I just bought...

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The Risen Empire books by Scott Westerfield
Dorsai Spirit by Gordon R Dickson
City of Pearl -Karen Travis
Rite of Passage by Alexi Panshin
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by REH
Fall of Hyperion/Endymion-Dan Simmons -just bit into FoH after finishing Hyperion, which had sat on my shelf from when it first came out in pb.
In Search of Wonder -Damon Knight's critical essays -I used to browse this at a friend's house, but never read it outright
Benchmarks-Algis Budrys-his critical essays for Galaxy
 
I can't believe it: 19 out of 28 books on my wishlist are not yet released. All but one of the remaining books are in hardback and I'm waiting for paperback. Crazy.
 
Thanks to the wonders of Amazon.co.uk I am now the proud owner of:

"The Algebraist" by Iain Banks
"River of Gods" by Ian McDonald

which finally rounds out my collection of 2005 Hugo Nominees for Best Novel. :cool: :D
 
I recently bought The Stories of Ray Bradbury which is a huge collection of his short stories. I also bought Dinosaur Tales by Ray Bradbury which is an illustrated collection featuring his, you guessed it, Dinosaur stories. Another recent buy of mine was 18 Tales of Edgar Allen Poe, which would be awesome, except that it was edited by Vincent Price and i belive altered. I hate abrigments and alterations of classics. but oh well, it was only 25 cents at the library.
 
I have a copy of River of Gods waiting for me too. I got the PB and will be picking it up Wednesday night. I will wait on the other book to be published here, and then come out in PB.
 
Arrived today: a signed HB copy of Stephen Erikson's Gardens of the Moon (sorry, not SF), a signed HB copy of Steph Swainston's latest (not sure if that series is SF or not :) ) and two new NESFA Press books - a collection of Judith Merrill stories (long out of print) and a collection of L. Sprague deCamp's Time Travel stories, which I am really looking forward to reading (and in some cases rereading - it's been a long while!)

Big thumbs up to NESFA, who are keeping this old good stuff alive. Nice covers too. :)

And referring to above: The Ray Bradbury collected stories book's brilliant, NSP - I was lucky enough to get a signed copy last year. I did find that it is one to be read slowly though - trying to read it all at once can be too much of a good thing.

Archren - I look forward to reading what you think about those books - The Algabraist, after a good start, I had to put down earlier in the year (and I really hate doing that!) but hope to pick it up again soon. River of Gods has had some very positive thumbs up and did win the BSFA Award this year.

Arthur's got a good set of books there too, though I have only read the first part of the Risen Empire - I thought it was OK but (for me anyway) not really worth the raves I've heard around. I have the second half (and by good luck a signed copy of the UK complete book) but I'm not sure when I'll get round to reading the rest.

Hobbit
 
Dying of the Light by George RR Martin. A science fiction (?) tale by my fav fantasy (ASoIaF) and horror (Fevre Dream) author, I just had to get this one.
 
though I have only read the first part of the Risen Empire - I thought it was OK but (for me anyway) not really worth the raves I've heard around. I have the second half (and by good luck a signed copy of the UK complete book) but I'm not sure when I'll get round to reading the rest.
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These books have gotten a lot of mixed reviews here, but the notion of what essentially sounds like a zombie aristocracy ruling the galaxy seems a compelling concept to me.
Sort of like Robert Silverberg's Born With the Dead taken to the next level.
 
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Don't get me wrong - there were things in there that were OK. (And that was a cool idea). I just felt that the execution of the ideas were, erm, dull. I didn't feel any emotional response to the characters, not enough to either like nor dislike.

Perhaps my standards were set too high.

Funnily enough, this has been shown in sharp contrast with my next follow up SF read - Lois McMaster Bujold's Winterfair Gifts (from the book Irresistible Forces). I had not realised how much I missed reading about Miles Vorkosigan and his friends. For characterisation, each of the 70-odd pages have been worth every penny (though the stories I've read afterwards in the book are not really in the same league).

Hobbit
 
I finally picked up River of Gods by Ian MacDonald, PB
also got End in Fire by Syne Mitchell, PB

There may be other SF books, but I can't remember them at the moment.

I agree Winterfair Gifts was great. The wonderful thing was that the story was told from the POV of one of his armsmen, someone that we had never met before. It was all very new and fresh. If LMB is tired of Miles and Company up close, she could still tell stories from the POV of others who end up in the same orbit.

Westerfeld's series did have some neat ideas, but was pretty tired in how he implemented them, and not very insigthful in how he wrote about them. Wasn't terrible, but wasn't worth a lot.
 
FicusFan said:
I finally picked up River of Gods by Ian MacDonald, PB
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I too just aquired River of Gods by Ian MacDonald, now out in affordable paperback.
 
Well, I'm going to wait for the US edition of River of Gods, which will have a glossary of those cryptic Brit terms.
 
intensityxx said:
Well, I'm going to wait for the US edition of River of Gods, which will have a glossary of those cryptic Brit terms.
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Any word on who the US publisher will be?
 
Just got an Amazon box in yesterday. In it was:

Air, Geoff Ryman
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
Broken Angels, Richard K. Morgan
 
According to Amazon, (use that as a reliable source if you wish! :) ) Fitz, it's Simon & Schuster, though I think this is for the Trade paperback version.

Hobbit
 
Hobbit, that's actually the UK edition of the book. Amazon.com teases us by letting us think they have the US book, when it really isn't. Incidentally, McDonald has a Livejournal/blog
 
Apologies, Fitz.

I guess I did sort-of question Amazon's reliability... :)

Hobbit
 
Yep, Fitz. It's a good one too! :D Also note the 40 comments below this blog entry. (italics mine)

"Much as I hate self-promotion, but don't be wasting your money on that auld expensive transatlantic postage and the weak dollar/strong pound. Just be patient and in the new year (when Lou?) you can get the Pyr US edition of River of Gods with a kick-ass cover from Stephan Martiniere (his one for Newton's Wake won the BSFA, and I'm confident it'll be a good as Ken's) and a revised glossary, as a goodly number of commentators grumbled that the words they really wanted were never in it. Also, Indian culture is much more ingrained in the UK and there's a much wider knowledge of subcontinental culture and language (but most of all cuisine.)

I tell you this: after going dark for more than decade on US publications after Evolution's Shore, it's GOOD TO BE BACK!"

see 2005-05-28 entry

*edit: rats, Fitz found out about the new blog before I got this info in here for him*
 
Damn, I knew PYR was publishing it, too. I think I remember seeing it on Lou Anders' blog. (Lou is the Editorial Director of PYR, and he is really doing some good things over there).

....and to keep on topic, I'll be finishing The Final Prophecy by Greg Keyes, the 2nd to last Star Wars: New Jedi Order novel when I eat lunch in a few moments.
 
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