A Fistful Of Books September 2023

  In 1976 John Miles had a hit with "Music" where he told the world "Music was my first love and it will be my last"

  I can respect that. However in my case the first great love of my life, the one which has been with me for many years and will almost certainly be right there in my final days is books. 

 Reading is one of the few skills I picked up easily and I went for it hard.  Chances are, I would default to sticking my nose into a book and dragging me away from it was a tough job. 

 As an aside, none of this meant I was ever any good at studying. My brain does not work that way.

  The point I think I was trying to make is that I have always loved books and always wanted to get more books every chance I get.  When I visualise my dream home, the first room is always a gigantic library. The rest of the house is an afterthought, although in more misanthropic moments, the entrance to the house would have a gigantic neon sign inviting visitors to fuck off.  Possibly some automatic gun-turrets too. 

 So anyway, I bought myself some books from the second-hand place in Fratton Bridge Centre. Wanna see what I bought?

Not a bad haul for £25.

Let's delve a little deeper.

The first three are a series I read about 25 years ago and liked a lot,

Barbara Hambly - The Darwath Trilogy. (1982)

Next up, a book I already read and two utterly new to me. 

Andrew J. Offutt - Sword Of The Gael (1975)

Adam Nichols - The War Of The Lords Veil (1995)

Dennis McCarty - The Birth Of the Blade (1993)

 

  "Sword Of The Gael" is another one I've had in the past and I have no idea why I got rid of it. 

Back in the 30s, Robert E Howard of "Conan" fame created a slew of other fantasy heroes including Irish pirate Cormac Mac Art. Cormac featured in a few stories where he roamed the seas around post-Roman battling, Picts, Britons, Anglo-Saxons, Norse and the odd abomination from the Elder races.  Well here, Offutt decides to pick up where those tales left off and take Cormac back to Ireland. I remember being quite impressed at the time  so I should enjoy this one again. 

The other two books are new to me, as are the authors so I'm curious to see if they match up to the covers. 

As an aside, I really miss the days when fantasy book covers looked...fantastic.  At some point the Cool Police got to fantasy books and decreed that every single cover now had to have a single person looking determined. 

Back to the haul.

Next up we have two more fantasy titles plus a military Sci-Fi

Patricia McKillip - The Riddle-Master Of Hed  (1976)

Jerry & Sharon Ahern - The Golden Shield of IBF (1999)

Rick Shelley - Spec Ops Squad: Holding The Line (2001)

 All new authors to me so could be great, could be dire and any option in between. Either way at £2 a pop, I'm guaranteed something to keep me busy for a while. 

 Have I mentioned how much I love getting new books? 

And to finish, a big batch of books about giant-ass sentient tanks.

There may have been some happy noises when I found this lot.  I've always enjoyed the BOLO series. Great action and some of the most heartbreaking moments in Sci-Fi. 

 I may or may not review some of these. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a LOT of reading to get stuck into. 

 

THAT'S ALL FOLKS