Spoils, Tribute, and Planning to Pillage

Spoils and Tribute is a feature of On Starships and Dragonwings where I tell you about the books I’ve bought and received recently (my version of Stacking the Shelves). I promise that I paid for all my spoils and I’m not letting the “tribute” go to my head ;-). Planning to pillage is just my version of Waiting on Wednesday where I share books that have caught my eye!

It’s been a crazy week for me and will be another one, so forgive me for this post not being complete since I honestly don’t even know if I got anything in the mail the last couple of days >.>. I led a high school science summer camp this past week, which is great since I love introducing my research and computer science to high schoolers, and as you read this I’m on a plane to Vancouver for a major conference in my field and I’m presenting my research! Anyway, I hope this means plenty of time to read these beauties ;-). Also, a good part of this post was written at 1am while waiting for my Vicodin and Valium to kick in enough to sleep after getting up at 6am, so forgive me if I sound completely mad or have horrendous typos ;-).

Tribute

All Those Vanished Engines by Paul Park (Tor, Unsolicited) – I’m so overwhelmingly intrigued by this book, but I can’t really describe all the cool stuff coherently. Basically, its apparently a collection of a few stories told from different alternative histories/timelines/times I’m not sure. There are also some really interesting reviews already up, largely negative but for various complicated reasons. This all just spurs me to jump in and see if I like the water’s temperature (that should become a saying now please).

The Wurms of Blearmouth by Steven Erickson (Tor, Unsolicited) – This is apparently a novella set in a well-established fantasy world and is marked as book five of the series. Based on the marketing blurb, I’m going to assume I can jump in without having read the previous books, so I’m going to give that a try and see how it goes :).

Shattered by Mari Mancusi (SourceBooks, NetGalley) – I haven’t read Scorched yet, but I of course have it on the shelf and really really want to read it soon, hence I couldn’t resist grabbing Shattered because dragons ;-).

Loop by Karen Akins (St. Martin’s Griffin, NetGalley) – I could love or hate this one, but I wanna find out! I enjoy time travel and sometimes find myself surprised at enjoying romance-heavy story lines. It generally depends on the writing, so I’ll know quite soon if this one is for me :D.

Yesterday’s Kin by Nancy Kress (Tachyon Books, NetGalley) – I’m a huuuuuge Nancy Kress fan after reading Beggar’s in Spain and am still kicking myself for not having gotten to her YA from last year yet. Therefore when I saw a novella of hers on NetGalley, I had to request it, plus aliens! I’m thinking this will be a perfect dose of sci-fi goodness to fit into a very busy month.

Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon by David Bennett (Tor Books, NetGalley) – I’m getting more and more into steampunk and there is a freaking brass dragon, so this is clearly an Anya book! I didn’t realize that this is the sequel to Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl, so I just requested that one from the library ;-). I have confidence in this series though since my book twin Pabkins loved the first book :D. Also, get excited since there is going to be a guest post and giveaway for Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon in the future!

Spoils

I snagged Lark Rising from a friend’s pile of ARCs she couldn’t get to and I’m sooooooo pumped because it is life magic :D. I am totally setting myself up to be brutally crushed if Lark Rising isn’t completely epic, but on the other hand omg omg omg how can I resist????

On another note: look! I didn’t actually buy anything this week! But that’s not true since I discovered Better World Books thanks to Kel of Booked til Tuesday which is an amazing site that accepts donations of used books and then sells them suuuper cheap (like $5 hardcovers cheap) and donates profits to literacy charities across the globe! Also free shipping! So I might have bought about 11 books for around $32 >.>. To add to this awesome, my books wrote me a personal letter telling me how excited they were to be packing up and heading my way and it was definitely the cutest thing I have read in a long time. I’m definitely saving that email. You should seriously buy a book from them just to get that email! I also then discovered that The Book Depository includes beautiful bookmarks in their shipments, so I used that as an excuse to buy two more books at quite reasonable prices. I will be sure to show off the bookmark(s) if I get some *fingers crossed*. Basically, there is going to be a big spoils section at some point in the coming weeks!

Planning to Pillage

(i.e. new to the wishlist)

Apparently The Martian was self-pubbed in 2012 and I completely missed it, so now two of my grad school friends who don’t read a lot of sci-fi have recommended it vehemently to me! Therefore, I’m on the hunt for a copy and requested it from my library :D.

I’m completely in love with this cover and the premise sounds pretty fantastical and awesome. Chicken House tends to delve into the weird sometimes but so far I’ve really enjoyed their brand of weird!

I’m a huuuuuuge fan of Jim C. Hines and the Magic Ex Libris series especially, so when I saw this GORGEOUS cover for Unbound I nearly fainted. *resists inundating pub reps with request emails*

Sorry the post got a bit ginormous, I’d just rather gush about upcoming books than sleep and you all said you enjoyed my humor when I get a bit out of it, so there ya go ;-).

What have you gotten recently? What are you looking forward to?

Anya from On Starships and Dragonwings -Anya