Shejidan / What have you been reading lately?

**Posted by Aja Jin** 8/23/2021 9:24 pm

Surtac wrote:
Matheson's I Am Legend? Yes, I remember it well. It is indeed a good book.

I'm currently reading Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Expert System's Champion, and I discovered last night that there is a new Alastair Reynolds book imminent, set in the Revelation Space universe!

Yes indeed, Inhibitor Phase, being released Thursday. I have the British first editions of all his books, so this one gets ordered at once.

Reading The Architect of Sleep by Steven Boyett. It was just republished in a beautiful edition by Centipede Press, 40 years after its only printing. Boyett bought back the rights after a dispute with his editor on the sequel (The Geography of Dreams), and that was it, until now. Such a good book, hopefully he’ll now continue the story (a possibility he left open in his new afterward).

**Posted by Surtac** 8/23/2021 10:03 pm

Aja Jin wrote:
Yes indeed, Inhibitor Phase, being released Thursday. I have the British first editions of all his books, so this one gets ordered at once.

Ordered mine this morning, and it looks like the Book Depository UK site already has it available for shipping. So it looks like I'll get to read that before Abercrombie's The Wisdom of Crowds arrives.

**Posted by Aja Jin** 8/24/2021 8:56 am

Ordered mine too. $20 US for the book, $15 for shipping. Yikes ! I miss the cheap Royal Mail rates.

**Posted by Surtac** 8/24/2021 5:51 pm

Aja Jin wrote:
Ordered mine too. $20 US for the book, $15 for shipping. Yikes ! I miss the cheap Royal Mail rates.

Urk. Shipping prices are always a major consideration for me these days, particularly when ordering stuff from the US where it seems to be an absolute lottery at times.

May I ask which vendor you used, mahe? I bought mine from The Book Depository UK where the prices quoted already include shipping costs. I used Paypal and paid AUD 47.52 which, at yesterdays Paypal conversion rate, was the equivalent of USD 32.43 . They also seem to have the best delivery service in terms of speed and consistency.

**Posted by Jackalgirl** 8/25/2021 10:35 am

Aja Jin wrote:
Reading The Architect of Sleep by Steven Boyett. It was just republished in a beautiful edition by Centipede Press, 40 years after its only printing. Boyett bought back the rights after a dispute with his editor on the sequel (The Geography of Dreams), and that was it, until now. Such a good book, hopefully he’ll now continue the story (a possibility he left open in his new afterward).

YAAAAAS! Thank you so much for this -- I hadn't heard. This is wonderful news!

**Posted by Aja Jin** 8/25/2021 5:31 pm

Surtac wrote:
Aja Jin wrote:
Ordered mine too. $20 US for the book, $15 for shipping. Yikes ! I miss the cheap Royal Mail rates.
Urk. Shipping prices are always a major consideration for me these days, particularly when ordering stuff from the US where it seems to be an absolute lottery at times.

May I ask which vendor you used, mahe? I bought mine from The Book Depository UK where the prices quoted already include shipping costs. I used Paypal and paid AUD 47.52 which, at yesterdays Paypal conversion rate, was the equivalent of USD 32.43 . They also seem to have the best delivery service in terms of speed and consistency.

Amazon UK. I’ve had no issues, except for their lousy packaging of books.

**Posted by Surtac** 8/25/2021 7:01 pm

Interesting. The Book Depository is owned by Amazon and has been for a number of years now. No reduction in quality of service that I've seen, and their breadth and depth of stock choices seems better than Amazon UK when I've been searching for older material. And their packaging is usually pretty robust.

Btw, Book Depository emailed this morning to say my copy is already in transit.

**Posted by Aja Jin** 8/26/2021 7:49 am

Surtac wrote:
Interesting. The Book Depository is owned by Amazon and has been for a number of years now. No reduction in quality of service that I've seen, and their breadth and depth of stock choices seems better than Amazon UK when I've been searching for older material. And their packaging is usually pretty robust.

Btw, Book Depository emailed this morning to say my copy is already in transit.

I’ll give them a try with my next British order!

**Posted by Surtac** 8/26/2021 9:11 pm

Have finished The Expert System's Champion, Adrian Tchaikovsky's follow-up to The Expert System's Brother. These are both tales of humans struggling to survive as the descendants of colonists to a world where the biochemistry of the native lifeforms is completely toxic to humans.

Recommended. I'm becoming more impressed with Tchaikovsky the more of his stuff I read and there's still a lot of his back catalogue I haven't got to yet.

**Posted by Pence** 9/04/2021 1:30 pm

Victoria Goddard has a lovely new novella out - 'Petty Treasons'. Its a nice compliment to her 'Hands of the Emperor'.