INCOMING

Another good week with more interesting items.  A lot of horror and thrillers here, but The Moon Conquerors was a special find.

• Peter Abresch, Bloody Bonsai and Killing Time.  The first two novels in the Elderhostel mystery series.  Both signed.
• Robert Crais, Hostage.  Thriller.  This copy was published as a tie-in to the Bruce Willis movie.
• L. P. Davies, The Paper Dolls.  Mystery/horror/SF hybrid.
• Charles de Lint, Tapping the Dream Tree:  New Tales of Newford.  Fantasy collection of 18 stories, four of which were originally published as limited edition chapbooks and another of which was published published as a limited edition book. 
• Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major, The New Lifetime Reading Plan (Fourth Edition).  Yeah, like I needed this.
• Tom Fassbender & Jim Pascoe, Buffy the Vampire Slayer:  Creatures of Habit.  An "illustated novel", with art by Brian Horton & Paul Lee.
• Christopher Golden, The Boys Are Back in Town.  Dark fantasy.
• Brian Hodge, Nightlife.  Horror.
• [Charles D. Hornig, uncredited editor], The Moon Conquerors.  This is a reprint of the first issue of the U.S. magazine Science Fiction Quarterly,  (Summer, 1940) re-paginated from 148 pages to 176 pages by British publisher Gerald Swan in 1943.  This one is printed on blue paper and has had its cover replaced by blue cardboard stock with the title hand printed.  Contains the title novel (by R. H. Romans, reprinted from Science Wonder Quarterly, Winter, 1930) and five original short stories by Eando Binder, Raymond Z. Gallun, Harl Vincent, and others.
• James Herbert, Domain.  Apocalyptic horror with rats. 
• Richard Laymon,  Island.  Horror.  This edition has a special introduction by Dean Koontz.
• John le Carre, Absolute Friends.  Spy novel.
• Brian Lumley, Necroscope, Necroscope IV:  Deadspeak, Necroscope:  The Lost Years, and Necroscope:  The Lost Years, Volume Two:  Resurgence.  Four horror novels.  Harry Keogh talks to the dead and kills vampires.
• John Lutz, The Night Watcher.  Thriller.
• Graham Masterton, Tengu.  Horror, or (as the cover blurb has it) "a novel of demonic nuclear terror."
• Thomas F. Monteleone, The Blood of the Lamb.  Apocalyptic thriller.
• Philip Nutman, Wet Work.  Apocalyptic zombie novel.
• Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Dance of Death, The Ice Limit, and Reliquary.  Thrillers three, with the first and the last featuring FBI agent Pendergast.
• [various writers], Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Volumes 1 & 2.  These volumes collect various stories from the Buffy comic book.  These are note presented in the order of their appearance, but in chronological order with in the television shows time.  Thus, in the first volume, the first story takes Spike and Dru from China in the Boxer Rebellion to the Chicago World's Fair in 1933.  The second story adapts the original movie and gives us Buffy's origin.  Buffy and Pike then travel to Las Vegas, and then Buffy returns alone to LA, slaying all the way.  The stories in the first volume were published in 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2003.  Scripts were by Christopher Golden, Dan Brereton, Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza, and Paul Lee; artwork was by Eric Powell, Joe Bennett, Cliff Richards, Paul Lee, Ryan Sook, Guy Major, Hector Gomez, Jeremy Cox, and Brian Horton.   Volume 2 continues the chronological timeline with the breakup of Buffy's parents and her move to Sunnydale, then leaps forward to the the end of the show's first season, then to the second and third seasons.  The stories were originally published in 1998 to 2003.  Writers in Volume 2 are Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza, Jen Van Meter, Christopher Golden, Doug Petrie, and James Marsters (Spike!); artists include Jeff Matsuda, David McCaig, Hakjoon Kang, Nolan Obena, Cliff Richards, Brian Horton, Luke Ross, Rick Ketcham, Guy Major, Ryran Sook, and Hector Gomez.  Phew.

Update, 12/24

     A few more came on Christmas while doing the annual chili feast at my daughter's.  I'll be on the road Christmas Day, so this post is going in Monday's queue.  Any way, these make me smile:

•  Anna Dewdney, Llama Lama Holiday Drama.  I love llamas, alpacas, and vicunas, so naturally I ususally receive something llama oriented.
• Jamie Frater, Listverse.com's Ultimate Book of Bizarre Lists.  With this in my hands, I may not have to go to Bill Crider's blog everyday.  (Actually, I still will -- if only to find out the many spurious events wherein Texas leads the way.)   My eleven-year-old grandson told me I'll really like this book -- it has fifteen little-known facts about toilets!  "Hey, Pop, did you know the King George II died from falling off the toilet?"  "Hmm.  What were his last words, Mark?  'Oh, crap!'?"

I also think Mark had something to do with one of Kitty's gifts:

•  Rick Smith & Bruce Lourie, Slow Death by Rubber Duck:  The Secret Danger of Everyday Things.  (Mark has my thirteen-year-old mental and emotional maturity two years ahead of schedule.)