Just Arrived, 1/11/10
Posted on January 11, 2010 Posted by John Scalzi 32 Comments
Books what came in the mail today:
* Tails of Wonder and Imagination, edited by Ellen Datlow. An anthology of fantastical tales featuring cats (thus the modeling of the book with Ghlaghghee). Night Shade Books, out this month.
* Lightbreaker and Heartland, by Mark Teppo. The first and second books in Teppo’s “Codex of Souls” series. Lightbreaker is currently out; Heartland will be out this month. Teppo will also be penning a Big Idea for Heartland in about a week. Night Shade Books.
* Shadowline, by Glenn Cook. Night Shade reprints a science fiction trilogy from the “Black Company” author; this is the first of those books. Out in January.
* Hespira, by Matthew Hughes. Hughes’ latest installment in his genre-bending Henghis Hapthorn series. Out now, from Night Shade Books.
* The Talisman #3. The third installment of Del Rey Comics’ adaptation of Stephen King’s and Peter Straub’s massive fantasy book. On sale 1/27.
*You will read this book*
*You will bow down before the Hypnocat*
* Shadowline, by Glenn Cook. The “Black Company” author beings a science fiction trilogy with this book. Night Shade Books, out this month.
I assume you meant ‘begins’, not ‘beings’, yes?
some deep blue eyes on that cat.
Also, Glenn cook is win.
Sigh new Glen Cook. Add THIS to my pile of to be read books.
As a fellow Hughes, I think I’m legally obligated to read anything that has my name on it. I’ve read a few of his and enjoyed them. Plus people think I’m the author when they see them on the shelves :-)
It’s not a *new* Glen Cook novel; it’s a reprint of a 1982 trilogy. “Passage at Arms,” a novel set in the same universe as the Starfishers trilogy, was also reprinted a few months ago.
Very pretty eyes. How ’bout a close up of those big blue gems. Nice book too; love Cook. Remember the Starfishers?
Thanks, David H. Will fix.
Hmm, yet another Glenn Cook book to add to the list (as I remember, this one has been out of print for a long time).
They’re reprinting the Starfishers trilogy! Fantastic! (and David @6 — thanks for the heads-up on “Passage to Arms” — I had completely missed that one, and had no idea that there was a fourth Starfishers book!)
Yeah–the thing that surprises me about “Passage to Arms” is that they reprinted that one first (the original trilogy came out in 1982; “Passage to Arms” came out in 1985). *shrugs* I really don’t care–I’m just freaking glad that they’re reprinting his awesome, awesome stuff. Because of their reprinting, I was able to read “The Dragon Never Sleeps” for the first time (and it was great).
Now if I could only get Roc Fantasy to get around to reprinting Garrett P.I. #6 (“Red Iron Nights”) which they seemed to have missed in their massive series reprint over the last few years. I’m not really interested in paying $20+ for a used mass market paperback.
And huh, I didn’t mean to correct Mr. Scalzi–I thought I was responding to #4. Didn’t mean to come off as a dick to Mr. Scalzi if I did!
O Great Scalzi, what a supremely wonderful picture of Her Most Superb Shimmering Radiant Perfection.
Since you are such a millstone around Her Neck these moments of captured happiness are few and far between. Normally we would object to the presence of the book in the picture, but here we acknowledge that it pleases Her – and actually counteracts Her Normal Expression of Exasperation and Resignation as She contemplates you.
It must be one hell of a book.
The Executive Committee of The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club, a quorum being duly assembled, awards you the coveted Seal of Approval Award:
The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club Seal of Approval Award
valid from 11 Jan. 2010 to 17 Jan. 2010
The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club
You would think that the cat’s enthusiasm for books would have flagged by now.
It’s great you’re resurrecting the Book Haul posts. And hey: you managed to please Chang (or, rather, Chang) with this one! (Although, I’d have said that Ghlaghghee looked scared in that post – if I dared to hypothesize about her mental state, knowing how Chang feels about such speculation).
I got to talk to Matthew Hughes (the author, not the commenter) for a bit at Rustycon a few years back and he’s a heck of a nice guy. Been reading his books ever since and they are very fun reads. This one definitely goes on my Buy After Payday list.
I love the cat’s expression: “You keep making me pose for photos for your blog, but now you want me to sit behind a book on the floor? Seriously? There had better be steak involved in this operation.”
For those folks eager to get in on the free book action, I’ll be giving away five ARCs at random — among them State of Decay, Yolen & Snyder’s Except the Queen, Haldeman’s Starbound and others — the instant I get my 1000th Twitter follower I can verify isn’t a spammer or a bot. (Figure that part’s fair.) Winners will be picked out of the full thousand by the reliable old “pull it out of a hat” method.
Mr. Scalzi, a typo: “Hesperia” should be “Hespira”. Now it’s on my wishlist, so thanks for letting us all know about it!
Fixed; thanks.
I read 90% of the Teppo after World Fantasy (I got it as part of my free goody bag — thanks Nightshade!) and had to stop. I just didn’t enjoy it at all. I hope other people who have read the book will chime in on the big idea thread and give me a different perspective. It was one of those things where you look at a piece of art and go “there’s something here that I’m not seeing.”
(If it’s not clear, I’m really not posting to rag on the book. I just really want to hear different perspectives on it because I had the strong sense I was missing something when I read the text. Not something overt on the plot level, but some subtler kind of… perspective or analysis or viewpoint or something that would have made everything click. I’ve been wanting to talk to other people who read the book, but haven’t found any yet, so I’m eager to see the text discussed in a space like this.)
Wow! What gorgeous eyes–and cool whiskers–but he/she has no nose or mouth…ooooooh. Eerie.
Hee. Ghlaghghee certainly looks wonder-ed and imagination-ated there.
somehow i always end up buying anything that ellen datlow edits. i wonder why that is. . .? and i have the added bonus of knowing that ghlaghghee approves, so i receive cat-karma bonus points with purchase. yay me! :)
turtlesong: I hope it’s because your taste dovetails with mine ;-)
turtlesong’s tastes must conCATenate with Ellen’s….
And now I not only have a Matt Hughes book to add to my “wants it wants it wants it!” list, but a Glenn Cook volume I seem to have missed somehow or t’other back in the day…
@5: There is another (a 3rd) Matt Hughes…the ultimate fighter one.
And that kitty has startlingly blue eyes, indeed. I completely missed the book the first couple of times I looked at the pic. John’s commentary re the modeling of the Datlow anthology seemed non sequiter until I made myself look at the whole picture, not just the blue-eyed purry furriness.
Speaking of notifications, this just turned up on my Twitter feed: Why do we reject manuscripts?
It’s Glen Cook with one N, not Glenn.
I would not normally post to correct typos at all, and I have read the next blog post after this on the subject, but something about misspelling names grates at me, especially the name of an author I really love, so I’m afraid I have to. Sorry. Feel free to delete this post from the thread if it annoys you to have spelling corrections hijacking the conversation.
Glad to see Matthew Hughes on the list — I love his stuff!
If anyone here has read his Henghis Hapthorn books but nothing else, don’t forget to try his Guth Bandar stories as well. I find them to be both inventive and entertaining.
Shadowline by Glen Cook is the primary book I read that I thought would make a totally kick-ass movie. It is sooooo dense with concepts presented so matter-of-factly, it could be a combination of The Usual Suspects and the space-war parts of Star Trek, or Serenity.
Glen Cook is the shiznit.
Posted my bookhaul for Wednesday the 13th, and intriguingly I was sent an entirely different batch of Night Shades than what they sent you. (scratch scratch) Oh well, not that I’m complaining.
Shaking my mind out of the gutter again…So “Tails of Wonder” isn’t erotic fiction? Well, maybe for furries.