March SF Bestsellers at Mysterious Galaxy
Mysterious Galaxy
1) LAMB by Christopher Moore
2) FALLEN DRAGON by Peter F. Hamilton
3) YEARS OF RICE AND SALT by Kim Stanley Robinson
4) THE EYRE AFFAIR by Jasper Fforde
5) A WINTER HAUNTING by Dan Simmons
6) PILLARS OF CREATION by Terry Goodkind
7) CARESS OF TWILIGHT by Laurell K. Hamilton
8) KILN PEOPLE by David Brin
9) BONES OF EARTH by Michael Swanwick
10) CHILD OF PROPHECY by Juliet Marillier
Paperbacks
1) LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS by Charlaine Harris
2) DRAGON BONES by Patricia Briggs
3) THE BETTER PART OF VALOR by Tanya Huff
4) ANGEL: HAUNTED by Jeff Mariotte
5) REUNION by Alan Dean Foster
6) SERPENT'S SHADOW by Mercedes Lackey
7) KISS OF SHADOWS by Laurell K. Hamilton
8) THE DRAGON DELASANGRE by Alan F. Troop
9) BVS: JOURNALS OF RUPERT GILES, VOL 1 by Nancy Holder
10) BVS: SWEET SIXTEEN by Scott Ciencin
Trade Paperbacks
1) I DARE by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
2) BLOODSUCKING FIENDS by Christopher Moore
3) ISLAND OF THE SEQUINED LOVE NUN by Christopher Moore
4) BLACK CHALICE by Marie Jakober
5) TRUE NAMES (etc) by Vernor Vinge
*******************************************************************
Mysterious Galaxy Books Local Phone: 858.268.4747
7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, Suite 302 Fax: 858.268.4775
San Diego, CA 92111 Long Distance/Orders:
1.800.811.4747
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mgb...@mystgalaxy.com
*******************************************************************
James Nicoll
Didn't read.
> 2) FALLEN DRAGON by Peter F. Hamilton
Read, though it was ok. Much less wordy than his seemingly
endless Space Ghouls series (He lost me in book three).
> 3) YEARS OF RICE AND SALT by Kim Stanley Robinson
Have not read but it got scathing reviews over in shwi.
> 4) THE EYRE AFFAIR by Jasper Fforde
When's the sequel?
> 5) A WINTER HAUNTING by Dan Simmons
Hrm. The protagonist is a complete idiot. You only get to deny
the existance of the supernatural in the first horror novel you appear in.
> 6) PILLARS OF CREATION by Terry Goodkind
Didn't read.
> 7) CARESS OF TWILIGHT by Laurell K. Hamilton
Burned out on Hamilton. The worldbuilding is silly and I think I
hate Anita Blake.
> 8) KILN PEOPLE by David Brin
Best thing he's written in years.
> 9) BONES OF EARTH by Michael Swanwick
As usual, very good.
> 10) CHILD OF PROPHECY by Juliet Marillier
Haven't even heard of this one.
> Paperbacks
> 1) LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS by Charlaine Harris
Haven't seen.
> 2) DRAGON BONES by Patricia Briggs
Ditto.
> 3) THE BETTER PART OF VALOR by Tanya Huff
Hope it got a better cover than the first Valor book did. Which
historical battle appears in contrived form in this one?
> 4) ANGEL: HAUNTED by Jeff Mariotte
Eh. Media tie-in.
> 5) REUNION by Alan Dean Foster
Never saw it.
> 6) SERPENT'S SHADOW by Mercedes Lackey
Ew.
> 7) KISS OF SHADOWS by Laurell K. Hamilton
See above.
> 8) THE DRAGON DELASANGRE by Alan F. Troop
Didn't see it.
> 9) BVS: JOURNALS OF RUPERT GILES, VOL 1 by Nancy Holder
I dislike Buffy more than Anita. Giles, OTOH, I like (along
with most of the Scooby Gang. Shame BTVS was cancelled after season
three) but not enough to buy this
> 10) BVS: SWEET SIXTEEN by Scott Ciencin
See above.
> Trade Paperbacks
> 1) I DARE by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
> 2) BLOODSUCKING FIENDS by Christopher Moore
> 3) ISLAND OF THE SEQUINED LOVE NUN by Christopher Moore
Updates to buy list.
> 4) BLACK CHALICE by Marie Jakober
Didn't see.
> 5) TRUE NAMES (etc) by Vernor Vinge
>
I still have not seen this in my neck of the woods.
--
"I think you mean 'Could libertarian slave-owning Confederates, led by
SHWIers, have pulled off a transatlantic invasion of Britain, in revenge
for the War of 1812, if they had nukes acquired from the Sea of Time?'"
Alison Brooks (1959-2002)
Dana Blackwell
> > 3) THE BETTER PART OF VALOR by Tanya Huff
> Hope it got a better cover than the first Valor book did. Which
> historical battle appears in contrived form in this one?
Cover's OK -- by Paul Youll. Battle: September 1944, 1st Marine Division attack on Peleliu Island against 10,000 dug-in Japanese
soldiers, apparently. I like most of Huff's work, particularly the Quarters series, less so the Blood series after the first book.
The Valor books, though, hmmm. I think she writes well, but the set-up for the battle in this second book is SO contrived, it really
irritated me. Plus I thought it got bogged down too much in the details of the fighting.
> > 6) SERPENT'S SHADOW by Mercedes Lackey
> Ew.
New setting -- Edwardian London, with magic. Half-English, half-Indian woman doctor flees enemy in India who has killed her parents.
Naturally enemy follows. Naturally, she's a mage. Light, but reasonably entertaining -- better than most of her later stuff, I
thought (some of which I haven't /can't bring myself to/ read).
> > 8) THE DRAGON DELASANGRE by Alan F. Troop
> Didn't see it.
Dragons exist and are shapechangers. Protagonist doesn't know whether he's the last dragon on earth, worries about finding a mate.
Gee it's lonely. Finds a mate. OK, but I couldn't really get into it; I never bought his reasons for not killing off one of the
troublesome characters, and the plot depends on this.
Dana
Richard Horton
>> 3) YEARS OF RICE AND SALT by Kim Stanley Robinson
>
> Have not read but it got scathing reviews over in shwi.
>
It looks like a pretty good book with some silly AH premises.
>> 4) THE EYRE AFFAIR by Jasper Fforde
>
> When's the sequel?
>
June or so? In the UK, at any rate.
>> 5) TRUE NAMES (etc) by Vernor Vinge
>>
>
> I still have not seen this in my neck of the woods.
Finally saw a copy today in B&N, though I admit I haven't been looking
that closely.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)
Timothy A. McDaniel
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <c1f84a6b.02040...@posting.google.com>,
>Mysterious Galaxy <publ...@mystgalaxy.com> wrote:
>> 8) KILN PEOPLE by David Brin
>
> Best thing he's written in years.
Had the impresson that that wouldn't be hard.
--
Tim McDaniel is tm...@jump.net; if that fail,
tm...@us.ibm.com is my work account.
"To join the Clueless Club, send a followup to this message quoting everything
up to and including this sig!" -- Jukka....@hut.fi (Jukka Korpela)
Thomas Yan
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> In article <c1f84a6b.02040...@posting.google.com>,
> Mysterious Galaxy <publ...@mystgalaxy.com> wrote:
> > 7) CARESS OF TWILIGHT by Laurell K. Hamilton
>
> Burned out on Hamilton. The worldbuilding is silly and I think I
> hate Anita Blake.
For the record, that's not an Anita Blake book. So far, I'm sticking
with both of Hamilton's series.
--
Thomas Yan (ty...@twcny.rr.com) Note: I don't check e-mail often.
Be pro-active. Fight sucky software and learned helplessness.
Apologies for any lack of capitalization; typing hurts my hands.
Judith Trummer
Mysterious Galaxy newsletter today and they claim to have signed copies
of Bujold's "Diplomatic Immunity." While they last!
I'd beat down the door (never having visited the store, I'm looking for
any excuse, but my schedule keeps getting in the way. I actually tried
to go once, only to find out that the entire strip-mall was closed for
fumigation!) but I'm reasonably sure the book hasn't actually been
released yet. Amazon only says "May," which sometimes means April, but
I can't find a specific date.. even on Baen's site. Sniff.
I didn't mean to hijack this thread for Miles Vorkosigan. Really.
Let's talk about those bestselling books for March.. hm, I've only read
the Laurell K. Hamilton, I'm embarrassed to admit, and I actually found
the new series a bit refreshing after so much Anita angst of late. I
really need to get "Bloodsucking Fiends." And I suppose I'll try the
new Tanya Huff, though "Valor's Choice" didn't do a thing for me -- I've
loved all her other books, so I'll give it another shot. I don't think
I can wait till the new Bujold comes out to get over there... it's been
years since I've seen a decent SF/Fantasy section in a bookstore. (20th
Century Books in Madison, WI, was one of my favorite places when it was
on the capitol square, but when it moved way down park street I never
made it down there anymore.. I hope they're still surviving.)
Ok, this is getting rambly. I'm just a little overexcited :)
Mysterious Galaxy
Darn. Nothing impresses a potential new customer like being closed the
one weekend they venture out to visit you. :( Can only plead
circumstances beyond our control...
Okay, the deal on DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY. At the time the print
newsletter was on deadline, we knew we would have signed books
available because Lois has been kind enough to sign books for us in
the past when her tour didn't bring her to San Diego. And as both the
author of the review in the "Plot Thickens," AND the editor, I sadly
have no one else to blame for the lack of the "on sale in May."
information.
However, if I could modify it NOW, it would say something like "Get
your copy on Thursday, May 16, when LMB visits MG!"
Would like to suggest to the various Laurell Hamilton fans who may not
have tried DEAD UNTIL DARK and LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS that they check
out Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampires.
Maryelizabeth
Martin Bonham
Immunity."
> I'm reasonably sure the book hasn't actually been
> released yet. Amazon only says "May," which sometimes means April, but
> I can't find a specific date.. even on Baen's site. Sniff.
Short answer - If you live in the USA and you have preordered it you have
less than a month to wait.
About ten days or less if you have purchased it as an eBook.
_Diplomatic Immunity_ by Lois McMaster Bujold - Baen Books ISBN:
0-7434-3533-8 will be published on the 1st of May.
Goto Baen's web page and click on schedule to get this:
http://www.baen.com/scheduleXML.asp
_DI_ is listed as one of the five books in May 2002.
The question of the exact publication date has been discussed to death in
the past over on Baen's Bar (follow the link from their home page) and on
the Bujold Mailing lists.
The following is what I have understood from these discussions.
(My only connection with the industry is as a purchaser of books - People
working in the Industry are welcome to correct me).
Books published by Baen are shipped from the warehouse in time for them to
be first sold in book stores in the USA by (or before) the 1st day of the
month of publication.
This assumes that the bookshop has preordered copies, and that the shop has
bothered to unpack the boxes of new books that have arrived in their stock
room.
A number of rabid Bujold fans have previously reported that an effective
technique is to insist on searching the Bookshops stock room in person -
often bookshop staff don't unpack boxes for several days, and two or three
copies of the latest Bujold hardcover are sometimes hidden by hundreds of
copies of the latest non-SF bestseller.
Note that Baen books are distributed by S&S and there may be other middlemen
in the distribution pipeline also.
Thus because of allowance for delays in the distribution pathway, it is
normal for Baen's books to arrive in bookshops in the last week of the
previous month, sometimes two weeks before the end of the month.
Expect that Baen's Bar and the Bujold Mailing lists will be flooded with
dozens "Its Arrived" posts specifying which book stores have it on sale and
when.
Note that Amazon also seems to start to ship books as soon as they receive
them from S&S (they also don't normally wait for the official date of
publication). In the past (previous Bujolds) it appears that they have sold
out of their initial too small supply and thus had a delay before satisfying
all the initial flood of customers.
This also applies to bricks and mortar bookshops of course.
Note that Jim Baen DOES NOT ever specify 'do not sell before' dates for any
of his books.
Any such claim is the invention of some clueless or dastardly bookshop or
distributor employee.
IIRC some S&S underling did specify such a thing for some copies of _ACC_
which caused lots of confusion and angst.
Where I live it takes an extra month or so for preordered books to arrive.
However as a purcahser of Baen's eBooks via their Webscriptions, I know that
I will receive the full text of Bujold's Diplocatic Immunity via the
internet in about 10 days time.
Martin.
--
Martin Bonham, Auckland, (Aotearoa) New Zealand.
Andrew Wheeler
>
> AARGH! I tried to pre-order, and the &^%$@#! at Borders said you
> couldn't place advance orders for books that hadn't been released
> yet. I *knew* he was lying to me!
<blink> <blink>
What *other* kind of book would you want to place an "advance" order for?
ObNotActuallySF: "There was only one catch, and it was Catch-22."
--
Andrew Wheeler
--
"Day One: Ringwraiths killed: 4. V. good.
Met up with Hobbits. Walked forty miles. Skinned a squirrel and ate it.
Still not King." -- from The Secret Diary of Aragorn son of Arathorn
Mark Atwood
>
> AARGH! I tried to pre-order, and the &^%$@#! at Borders said you couldn't
> place advance orders for books that hadn't been released yet. I *knew*
> he was lying to me!
Not only was he lying to you, he was doing a disservice to both the
industry and his particular bookstore.
--
Mark Atwood | Well done is better than well said.
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Louann Miller
>pci...@TheWorld.com (Paul Ciszek) writes:
>>
>> AARGH! I tried to pre-order, and the &^%$@#! at Borders said you couldn't
>> place advance orders for books that hadn't been released yet. I *knew*
>> he was lying to me!
>
>Not only was he lying to you, he was doing a disservice to both the
>industry and his particular bookstore.
Rather than conscious lying, more likely to be the "if you don't know
the answer to a question, make up something plausible" laziness common
to retail drones.
--
"Hey, you know that metric ton of spam you're suddenly getting
every time you open your mailbox? That was us! We sold you out
to our advertisers, not just a few of them but every advertising
category we've got, even though you specifically turned those ads
down when you signed up! Banners, popups, and "sponsored links"
in the search engine aren't enough any more -- we want to process
you for every possible commercial advantage like a cow in a
slaughterhouse. Start buying things, you prole, that's all you're
good for."
-- Yahoo 'changes to privacy policy' notification, first draft
(rejected by PR dept.)
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
>> 7) CARESS OF TWILIGHT by Laurell K. Hamilton
> Burned out on Hamilton. The worldbuilding is silly and I think I
> hate Anita Blake.
_Kiss of Shadows_ and _Caress of Twilight_ are not Anita Blake,
they're about the whiny half-faerie princess. The worldbuilding is much
better than she's been doing in the recent Anita books (as in, she's
*doing* worldbuilding again instead of just rehashing as she did for the
last few Anita books), and her Unseelie court is excellent. There's a
bit of tentacle porn in it (which may be good or bad depending on your
tastes), but it's not as self-indulgent as most recent Anita books
(_Obsidian Butterfly_ was a good Anita book, though - she ditched her
loser boyfriends to hang out with Edward).
Kiss is worth reading. Still, I'm not going to pick up Caress until
it's in paperback, I don't like this protagonist as much as Anita, and
there's no Edward equivalent, at least in the first book. Tentacle-boy
might turn out amusing in later books, though.
>> 5) TRUE NAMES (etc) by Vernor Vinge
> I still have not seen this in my neck of the woods.
Weird, it's readily available here. I was deeply underwhelmed by the
essays. Most of them are 5+ years old, and it shows badly. For those
who want "True Names", of course, there's no other real option, but I
still have my _True Names and Other Dangers_. Don't waste your money if
you have "True Names".
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"No one is safe. We will print no letters to the editor. We will give no
space to opposing points of view. They are wrong. The Underground Grammarian
is at war and will give the enemy nothing but battle." -TUG, v1n1
William December Starr
publ...@mystgalaxy.com (Mysterious Galaxy) said:
> 8) THE DRAGON DELASANGRE by Alan F. Troop
Hasn't anybody pointed out to this guy that maybe he shouldn't
use his middle initial and last name in sequence like that?
-- William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
"...and short of actually having someone called Jacob walk past
carrying a ladder there's no way of making the ending more obvious."
-- Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian, reviewing the movie
<rot13>Fbhy Fheivibef</rot13>, 11 January 2002
Mike Schilling
> In article <c1f84a6b.02040...@posting.google.com>,
> publ...@mystgalaxy.com (Mysterious Galaxy) said:
>
>
>> 8) THE DRAGON DELASANGRE by Alan F. Troop
>>
>
Unless it's a pen name for Larry Storch.
Judy
> Judith Trummer asked for the exact publication date of Bujold's "Diplomatic
> Immunity."
> of his books.
> Any such claim is the invention of some clueless or dastardly bookshop or
> distributor employee.
> IIRC some S&S underling did specify such a thing for some copies of _ACC_
> which caused lots of confusion and angst.
Hmm. I seemed to remember knowing an exact date on _Memory_ and _ACC_
both. There was some grumbling about it (or so my recollection
claims). At the least, the books were indeed in stores on/by the date
I expected, so I was relatively okay with it. I thought the release
dates were genuine, so I was looking for one for the new book as well.
Interesting.
At any rate, I switched my order over from Amazon to B&N when the
latter claimed to have the book and the former didn't, and despite it
apparently having shipped by camel (it took a *week* to get here?) I
finally have the book in my hands. No more worries till the next one
comes out..