Recent Acquisitions

I have a bunch of new books (what is the proper collective noun for books?) to report on, so here goes. I picked up a few at a flea market, and a few more from a library book sale, and a few more arrived in the mail. As usual, in no particular order, with a bit of commentary:

Science fiction:

• The Lost by Dan Abnett (The third Gaunt's Ghosts omnibus, set in the Warhammer 40k universe. Man, I love Abnett's writing and characters. Been waiting for this one to come out for a long time.)
• Communion by Whitley Streiber. I enjoy his fiction, and consider this one to be fictional too. I don't believe in UFO abductions personally, but I'm willing to believe that Streiber does.

Fantasy:

• The Anubis Gates by Time Powers. This one, along with the next bullet, were picked up my my friend -- nom de plume of bookstothesky -- at a book show in L.A.
• Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly. Also autographed, courtesy of bookstothesky. For generosity and going above and beyond the call of duty, I hereby award him the Silver Tome medal, with distinction. He inadvertently selected literally my two favorite books by these two authors. Sheer happenstance, but it's really, really awesome.
• Changes by Jim Butcher. The latest Harry Dresden book. They're nothing great, but they're fun, light reads, and I always pick them up as soon as they come out. This one was a $10 special from Amazon, possibly because of the ongoing ebook wars. Bring on more of the same, baby!

Sherlockiana:

• A really neat manuscript package of all the "primary source" documents and clues associated with The Sign of Four. Hard to describe, and I didn't know it even existed, but it looks damn fun. I'm going to use it in conjunction with the actual text when I reread it.
• The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes by various. Should be interesting reading about other Victorian detectives.
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes by Loren D. Estleman. I already owned this one. Oops.

Crime/mystery:

• Expiration Date by Duane Swierczynski. This one showed up randomly in the mail yesterday. And it's autographed. Yes, this is insane. No idea why it was shipped here from the publisher, but I plan to read and review it soon.
• The Big Knockover by Dashiell Hammett. A bunch of short stories and novellas. Should be awesome.

Military fiction:

• War of the Rats by David L. Robbins. Fiction about Stalingrad. I'll save this one for when I need some light-hearted reading to pick me up.
• Emergency Deep by Michael DiMercurio. He was a submariner, so this should be a good sub thriller.

Chess:

• The three little chess books that came in my boxed set from Dover, packaged with a neat little traveling chess set. No, I'm not very good at chess, but I've always been fascinated by the game.

RPGs:

• All three of the Journal of the Traveller Aid Society (JTAS) reprints for the Traveller RPG. They were only $10 apiece on sale, when they're usually $30 each, so I couldn't pass them up. If you're not a gamer, this won't make any sense.

Non-fiction:

• Two memoirs by former CDC virus-hunter-type-dudes. I always enjoy reading this kind of stuff.
• Woodward's fourth book on Bush and Iraq. Unfortunately the copy I picked up has some underlining, etc., in it, but for a $1 hardback, it's hard to pass up.
• The West's Last Chance by Tony Blankley.
• Webster's American Military Biographies. Old and a bit out-dated, but again, great for $1.

So there we have it. Quite a haul since I last updated.