37 Comments on “New Books and ARCs, 7/10/15”

1. Savages looks interesting.

2. Sew Many Dresses! But I’m surprised they sent that one to you. Unless you’re planning to set up in competition with Mary Robinette Kowal….

3. Best of Gregory Benford and a new Turtledove? Nice!

4. I dunno if I want to *read* it, but the title “you’re a vampire, that sucks” made me giggle.

5. Have had that new Turtledove on pre order for a couple of weeks already so yeah, that one

6. WARS OF THE STARS

7. The weirdest thing — I also got Sew Many Dresses. Either there was something SFnal about it that escaped my notice, or the publicist got their hands on too many copies and thought, “Screw it, I’ll just send ’em to everybody!”

   Also out of this batch I have, so far, received Bombs Away and Dark Disciple. I was additionally sent this little thing called The End of All Things by some dude from out of nowhere whom a bunch of MENSA guys with Confederate flags on their pickups assure me won’t amount to anything. My most recent mailbag also had some definite curios.

8. Sew Many Dresses? Really? Does that have something to do with SF?

9. Twelve Hours Later grabs me the most out of the picture.

10. I flipped through it in case there might be something in it for cosplayers. But newp. Just looks like a bunch of easy patterns you can do on a budget. (shrug

11. Well, The Merciless is pink with a pentagram. That catches my interest.

12. Benford.

13. Crickettshouse:

    Why are you under the impression that I wouldn’t feature a book outside of the SF/F genre? Among many other things, personally speaking, SF/F is only a small slice of my own personal book reading.

14. Well, the sewing book, obviously.

15. K.J. Parker FTW! I’m also looking forward to Turtledove’s The Hot War.

16. Dark Disciple just arrived for me as well! Got a trip coming up this week away from the family, so I’m looking forward to digging through that as well as Heir to the Empire and Lords of the Sith!

17. Oh my gods, the Best of Gregory Benford! Sweet!

18. Never read Harry Turtledove. I guess I should have, I would always ran across his books while hunting for Jack Vance in the used bookstores.

19. @Thomas M.Wagner

    Basic patterns are the basis of clothing construction (and thus, cosplay, because, ya know, priorities.) The *functional* pattern difference between a simple princess seamed dress and a, say, Jack Sparrow coat isn’t much. (Fit adjustment, add cuffs, line it, deepen collar, rotate shoulder seams back for period authenticity, but leave ’em for film accuracy. Everything else is materials, technique and trim.) You don’t think sewists are born knowing how to build a sacque or a browncoat, do you? Because oi, did I miss that particular software patch, and I’d really like a refund for the several thousand hours I’ve put into learning three dimensional textile geometry. I swear, I’ll make very good use of the time!

    (Aside — a lot of sewists take a ton of grief because textile work has been pink collared over the past century. Mid century Home Ec didn’t help. Fiber, fabric and garment construction and production are deeply tied to math, engineering and technology — my machines are programmable robots, thank you — and it’s an entry point into STEAM. (It’s textiles wonks who are improving carbon fiber, ultrafine filtration fabrics, and fire-resistant fiber — all of which have significant uses in climate mitigation, clean energy generation, space travel and biomed.) What sewists do is both art and tech, but because the majority of designers as well as home and production sewists identify on the feminine end of the spectrum, and because textile workers have been mostly immigrants, poor and/or persons of color for far more than a century, the time and effort we put into learning and working gets devalued. Which I don’t think was your intention, but your words did just that. Beginners need easy, otherwise they never make it to intermediate, hobbyists sometimes need simple because attention is their most limited resource, and personally, I’ve never met a cosplayer who didn’t have a budget. Just because you didn’t find value or cosplay potential don’t mean it’s not there.)

    And now, yes, I do want to see a MRK/JS project showcase.

20. Dark Disciple is en-route to me now from Amazon UK.

21. I have the Golden Star Wars.

22. “Sew Many Dresses.” I want that. I’m about to change careers from bookseller to “that weird lady that does alterations out of her house.” I’ll send you postage monies if I have to.

23. Does that really say “Bats of the Republic”? I’m intrigued….

24. I originally misread the subtitle of Twelve Hours Later as “24 Tales of Math and Mystery”.

    Now I’m all disappointed.

25. I don’t read other people’s mail; that’s just so rude. ;-p
    Renner, The Forgetting
    K J Parker wrote Memory so definitely Savages.
    You’re a Vampire – That Sucks!: A Survival Guide brings to mind You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore
    Vega The Merciless has an intriguing ring.
    Turtledove, Benford? Uhh, Yeah!
    Vis Sew…. An editor for Organic Gardening mag commented about their survey’s results: He found that their are two types of people: those who do stuff and those who don’t. We all read, and I don’t know about ya’all (except those whom I know write) but I do more than just read, for instance right know I’m trying to think of a reason not mow the lawn.

26. @ Cally
    Thank you, I read “Bots” and was bored. It /is/ “Bats.”

27. “Bats of the Republic” by Zachary thomas Dodson is an interesting novel as it combines a historical(type of) novel and a dystopian future Texas ruled by a repressive regime in one. Well written and thoroughly illustrated. Danielle Vegas “The Merciless” is an YA thriller about murderous schoolgirls who use knives to exorcise “demons” out of their victims bu cutting out parts of their bodies. Not for the fainthearted. Those are the most interesting of this bunch for me. Some of the others are obvious reading list adds, like the Benford and Parker…

28. Best of Gregory Benford!

29. Thanks, pathmanson. I was quite curious. Sounds interesting. (And now I know to avoid the Vegas; sounds like it’s very much a not-for-me-thanks book.)

30. I want “Letters to Zell”. It was featured over on MRK’s site and sounds entertaining.

31. I was just dropping by to express my interest in Sew Many Dresses. I thought I would be the only one.

    I am so pleased to be wrong. John, I would love it if you reviewed that. I realize you have other projects. But it would be so cool if you did. Please, please review the dress sewing book. Is there a charity you would like donations to?

32. @czedwards, i hadn’t heard the term sewist before. I guess it’s a clean modernist construction, but I do hope we aren’t losing the older, frillier terms — modiste, dressmaker, upholsterer, clothier, haberdasher, outfitter, etc. it is a shame that seamstress was so misused. I was mostly just surprised to see the sewing book in amongst the fiction,. Technical manuals always stand apart in my library.

33. L. Hernandez, I don’t think we’re losing the old terms (mostly – I think haberdasher may need emergency intervention), but none of them apply to the home sewing a lot of people do. I do a little quilting, make some clothing, and throw together a bag now and then. It needed a new term.

34. Best of Gregory Benford

35. My sister does medical research – had to get the Rabies shot series before starting a study about hypertension in Bats. She still finds them fascinating, so I’m hoping the Zachary Thomas Dodson really is about Bats and not just my bad eyes self-correcting

36. It’s not that you wouldn’t, but rather you haven’t, at least that I noticed. But you are a man of many facets. Although I wouldn’t have guessed that seamstress was one of those facets. So, was the book any good?

37. I like the look of 12 Hours Later and of course, the Gregory Benford. Most of those authors are ones outside of my experience.