Feed Your Interest

Peter F Hamilton’s Temporal Void has just arrived!
It’s the second book in his Void trilogy (the first is The Dreaming Void). I’ve got no idea what the second book is going to be about (or like), but if the first book were any indication, I suspect I’ll be reading it most of tonight and tomorrow and enjoying every single bit of it…
Come on in if you want it. Give us a call if you can’t make it in!

We did get a small amount of other books… The interesting ones are:
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
1634: The Baltic War by David Weber and Eric Flint
Nation by Terry Pratchett.

One other book that TONS of people have been waiting for and asking about: Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Yes, we’ve finally gotten it back in. No, we’re not expecting to run out anytime soon. Yes, we have regularly been wrong about that…

Narrelle Harris’ The Opposite of Life is finally back in stock!

In case you missed it the first time, this is a story about a girl and a vampire, but of an entirely different stripe from all the others that are rife in the market at the moment. For one thing, they aren’t madly in love with each other. For another, neither girl nor vampire are sexy and well-bosomed/-muscled.

Instead, this is a unique, well told story of a Melbournian girl who somehow finds herself contemplating what it means to be alive and what it means to be (un)dead, all the while stumbling through the swathe of destruction left behind by some fairly unruly vampires.

Well worth a read!

So Agent to the Stars is Scalzi’s first book. EVER. Except it’s only just been (relative to Old Man’s War) published.

So perhaps it’s more like first “story”. But that’s not accurate either.

Basically, Scalzi wrote the story, didn’t get it published immediately, put it up on his website as “shareware”. i.e. if you like it, send him $1.

So now it’s a bit different… NOW it’s kinda more like if you like the book, you buy it. Which kinda translates to buying it, and then realizing that you like it.

And yes, after buying it, you will realise that you not only like it… But that you love it.
If you’ve read his other stuff before, think Android’s Dream level of fun and hilarity, and John Perry’s level of sardonic wit and deal-making. Think of everything of Scalzi’s that you’ve read, pick the best bits of them, jumble them together, add a “this time and place”, add a different sort of a plot, and you’d get Agent.

I’ve been talking about what it’s like…
What it is, is a story about humanity’s first contact with an alien race. Except that humanity weren’t aware that first contact had been initiated… In addition to that, they weren’t aware that the aliens had decided that their choice of first contact was with a movie agent, because they needed somebody to represent them and make humanity happy to meet them. After all, if Hollywood can make Sylvester Stallone into a movie star, surely they can also make a race of smelly blobs appealing to the human race…

Read it, it rocks.

Locke Lamora is the most talented and audacious thief in Camorr. Trained from childhood as a purse-snatcher and conartist, his band of miscreats “The Gentlemen Bastards” have concocted one of the most elaborate confidence scams in memory. if it works, they’ll be as rich as nobility. if they get caught… Hanging will be a mercy.
The Lies of Locke Lamora is intriguing, action packed and sometimes genuinely hilarious. If you like your anti-heroes as fast as their wits as with a sword then this is a book you need to read.
You may wonder how Scott Lynch could possibly improve on perfection for the sequel, Red Seas under Red Skies?
Easy. Just add pirates.

This is going to be Of Science and Swords’ very own blog.

In here, we’ll basically keep a running commentary on books. Books that we read, books that we didn’t read. Books that we’re eagerly waiting for, books that we think “oh good grief, I don’t believe I spent more than 10 minutes reading…”

And various other things.

We’ll also attempt to use this to keep readers up to date as to WHEN we get new deliveries in… We know sometimes certain people call us every single day waiting for their book to arrive (you know who you are!!! ), well, now we’ll have another way to keep you informed the moment it happens!

For now, happy reading!