New Books and ARCs, 8/14/13
Posted on August 14, 2013 Posted by John Scalzi 47 Comments
I’ve got a bit of a new book backlog, so let’s get to it: Here are some of the new books and ARCs that have showed up at the Scalzi Compound recently. Tell me if you see anything you like, down there in the comment thread. I’m sure there’s something here you yearn for.
Dibs on the Philip K. Dick collection
Is the Kadrey another Sandman Slim novel?
The Complete Stories of Philoip K Dick sounds great!
No, it’s a stand alone novel. He does have a new Sandman Slim book however: Kill City Blues.
The Kadrey.
The Dick (if there’s anything in this edition that wasn’t in the last)
Warbound, for sure. The first two books were great – especially the audiobooks. Bronson Pinchot (yes, as in Balki) is a fantastic narrator.
I’ve read a little bit of MZW’s stuff, although hard military sci-fi isn’t really my thing. He does it well though.
The Philip K. Dick anthology seems cool, but I’m pretty sure I’ve read everything he ever published, so.
It all seems a little samey. “The Angel Stone”, whatever that is, stands out, so I want that.
I’m still working on the second of the grimnoir chronicles but they are so very very good.
Shovel Ready looks good; too bad it’s not due out until January. *sigh*
Warbound, Tour of Duty, and anything by Philip K Dick.
I’d put dibs on ‘King of Chaos’ and ‘The Walking Dark’ if I didn’t live in the UK and postage costs on either side of the Atlantic weren’t stupid.
As a relative newcomer to Whatever, how does this work exactly? Do you really send out books to (the first | a random) person who calls it? Does that person compensate you for postage, etc? Or is this more a thought experiment: “if this pile of books were on my table, I’d grab this one!”
Hey Dude I will totally take the Kadrey book. I am so deserving, I’m a total ass and well my birthday sucked a couple weeks ago and my girlfriends like totally supports my worthless but… So really I deserve some free shit… Oh wait I so don’t…… Sorry….
Phillip K. Dick might be interesting but what I *really want to get is Warbound. I just finished Spellbound a couple of weeks ago & want to see what happens next!
Add me to the fans of the Grimnoir series!
Somewhere out there is a person who worked for years to become a famous published author for the sole sake of getting stacks of awesome free books delivered to his/her house unsolicited.
I totally understand that person.
[Deleted for being incoherent. Dude, chill – JS]
Sorry I’m not a success in the community even as a reviewer,,,, I’d love to sport you but no one reads my blog like they do yours…. So I really can’t add to your hits…
Guess what I’m saying is well you should be directing traffic the way of your fans blogs… Um really… Even if we are the ones who well suck and can’t get traffic all on our own in the new Internet….. Yeah that is what I’m asking… Um of you my old buddy old pal John who’s never met me but once at borderlands and I said my girl friend discovered you…. And she does not real SF no more… Yeah that’s what I mean… Um yeah man… Deal with it… Would you come visit and do a reading in the store I work at….
You’re still not making any sense, I’m afraid. Also, I’m not looking for recommendations for how to to do things with my own site, thank you.
Kadrey’s Dead Set is intended to be geared towards the YA crowd and that is how Richard talked about it when I saw him last week at the Poisoned Pen touring for the new Sandman Slim book, Although it appears the way Harper is listing it that they aren’t promoting it as YA (although the lead blurb is from Kami Garcia). It does sound like an interesting premise, though (souls collected on LPs).
Is it first-to-the-bar or random? If it’s random I’ll enter for the PK Dick – I have a bunch of his other material (and a couple of short story collections) but not this one. :D
Shovel Ready sounds interesting.
Ok?… Sorry having a bad day and I looked at my feebly feed… I’d I ever submit a piece of fiction to anywhere I need to use a pseudo name…. I’m such a fool… Sorry…guess that will never work need new Id… Crap….
Shovel Ready and Walking Dark intrigue me just based on the titles.
Hah. WAKING Dark. That’s actually kinda better.
Hello John… So sorry having a totally bad day and taking it out on everyone else… I won’t darken . You blog doorstep again or as for anything again… Sorry man forget me please… I know you’ll use this somewhere but hey I was dumb enough to post… Maybe you’ll forget it….. Good luck with the Hugo’s…. I’m such a fool and I want to write… Such a moron….
A number of things here tickle my fancy, but I’ve already got a TBR pile so big it’s applied for it’s own ZIP code, and the unread queue on the Kindle is even longer. Poor me.
Grimnoir Chronicles ++; Mad Mike, short stories, essays, and rantings; Philip K Dick, even if I’ve already read all of them, they’re worth reading again.
I’ve always taken these posts as “which would you put on the very top of your to-be-read” pile, as either an advertise what’s new or advise me on which you’d read first thing; IIRC, they’re going to either his own library or the local public library.
htom:
Yes, that’s pretty much correct.
Dead Set, Warbound, PKD
An book titled “shovel ready”. Is that a fantasy about Obama’s failed stimulus and economic policy?
*rimshot*
Oh no! I’m already a dozen books behind. And now my list is even longer. I will never finish. Oh, wait. That’s a good thing.
The new Juliet Dark is almost here?! ::flails::
I will literally* squee if I get the pkd.
*May not actually make “squee” sound.
John, I always wonder: do you actually get enough time to read many of the ARCs you get sent? You get an awful lot of material sent your way.
wiredog – there was an article I read today that said that they’ve actually changed the definition of ‘literally’ to mean the opposite of what it really means. (ie, they’ve redefined it to mean ‘figuratively’ basically) So, your * is not needed. :-/
The Complete Stories of Philip K. Dick!
@Jennifer
I know, I know. Literally* sobbing at my desk.
*New meaning. I’m actually eating an early lunch at my desk.
Wiredog, Jennifer — it’s not new, and it’s not sad.
“Tom Sawyer wasn’t turning somersaults on piles of money when Twain described him as ‘literally rolling in wealth,’ nor was Jay Gatsby shining when Fitzgerald wrote that ‘he literally glowed,’ nor were Bach and Beethoven squeezed into a fedora when Joyce wrote in Ulysses that a Mozart piece was ‘the acme of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into a cocked hat.'”
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2005/11/the_word_we_love_to_hate.html
It’s a perfectly fine use of the word that’s been around for centuries. I find language prescriptivism kind of tedious, but if we want to decry its modern decadence, let’s start with the use of “y’all” as plural, when clearly people mean “all y’all.”
Oh, and to get back to the topic so I can perhaps avoid being malleted, I’m so excited to read the new Sandman Slim book, I could literally explode. But I’m iffy about Kadrey’s YA entry. Maybe I’ll check it out when my to-read list dies down a little.
Would be interesting if you blogged occasionally about some books you read recently and liked…. Now that you are retired from your political position, its probably safer for you to have your own opinion. I discovered Daniel Abraham because Brandon Sanderson raved about him. I had never heard of him. Found a few other authors that way. Like many people I read Game of Thrones because of the Robert Jordan quote on the book. Would be particularly cool if they are lesser known authors that most of us wouldn’t notice on our own.
Then again, John could be hooked on Twilight Fan Fiction and just be embarrassed to admit it…
Complete Stories of Phillip K.. Dick Volume 4
+1 for Warbound
I especially liked the part about Faye’s real power, all the previous books had very evident hints about it … once you knew what to look for.
“Battleground” or “Shovel Ready” would be fine by me.
Sally Faye Viera: The Doctor without a TARDIS and an unfortunate vapirism curse.
stone angel looks good;
ps: I actually did buy and read “alif the unseen” from an earlier post like this, and it was VERY good.
I am intrigued by Shovel Ready purely on the basis of the title.
@Guess – John being John, if he was hooked on Twilight Fan Fiction I doubt he’d be ashamed to admit it… :)