New Titles – w/e 1st December
in hardback:
Jim Butcher – Captain’s Fury 4th in his Codex Alara series
John Ringo & Julie Cochrane – Sister Time a sequel to Cally’s War, the 9th in The Legacy of Aldenata series (the Posleen ones)
Wen Spencer – Endless Blue in theory it’s sf, but it feels like fantasy!
Harry Turtledove – Opening Atlantis an alternate history with an extra continent! Much easier to discover and exploit than the Americas!
Forgotten Realms – The Annotated Elminster – collector’s edition by Ed Greenwood special edition of the original Elminster; the making of a Mage
in large format:
Joe Shepherd – Killswitch the 3rd in the Cassandra Kresnov sequence
in paperback:
Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce – 1634: The Ram Rebellion latest paperback in the Ring of Fire (1632) books…
Robert Heinlein & Spider Robinson – Variable Star an undeveloped outline by RAH, written by Robinson.
John Zakour – The Blue-Haired Bombshell the 5th in the series…
Orson Scott Card – Empire near-future sf; civil war in the USA
James M. Ward – DragonFrigate Wizard Halcyon Blythe the sequel to Midshipwizard Halcyon Blythe The first one was fun…
Catherine Asaro – Alpha the sequel to Sunrise Alley
Paul Park – The Tourmaline the sequel to A Princess of Roumania
Elizabeth Haydon – The Assassin King the 6th in her Symphony of Ages, the sequel to Elegy for a Lost Star
Jack Whyte – The Eagle the 9th and final, volume of the Camulod Chronicles
Irene Radford – The Dragon Nimbus novels volume #2 an omnibus containing The Dragon’s Touchstone & The Last Battlemage
L. H. Maynard & M. P. N. Sims – Demon Eyes horror
Kerri Hawkins – The Darkness volume 1 illustrated novel based on the story that inspired the game…
Martin H. Greenberg & Rebecca Lickiss (editors) – The Future We Wished We Had original anthology
Star Trek – Titan #4 – Sword of Damocles by Geoffrey Thorne
art, etc:
Heritage Book Shop, Inc. – Original Book Illustrations & Related Drawings lots of wonderful stuff from previous eras…
Wayne Barlowe – Brushfire – Illuminations from the Inferno not had this in for almost 6 years… art inspired by Dante
Alberto Ruiz – Bocetto possibly v8 of his art, or maybe it’s an infinity sign on the cover for some reason. It’s a bit unclear!
Dan Barry – Flash Gordon Star Over Atlantis 3 stories from one of Alex Raymond’s successors on the strip; good stuff!
Joseph Michael Linsner & Mike Dubisch – The Vampire’s Christmas graphic novel
Hideyuki Kikuchi’s – Vampire Hunter D #1 First in a new manga series by Saiko Takaki
kazuo Umezu – Reptilia manga
Britain – the mini-book of Aerial Views the history of the UK from the air – it starts with various views of geological features and procedes through time to this year’s floods… loads of pictures of ancient hill forts, etc and castles, monuments, drilling rigs, etc! The full page photos are all 14cm x 14 cm. Photos by Adrian Warren & Dae Sasitorn
magazines, etc:
The Cthulhu Rainy-Day Activity Book exactly what it says! Games, puzzles, trivia & coloring…
Kenneth Robeson – Doc Savage #11 pulp reprint magazine which includes Cold Death and The South Pole Terror
Locus #562,cover date November. Bill Gibson on the cover.
Juxtapoz December cover date
Hi Fructose #6 – not had this since #3 about a year ago… blame my distributor!
Weird Tales Sep/Oct issue, #346
New Type December
Call of Cthulhu #8 with 2 different cover options
Gothic & Lolita Bible #25
merchandise:
Doctor Who 1000 piece jigsaw of the Doctor and Martha pursued by Daleks
Hannibal – Rome Versus Carthage big boardgame re-creating the elephant man’s campaigns in the 2nd Punic War…
Emily the Strange Skeleton plushes – Miles, Mystery, Nee Chee & Sabbath
Thanksgiving means…
… having to say everything’s at least a day late!
Shadow of Pirate Freedom
I’ve recently finished the latest Gene Wolfe hardback, Pirate Freedom. It’s a fairly easy read about a priest who decides to leave his Cuban seminary and discovers that he’s actually gone back in time somehow to the age of pirates and the Spanish Main.
It should be exciting, but his memoir drifts through his adventures very blandly with no particular sense of excitment. The time travel ‘just happens’ as he wanders down the road to Havana and he soon realises that things are radically different but he doesn’t seem to care much and whatever morals he’s been inculcated with vanish surprisingly easily.
Perhaps it’s because it’s framed as a quickly-written memoir written years later that any emotion seems to have been leached out of the telling.
There’s a twist or two of course, and a revelation, but ultimately it’s one of the least exciting books I’ve read recently…
But I’m now re-reading The Shadow of the Torturer (which I’ve not read since it first appeared in paperback) – and enjoying it a lot more than Pirate Freedom !
Maybe there are layers of meaning and relevancies in PF that I missed or didn’t consider particularly deep so I may track down a review or two to see what they say but I doubt I’ll go back to the book itself.
Or maybe I’ll leave it a good quarter of a century like I have SotT !
New Titles – w/e 24th November
in hardback:
Shiela Finch – The Guild of Xenolinguists
in large format:
Ian Irvine – The Curse of the Chosen the sequel to The Fate of the Fallen and part 2 of The Song of the Tears
Robert E. Howard – The Best of REH 2 – Grim Lands
Will Clarke – The Worthy subtitled ‘a ghost’s story’ An American college prank goes wrong, and the ghost is out for revenge!
Maurice Dijon – Child From Water humourous historical fantasy…
Leslie Davis – Keeper’s Child near-future dystopian novel…
in paperback:
Jim Butcher – Cursor’s Fury the 3rd of the Codex Alara series
Eric Flint – Arkansas the 2nd 1824 alternate history novel
Alan Campbell – Scar Night
Sharon Lee & Steve Miller – Crystal Dragon the 10th Liaden Universe book
Deborah Chester – The Pearls part 1 of The Pearls and the Crown
Maggie Shayne – Demon’s Kiss romantic vampirical horror
Scott Andrews – School’s Out school life after the apocalypse, part 1 of the Afterblight Chronicles
Sarah Langan – Virus something creeps out of the woods…
Star Wars – Legacy of the Force #7 – Fury
Dragonlance – Dwarf Home #1 – The Secret of Pax Tharkas
Dragonlance – Ogre Titans #1 – The Black Talon
Forgotten Realms – The Dungeons #4 – Crypt of the Moaning Diamond great pulp title!
Forgotten Realms – The Citadels #1 – Neversfall
audio:
Doctor Who – The Mind’s Eye Big Finish adventure #102
calendars:
Star Trek stills from the original series – I suspect it’s the only ST wall calendar for 2008…
New Titles – w/e 17th November
in hardback:
Gene Wolfe – Pirate Freedom A priest who was once a pirate captain…
Matthew Hughes – The Commons far future fantasy, where the collective unconscious awakens…
Paul Chafe – Genesis a colony-ship launches from Earth…
Sharon Shinn – Reader and Raelynx a novel of the Twelve Houses
Cecelia Dart-Thornton – Fallow Blade book 4 of The Crowthistle Chronicles
Henry Gee – Futures from Nature 100 short stories initially published in Nature, the science journal. Too many famous names in it to mention!
Professor Mark L. Brake & Reverend Neil Hook – Different Engines subtitled ‘How Science Drives Fiction and Fiction Drives Science’ Looks fascinating!
in large format:
Charlaine Harris – Definitely Dead UK edition
Wendy Alec – The Fall of Lucifer book 1 of The Chronicles of Brothers a secret text is discovered: the Fall of Lucifer, as told by Gabriel! Looks very readable…
Iain Banks – The Steep Approach to Garbadale UK edition
Telos – The Target Book complete illustrated history of the Doctor Who novelisations published by Target. By David J. Howe
Supernatural – The Official Companion; series 1 by Nicholas Knight
in ‘B’ format:
M. John Harrison – Nova Swing a companion volume to Light
Matthew Hughes – The Commons far future fantasy, where the collective unconscious awakens…
in paperback:
Charles Stross – The Family Trade the UK edition; 1st in the series…
Alex Archer – Warrior Spirit the 9th Rogue Angel adventure…
Tanith Lee – Piratica high seas adventure!
Laurell K. Hamilton – Mistral’s Kiss
Aliens – Steel Egg by John Shirley
James Axler – Dark Goddess an Outlanders book
art, etc:
Aranzi Aronzo – Cute Dolls and Fun Dolls how to make his favourite characters!
magazines:
Interzone issue 213, dated December 2007
Badger puzzled by sheep
Just arrived!
It’s a normal sized paperback; he’s about 23cm long… there’s another picture on the Critters page.
£5.99, before you ask!
New Titles – w/e 10th November
in hardback:
Jack McDevitt – Cauldron the 6th Academy novel – the 1st was The Engines of God
Michael Moorcock – The Metatemporal Detective 11 short stories featuring Sir Seaton Begg of the M.I.D.
Terry Goodkind – Confession the 11th and final part of The Sword of Truth!
in large format:
Mister Kim Newman – Secret Files of the Diogenes Club a 2nd volume following on from The Man from the Diogenes Club
The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps massive collection of 50+ crime stories from the pulps of the 20s & 30s. Some nice b&w illos as well…
in ‘B’ format:
Scott Lynch – Red Seas Under Red Skies the sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora
in paperback:
Alastair Reynolds – Galactic North short stories
Ray Bradbury – Farewell Summer the belated sequel to Dandelion Wine
Kristine Smith – Endgame the fifth of the Jani Kilian books, which started with Code of Conduct and paused 4 years ago with Contact Imminent…
Anne & Todd McCaffrey – Dragon’s Fire: A New Adventure of Pern volume 21, according to the list inside the cover. Pern has run out of Firestone…
Caitlan R. Kiernan – Beowulf the novelisation based on the screenplay by Neil Gaiman & Roger Avery for the new film. (The screenplay is also in stock, btw)
Dragonlance Champions #4 – Protecting Palanthas
magazines:
Heavy Metal Fall issue
NewType November cover date
Mome issue 9; Fall 2007, a collection of short pieces by various artists, including the cover and a story by Jim Woodring
art, etc:
Matt Wagner – The Art of Grendal large hardback about a key Dark Horse title
Spectrum 14 the hardcover. The softback came in last week
Gary Baseman – My Hunger for Venison cute sketches of a deer-girl called Venison! With an extra 32 page booklet laid into the back cover
Hoang Nguyen – Memories Lost looks very nice
Yuichi Yokoyama – New Engineering b&w graphic novel – very striking
Frank Santoro – Storeyville large graphic novel; the pastel-coloured panels are sketched and I would guess it’s set before WW1…
Dan DeCarlo – The pin-up Art of Dan DeCarlo it doesn’t say, but I’d guess these ’saucy’ cartoons are mainly from the 50s & 60s
Ken Barr – The Beast Within – the Art of Ken Barr a colour SQP book
Al Rio – The Art of Al Rio volume 2 an SQP book
Emmanuel Civiello – A Bit of Madness back in stock. Big fantasy graphic novel
Tove Janssen – Moomin – the Complete Tove Janssen Comic Strip volume 2. Another 4 adventures
Moby Dick – a pop-up book a brief graphic adaptation with pop-ups of Herman Melville’s classic novel. Good fun, and excellent pop-ups!
plush toys:
lots of restock, including Sloths
the new animals include badgers and reindeer
I’ll update the list elsewhere once I process them all…
