The Second Stevereads Book Outlet Box-Haul!

Our books today are the proceeds from my latest Book Outlet haul, done in my ongoing pining hopes of someday being cool enough to be on BookTube, where such hauls are a standard part of the landscape! Even this early in my association with the site, my shopping has developed certain rules: first, the price I pay for any book has to be no more than the price I’d be willing to pay if I found the same book at my beloved Brattle Bookshop; second, the book can’t be a whim – the Brattle can supply those well enough for several lifetimes, after all – but something I actually want, and third, I’ve got to remain fairly open-minded in my choices, picking what appeals rather than following a plan. Although this time around, a plan seemed to come looking for me! This time turned out to be a chance to stock up on my science fiction and fantasy titles from the very recent past:

The Black Prism by Brent Weeks – This 2010 first installment in the Lightbringer series actually got some razzing for his molten, suggestive cover illustration by Richard Jones, but I think it’s great – certainly much better than the bland, almost conceptual cover of the book’s sequel, The Blinding Knife. I thought this book – set in a world where the magic derives from light – was terrific; in it, Weeks really indulges himself in unlikeable characters (always something of a specialty of his), and the world-building and magic-systems didn’t bother me nearly as much as they did some of Weeks’ legion of loyal fans.

Wolfhound Century by Peter Higgins – This 2013 novel, with its stark and brooding cover by Lauren Panepinto, struck me as tremendously impressive when I first read it, so of course I was relieved when my Open Letters colleague Justin Hickey, much smarter than I am and a better judge of sci-fi/fantasy, liked it too and reviewed it glowingly. It’s a story so brimming with gonzo creativity as to be almost impossible to summarize faithfully, but it’s set in a weird, alternate-reality Soviet Union filled to the rooftops with off-kilter magics, through which our suitably stoic hero, Investigator Vissarion Lom, must navigate to solve a series of terrorist outrages and catch the people responsible – even if they’re not really people. Higgins fills his steampunk Russia with dark wonders, and since I gave my original copy to Justin, I was glad to snap up a paperback for myself.

The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood – This 2011 first book in the Assassini trilogy impressed me when I read and reviewed it a few years ago; I liked it even from the stark, atmospheric cover (also by Lauren Panepinto – it’s no surprise to me that the people at Orbit Books kept her well employed), and I loved its setting of an alternate-reality 15^th century Venice in which sorcerers and vampires vie for power with bravos and politicians, and I loved Grimwood’s best creation, the boy Tycho, a fierce combination of Locke Lamorna and the vampire Lestat. I also got the third book in the series, The Exiled Blade, in which Tycho’s adventures reach a kind of climax; that means I’m only missing the middle book, The Outcast Blade, which I didn’t seem to find on Book Outlet, at least this time around.

Ice Forged by Gail Z. Martin – this 2013 first book in the Ascendant Kingdoms saga intrigued me back when I first read and reviewed it (foolishly calling fierce Boston snowstorms a thing of the past – but then, how could I or anybody have predicted the Fell Winter of February 2015?), this story about a valiant man condemned to penal servitude in his world’s frozen northern wastelands who becomes a pivotal figure in a land where the background-radiation magic tapped by mountebanks and wizards alike is becoming fitful and unpredictable. And I’ll be glad to re-read it in this Book Outlet paperback, still sporting its Larry Rostant cover that’s both dramatic and nonsensical (you don’t go bare-armed, bare-throated, and bare-headed in arctic cold, and you don’t rest a naked double-edged longsword on your shoulder).

Charming by Elliott James – This 2013 first installment in the “Pax Arcana” series (with a cover design by the hugely-talented Wendy Chan and a sultry, pouting cover photo by Shirley Green) slipped my notice when it first appeared – maybe there’s still enough of the SFF purist-geek in me to make the Romance-ish cover a bit off-putting (or maybe it doesn’t feature the right model?). But when I saw it at Book Outlet, it seemed to fit perfectly with the overall theme of this shopping cart! It’s the story of the latest in a long line of Prince Charmings, this one spurning his heroic destiny to tend bar in Virginia, far from the supernatural menaces his line was created to fight … until those menaces find him. A not terrifically original premise, but I figured since I like Kevin Hearne’s “Iron Druid” chronicles, I’d give this a try.

The Emperor’s Blades by Brian Staveley – I loved this 2013 first book in the “Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne” series back when I read and reviewed it, drawn not only by Richard Anderson‘s somber, evocative cover and by the fact that a book this good, this textured, could be Staveley’s debut. It’s the story of three very dissimilar siblings in the empire of Annur who are forced to fight their way to the capital when their father the emperor is mysteriously murdered, and since – as usual – I have no idea what happened to the hardcover I originally owned, I gladly added this paperback to my list.

Hawk Quest by Robert Lyndon – I tried in vain to get this big fat historical novel from Hachette when it first appeared in 2012, and I waited in vain for it to appear on the bargain carts of the trusty Brattle Bookshop ever since, so seeing it for a Brattle-like price at Book Outlet was all the nudge I needed. Unlike all the other books in this haul, it’s not sci-fi or fantasy: it’s a straight-up historical novel about a brave, clever 11th-century warrior and his allies who must undertake a quest spanning the entire known world, and several writers I respect (most of them purveyors of fine historical fiction themselves) have praised it. And it’s a nice long thing, nearly 700 pages – and as if that weren’t enough, it’s got a nifty cover by that by-now familiar name, Lauren Panepinto! What more could I ask?

The Godless by Ben Peek – Ervin Serrano’s cover design for this 2014 book might be a bit simple and lackluster (it’s a flaming sword, with a background of mountains … it could literally belong to any SFF book ever written), but the book itself is intensely good, the story of a world where the gods annihilated themselves in battle thousands of years prior to the story’s beginning, and now the world is littered with their giant, rotting skeletons – the radiation from which gives some poor mortals unpredictable superpowers. It’s against such a fascinating backdrop that Peek weaves a rousing tale of violence and treachery, and I loved the book so much when I first got it in the mail that you’d think I’d have, I don’t know, kept it … but nooooo.

Forever Rumpole by John Mortimer – This final book of my latest Book Outlet book haul is – quite fittingly – entirely unlike the others! It’s a compilation of some of the best of Mortimer’s “Rumpole of the Bailey” stories, and I read and reviewed it back in 2011 when it first appeared but somehow – contain your surprise, now – lost the nice heavy hardcover I had at the time. The paperback, with its winningly simple design by the great David Adel, works just fine for me.

And there you have it! My March 2015 Book Outlet book-haul, delivered through blinding snowstorms and heavily leaning toward sci-fi and fantasy! Will there be such a theme for my April haul from this website to which I’m now devoted? Tune in next month and see!