Eastercon book loot

[julesjones]

Since I'm entering my Eastercon loot into LibraryThing...



Various -- Phantoms at the Phil: The Third Proceedings
Ran into desperance early on, and he had a copy of this anthology from the Phantoms at the Phil project stashed in his bag. I've been wanting to get one of the PatP anthologies but not got around to it, so money rapidly changed hands. It's a pretty little thing, though I'll have no comment on the contents until I'm awake enough to read it.
http://www.librarything.com/work/5157042/


Chaz Brenchley -- Dead of Night
Second copy, because my first was the paperback and I liked it enough that I wanted to get it in hardback (because it's entirely possible that I will re-read it often enough to kill a paperback). And besides, my copies of desperance's books seem to be in one of the boxes that went to the storage locker, so I can't get at them until we move to somewhere bigger. Spotted this hardback copy in perfect nick and going for five quid, and desperance was standing about ten feet away, so I bought it and got it signed. Signed *again*, as he pointed out in the personalised one. :-)
http://www.librarything.com/work/614379/


Tanith Lee -- The Secret Books of Paradys
Omnibus copy of all four books, which I dithered over for a while and then bought on the grounds that I was going to be on a panel with Tanith and needed something with which to embarass myself by fangirling her. I have a couple of the books already, but by the time I've bought the others as individual volumes they'll take up a lot more shelf space and cost nearly as much as just buying this, so I might as well swap the old copy out. Yes, I did get her to sign it after the panel.
http://www.librarything.com/work/728944/


Bryan Talbot -- Alice in Sunderland
Blame desperance for this. He's been pimping it for a while (and is also a character in the book), well enough that it went on my list of books to buy at Eastercon. So when I saw the sign at Forbidden Planet's table announcing signing sessions... It's large and beautiful and I really will need to be awake to read it, going by my skim of the first few pages on Sunday.
http://www.librarything.com/work/2716842/


Various -- Time Pieces
Anthology of short stories, limited edition signed by all the contributors. Saw this on one of the tables and vaguely remembered it as something I'd seen talked about and thought looked interesting. Actually, I think I can indirectly blame desperance for this one as well, though it's not the NewCon anthology he's in.
http://www.librarything.com/work/3577806


Tanith Lee -- The Claidi Collection: Books I-III
A Tanith Lee series I haven't read yet and know nothing about, other than, well, it's Tanith Lee...
http://www.librarything.com/work/1933026/


David Langford -- The Leaky Establishment
Langford's not-very-fictionalised memoir of life in the UK's nuclear weapons research establishment. It's been on my "to buy" list for *years*, only I keep failing to get around to it. And then I saw it on Rog Peyton's table in the dealer's room, and not just the trade paperback edition, but the original hardback edition. For a cover price less than the trade paperback. :-)
http://www.librarything.com/work/49276


Charles Stross -- Glasshouse
I hadn't already bought it because I was feeling guilty about the TBR mountain. But there was a copy in the pile of mixed hardbacks, and a dealer doing the "I don't want to carry these home, they're half price" last-day-of-con routine...
http://www.librarything.com/work/356125/


Iain Banks -- The Steep Approach to Garbadale
I know nothing about this at *all*, other than it is Banks-without-the-M, and that after I'd bought it one of my friends said that it wasn't very good. However, it was also part of the "I don't want to carry these home" pile, and I usually like Banks whether with or without the M, so I am the one who got to carry this copy home.
http://www.librarything.com/work/2350204

Comments

[ruthi.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Alice in Sunderland is great.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I just recently read the Banks, and - as has been the case with almost all his recent novels - very much enjoyed spending the time with him, even if I did come away feeling that no great or significant conversation had occurred. His books used to matter (to me, at least) in a way that they don't any more. Either I'm missing something, or he is - but he is still a charming companion, even if we no longer set the world to rights. Many long-term friendships go that way.

And Time Pieces is a damn fine anthology, tho' I am a little bewildered as to how you managed to pick up the wrong one (DisLocations being the one I'm in)...

[julesjones]

I think my favourite of all of his work is still The Crow Road, even if I've mostly enjoyed the later books. There are one or two I have simply failed to get to grips with, but only one that has sorely disappointed me (Song of Stone, which felt to me as if he was trying much too hard to be shocking, and succeeded only in inspiring deadly boredom).

I'll note that part of my reaction after reading "Dead of Light" was that it gave me the same sort of buzz I got from the best of the Banks-without-the-M novels.

I'm not sure that DisLocations was actually out on the table when I wandered past the first time -- it was close to closing time and they were packing up for the day. But I recognised the cover art on Time Pieces from having gone to their website to look at DisLocations (it's certainly striking), and remembered that it had sounded interesting. I'd spent rather too much money by the time I spotted DisLocations on a later pass through the dealer's room and realised why Time Pieces had looked familiar, although I'm now rather regretting not going back to get it once I knew that I hadn't won anything in the art auction.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I think my favourite of all of his work is still The Crow Road

Me too. You'll find similarities in Garbadale - and I'll say no more, for fear of spoilers.