Fill your new calendar all you want with lunch dates and business meetings. Mine has publishers’ official release dates of books I want to read listed. I know some of them are bound to disappoint me – and one or two may turn out to be terrible – but for now, these are the 2008 titles on my radar, in chronological order. Hone in.

BLASPHEMY by Douglas Preston – Those of you who are regular BOOKGASM visitors know that anything by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child – together or separately – automatically equates to a “must read.” Hence, this techno-thriller, which Preston told us is “about a particle accelerator where some really strange scientific things go awry in a really bizarre and dangerous way.” (1/8)

THE 6 SACRED STONES by Matthew Reilly – Scoff all the hell you want, but I still think about how balls-out awesome Reilly’s 2005 adventure 7 DEADLY WONDERS was, what with its maps and diagrams and video-game action. So I expect nothing less from the sequel. Game on! (1/8)

THE ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN by Robert Kirkman and Jason Howard – After seeing Kirkman do great things with MARVEL ZOMBIES and THE IRREDEEMABLE ANT-MAN, I’m totally jazzed to see his take on turning a werewolf into a superhero. This past summer’s Free Comic Book Day preview of such turned out to be the highlight, so I’m hopeful my anticipation ever since finally will be rewarded. (1/15)

DUMA KEY by Stephen King – I honestly have no clue as to what it’s about – and that vague title sure doesn’t help – but I’m been reimmersing myself into the world of King lately after a long absence. (1/22)

THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST HORROR COMICS – Mammoth’s brick-sized collection of WAR COMICS last fall was a good blind buy, full of old discoveries I’d never seen before, mostly from countries outside our shores, so I expect the same of HORROR. Actually, I expect more, because horror trumps the war genre every time. (1/24)

MONEY SHOT by Christa Faust – Odds are, most all of the books Hard Case Crime will release in 2008 will be well worth your time and $6.99, but this one deserves special mention for a couple of reasons: 1) It’s the first Hard Case title written by a woman, and 2) the buzz pegs it as the nastiest novel yet for the reliable label. Chicks are awesome. (1/29)

THE PRICE by Alexandra Sokoloff – First off, if you haven’t read Sokoloff’s debut THE HARROWING, do so. It’s a terrific debut for the field of horror, offering something a little different from all the vampire and zombie novels littering the shelves. I liked it so much that I’d read her follow-up no matter what, but when that follow-up entails a maze of intertwining hospitals, monstrous nuns and crazed hallucinations, I’m just about counting the days. (2/19)

SPEED RACER: MACH GO GO GO by Tatsuo Yoshida – The upcoming SPEED RACER movie is either going to kick serious ass or suck hard. But at least some good’s coming out of it, in the form of a two-volume hardcover boxed-set release of the original manga that inspired the beloved cartoon. I’m not a manga fan by a mile, but for Speed, I can make an exception. (2/26)

THE PHILOSOPHER’S APPRENTICE by James Morrow – Another novel I have no idea as to its content, but Morrow’s THE LAST WITCHFINDER landed on our 2006 year-end list, so that alone merits this one’s inclusion. (3/11)

SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti and Khari Evans – What’s better than a comic book about a sexy jungle warrior fighting dinosaurs and losing her loincloth in the process? Another one. Frank Cho’s nowhere to be found, but the JONAH HEX team of Palmiotti and Gray suggests great things. (3/12)

THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE: THE GREAT COMIC-BOOK SCARE AND HOW IT CHANGED AMERICA by David Hajdu – I may have been born in 1971, but I know who Frederic Wertham was: the dick who tried to ruin comic books for everyone else. Hajdu’s book examines how a puritanical America fell under his spell in the ’50s, and I’ve always wanted to read a good history of that whole story. (3/18)

THE DEL REY BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY: SIXTEEN ORIGINAL WORKS BY SPECULATIVE FICTION’S FINEST VOICES edited by Ellen Datlow – I don’t remember the last time we had a really good anthology of speculative fiction. This could be it. Or not. But the title sounds awfully definitive. (4/29)

SEVERANCE PACKAGE by Duane Swierczynski – I may never be able to spell the author’s name without looking it up first, but I know I can always count on him to deliver a lightning-quick crime thriller with attitude and wit to burn. Haven’t read THE BLONDE or THE WHEELMAN yet? Then you’re not my friend. (5/27)

THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi – Look, it’s Preston again. Therefore, it’s here. This finds the journalist in Preston – and Spezi – coming out for a nonfiction account of his brush with a serial killer in Italy. Doing so got Spezi thrown in prison; perhaps you read the headlines about it. It’s a story too crazy to be true, but it is. (6/11)

THE VICTORIA VANISHES by Christopher Fowler – Again, no clue as to its story, but it’s the latest in Fowler’s “Bryant & May” mystery series, featuring two old guys who head up London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit. That amounts to strange, quirky and clever, every single time. (10/28)

DEAN KOONTZ’S FRANKENSTEIN: BOOK THREE by Dean Koontz – Here’s hoping Koontz can get all these unnecessary ODD THOMAS sequels out of his system to finish the series that readers actually want him to by this time next year, but I seriously doubt it. A guy can dream, can’t he? The excuse that its New Orleans setting is in poor taste post-Katrina is null and void by now. (by 12/31?) –Rod Lott

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