New Procurements (Miami Book Haul)

This post kept getting longer and longer since I'm still behind with things. But lots of pretties have been sent to me and I've also been to a new indie store and had a nice stroll around the Miami Book fair a couple weeks past. The influx of 2012 releases has started as well and things are ramping up for January through March to be busy, busy.

Alien Contact is Marty Halpern's latest anthology after the very enjoyable Is Anybody Out There (reviewed here). As the title suggests this reprint anthology focuses on stories about contact with beings not of this earth with stories from the likes of Neil Gaiman, Ursula K LeGuin, Michael Swanwick, Jeffrey Ford, and Paul McAuley.  This one has certainly caught my attention and will be read quite soon. Next is Caitlin R. Kiernan's The Drowning Girl which will be out in March. I've enjoyed many of her shorts, but have never dipped into her novel length work despite hearing nothing but raves for her last effort The Red Tree. The beige number below is Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear by Javier Marías the first in a Spy trilogy that Larry from Of Blog challenged me to read and review. He picked this particular series since I'm a lover of Spanish translated fiction. I haven't read a straight Spy novel in I can't tell you how long so I'm very much looking forward to trying this out. Next I have the very pretty final copy of Ian McDonald's YA debut Planesrunner, which I've already read and enjoyed. More on it soon. Lastly, are the first two finished omnibuses for Michael Sullivan's The Riyria Revelations series that look very nice and epic together.

Arctic Rising by Tobias Buckell is the start to a new series that is near-future Sci-Fi dealing with global warming as opposed to Buckell's previous far-future series Xenowealth.  Arctic Rising is due out at the end of February. The yellow number is the debut Seven Princes by John R. Fultz, which could be a strong Epic Fantasy debut come January. Next are a few books I received from Haikasoru who publishes translations of Japanese Sci-Fi and Fantasy that I've been eyeing for a longtime. First is the novelization of the Playstation game of the same name Ico: Castle in the Mist by Miyuki Miyabe, who is one of Japan's best-selling genre authors. I already read Ico as it showed up right as I was leaving for my Thanksgiving break. It is really well done and improves on the story from the game greatly. Next is Miyabe's The Book of Heroes that deals with a magical book. I'm a sucker for those sorts of stories and after reading Ico I'm eager to try something that is entirely from Miyabe's mind. Next is 10 Billion Days and 100 Billion Nights by Ryu Mitsuse that is considered a classic of Japanese Sci-Fi first being published more than 40 years ago and still in print after all that time and just now being published in English for the first time. Haikasoru also printed it with a glow in the dark starry cover, which I must say is super cool and worth having it on the shelf for that alone.

I picked up The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht, McSweeney's 24, and Nick Hornby's Housekeeping vs. the Dirt at the Miami Book Fair, which was a first for me. The Hornby is his second collection of book review columns from McSweeney's magazine and having enjoyed his first collection The Polysyllabic Spree I had to nab this. I eyed a lot of other books at the fair, but given my already heavy bag I didn't go further despite finding a vendor with loads of old Sci-Fi and another with lots of limited editions. If the prices  were slightly better on the limited front I probably would have gone for some of them.

And in the "this just in pile" is the debut The Games by Ted Kosmatka, which I mentioned earlier and is on track for a March publication. I'll definitely be getting to it in time for the release date. Territory by Emma Bull is a new edition of one of her most beloved novels. Bull is on my shame on me reading list as I've yet to read her work despite having War for the Oaks in my to-read pile for a number of years now. The next two books were purchased from the RJ Julia bookshop in Madison, Connecticut, which is a gorgeous store well worth visiting. Their genre section is very small, but the general fiction area certainly makes up for it. I first nabbed Eleven by Mark Watson since it was compared heavily to One Day, which my wife and I love. And I finally bought the YA dystopian hit The Maze Runner by James Dashner after much picking up and putting down over the last 2 years of seeing it in stores. Some Christmas goodies were also purchased, but mums the word on those.

You Might Also Like:
REVIEW | Is Anybody Out There? edited by Nick Givers and Marty Halpern
NEWS | Ray Bradbury Tribute Anthology
REVIEW | Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan
GUEST POST | Michael J. Sullivan on Writing a Series of Intertwining Books Rather than Sequels