Name Forthcoming: March Book Haul

Tum tum tum tuuuum.

Another month, another bunch of books. In this particular pile you'll find some Warhammer, some new releases and some comics.

We'll start with the smallest book first; quite an old novel, and a personal favourite of mine.

I had already read The King Beyond the Gate; in fact it was one of the first 'darker' fantasy novels I had read, after having first read a bunch of Eddings and Redwall. This one cemented my love for the grim side of fantasy. I got my original copy from my grandmother, and I thought it was about time I finished my Del Rey Drenai collection.

Of these, the only one I haven't read yet is The Swords of Night and Day. I keep holding off on that one, because once it's done, there will no more new Drenai to read. Maybe this year somewhere.

You'll notice that the Knights of Dark Renown and Morningstar are in here too. 'Officially' they're not part of the Drenai Saga but I put them in the whole anyway. This is because I once came upon an observation by somebody on the internet that, there is a reference to places from Morningstar in the Waylander trilogy, to my mind then, cementing the initial two books as part of the whole saga.

Here you'll see the Warhammer novels I got.

Gods and Mortals is a hardback short story collection which I won't read any time soon, but as these things tend to go out of stock pretty quickly I thought it would be good to have it on hand for whenever I felt like it.

City of the Damned is a reprint of a stand-alone Gotrek and Felix novel I didn't yet have.

I must say though, I'm slightly annoyed that the gold reflective theme from the dark omnibus editions wasn't carried through.

Up next, the fifth volume of the Night Shade's Jules de Grandin complete short story collections... which you can see here already gathered with the rest of them.

Though I haven't ever even read any Seabury Quinn, I did pick these up, because of the artwork, because I tend to want to support Night Shade Books, and because of the occult leanings of the Jules de Grandin stories. Also, I seem to have discovered that I like pulp stories of the weird and horror variety, more than I thought I did, and since I'm done reading Lovecraft now I am glad to already have something on the go.

I've had some difficulties with reading lately and I've found over the past few months that reading short stories helps with counteracting some of that. The introduction says these stories aren't of such high-standing quality that they can just be plowed through until completion, and that they might start to blur together after a while. So, on its recommendation, I'll start to intersperse these into my reading now and then over a long period of time, rather than trying to force the read.

Up next is book 2 in Anna Smith Spark's Empires of Dust trilogy.

As you can see, I'm reading it now, so I won't be saying much about this one right now.

The books without their dust jackets.

I did appreciate The Court of Broken Knives when I read it and I posted a very long review on it. I went off on a slightly off-putting tangent during the writing, so I'm not too fond of sharing the review itself. It's still there though, so if you want to read it, go and read it your own self; it's still on the blog somewhere.

lovely cover art by the way.

The limited edition of Angron: Slave of Nuceira.

The Black Library again on form with their special editions.

The book comes in a thick sleeve (War Hounds embossing), which is why the book is actually quite a bit thinner than you'd think, and the book on the whole is only about 200 pages, and I've already read it too. I'll hold off on showing you more, as I've already prepared next post to showcase and talk about the book a little.

Three Horror comics, two of which I've read and can really recommend.

I haven't read Infinite Dark yet, but Space-horror is right up my alley so I picked this one up as soon as I knew it existed. I'm not sure when I'll get round to it, as I tend to wait a while until these types of series conclude.

Bprd: Vampire follows agent-turned-vampire Simon Anders after his experiences in Bprd: 1948 and is one of those side-jaunts in the Hellboy universe that is probably better than some of the stuff it is a side-jaunt of. This is a re-issue that adds a little extra to the original material, and sets up the second volume of the as of yet unwritten Bprd: Vampire trilogy. I do hope this gets continued soon, because it really is quite stellar.

Bloodborne then, the Death of Sleep is one of those gaming comics designed to pilfer a few bucks, or euros, from those fans that just couldn't get enough from just its source material alone, and which generally are not all that great.

Imagine my surprise then, when I found that this one is actually really, really good.

There's a story here, but as in the game, it's rather hidden, and I'm unsure if it was concluded or if it's still an ongoing project. The comic has a lot of mood going for it, relying on empty vistas and bleak imagery to tell its story, rather than relying on dialogue or exposition.

You obviously should be familiar with the source material to make some sense of it though.

It even managed to get some chilling moments in there, I kid you not.

I won't be spoiling those for you though, and instead I recommend, if you're a fan, that you pick this one up yourself.

And, lastly, the comic that I'm giving a read right now.

Caballistics Inc is one of those favourites that manages to hit all the right spots, and I'm finding a lot to enjoy on this re-read. The introduction that comes with this edition is a little startling however. It gives yet another one of those glimpses of discontent between the writing and art teams of 2000ad and their higher-ups. The introduction, written in the pub, isn't all that great and instead serves us up with yet another one of those 'oh-what-could-have-been' moments, but regardless of it now having made sure I'll never actually buy the spin-off novels, I'm glad that this edition at least, has Gordon Rennie's approval.

What's crazy though is that there even seems to be another arc here that I've never even read:

I'm sure that this is the first I've ever come across 'Visiting Hour'.

Which is slightly odd, because when I read the trade paperback editions I found that Volume 2: Creepshow didn't actually have The Nativity story or even To Ashes in it, and I found myself compelled to buy the digital edition of the complete Caballistics Inc last year or so. And I'm sure Visiting Hour wasn't in there back then. Ah well, at least I've got something extra to look forward to now.

Here's the whole Caballistics inc universe, which besides the titular series, also consists of the Harry Absalom series, which is at least as good as its progenitor.