 Okay, it is that time of the month again, it's time to talk about what I picked up and what I read in October of 2015. Let's get this out of the way first. This arrived in the mail just today. I've got this by Mail Order, Writers of the Future, Volume 29. I am never going to give this series its own review, I'll just mention it here and then move on. These collections are always worth picking up used. They feature unpublished and unknown short story authors and they are always amazing. I have never failed to read through one of these books and not be very impressed. The appreciation of science fiction in these books is genuine and again I recommend that you pick them up used because this is published by the Church of Scientology and that's the only mention I'm ever going to give this series. The Imperial Stars by Paul Anderson. I picked this up at the thrift store at the library down the street. Another one of these amazing finds. Big hardback book with the dust cover. This is a compendium of Anderson's Ensign Flandry novels, there's three of them. Anderson Flandry, The Circles of Hell and The Rebel Worlds. I've never read these books, I've read about them and this will give me an opportunity to do so. That same trip there was a mini sci-fi convention going on at the library that day by the way and they had all the science fiction books out. I picked up these two vintage Star Wars books, hardbacks with dust covers, dollar each. They had more, they had some Lando Calrissian novels. They had a whole bunch of hardback Star Trek novels as well but I'm not interested in the Star Trek stuff. I picked these two up because I'm nostalgic about them. I think you know how I feel about Star Wars, I'm so sick of it these days. This book in particular Splinter of the Mind's Eye, this was published in 1978, barely a year after the first Star Wars movie came out. Alan Dean Foster must have hammered this out and it's not long. I read this one at the time, I must have been 13. The thing that's remarkable about this book, only the first movie had come out, The Empire Strikes Back was still two years away, Luke and Leia, Confront Darth Vader, this can't be canon anymore because Luke and Leia also have a romance, they totally have a make out scene. That's what I remember about this book and I'll read it again. I mentioned this series, a stellar science fiction short story series from the 70s edited by Judy Lindell Ray. This series has quite a reputation, last month I talked about I had gotten partway through volume one, I have one, three and six here. I'd gotten partway through volume one and I wasn't impressed but that changed. The last half of this book was tremendous, I found it greatly exciting. There's a story in here by Robert Silberberg called Schwartz Between the Galaxies. The character mentions in passing something called Sneeze Magic that he had encountered on some alien society, I was so impressed with just that turn of phrase that I took a picture of it and posted it on the Tumblr. Volume three was excellent all the way through, I'm most of the way through volume six. Just today I read a really nice little short story by Anne McCaffrey that is called the Cinderella Switch, it's kind of a variation on the Cinderella story, it's very good. Wee by Yevgeny Zamiatin published in the 1920s, a Russian author. This is apparently an early science fiction dystopian novel, I don't know much about it. I read about it while I was researching 1984, which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago. Let me get this out of the way too. I listened to an audiobook of Neuromancer. I've had this paperback since last year I think, I never got around to reading it. I listened to an audiobook just this past week, I did not like it. It was pretty much what I expected of Cyberpunk, I don't appreciate Cyberpunk very much, it's all atmosphere and no story. I'll do a proper review of that. I've got these graphic novels you've probably noticed, last week I went with a friend to a comic shop, I picked up this Captain Marvel collection, collect 6 issues of a mini series from a few years back, haven't read it yet, I'll get around to it. I got the first issue of The Clean Room written by Gail Simone. There was a lot of chatter about this on the internet, particularly on Twitter. I did not like it. I felt no reason to seek out issue number two, the Wicked and the Divine, the first collection. It collects the first five issues of the series. I'm about halfway through it, it's okay. I'm not terribly excited about it though, but it's okay. This on the other hand, Saga, volume one of Saga, I liked it, I liked the characters, I liked the story. And I definitely want to pick up volume two and read the rest of it. This has a lot of fantasy elements to it, but it's pretty hard science fiction as well. One of the things I liked about it was, are trying to make their way to a place they see on a map called the Rocket Ship Forest, and they get there to find that the trees are actually interstellar spacecraft, or rather they can travel between planets and stars, and you can ride along with them. I have more to say about it. I may give this its own review after I read a couple more volumes. One other thing, this came in the mail a few days ago. The ultimate egoist is volume one of the complete Theodore Sturgeon stories. I only learned about this while browsing on eBay a couple of weeks ago. Evidently, there are 13 volumes of these. That's amazing. I've already ordered a used copy of volume two, and I'll slowly pick up all of them, because Sturgeon is definitely worth reading. It's too bad I don't have the slip cover for this though. One other thing, I listened to audio books of the first two Sherlock Holmes books. The Study in Scarlet and the Sign of the Four. I was unaware that those were the first two. I was unaware that Study in Scarlet was the first Sherlock Holmes novel, so I started with number one without even realizing I was doing it. I did not like them. I have very little familiarity with the Sherlock Holmes books. What little experience I've had with Sherlock Holmes stories, I actually thought they were dumb, well written, but not good stories. And I felt the same way about these two stories. I'll give them their own review at some point. I also bought a digital copy of Three Body Problem, the Chinese science fiction book by Liu Sichin. I almost never buy digital books, but I found this copy for sale DRM Free from a certain website and your first purchase was $5 off, which meant it was half off, so I took it. I'll talk about that purchase in particular. I'll make a special video about where to buy books and I'll talk about that. That's it for now. My YouTube channel is continuing to grow as far as subscribers. I have more than 340 subscribers now. I'm catching up with my other YouTube friends who have been around longer. The Tumblr is not really growing. Seriously, there's a link to the Tumblr in the description below. Go visit the Tumblr. There's a lot more stuff going on at the Tumblr, in addition to links to all of my videos. The four horror books that I reviewed over the course of October were a refreshing change. I'm generally not a fan of horror. That's why my choices for horror books were so unusual. It gave me an opportunity to talk about authors that I normally wouldn't. Being able to talk about Shirley Jackson was a treat. She's an astonishing author. I may do a special series like that in the future. I'll definitely have some odd comics reviews coming up for things like this. See you then. 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