her mysteries being reprinted, too, but, hey, we’ll take what we can get.

4. There are several literary film adaptations coming out that we’re looking forward to. See, Hollywood is finally focusing on source material that we totally don’t care about, which makes us much less picky. We are already planning to shell out our hard-earned cash for The Spiderwick Chronicles, Prince Caspian, and Speed Racer. (We admit it—we might even seen Speed Racer opening night.)

5. ...on the other hand, chances are good we’ll end up foaming at the mouth over the BBC’s upcoming adaptation of Sense and Sensibility.

6. 2008 looks to be a good year for romance novels, including at least two more Lisa Kleypas titles and the conclusion of Nora Roberts’s Sign of Seven trilogy. If we’re really lucky, we’ll see another standalone title from Jennifer Crusie this year (at the very least, we should see a due date for one).

7. We’ve been hearing a lot about Novala Takemoto’s Kamikaze Girls (an enormously successful 2002 novel that was turned into both a manga and a film), and American audiences will finally be able to get their hands on a translation—Viz Media’s version will be out this month.

8. Fans of mysteries featuring “re-imagined” literary figures will have plenty of options—Gyles Daubeney Brandreth’s Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance and Laura Joh Rowland’s The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte will both be out this winter.

9. A House of Many Ways, the sequel to Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Air, will be out in June. And if Ms. Jones is feeling really generous, we hear there might be another Chrestomanci book coming out, too!

10. And, last but definitely not least, the final volume of the wonderfully bizarre, profoundly romantic manga Tramps Like Us will be out on February 13th. Once we have our hands on the complete series, we’re planning to make everyone we know read it. NO ONE IS SAFE.