Instead of writing one huge post of all the books I’m looking forward to in 2012, I decided to highlight some of these books in their own posts throughout the rest of this year. That way I can include as much information as I want about each one without it being an 8-mile long post and can just compile a list of links to these posts at the end of the year.

The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells

The first of these books I decided to feature is The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells, the second of the Books of the Raksura. It’s the sequel to The Cloud Roads, a book I found very engaging with some inventive world-building (review). The Serpent Sea is now really high on my list of most anticipated new releases of 2012 because I enjoyed the first book so much! Fortunately, there’s not a long wait since it is scheduled for release in January 2012.

Excerpts are available from both The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea. Also, Goodreads is giving away 5 copies of The Serpent Sea right now.

Warning: The blurb below does contain a spoiler for The Cloud Roads. It’s not one that would have bothered me since it’s something I expected, but if you are wary of spoilers and haven’t read The Cloud Roads yet, you may not want to read the description of The Serpent Sea.

About The Serpent Sea:

Moon, once a solitary wanderer, has become consort to Jade, sister queen of the Indigo Cloud court. Together, they travel with their people on a pair of flying ships in hopes of finding a new home for their colony. Moon finally feels like he’s found a tribe where he belongs.

But when the travelers reach the ancestral home of Indigo Cloud, shrouded within the trunk of a mountain-sized tree, they discover a blight infecting its core. Nearby they find the remains of the invaders who may be responsible, as well as evidence of a devastating theft. This discovery sends Moon and the hunters of Indigo Cloud on a quest for the heartstone of the tree – a quest that will lead them far away, across the Serpent Sea.

In this followup to The Cloud Roads, Martha Wells returns with a world-spanning odyssey, a mystery that only provokes more questions – and the adventure of a lifetime.