Vromann's (a bookstore here in Pasadena) had many books which needed a good home.
I wasn't able to bring many home with me, but I did get more than usual. Here's the new arrivals:
Accelerando, Charles Stross
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch
Darwinia, Robert Charles Wilson
The Last Colony, John Scalzi
Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge
Also, as there's one book still on my to-be-read list from an earlier trip, I'll mention it as well:
Thirteen, Richard K. Morgan
Interesting things about these books: two of the five I bought today acknowledge TNH and PNH of Making Light (and I believe both of those were books which were edited by one of them). Their blog is usually very interesting, and the community which comments on it is one of the best I've seen. I believe both the authors which mention them have posted there, and there's a ton of interesting literary types there (and plenty of interesting non literary types, too).
Four of these books are sci-fi. One is fantasy, the other (Darwinia) I'm not sure how to classify based on the blurb on the cover, but I really liked one of his earlier books, Spin. I have read other books by four of these authors, and one book I got because I read a review of it. The last sentence of this paragraph is not needed to solve the logic puzzle posed therein, as the paragraph does not contain enough information on its own to do so anyways. But it would be cool if there was.
I will hopefully post some short (or long) reviews of these books as I read them, so if you're curious about them, stay tuned. Also, if anyone is particularly interested in one of the ones up there, let me know and I will try to write a longer review, or you can borrow it and write a guest review! :)
8 comments:
I should have added this to the logic paragraph: One of these books won the Hugo award this year. Another book's author had a different book in the Hugo award nominees this year.
Also, someone was asking what the Hugo and Nebula awards were, I found a very useful clarification: The Hugo award is selected by science fiction fans, the Nebula award is selected by science fiction writers (possibly only those in the SFWA).
Notable books which won both awards:
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Neuromancer, William Gibson
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold
The last two are among my favorite books of all time, and I like the Hugo/Nebula awards mostly because I can look at the nominees for the current year and pick those up and they're usually quite good. :)
Where I got this info:
Hugo Award on Wikipedia
Nebula Award on Wikipedia
Plus several other sites linked from the above, namely the respective sites for each award, plus the joint awards list, etc. :)
Oh, more comments, since I'm still thinking of things: I was really sad that How to Talk to Girls at Parties by Neil Gaiman did not win the Hugo for best short story this year, but I guess I'll have to go read the rest and see, since it was the only one on the list I'd read.
One of the authors (in the book list in the original post) was nominated for the best new writer award, but did not win. Doh!
Right now I'm reading The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross. Accelerando has also been recommended to me. I lent The Lies of Locke Lamora to a friend immediately after finishing it; he's now picked up the second book in that series so I'll be borrowing that when he's done.
Book Retrieval? Am I the only one thinking Sam Lowry and Buttle/Tuttle? That, and rogue heating engineers.
I've been meaning to read Neuromancer for quite some time.
By the way, one of my favorite comments ever was quoted in an old article in Wired magazine about Gibson. He was trying to describe Tokyo and he mentioned that if one were trying to build it out of lego pieces that one would have to buy the extra Tokyo pieces to be able to do it. I'm not doing the comment its pthy justice, so here is the actual quote:
"The Tokyo skyline is a 'floating jumble of electric Lego, studded with odd shapes you somehow wouldn't see elsewhere, as if you'd need special Tokyo add-ons to build this at home." (William Gibson, Pattern Recognition, as quoted in Wired)
AG: Let me know how that one is. :) I've been meaning to read one of his books for a long time now, and Accelerando was the one that jumped out at me from the selection on the shelf.
Lem: No clue here as to those references.
Mason: I should have a copy somewhere if you want to borrow it.
Close enough to "Information Retrieval" that I can't help but think of Brazil.
Lem: That'd be why I didn't get it, I've never seen Brazil. :/
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