Latest Orders

Ummm... I'd do a "Latest Arrivals" post, but other than Gaiman's Mirrormask and Lorca's Selected Letters I can't actually think of anything I've brought home recently. So, instead, I've decided to post a quick list of those books I'm expecting to arrive soon! Also, no pictures this time, because I'm lazy.

First off is The City and the City by China Mieville. A murder mystery novel set in another one of Mieville's imaginative settings, this promises to be a great read on par with his earlier novel, Perdido Street Station.

I also got fed up with waiting for a copy to show up in any local bookstore and finally ordered Catherynne Valente's Palimpsest. I read a short story set in the same world as this novel and (as usual) fell in love with Valente's prose... which broke my will and forced me to bump this up on my reading list.

Another book I just had to have because of a short story- I read M. John Harrison's contribution to The New Weird anthology (edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer) and decided I had to have his novel, Viriconium. The book and the short story are, again, set in the same world. Roman culture meets high tech society. Sweet!

Kelly Link's Trampoline: An Anthology is also on the way. It contains stories by Christopher Barzak (see my blog on his book The Love We Share... here), Carol Emshwiller, Jeffrey Ford, Karen Joy Fowler, Christopher Rowe, and a number of other people. Link is a top-notch editor and writer, and several of the names in this anthology make me positively drool.

Speaking of Christopher Barzak, I've got his other book One for Sorrow in the mail. This one seems to be worlds away from his story collection, The Love We Share Without Knowing, and actually looks like it may have something in common with Steve Berman's YA gay ghost story, Vintage (which I have another blog on... here).

And... speaking of Steve Berman... Trysts: A Triskaidecollection or Queer and Weird Stories is also on the way. Again, I seem to be developing a fixation on a handful of certain authors. (No Hal Duncan in this week's shipment...Not even a short story. That's a first. Although I'm still stalking his blog.)

Christopher Barzak's The Love We Share Without Knowing

I have my first contender for 2009's top five books.

Christopher Barzak's The Love We Share Without Knowing is a collection of interlinked short stories which explore the concepts of identity and nationality, namely Japanese and American. The stories follow a varying cast of characters, some of whom meet at various points of the book and some of whom vanish altogether after one fateful event. Each character, however, is linked to the others by a twisting thread of love (some would say fate, others chance), giving the collection its name. Not every character gets a chance to tell his or her story before vanishing from the overall storyline, which makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe, there will be a sequel volume of a sort. (I especially wanted to read the story of the man who spends hours alone in a Japanese love hotel and writes in the love hotel's diary, expressing his views on the heartbreak and joy that other patrons, and humans in general, all share.)

I'd read "In Between Dreams" in The Solaris Book of New Fantasy (which is included in this volume as well), and was at first very intrigued by Barzak's use and re-interpretation of Japanese myth in a contemporary (Japanese) urban setting. It helps, of course, that this particular story deals with the kitsune, or fox spirit, which is probably my favorite aspect of Japanese mythology. Barzak uses the kitsune in several of the stories, tying the stories together by playing off of the spirit's mischievous and rather untrustworthy cleverness. I was also very curious to see if The Love We Share Without Knowing delved into the past of the gay American character, Danny, who is trapped in a supernatural coma by his jealous Japanese lover, Kenji. To my delight, Danny got his very own story, though sadly Kenji's side of the tale remains untold.

Overall, I was very impressed with the collection, and I've been thinking about picking up Barzak's other book, One For Sorrow. I've also ordered a short story collection that happens to have one of Barzak's stories, but I haven't read it yet. (It's still in the mail, actually.) I'm looking forward to what else Christopher Barzak comes up with.

This Week's Books (And a New Author's Blog)

I've been on the hunt for Christopher Barzak's work since I came across his story in the Solaris Book of New Fantasy. I eventually found his blog, and realized only a few hours ago that he in fact has two books out (and is working on a third). His current releases include The Love We Share Without Knowing and One for Sorrow, both of which I plan on eventually adding to my collection. I swear neither of these books were listed a few months ago when I first searched for him!

Anyway, in the course of the last week (or so) I've bought or rescued a good ten or so books...not all of the books I ordered have come in, but I've listed them here anyway so I don't forget. And all of them are listed on LibraryThing, or will be shortly.

Today's Prize Find:

Charles Vess' Book of Ballads-

Rescue Cases:

Nigel Barley's Grave Matters-

Howard Engel's Lord High Executioner- I wish the cover shot were of higher quality. It's actually a pretty nice looking book. Um...sort of.

Larry Townsend's Run, Little Leather Boy- Sadly, there's no image available of this one.

Recent Purchases:

Samuel R. Delany's Dark Reflections and The Bridge of Lost Desire-

Jonathan Carroll's Bones of the Moon- (Which was actually also a rescue, come to think of it.)

Brian W. Aldiss' The Twinkling of an Eye: My Life as an Englishman- (Also somewhat of a rescue!)

Andrew J. Wilson's Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction- Sorry, no image available.

Bought, But Still Drifting Somewhere in the U.S. Postal System:

Ekaterina Sedia's Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy-

Theodora Goss' In the Forests of Forgetting-

Steve Berman's Wilde Stories 2008: The Best of the Year's Gay Speculative Fiction-

Delia Sherman's Interfictions:An Anthology of Interstitial Writing-

I was going to post a review of the new Trek movie, but I'm still running it over in my head, and at any rate I think I'll go back to see it again soon. I will say now that though I don't feel as if I can accept the film as truly canon, it is the most beautiful fanfiction ever written. Futher opinions will be forthcoming when I've come to grips with the movie.