Recent acquisitions

Alfred Bester, Virtual Unrealities: The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester
James Blaylock, The Last Coin
James Blish, The Devil's Day
Algis Budrys, Rogue Moon
A. Bertram Chandler, Into the Alternate Universe and Contraband from Otherspace
A. Bertram Chandler, The Commodore at Sea and Spartan Planet
Gardner Dozois, The Year's Best Science Fiction, 4th Annual Collection
C.S. Friedman, This Alien Shore

Damon Knight, The Best of Damon Knight

Jonathan Lethem, As She Climbed Across the Table
Larry Niven, Flatlander
Larry Niven and Gregory Benford, Bowl of Heaven
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Escape from Hell
Frederik Pohl, Gateway
John Scalzi, Zoe's Tale
Dan Simmons, Ilium
Dan Simmons, Olympos

Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

George Zebrowski, Macrolife
Roger Zelazny, The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth

Comments:

1. I got all of them for about seventy bucks. That's my saving grace with my book-hoarding: I love getting good deals.

2. Dozois's 4th annual Year's Best Science Fiction is the earliest one I have (1986). However, I'm looking for annual collections from different editors. Dozois is great, but I find he includes a lot of stories that do nothing for me. I have little appreciation for cyberpunk, and none whatsoever for transhumanism. So if anyone out there knows an editor who compiles an annual "best of" science-fiction, let me know, I'll check it out.

3. Several of the books are in omnibuses. (That sounds weird: "omnibus" is a plural word already.) Obviously the two Chandler books have two novels each -- in fact, I got both of those books for $1.95, total $3.90. That's 97½¢ per novel. I haven't read anything by Chandler yet, but I've heard good things about the realistic military writing, so I'm looking forward to them. Niven's Flatlander consists of The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton and The Patchwork Girl. And Blish's Devil's Day consists of Black Easter and The Day After Judgment. This is the third in his After Such Knowledge trilogy, which starts with A Case for Conscience (which I have) and Doctor Mirabilis (which I don't). A Catholic friend of mind read Case for Conscience and loathed it: he thought it misunderstood those elements of Christianity that are always misunderstood in the same way. I don't know, I liked it, but I'd have to read it again.

4. Escape from Hell by Niven and Pournelle is a sequel to their Inferno. That's the one I immediately started reading. I'm about halfway through it. Love it.

5. I've been wanting Pohl's Gateway for a long time. Ditto for Scalzi's Zoe's Tale, Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Zebrowski's Macrolife. Scalzi just has a natural gift, he reads like Heinlein. I'm loving just about everything I read from Dan Simmons, so I'm excited about his two-book series (is there a word for that?) Ilium and Olympos. And I read Zelazny's Doors of His Face, Lamps of His Mouth a few years ago and thought several of the stories (including the titular one) were just amazing.

6. I swear I didn't plan this, but two of these books deal with satanic issues, and incredibly, both are dedicated to C.S. Lewis: Devil's Day and Escape from Hell. (Actually, Blaylock's Last Coin might be seen as falling into the first category too.)