Bookwormery

Forgive me father for I have sinned.

It's been a month since I've stopped going on book-buying binges. Since March, I've actually limited myself to one or two books a month after considering the number of stuff I have in my backlog. At the same time, I've been accelerating my book-reading as well as culling out some books on my shelves (including some-read and some-not-yet).

However, this past week has been bad.

A visit last Tuesday to Powerbooks Megamall netted me the much-hyped Steph Swainton's The Year of Our War (the white-cover edition by Gollancz), which has been called "the most exciting, original and important new fantasy novel to be published since China Mieville's Perdido Street Station". They also had Neal Asher's Cowl, Asher being one of the few science-fiction writers I keep track as he combines space-opera with ultra-violent action.

Then last Friday, under advice of the inimitable Mahesh and the erudite Gabe Mesa, I finally relented and got Jeffrey Ford's imaginative short-story collection, The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories from A Different Bookstore in Eastwood. Published by Golden Gryphon, this hard-cover book was a bit on the pricey side but-- hey! this thing had been sitting on their shelves for more than six months already.

But last Sunday was worse, when I discovered that Fully-Booked in Rockwell had new arrivals in as well as having a 70 percent sale of their old stock.

Like a shark that smells blood on the water, I frenziedly picked up a copy of Richard Morgan's Broken Angels, Robert E. Howard's The Conan Chronicles volume 2: Hour of the Dragon, and Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination. And at a hundred bucks (equal to US$2), a trade-paperback copy of Asher's The Skinner was too much of a temptation considering it's regular price of 700-800 bucks.

Now, Morgan's SF books can be considered a smarter version of Asher's stuff: like comparing film directors John Frankenheimer to John Woo. Conan is-- of course-- Conan; no ifs and no buts about it. As for Bester, he comes highly-recommended as the first writer to create the anti-hero in Gully Foyle.

*sigh*

Book-addiction is a bad, bad thing, father. Though I suppose I could always go and become a crackhead or try a career in serial killing or something...