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gosh I have a lot of books

Books

Quick ebook roundup

Just to clear this off my post queue!

Green Rider

Green Rider

Picked up electronically from Kobo:

  • Where I Belong, by Alan Doyle. Memoir. I bought the hardcopy of this from greatbigsea.com earlier this year, but of course I wanted the ebook too.
  • Green Rider, by Kristen Britain. Fantasy. Re-buy of a book previously owned in print, the first of her ongoing series that finally had a book five show up. I’m more likely to re-read books 1 and 2 if I have them electronically, so this is me going about getting those.
  • The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan. YA/Zombies. Another re-buy of a book previously owned in print, because I want to get caught up on her zombie books, too.
  • Writing Out the Notes, by Bob Hallett. Another memoir. Because as long as I’m reading stuff by Great Big Sea musicians, I really ought to finally read this too! I’ve got a print copy, but it’s available in ebook as well.

Pre-ordered electronically from Barnes and Noble:

  • Unbound, by Jim C. Hines. Urban fantasy. Book 3 of his Magic Ex Libris series, which I went ahead and pre-ordered on general Supporting Mr. Hines principles, particularly since he recently drew the ire of GamerGate.

127 for the year. And I’m counting the Hines as this year even though it doesn’t drop till January, because I’m paying for it now.

November 3, 2014 by
Other People's Books

Because I need to clear out my Drafts folder book roundup

Bought in print at VCON:

  • Stealing Magic, by Tanya Huff. Short story collection, nabbed because I can never go wrong with Huff, and also because I liked the dual covers, representing the two characters represented in the stories. Something you can’t get with an ebook.
  • The Door to Lost Pages, by Claude Lalumière. This has been parked on my To Read list a while, and I finally nabbed a copy at VCON because the bookseller was the one I often buy stuff from at Norwescon, and she wasn’t there this year, so I made a point of buying from her at this con instead. I suspect this book’s going to be magic-realism-y.
Grimspace

Grimspace

Nabbed from B&N electronically:

  • All is Silence, by Robert L. Slater. Bought on the request of Dara, who became aware of it via a bookmark from a recent Norwescon. She liked the sound of it, so I grabbed it for her. Apocalyptic YA SF.
  • Grimspace, by Ann Aguirre. SF. Re-buy in digital form of book 1 of her Sirantha Jax series.
  • Bronze Gods, by A.A. Aguirre (who, oddly enough is the same author as the previous!). Steampunk. Re-buy in digital form of her Apparatus Infernum series.

And, nabbed as a review copy because fellow Carina author Sheryl Nantus is awesome like that:

122 for the year!

October 10, 2014 by
Books, Other People's Books

All-French ebook roundup post

So B&N sent me a $5 credit, because I was one of the first 200 responders to a survey they sent out–they’d seen I’d recently bought a Nook HD, and they wanted to know my experience with it vs. with my earlier Nook. Awesome, I said, and promptly answered the thing and got the five bucks.

Les Rêves de la Mer

Les Rêves de la Mer

Which I then promptly turned around and spent, and this time, my target purchases were books by Élisabeth Vonarburg! She’s been on my radar for a while as a prominent Quebecoise SF/F author, so I’ve finally grabbed three of her novels to queue up for when I’m feeling ambitious enough with my French to try to tackle her. Probably after I do a bit more Élodie Tirel, and some Esther Rochon. 😀

The titles I got were:

  • Le Silence de la Cité
  • Chronique du Pays des Mères
  • Les Rêves de la Mer

I was originally just going to get two books, but as soon as I grabbed Chronique I realized that that was actually book two of a series, so I grabbed Silence as well. And I grabbed Rêves since it’s Book 1 of a different series, the Tyranaël books.

Just going by the titles and by what I gleaned out of the blurbs for these books, I’m expecting stuff heavy on the feminism. It’ll be interesting to eventually compare her to oh, say, Sheri Tepper, who I also need to read.

This puts me at 117 for the year.

September 24, 2014 by
Books

Quick book roundup

Grabbed from iBooks. Both of these are recent Tor releases, which I picked up due to liking the look of their excerpts posted on tor.com.

  • Unwept, by Tracy Hickman and Laura Hickman.
  • Child of a Hidden Sea, by A.M. Dellamonica

Grabbed from The Dreaming, a comic shop in the University District:

  • Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: The Novelization, by A.C.H. Smith. Got this because of also having gotten the edition of The Labyrinth that came out.
  • The Complete Elfquest, Vol. 1, by Wendy and Richard Pini. Gotten because a) always a pleasure to buy Elfquest, and b) having this edition around means I can have something to share with folks in case anyone visiting wants to check Elfquest out.

114 for the year.

August 30, 2014 by
Books

Another quick book roundup

Grabbed from Kobo in ebook form:

  • A Fatal Grace and The Cruelest Month, by Louise Penny. Books 2 and 3 of her Inspector Gamache series. Read the second one from the library, and that put her officially onto the To Buy list!
  • Harbinger, by David Mack. This is a Star Trek novel set in the era of the original series, first of a series about a particular starbase. This intersects with the Enterprise’s own adventures, and the Enterprise crew shows up in this one. But I’m getting it specifically because the author got cranky mail from a reader complaining about a lesbian relationship between a couple of the characters–namely, a Vulcan and a Klingon. Part of me wanted to snag this to show the author some support. The rest of me goes WOO! and wants to see how he pulls off this particular relationship!

Grabbed from B&N in ebook form:

  • The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, by Leslye Walton. Another thing I’ve read from the library lately and which I decided I need to own. This is a YA book, and it’s magic realism rather than urban fantasy, which makes for a nice change of pace in the reading tropes. Plus, the author’s got a dazzlingly lovely way with a sentence. But really, she had me with “story about a girl with wings”, and bonus for it taking place in Seattle. In the 50’s. Which makes me think, Millicent probably knew this girl!

And last but not least, picked up from Third Place in print:

  • Codex Born, by Jim C. Hines. Book 2 of his Libriomancer series. Already grabbed this electronically, but Mr. Hines is on my Buy In Both Formats list, so!

110 for the year.

(I’ve been reading a lot more from the library lately, trying to beat the To Read list down some and pull back on spending ebook money as long as Dara and I need to spend a lot on house maintenance. We’ll see how the numbers progress as we head through the second half of the year!)

August 16, 2014 by
Books

Latest book roundup

Bought from Angry Robot Books:

  • The Guild of Assassins, by Anna Kashina. This is Book 2 of her fantasy series The Majat Code, about which I’ll be doing a (delayed) Boosting the Signal post to go up tomorrow morning.

Pre-ordered from Kobo:

  • Lock-In, by John Scalzi. I was going to get this anyway, since I’d read the preview chapters that Tor.com posted as well as the novella that does some introductory worldbuilding for the story. But I went ahead and pre-ordered after seeing Mr. Scalzi’s recent post on the Amazon/Hachette developments, and someone giving him shit about it and cancelling their Amazon pre-order with him. I decided pre-ordering from Kobo was appropriate balance.

Bought from Dark Horse:

  • Spike: Into the Light, by James Marsters. This is a graphic novel purchase, and digital for that matter, but I’m counting it here since it’s a full graphic novel as opposed to individual comics. Wanted to grab this out of general interest in James Marsters actually writing the story. And I always did like Spike! It’s a story going into some of what happened to Spike after he got his soul back at the tail end of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer.

Bought in print when I was in Qualicum for De Temps Antan, from a tiny little bookshop there called The Mulberry Bush, where I had a delightful conversation with the proprietors along the lines of “Tell me about something awesome I can buy by Canadian authors”:

  • Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. I heard about the movie version of this, of course. And I’m sure I could have grabbed a copy of this in local bookstores. But I hadn’t known the author was Canadian, and hey, the bookstore successfully pitched it. And I do like to have a bookstore successfully pitch me a book I haven’t read before.
  • The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick DeWitt. Again, Canadian author, and I liked the idea of the dark sort of noir-ish humor described to me as contained by this book.

105 for the year.

August 10, 2014 by
Books, Carina Press

Latest book roundup post

I’ve been reading a lot from the library lately, partly because Dara and I are having to sink a lot of money into rental property renovation, but also partly because it’s super-easy to check out library books on my newer Nook with the Overdrive app. But that said, I’ve made a few recent purchases regardless. Like I do. Here they are!

From Kobo:

  • The Gods of Gotham, Seven for a Secret, and Dust and Shadow, by Lyndsay Faye. These are mysteries, and I grabbed these because of Faye writing an excellent response on CriminalElement.com to the Slate article not long ago about why adults shouldn’t read YA. Faye’s response was pure gold and I resolved that I clearly had to read her books. Doesn’t suck either that Dust and Shadow is a Sherlock Holmes story. I’ve already read The Gods of Gotham as a library checkout, which confirmed that I needed to add Faye to my Buy list.
  • Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie. SF. This one’s been getting a lot of buzz for being on the Hugo ballot, and it was at $1.99, so I thought I’d better grab it while that price was good.
  • A Rogue by Any Other Name, One Good Earl Deservers a Lover, and No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, by Sarah MacLean. These are all historical romances, the first three of MacLean’s four-book series about the owners of a gaming hell in London. The series has been getting some nice buzz since MacLean was interviewed last November on the Dear Bitches Smart Author podcast. And Book 3 of her series is up for a RITA this year. I find the titles kind of twee, but the series itself is fun. Read the first two as library checkouts, and then put MacLean on the Buy list.

Meanwhile, from B&N in ebook form:

  • The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell, by Mira Grant. Because MIRA GRANT, and also because woo, new Newsflesh story! If you haven’t seen Grant/McGuire’s own warning about this, do NOT read the summaries you may see of this novella on Goodreads or on any pages giving the book publicity. There’s a spoiler in ’em. Just go straight to the novella. Which is, as per usual, Grant’s excellent brand of zombie-ridden grim.
  • The Lady Astronaut of Mars, by Mary Robinette Kowal. I’d already read this but when Tor put it out for ebook purchase, I decided I needed to grab it. It’s a novelette up for a Hugo this year, and it’s a bittersweet little story about an aging astronaut having to choose between one last mission in space–and remaining at the side of her dying husband.

From B&N in print:

  • Shaman Rises, by C.E. Murphy. The final Walker Papers novel! Already bought in ebook, but this is me getting it in print. Because KIT.
  • The Jedi Doth Return, by Ian Doescher. Finishing up Doescher’s delightful adaptations of the original Star Wars trilogy into Shakespeare-style plays. Can’t wait to giggle at this one. 😀

And last but not least, from Carina in ebook:

  • Trancehack and Witchlight, by Sonya Clark. Sonya Clark is one of my fellow members of the Here Be Magic blog, and these are her first two books with Carina. They’re paranormal romances, but set in a futuristic timeframe, and they sound fun. Plus, I wanted to grab Trancehack while it was still on sale for 99 cents. Which ends TODAY, so if you think you might want to check this book out yourself, grab it fast before the price goes back up!
  • An Inconvenient Kiss, by Caroline Kimberly. Historical romance. Grabbed this one because the plot blurb sounds interesting, and the cover is beautiful. I approve of this recent trend in romance covers of the heroines in beautiful gowns.

100 for the year.

July 19, 2014 by