Book Hauls!

[dask]

Finally snagged a copy. If it were a comic it would probably be graded Fair+. Still it's the only copy I've ever seen and very happy to have found it for a very affordable price.

 

[J-Sun]

Finally snagged a copy. If it were a comic it would probably be graded Fair+. Still it's the only copy I've ever seen and very happy to have found it for a very affordable price.

Congrats, great find - is that yours in the pic or, either way, does yours have a dust jacket? Mine is in great shape for my purposes (not minty collectible but clean, solid, no significant damage, luckily affordable), but doesn't have the dust jacket, which I kind of miss. Look forward to your thoughts on the fiction.

 

[dask]

Yes, this is my copy. The cover is split almost all the way down the spine, I'd say 85% or so, but still together. The book itself is on the rough side too. Looking down at it from the top the book has a definite curve along with a slanted spine. In comic lingo it would be referred to as a rolled spine. Still, it's all there for just under $25 (plus $4 postage).

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Went to the city of Dalton, Georgia to check out a used bookstore in the recently revitalized downtown. (There were about half a dozen hair salons on one street. We also found a place to get empanadas. But I digress.) It wasn't a great place. Small, mostly paperbacks. But I got some cheap reading copies.

Related, but non-fiction:

 

[dask]

Never seen that Ace edition of the Simak before.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

Interested in those L. Sprague Le Camp books, @Victoria Silverwolf! Could you please let me know how you find them?

 

[AE35Unit]

Nice little haul from the charity shop (plus a classical CD)
2 Neal Asher books and some Kafka, who I've never read.

 

[J-Sun]

Went to the city of Dalton, Georgia to check out a used bookstore in the recently revitalized downtown. (There were about half a dozen hair salons on one street. We also found a place to get empanadas. But I digress.) It wasn't a great place. Small, mostly paperbacks. But I got some cheap reading copies.

I picked up that same edition of the Simak a couple-three years ago but haven't read it yet. At the time, since I wasn't so actively involved in Simak (despite having read a few titles and having loved at least a couple) before Bick's thread reignited him, I actually picked it up more because the edition was so neat-seeming and it was in such good shape. I've also had the same edition of Lest Darkness Fall for years - really good book and this opinion from a guy who doesn't generally like to go backwards in speculative fiction. I liked it so much, I also picked up his The Glory That Was even though it's not precisely the same sort of thing and doesn't seem to be as generally esteemed. (I like Greece better than Rome so maybe that'll even it out.)

Anyway - good finds! (Except perhaps that Bester - I haven't read it, so maybe it's good, but The Computer Connection was so disappointing and Golem100 so outright bad (to me) that I was discouraged from trying it.)

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Yeah, I've read both of those and didn't care for them, so I hope I have better luck with this one. (One edition calls it "the true successor to The Stars My Destination" which sort of implies "it's better than other late Bester.") We'll see.

 

[Rodders]

The Art of Rogue One and the Rogue One Ultimate Visual guide.

 

[Paul_C]

I had to go to town to bank a Christmas cheque from my Dad, so I popped into Waterstones for a browse and picked up three new books from my list.

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
The Girl With All The Gifts - M R Carey
Echopraxia - Peter Watts

The first two were buy one, get one half price and the only two with the appropriate stickers, so not much choice there

 

[Bick]

I've also had the same edition of Lest Darkness Fall for years - really good book and this opinion from a guy who doesn't generally like to go backwards in speculative fiction. I liked it so much, I also picked up his The Glory That Was even though it's not precisely the same sort of thing and doesn't seem to be as generally esteemed. (I like Greece better than Rome so maybe that'll even it out.)

Glad to hear this is a goodun. I have it unread at home and will now prioritise it. I'd start now, but I'm in Uruguay, and the book is in New Zealand

 

[Paul_C]

I had to go to town to bank a Christmas cheque from my Dad, so I popped into Waterstones for a browse and picked up three new books from my list.

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
The Girl With All The Gifts - M R Carey
Echopraxia - Peter Watts

The first two were buy one, get one half price and the only two with the appropriate stickers, so not much choice there

. . . followed by a Christmas Amazon splurge

Four on the way:

China Mountain Zhang - Maureen F. McHugh
By Light Alone - Adam Roberts (I'm really enjoying Jack Glass)
Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August - Claire North

and six Kindle downloads:

Ancillary Mercy - Ann Leckie
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson
Big Planet / The Dying Earth - Jack Vance
City - Clifford D Simak
Best Of - C L Moore

That should keep me entertained well into 2017

 

[Vince W]

Look what arrived today.

 

[Paul_C]

Up early (for me) this morning to be first in to Northampton's Central Library for a book sale, I returned home with 16 books in a box, not all Sci-Fi and only one from my list, but most look interesting and one in particular stands out from the rest (see if you can guess )

Ursula Le Guin - The Left Hand Of Darkness (this was the only one on the list)
Kevin J Anderson - A Forest Of Stars / The Ashes Of Worlds
Robert J Sawyer - Red Planet Blues
John Scalzi - Lock In *
Paul McAuley - Gardens Of The Sun*
Greg Egan - Zendegi *
David I Mason - The Caltraps Of Time
Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked This Way Comes
James S A Corey - Cibola Burn / Abaddon's Gate (I've got Book 1, and now 3 & 4 so I'll have to pick up book 2 at some point)
Tony Mitton - The Somethingosaur
Iain Banks - The Quarry
Christopher Brookmyre - Flesh Wounds (I've got a few of these, they're usually ok)
John Le Carré - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy / A Perfect Spy

*the author is on my list, but not this particular book

Not bad for £3.25

 

[Paul_C]

Last splurge of 2016, I'm going to "try" and get through a reasonable number before acquiring any more (unless a bargain or two crosses my path).

Three books:

Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory (I've read it but would like to re-read)
Gene Wolfe - The Epiphany of the Long Sun (I read the first two ages ago so it's about time I finished it)
Brian Aldiss - Non Stop

and a few more for the Kindle:

Arkady Strugatsky - Roadside Picnic
James S A Corey - Caliban's War (so I now have the first four in the series (I've read book 1))
James Tiptree Jr - Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
Lois McMaster Bujold - Falling Free (I read Cordelia's Honor (which pairs Shards of Honor and Barrayar) years ago so I thought it would be a good place to start reading the series again)
Charles Stross - Neptune's Brood

so I now have around 50 sci-fi books for 2017 (plus a few others) which should be plenty

Happy New Year !

 

[dask]

Christmas gift from my wife:

My next read.

 

[hitmouse]

Just opened a 1959 Penguin, The Little Nugget by PG Wodehouse.
In the front cover is signed: Edwin J Wallace S'pore 1960
One of those tantalising whisps of lost history. Who was Edwin J Wallace, and how did this paperback get from Singapore to a charity shop in South West Wales?

 

[mosaix]

Just opened a 1959 Penguin, The Little Nugget by PG Wodehouse.
In the front cover is signed: Edwin J Wallace S'pore 1960
One of those tantalising whisps of lost history. Who was Edwin J Wallace, and how did this paperback get from Singapore to a charity shop in South West Wales?

Fascinating, Hitmouse.

I collect old books on Chess. I have one from 1923. In it I found a press cutting regarding a female chess player with a letter from a father to his daughter encouraging her to carry on playing. Both of them are certainly long gone by now, but did she have any children? And did they give away her book to a second hand book shop not realising it contained a slice of their family history?

 

[AE35Unit]

Picked up Asimov's I,Robot in WHSmith's in a snazzy green cloth edition, reduced to £7. It's like an old friend...
Also picked up issue one of the new Star Trek graphic novels series. I've never read a graphic novel before, flipping thru it makes me feel like a kid!