Kevin's Watch

Posted: **Thu Aug 03, 2006 8:50 pm**

Heads up folks! I'll be running to the bookstore this weekend to buy this book after George R. R. Martin's rave review on his website:

Robert Charles Wilson's SPIN (Tor, 2005). is one of the finalists for this year's Hugo Award in the Best Novel category (sometimes called the Big One, even though all Hugos are of course equal). It would hard to conceive of any novel with an opening as powerful as this one. One night, in the not too distant future, all the stars disappear from the sky all over the world... and if that doesn't tweak your old sensawonder, you don't have any business reading SF. Some will categorize this as a "hard SF" novel, a novel of ideas, and Wilson does indeed deliver on that score. Unlike a lot of hard SF, however, this is also a moving novel of character, a love story of sorts. The cosmic mysteries of the Spin and the dreams and desires of the three central characters share the stage as eons pass, races evolve, and the sun itself grows old. Wilson's elegant, translucent prose is a joy to read. SPIN would be a credit to the Hugo ballot in any year, and would make a worthy winner.

Posted: **Mon Aug 07, 2006 11:33 am**

Well, it's been an acquisitive weekend for me.

Happened across Zahn's Heir To The Empire at a 2nd hand bookshop, and while I was trying to decide if I really wanted to start hunting for the books to comlete yet another series, (as though I don't have enough gaps in my shelf already), I noticed a little Delany book I'd never heard of. The Einstein Intersection.

Well, as I've said, his Dhalgren ranks up there as one of the best sci-fi/fantasy books ever IMO, and I could practically hear danlo & WayFriend saying...it's Delany, so I picked it up as well.

(A very odd little book...a sci-fi retelling of the Orpheus myth...very odd indeed. I'll have to read it another couple of times before I figure out if I like it I think.)

Then while I was paying, it was Fist's turn to start muttering in my head, because there was the Earthsea quartet in one volume for a really reasonable price...so I got that too.

(Expect me at the Immanent Grove sometime soon.

)

--A

Posted: **Mon Aug 07, 2006 2:27 pm**

The Einstien Intersection a really neat little book--don't past up the opportunity Av-READ IT!

Posted: **Tue Aug 08, 2006 10:02 am**

Oh I did...such a little one that I read it the same day I bought it.

Easy to read, but actually far more complex than it looks. That's why I think it'll need a re-read before I can make up my mind about it.

I still can't figure out if those guys were the descendants of humans or not. They don't seem to think they are. And all the references to the technology waiting to be used...

And was Spider a bad guy or not? Superficially simplistic, but only superficially.

(Once I finish Dune and Earthsea, I think my next read will be The Fall of the Towers.)

--A

Posted: **Thu Aug 17, 2006 10:19 pm**

Just bought Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, will have to squeeze it in somewhere between The Rise of Endymion and A Feast For Crows (which I will purchase at Bubonicon tomorrow in order to have George sign it, but don't tell aliantha's daughter Cat that I also had to buy LFB [because I lost her copy] in order to have SRD sign it this weekend

)

Posted: **Mon Aug 21, 2006 6:07 pm**

Bought The Epic of Gilgamesh in a Penguin Classics edition.

Posted: **Sat Aug 26, 2006 9:36 am**

Just bought The Hedge Knight and The Sworn Sword by George R R martin from Amazon. Should be here soon.

Posted: **Thu Aug 31, 2006 10:43 am**

The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt
Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link

Posted: **Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:24 pm**

Warmark wrote:Just bought The Hedge Knight and The Sworn Sword by George R R martin from Amazon. Should be here soon.

Hmmm there still not here.

i was told they'd arrive by tuesday at the latest.

Posted: **Mon Sep 04, 2006 2:53 pm**

I went out today, and ended up looking in Bookworks, a store I don't usually bother with. It's lucky I did go in, because it turned out that in among the randomly arranged and near-toppling stacks of books on a couple of tables I spotted a copy of The Portrait of Mrs Charbuque by Jeffrey Ford for 99p, and I picked up a hardback of Naomi Novik's Temeraire for £3.99. They also had two trade paperback copies of Veniss Underground for 99p, which I didn't buy because I already have it in mass market.
I guess I shouldn't have spent so long disregarding this place - they get the leftovers from the warehouses, and apparently sometimes there's some pretty good stuff in there.

Posted: **Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:22 am**

Finally managed to find Chapterhouse Dune, completing my collection of the original series.

--A

Posted: **Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:43 pm**

The Waterstone's I go to has recently had a fair few good imported books on the shelves--guess they have a staff member who knows something about the genre--so thinking this would be my last visit to the store before I go back to uni, I picked up a couple of them:
Snake Agent by Liz Williams
Old Man's War by John Scalzi

Also popped into The Works again, and this time spotted:
The Jewels of Aptor by Samuel R Delany

Posted: **Fri Sep 29, 2006 3:42 pm**

Noticed the other day that my copy of The Illearth War seems to have gone AWOL. But today I picked up the complete first chronicles for £1 at our British Heart Foundation bookshop.

Posted: **Tue Oct 03, 2006 3:33 pm**

The Waterstone's phenomenon develops: a different branch, and a few of the same imported novels on the shelves. More than that--this branch had a number of books from publisher Night Shade Books on the shelves, which suggests that the publisher might have set something up with some big chain bookstores. This is a Good Thing, because Night Shade has a lot of good stuff in their catalogue, including the shiny copy of The Chains That You Refuse by Elizabeth Bear, which I picked up yesterday.
It'll take a little more investigation before I decide Waterstone's has indeed started stocking these books, but with copies in the two Newcastle branches (shops practically next door to each other, and carrying identical stock, so I count them as the same store) and in the MetroCentre branch, it looks promising.

Posted: **Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:26 pm**

I picked up the brand new hardback of The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke.

Posted: **Sat Oct 14, 2006 4:29 am**

So two recent, last few days, books I got mass paperback versions of Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon marked price $0.75 Pyramid Books imprint on spine, and mpbk version of Deamsnake by Vonda McIntyre marked price $2.25 Dell imprint on spine and Dell SF Special imprint on back cover. They were $0.25 each on a used book table at University of Redlands library along with some others.

Posted: **Fri Nov 10, 2006 1:16 am**

Thanks to a package that arrived from duchess the other day I won't have to go to a bookstore for awhile. She sent me:
3 Dan Simmons books; Children of the Night, Lovedeath & Fires of Eden
Once a Hero-Elizabeth Moon
The Golden Compass-Phillip Pullman
Starship Troopers-Robert A. Heinlien
Cordellia's Honor-Lois McMaster Bujold
Ship of Magic-Robin Hobb
and Dates from Hell-various Authors

wow thanks duchy! A gift out of the blue is the coolest gift ever!
The Hobb looks very tempting, I've heard nothing but praise for the Liveship Traders series!

Posted: **Fri Nov 10, 2006 6:18 am**

Dates from Hell is something Tam might enjoy a bit more than you, though the mad scientist story is rather cute.

And if she likes strong heroines, she might also like the Moon and the Bujold books, though I think you will love the ginger haired Captain Cordelia Naismith.

Those (the Moon and Bujold books) are both military science fiction that are very enjoyable reads for both men and women.

After Joy and Avatar have told me to read them so many times, I have finally gotten James White's Beginning Operations, an omnibus of his first three Sector General novels. I have been told that they are science fiction set in a huge glactic hospital, where the doctors have to treat beings from all sorts of races.

Posted: **Fri Nov 10, 2006 6:19 pm**

duchess

just finished First Lady and is starting Dates From Hell. She wanted me to thank you!

Posted: **Tue Nov 14, 2006 2:07 pm**

3 for 2 at Blackwell's:
Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
Air, Geoff Ryman
The Complete Maus, Art Spiegelman

I now have two novels and two collections by Haruki Murakami. I need to stop buying more and start reading them.

Kevin's Watch

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