40 Comments on “New Books/ARCs, 2/5/14”

1. I’ve found Conroy’s alternate histories to be a bit uneven, but I would at least give it a try.

2. I like The General Series but it is irritating, that the first books are now released a third time under a different name ;-). Following your post, I went over to Baen to buy the “new” book from the series but luckily noticed it on time.

3. It’s likely a good book, but the intentionally blurred/vibrating title on Laban’s “The Tragedy Paper” is really annoying. Strikes me as a very bad design choice, even if it’s somehow connected with a theme of the story.

4. I read Necessity’s Child and enjoyed it. Valour and Vanity looks interesting. I’m going to have to pick that up.

5. Still busy wanting to read yesterday’s haul. Only one on here I can recommend is Twilight Watch.

6. For some reason I thought the Kowal was titled “Velour and Vanity.”

   I’d like to know the story on the posthumous MZB.

7. I’ve never heard of this “Laban” person but that spine is certainly eye-catching.

8. Looking forward to the Valour and Vanity!

   But…_Twilight_Watch_? As an ARC? It’s been out for a while now–a re-release? *checks Amazon* He’s got a fifth book coming out in April? Cool!

9. Mary Robinette Kowal!!

10. Necessity’s Child was good as was Weber’s Shadow of Freedom. I will be looking for Valor and Vanity.

11. Besides the sleaziness of selling the General series a third time under a new new anme, it looks like they can’t even be bothered to put in a decent scan of the world map this time either.

    Tempted to see how I can do scanning my paper copies and posting it. But that would be wrong.

    (It wasn’t that great a map in the first place, but that’s another and very common matter.)

12. I want Valour and Vanity please, Kowal is amazing!

13. I’ve found myself enjoying Conroy’s alternate histories. He does a good job setting up what’s changed and the consequences of the change, but I find much of the subsequent action a bit over the top.

14. V & V for me!!

15. The David Weber – i’m encouraged that it looks thin enough that an editor probably squelched his desire to write 50-page detailed battle scenes with full technical specifications and circles and arrows on the back of each one :)

16. And I think I must ALSO have Valour & Vanity :)

17. A new MLB book? That looks interesting.

18. The MZB is a re-issue of one of her lesser known historical fantasies from, I think, the mid 80’s. It’s sort of a feminist retelling of the fall of Atlantis

19. Hm. Well, I enjoy the General series by Drake and Stirling, but I wouldn’t by any stretch call them great literature. Pulpy action-adventure with a veneer of thought, and not generally Drake’s best writing. (I’ve never read anything by Stirling, so I can’t compare there.) But fun to read and I enjoy the world-building. Amazon says this is an omnibus, and the *second* omnibus, so if you haven’t read anything from that series it might not be the place to start.

    Shadow of Freedom is good, but it’s been out for a while, so I don’t know why they’re only sending it to you now.

20. The Fall of Atlantis is an omnibus of Web of Darkness and Web of Light. I unintentionally bought it years ago, thinking it was a new book . . .

21. I’ve enjoyed the several Conroy alternate-histories I’ve read. For one, they’re stand-alones, not series that seem to go on interminably. *koff*turtledove*koff* Also, he seems to be working much more from a pure “what-if?” premise, and doesn’t have a heavy political axe to grind.

22. Necessity’s Child. Definitely.

23. Reblogged this on KhurramMedia and commented:
    KhurramMedia

24. I’ll cast a vote for The Troop. I’m always down for a good horror book, and it sounds like a good one given the advanced word.

25. Just took a look at THE TROOP on Amazon. Looks really good – thanks for the heads up!

26. Anything by MZB is worth reading – I probably have more of hers than any other SF author in my library. Only have one of the Atlantis stories though so shall have to track those down. I miss Darkover…

27. I presume get paid for writing reviews? Is this why your reading list is so large, or is it just a writer doing his homework? Or is it both?
    I hope this doesn’t sound like trolling; the questions are sincere, even if they sound rude (sorry).

28. stuffilikenet:

    http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/03/08/because-people-ask-book-acquisition-details/

29. Shadow of Freedom is good, but it’s not an Honor Harrington book. It’s a Michelle Henke book, if that makes any difference. It’s part of the Saganami sequence.

30. @scalzi: so you read 1-2 books/week comes out to 50-75 books/year? That is an awful lot.
    I am happy when I hit 15.

31. Well, I can honestly say that “The Tragedy Paper” will be the first time I will check out a book just based on its cover in a very long time, and I haven’t even seen the entire cover yet.

32. Alix in MV: “But…_Twilight_Watch_? As an ARC? It’s been out for a while now–a re-release? *checks Amazon* He’s got a fifth book coming out in April? Cool!”

    The fifth ‘Watch’ book has been out since last April.

33. New Watch has been out in the UK since last year, but this April is its first US release, and they are doing new editions of the rest of the series to go with it.

34. I did, finally, get Raising Steam. (Does flappy-armed Kermit the frog dance.)

35. Another person here looking forward to reading the full release of Shadow of Freedom. The online ARC has been out for a bit, but it looks like they pushed that out ASAP, and seems to need a bit more editing, though. I expect it to be a good time, anyway.

36. woah, wait, it just sank in… Shadow of Freedom has been out for a bit; I mixed it up with Cauldron of Ghosts.

37. @Izenmania: So it is. My daughter gave it to me for my birthday last summer, and until you made me look, I hadn’t realized she’d had it shipped from England. Good daughter! Bad me!

38. If someone would sick a merciless editor or three on Weber, I’d get back into the Honorverse stuff. As it is, I gave up around fifteen pages into interminable tome #10.

39. Oh, look, Valour and Vanity is available for preorder on the Nook! *orders it*

40. Valour and Vanity would be my pick without hesitation.