Ooooh, new McKinley (hopefully)! That's very good news indeed.
When it comes to automatic-buy authors, it's a bit complicated for me. There are some who definitely were insta-buys for me when I was younger (or insta-borrow-repeatedly-from-the-library), but who either no longer publish, or no longer write the kind of stuff I like to read. The big one in this regard was Philip Pullman, whose latest His Dark Materials sequel was a huge, huge letdown. (I liked the prequel he wrote, and the little tie-in novellas, but the sequel is really not good, and I'm awaiting the final book in this prequel/sequel trilogy with some apprehension.)
Oh, and with music, it's Massive Attack. They've been my favourite band/artist since I was a youngish teenager, and I will follow them along whichever musical path they choose to take. I haven't had that many opportunities to see them live, but I did do so in London a few years before the pandemic, and am very pleased that I did. It helps that, along with loving their music, I really admire their politics, social conscience, and just general ethos in terms of how they operate.
Holly Black and I share an id, but I don't tend to buy or read her books immediately, a) because the ebooks are massively expensive and b) because my local libraries tend to get them, but only after a little while (in general it can take them between six months to a year after publication to get even the most hyped and popular YA books, but I have a good sense of what types of books they are likely to acquire and a stubborn tendency to wait it out with the library rather than crack and spend £10 on an ebook I'm only going to read once).
Probably the big ones for me are Kate Elliott, Aliette de Bodard (although a lot of what she publishes is free short stories, so there's no buying involved), and Samantha Shannon. I'll generally pre-order everything they write, in physical format, from my local independent bookshop.
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When it comes to automatic-buy authors, it's a bit complicated for me. There are some who definitely were insta-buys for me when I was younger (or insta-borrow-repeatedly-from-the-library), but who either no longer publish, or no longer write the kind of stuff I like to read. The big one in this regard was Philip Pullman, whose latest His Dark Materials sequel was a huge, huge letdown. (I liked the prequel he wrote, and the little tie-in novellas, but the sequel is really not good, and I'm awaiting the final book in this prequel/sequel trilogy with some apprehension.)
Oh, and with music, it's Massive Attack. They've been my favourite band/artist since I was a youngish teenager, and I will follow them along whichever musical path they choose to take. I haven't had that many opportunities to see them live, but I did do so in London a few years before the pandemic, and am very pleased that I did. It helps that, along with loving their music, I really admire their politics, social conscience, and just general ethos in terms of how they operate.
Holly Black and I share an id, but I don't tend to buy or read her books immediately, a) because the ebooks are massively expensive and b) because my local libraries tend to get them, but only after a little while (in general it can take them between six months to a year after publication to get even the most hyped and popular YA books, but I have a good sense of what types of books they are likely to acquire and a stubborn tendency to wait it out with the library rather than crack and spend £10 on an ebook I'm only going to read once).
Probably the big ones for me are Kate Elliott, Aliette de Bodard (although a lot of what she publishes is free short stories, so there's no buying involved), and Samantha Shannon. I'll generally pre-order everything they write, in physical format, from my local independent bookshop.