INCOMING

I hadn't expected to pick up many books over the past two weeks.  I bought only a few while in New England, preferring to spend the time with  two of my beautiful grandchildren.  Also, since I was away from the computer, I figured that I wouldn't be getting too many free e-books on-line (ha!).  Thus, I truly felt righteous when I came back home Friday evening.  My downfall came the next day with a library book sale and a church book sale, both with many good books at good prices. We filled up the trunk of the car and then some.  Ah, me.  I was bad enough, but Kitty...well, we now have a zillion and one books that my daughters, grand-children, and son-in-law will love.  Kitty picked up a zillion histories and biographies for herself.  (I needn't mention my tastes are occasionally low-brow and hers are more than occasionally not, probably because Kitty is miles smarter than I am -- as well as much more [insert any positive quality here] than I.)  Anyway, here is this week's INCOMING fron Hell, minus Kitty's haul:

• Kevin J. Anderson, editor, Blood Lite II:  Overbite. Humorous horror anthology from The Horror Writers Association, the sceond in the Blood Lite series.  Thirty-one stories.
• [anonymous editor], Mystery Cats.  Sixteen cat mysteries from the pages of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, with a Patricia Highsmith story thrown in for good measure. 
• Ace Atkins, Leavin' Trunk Blues.  A Nick Travers mystery.
• Kate Atkinson, Case Histories.  The first Jackson Brodie mystery.
• Gray Barker, They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.  Nonfiction (?), the book that popularized the "Men in Black" theory.
• Nathaniel Benchley, The Off-Islanders.  Humor.  The book that became the movie The Russians Are Coming!  The Russians Are Coming!  Nathamiel was the son of Robert and the father of Peter.
• Alfred Bester, The Deceivers.  SF.
• Otto O. Binder, Flying Saucers Are Watching Us.  Another flying saucer "expose," this time by the once-popular journeyman writer and SF pioneer.
• B. A. Botkin and Alvin F. Harlow, A Treasury of Railroad Folklore.   As with Botkin's other books on folklore, this one is just fun to dip into.
• Ben Bova, The Sam Gunn Omnibus.  SF collection.  All the Sam Gunn stories, "and then some." 
• Orson Scott Card, Alvin Journeyman.  Fantasy.  The fourth in the Tales of Alvin Maker series. 
• Terry Carr, editor, Universe 7.  SF anthology with eight stories.
• Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union.  SF/mystery mash-up.
• C. J. Cherryh, Legions of Hell.  Fix-up fantasy novel in the shared-world created by Janet Morris.
• Michael Connelly, The Fifth Business.  A Mickey Haller mystery.
• "Edmund Crispin" (Robert Bruce Montgomery), The Edmund Crispin Treasury, Volume 1.  Omnibus of three classic mystery novels featuring Gervase Fen:  The Case of the Gilded Fly, Holy Disorders, and The Moving Toyshop.
• John Crowley, Aegypt.  Fantasy.
• Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, editors, Snow White, Rose Red.  Fantasy/horror anthology with twenty stories.
• Charles de Lint, Spirits in the Wires and Someplace to Be Flying.  Fantasies.
• Judy-Lynn del Rey, editor, Stellar #1.  The first in the SF anthology series.  Nine stories.
• Gardner Dozois, editor, Galactic Empires.  SF anthology.  Six novellas.
• David Douglas Duncan, Magical Worlds of Fantasy.  Art book featuring four amateur fantasy artists.
• George Alec Effinger, Shadow Money and When Gravity Fails.  One crime novel and one cyberpunk.
• Roger Elwood, editor, And Walk Now Gently Through the Fire...and Other Science fiction Stories.  Themed anthology of ten stories mixing biochemistry and religion.
• Bruno Fischer, The Evil Days. Suspense.
• Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough:  A Study in Magic and Religion.  The classic.
• Esther M. Friesner, editor, Fangs for the Mammaries.  Vampires in the suburbs, oh my!  Nineteen stories.  The copyright page also credits Martin H. Greenberg's Teckno Books.  The front cover and the spine drop the "M." from Friesner's name.
• Rosalind M. Greenberg & Martin H. Greenberg, editors, Vampires in Love. Horror anthology with 21 stories.
• Joe Hill, Horns.  Horror.
• Russell Hoban, The Medusa Frequency.  Fantasy.
• Nancy Holder, Buffy the Vampire Slayer:  Keep Me in Mind.  Television tie-in novel.  Number two in the Stake Your Destiny series.
• Robert Holdstock, Celtika.  Fantasy; Book One of The Merlin Codex.
• Arnaldur Indridason, Silence of the Grave.  Icelandic mystery, a CWA Golden Dagger winner.  And, yes, the second "d" in Indridason should have a little cross on the top of it, but my computer doesn't do Icelandic.
• Graham Joyce, Indigo.  Fantasy thriller.
• Gerald Kersh, Nightshades & Damnations.  A "best of" fantasy anthology with eleven stories.  Edited by Harlan Ellison.  Kersh can be habit-forming.
• Damon Knight, editor, Orbit 19.  SF anthology with thirteen stories.
• Linda Landrigan, editor, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense.  Thirty-four stories from AHMM, from 1957 through 2004.  Not exactly fifty years, but we're all friends here, right?
• David Larkin, editor, Once Upon a Time:  Some Contemporary Illustrators of Fantasy.  Art book.
• Tanith Lee, Dark Dance.  Fantasy.
• John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let Me In (also known as Let the Right One In).  Neat vampire novel that spawned both Swedish and American films.  (I lean ever so slightly toward the Swedish version.)
• David Liss, The Coffee Trader.  Historical thriller.
• Philip McCutchan, The Guns of Arrest.  A Lt. Halfhyde naval thriller.  While England still rules the waves, Halfhyde must stop a traitor from delivering highly classified plans to Bismark's Germany.
• Jon F. Merz, The Kensei.  A vampire ninja novel in the Lawson series.
• John Myers Myers, The Deaths of the Bravos.  Nonfiction.  An anecdotal and informal history of Western lore.  Myers is probably better known for his epic fantasy Silverlock, but his books on Western history shouldn't be missed.
• [The New Yorker], Short Stories from The New Yorker.  Collection of 68 stories from 1925 to 1940.  A brief foreward explains that a number of types of stories were not considered for inclusion:  fictionalized remininscence, parable, prophecy, fable, fantasy, satire, burlesque, parody, nonsense tales, stories from series, stories already reprinted, stories duplicating themes, as well as stories that had become dated were generally excluded.  What remains is some great stories; this volume is on a par with those Whit Burnett culled from his Story magazine.
• C. Northcote Parkinson, The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower.  A fictional biography of C. S. Forester's naval hero.
• Don Pendleton, The Executioner #1:  War Against the Mafia, #2: Death Squad, #3:  Battle Mask, #4:  Miami Massacre, and #5:  Continental Contract.  The first five entries in the long-running and influential  men's adventure series.
• Louise Penny, Bury Your Dead and A Rule Against Murder.  Chief Inspector Gamache mysteries.
• Ellery Queen, editor, Masterpieces of Mystery.  A 20-volume collection of mystery stories, to wit:  Amateurs and Professionals, Blue Ribbon Specials, Cherished Classics, Choice Cuts, Detective Directory -- I, Detective Directory -- II, The Fifties, The Forties, The Golden Age -- I, The Golden Age --II, The Grand Masters, The Grand Masters Up To Date, More from the Sixties, The Old Masters, The Prizewinners, The Seventies, The Sixties, Stories Not To Be Missed, The Supersleuths, and The Supersleuths Revisited.  If you think I'm going to count up all the stories in each of the twenty volumes, you are wrong.  While we are with Ellery Queen, let's add Ellery Queen's Mystery Anthology, Volume 28, which should also have been published under a different title but I  don't know what that would be.
• Jean Rabe and Martin H. Greenberg, editors, Sol's Children.  SF anthology with 16 stories.
• Mike Resnick, The Return of Santiago.  SF.  A sequel to Santiago, natch.
• "Kenneth Roberson" (Paul Ernst), The Avenger #1:  Justice, Inc.  First in the pulp adventure series, original published in 1939.
• Sax Rohmer, Dope, Fire-Tongue, and The Yellow Claw.  Oriental mysteries.  All three were books I once owned but that had gone walkabout several years ago.
• "Marilyn Ross" (W. E. D. Ross), Barnabas, Quentin and the Mad Magician.  Television tie-in novel.  Back in the day, people sometimes confused me with David Selby.  Now they confuse with Newt Gingrich, dammit.  What happened?
• Kristine Kathryn Rusch, The Disappeared.  SF.  A Retrieval Artist novel.
• Joanna Russ, The Adventures of Alyx.  Fantasy collection of five stories wherein the heroine Alyx buckles her swash.  One of the five stories is the famous novel Picnic on Paradise and it happens that I also picked up Picnic on Paradise as a single copy.  I figure there's no such thing as too much Joanna Russ.  Smart, isn't I?
• Fred Saberhagen, Berserker's Star.  SF.  Long before the Borg, there were the Beserkers.
• Marcus Sakey, Good People.  Crime novel.
• Pamela Sargent, editor, More Women of Wonder.  Classic SF anthology with seven stories, one of which features Joanna Russ's Alyx [see above].
• Al Sarrantonio, Kitt Peak.  Western.
• Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Last Rituals.  Mystery.
• Mickey Spillane, The Erection Set.  Tough-guy mystery introducing Dogeron Kelly.   The famous cover has a hot nude photo of Spillane's then-wife.
• Taylor Stevens, The Informationist.  Thriller.
• Duane Swierczynski, The Blonde.  Thriller.  This edition adds the short story Redhead.
• Richard Tooker, The Dawn Boy.  Juvenile.  A boys' book set in prehistoric times with a young Cro-Magnon as the eponymous hero.
• Boris Vallejo, The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo.  Art book.
• Carol-Lynn Rossel Waugh, Martin H. Greenberg, and Frank D. McSherry, Jr., editors, Murder and Mystery in Chicago.  Anthology with eleven stories.
• Anthony West, H. G. Wells:  Aspect of a Life.  Biography of the writer by his son.
• Don Winslow, The Dawn Patrol.  A Boone Daniels mystery.  This one has had rave reviews.
• Elizabeth R. Wollheim and Sheila E. Gilbert, editors, 30th Anniversary DAW Science Fiction.  Tribute anthology with eighteen stories and one novel excerpt.

And also the following e-books:

• Brett Battles, Here Comes Mr. Trouble.
• Bradley P. Beaulieu, The Winds of Khalakovo.
• Jeff Bennington,  Creepy and Murdock's Eyes.
• Kealan Patrick Burke, The Turtle Boy.
• Orson Scott Card and Edmund R. Schubert, editors, InterGalactic Medicine Show Awards Anthology, Volume 1.
• Reed Farrell Coleman, Hose Monkey.
• Douglas Dorow, The Ninth District.
• Marissa Farrar, Where the Dead Live.
• Lee Goldberg, Three to Get Deadly,
• Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin, The Dead Man #1:  Face of Evil.
• John G. Hartness, Ballot of Blood.
• Billie Sue Mosiman, Walls of the Dead and Wireman.
• Scott Nicholson,  Ashes, Creative Spirit (containing both the novel and the screenplay), and Head Cases.
• Stephen Palmer, Urbis Morpheos.
• Brian Pendreigh, The Man in the Seventh Row.
• Michael Rivers, Moonlighton the Natahala.
• Jory Sherman, Little Journeys:  Collected Stories and The Sadness of Autumn:  Tales of the Ozark Hills.
• Jeremy Shipp, The Sun Never Rises on the Big City.
• Steven Torres, The Concrete Maze, Killing Way 2: Urban Stories, and The Valley of Angustias.
• "Jack Tunney," Fightcard:  Felony Fists.
• Ted Vezner, Chasing Vegas.
• David J. Walker, The Last Page.
• Dave Zeltserman, Blood Crimes, Book One.