Birthday Book Haul

Such a great time of year for me book-wise. With Christmas and my birthday being so close together you have the makings of an excellent holiday book haul! Mrs NW took a sneaky photo of my bedside table and posted it here on the blog which gave some of these away already *grumpy face*.

A photo of all the pretty books

Also ordered the following books with online book vouchers:

Brandon Sanderson raves about Nix’s Abhorsen Chronicles so it has been on my TBR list for a while. I read everything by Alastair Reynolds because his books are amazing. Road Brothers is a short story collection giving you an insight into Jorg Ancrath’s buddies from the Broken Empire trilogy which should be pretty dark but interesting as well.

That makes 12 books in total. These will keep me busy for some time!

The Book of Swords: When I asked my mother to get me this book for Christmas she asked if it was a book about pirates for my son. I had to patiently say no and that it is actually a fine collection of stories from the masters of modern fantasy! The main attraction for me with this one was the short story by Scott Lynch titled The Smoke of Gold is Glory (woaaaaaah epic title right!?) – which turned out to be awesome. It also has a story set in the SOIAF universe by George R.R. Martin which is no doubt a big selling point for this book.

 

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: This the omnibus edition which includes the first three books. These books have been around forever and many people seem to like it although apparently the main character is somewhat controversial and people either hate him or love him. Sounds like my kind of thing. Any self-respecting fantasy collector should have this one right? I also got Seventh Decimate by the same author. There seemed to be a fair amount of hype surrounding it and it was the best option in the store my gift voucher was for.

 

Rogues of the Republic (books 2 & 3): The name of this series sounds like it should be the title of the next Star Wars film. You have read my review of the first book here in which case you also know that the first book is hilarious and fun. They are basically about a team of thieves who end up in ridiculous situations. Given how much I enjoyed the first book I decided to pick up the other two. Most people say they are just as good so I figured it was a safe bet.

 

 

 

Best New SF 26: This is a regular collection of SF short stories put together by the respected Gardner Dozois. He chooses the best stories for the year and also sums up the year of SF in general (including movies & games etc.)

The Grace of Kings: I read a short story titled The Hidden Girl by this guy and dayummm it was good. It was no surprise to me that he has won some big awards for his writing. I just had to pick up this book which is the first in his epic fantasy series called The Dandelion Dynasty. The setting is inspired by ancient Chinese stories/history which is a new kind of fantasy setting for me. I have always been interested in Chinese history along with their rich ancient culture so I am very much looking forward to getting stuck in.

 

 

Gridlinked: Neal Asher’s books pop up all over the place in the SF fandom. After a recommendation from the ever reliable Bookstooge I decided to give this stuff a go. I wasn’t sure where to start as there seem to be about a bajillion books in this series and ended up just picking this one. Anyone know if this is a good place to start?

 

 

 

 

Oathbringer: You probably already know about this one. If you don’t please just stop reading now and go and buy every book in the Stormlight Archive and Mistborn series before proceeding further with your life. You won’t regret it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hoping to get through these books fairly quickly in line with my 2018 resolution to become a “Power Reader”. I need to try my best to beat back real life with a stick so that I can achieve this coveted title.

Have you read any of these books? What did you think?