New Procurements (What a great stack)

I always have trouble starting these posts. It gets hard thinking of new ways to to say "Hey, I've gotten a lot of books the past few weeks." The latest batch actually made me do my quarterly book cull. I pulled out about 20 books from various stacks of books I have no intention of re-reading or lending to anyone along with a few I've just lost total interest. What? It happens...sometimes.  And that isn't even counting another pile of books I leave for friends to go through when they come by, which mostly consists of duplicate review copies. This weeks haul has four books from my must lists, which sit atop the pile as they'll be gotten sooner than later.

To begin we have Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti by Genevieve Valentine, which is her debut and one I've gone on about here or there. A Steampunk circus is not something I'm likely to miss. A short story placed in this universe just went live at Fantasy Magazine, which is worth perusing as is an interview with the author.   Next is Ekaterina Sedia latest Heart of Iron. Long time readers of this blog know how much I adore Sedia's work. Prince of Thorns is a debut by Mark Lawrence, which is being touted as being the next big thing in Fantasy supposedly in the vein of Martin only much shorter and focused on a smaller cast. The Damned Busters by Matthew Hughes is one of those books that just grabbed me from the first time I heard about it. Hughes is best known for the Henghis Hapthorn novels.

A few years ago I read Glen Duncan's I, Lucifer and found it entertaining, but not overly deep, as I was expecting. Duncan's latest The Last Werewolf is gaining a bit of buzz though so I thought I'd take a chance when a review copy presented itself. Next I couldn't help myself after months of dithering about buying Sub Press's Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison. It is one of those books I've been meaning to read for literally a decade and Sub Press did a beautiful job with their packaging and this is consider an extended and definitive edition to this classic collection. It is a gargantuan book let me tell you  Following is The Snow Queen's Shadow by Jim C. Hines who you wouldn't expect to find next to Ellison but I'm weird like that.  This is Hines's last in the Princess novels, which I've been following along with.

Phoenix Rising by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris is the first in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series that looks to be in the mold of Gail Carriger's series with a bit more edge to it. I've been in a Steampunk reading lull, but between this and Valentine's debut I'll probably breakthrough that soon. Blindsight by Peter Watts is one I've been meaning to get for awhile, but I could never find it in store and for some reason it was one of those books I had to get in person. Well, I got over that finally when I ordered it with the Ellison along with some birthday goodies for my niece.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan just won the Pulitzer and I had been eyeing it for a few weeks before so I nabbed it.  I also got review copies of Mind Storm by K. M . Ruiz, Future Imperfect by K. Ryer Breeze, and The Season of Passage by Christopher Pike all of which look good as well. Mindstorm looks to be an X-Men crossed with a thriller, which sounds fun to me.




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