Category: New Books

Some New Books

Here are some new books that I\’ve recently picked up from Ebay UK, Amazon UK, and from my regular supplier of comics and books in the US, genial Jack Curtin:

  • THE GREAT SF STORIES 19 edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg (paperback)
  • THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF TIME TRAVEL SF edited by Mike Ashley (trade paperback)
  • HAWKMOON: THE HISTORY OF THE RUNESTAFF by Michael Moorcock (trade paperback)
  • INSIDE THE TARDIS – THE WORLDS OF DOCTOR WHO by James Chapman (trade paperback)
  • GREAT TALES OF SCIENCE FICTION edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg (hardback)
  • THE YEAR\’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY 2013 edited by Rich Horton (trade paperback)
  • AFTER THE END: RECENT APOCALYPSES edited by Paula Guran (trade paperback)
  • WORLDS OF EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS edited by Mike Resnick and Robert T. Garcia (trade paperback)
  • MODERN GREATS OF SCIENCE FICTION – NINE NOVELLAS OF DISTINCTION edited by Jonathan Strahan (trade paperback)
  • RAGS & BONES: NEW TWISTS ON TIMELESS TALES edited by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt (hardback)
  • THE SECRET HISTORY OF MARVEL COMICS by Blake Bell and Dr. Michael J. Vassallo (oversized hardback)

That\’s quite a nice haul, if I do say so myself. Interestingly, these are almost all fiction, mostly anthologies of short fiction. Out of the eleven books, nine are fiction, and eight of those are anthologies. The other (the Moorcock) is an omnibus of four novels.

Only two of the books are non-fiction, which is pretty unusual, given my buying habits in recent years, which has swung sharply towards more non-fiction. Maybe next time it\’ll be mostly non-fiction.

It will be interesting to keep an eye on this, just to see whether it is a blip, or the start of a new trend swinging back towards buying more fiction.

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells… What Did Santa Bring Me For Christmas?

I\’ve had a nice, quiet few days, spent with family and friends. The food and booze have been flowing thick and fast, and I feel like an overstuffed turkey right now. I\’ve put on a few pounds, as is usual at this time of year, and now I have to spend the next couple of months exercising and cutting back on the eating, so I can get rid of the weight that I\’ve put on over a few short days. It\’s always a heckuva lot easier to put it on than it is to get it off again.

So what did Santa bring me for Christmas? Well, I\’m waiting until the New Year to get the expensive stuff – I\’ve got my eye on a nice 10 inch tablet computer and a 27 inch flatscreen monitor for my desktop – so this year\’s Christmas haul is pretty much made up of lots of small things, mostly books and DVDs.

DVDs:

  • Kick-Ass
  • X-Men: First Class
  • District 9
  • Prometheus
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
  • The Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists (animated film by the creators of Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit)
  • Hanna Barbera 4 DVD Bumper Pack (Box Set containing Dastardly & Muttley Vol. 1, Wacky Races Vol. 1, Top Cat Vol. 1 and Hong Kong Phooey Vol. 1)

BOOKs:

  • Destroyer of Worlds by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner (prequel to Ringworld) [hardback]
  • Doctor Who – The Coming of the Terraphiles by Michael Moorcock [hardback]
  • Space (MK/Miles Kelly book of facts and information about space)
  • Painting Box Learn to Paint Landscapes & Figures (box set of two practical painting books)
  • Paint & Paper – A Masterclass in Colour and Light by David Oliver (large oversized hardback)
  • Ultimate Creative Crafts – Step-by-step instructions for over 70 creative crafts projects

That\’s quite a nice haul of Christmas presents, if I do say so myself. It\’s going to take me a while going through this lot. 🙂

Some New Books

I\’ve built up a new stash of recently acquired books to add to my ever-growing \”To Read\” pile. If I can acquire a couple of extra lifetimes, I might even get to read a few of them.

First up is a large hardback anthology, Machines That Think, edited by Isaac Asimov, Patricia S. Warwick and Martin H. Greenberg. This one contains twenty-nine stories about robots and computers. Next up is The Year\’s Best Fantasy, Second Annual Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. I\’m not nearly as big a fan of fantasy as I am of SF, but these two ladies always put together a decent anthology.

Third on our list is 18 Greatest Science Fiction Stories, edited by Laurence M. Janifer, followed by Not the Only Planet – Science Fiction Travel Stories, edited by Damien Broderick. And last up are two novels, which is a rarity for me these days (I tend to read a lot more short fiction than I do novels). The hardback of Mining the Oort, by Frederik Pohl looks very interesting indeed. And the final book is a novel by Edward Eager, The Time Garden, a kid\’s/YA fantasy novel written back in 1958. Looks a bit of an oddity, but interesting.

Also, I must get another chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows under my belt. I\’m about six chapters into it, and enjoying it so far.

Lots of good reading ahead…

A Good Day at the Shops

I\’ve had an interesting and fruitful day at the shops. Picked up a load of DVDs, a book, and a new set of plug-in earphones.

The book is the new hardback release of the final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which my local Tesco\’s was selling at a huge 50% discount.

The earphones (bought at my local HMV) are the absolutely gorgeous Sennheiser CX300 plug-in ear-canal earphones, to go with my equally gorgeous Cowon iAudio X5 DAP. I needed phones to do the excellent sound quality of the X5 justice (the iAudio X5 blows the iPod out of the water, when it comes to sound quality). The earphones cost just under £40, and are worth every penny. You\’ll be lucky to find anything better under £100.

Finally, to the bulk of today\’s haul: five Doctor Who DVDs from my local Virgin store, at only £9 each (most Doctor Who DVDs are selling at over twice that amount right now). Genesis of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks, The Hand of Fear, Earthshock, and the 1996 Paul McGann Doctor Who TV movie.

I\’m a huge fan of both the classic Doctor Who series and the new series, and Genesis of the Daleks and The Hand of Fear are particular favourites of mine from the classic series. So I\’m well chuffed with this lot. Now, if only the rest of the classic Doctor Who DVDs would come down from their relatively high price of around £20 apiece, I can start replacing my tatty old Doctor Who VHS video collection with a bunch of pristine new DVDs.

It\’s going to be an enjoyable week going through this lot. A load of nice music, DVDs, and a good book… what more could any self-respecting geek ask for?

Books, Books and More Books

The books keep on rolling in (mostly SF), faster than I can keep up with reading them. I sometimes wonder if I\’ll ever get to read even half of them (I\’ll be lucky) before I die of old age. But it won\’t be for lack of trying on my part.

Lessee – over the past two or three weeks I\’ve amassed somewhere in the region of 50-60 new books. A few of those have been computer and web design books. Some have been science books – I started hunting down every Stephen J Gould and Robert Zubrin book that I could find – and several have been history books.

However, at least 70% of the books have been SF, split fairly evenly between novels and collections or anthologies of short fiction. I\’ve bought a whole bunch of more recent Alastair Reynolds novels, a stack of Dan Simmons – Hyperion/Fall of Hyperion, Endymion/Rise of Endymion and Ilium/Olympos, several Mike Resnick novels – Santiago, The Return of Santiago and Dark Lady, and a list of others too long for me to bother typing up.

But, as I\’m a huge fan of short fiction, I get most excited by the collections and anthologies of short stories. Some of the best of my recent haul are:

  • The Year\’s Best Science Fiction 23rd Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois
  • The Best of the Best Volume 2, edited by Gardner Dozois
  • One Million A.D. edited by Gardner Dozois
  • The New Space Opera, edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan
  • Cities, edited by Peter Crowther
  • Starlight Volumes 1, 2 and 3, edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden
  • Galactic North (collection) by Alastair Reynolds

There\’s a whole bunch of other stuff, but these gems alone will keep me going for ages. I know I\’m a book addict, but maybe I\’m going a little overboard, eh? Talk about a junkie needing a fix…