The December SFBC magazine dropped into the mail yesterday, so it'll be landing in members' mailboxes in about a week. (And, if you're not yet a member, why don't you head over to our website and pick your five books for a dollar right now?)

Selections:

• The Sky People by S.M. Stirling, first in a very entertaining alternate history series about a Cold War spreading to an inhabitable Venus and Mars
• Diana Tregarde Investigates, a 3-in-1 of Mercedes Lackey's pioneering urban fantasy trilogy from over fifteen years ago -- before Anita Blake and before Buffy

 

Alternates:

• Startide Rising by David Brin ends the '80s series of our "50th Anniversary Collection" -- it's one of the great modern space operas
• Trouble Magnet by Alan Dean Foster, the latest "Pip & Flinx" novel
• Conspiracy Game by Christine Feehan, a paranormal romance about mutants and genetic manipulation
• Kull: Exile of Atlantis by Robert E. Howard collects all of REH's stories about his other barbarian king
• The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor is a nominally "Young Adult" book with a highly revisionist take on Alice's Wonderland
• Eddie Bear, Private Detective by Robert Rankin is a weird and wonderful 2-in-1 of funny fantasy mysteries by the very strangest British funny-fantasy writer (and that's saying something!)
• The Vampire Who Loved Me by Teresa Medeiros, one of those sexy vampire books, this time set in the (very popular, I hear) Regency era
• Prador Moon by Neal Asher, a new space opera from a rapidly up-and-coming writer -- we've made first contact with an alien race that looks a bit like lobsters...and we're the next thing on their menu

     

Other Places in the Package:

• Discarded Science by John Grant -- the prolific author-editor (of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, among many other things) looks at theories and ideas that used to be perfectly respectable -- but aren't anymore.
• Amphigorey Again by Edward Gorey, a fourth omnibus collection of the 20th century's greatest morbid cartoonist
• Morrigan's Cross, Dance of the Gods, and Valley of Silence -- the "Circle Trilogy" by Nora Roberts. One of the biggest names in contemporary romance (or maybe "women's fiction;" I'm not as up on the distinction as I used to be), the woman who also writes the "Eve Dallas" books as J.D. Robb, and possibly the fastest writer working today turns her hand to flat-out paranormal romance here.
• The Ruins by Scott Smith -- the author of A Simple Plan is back with another tale of suspense, but this time, he's added a supernatural component to the terror
• The Complete Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson has nothing at all to do with SFF (if you discount Spaceman Spiff), but it's one of the great strip cartoons of our time

 

 

 

Audiobooks: 

• Phantom (audiobook) by Terry Goodkind
• Dragon's Fire (audiobook) by Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey
• Danse Macabre (audiobook) by Laurell K. Hamilton
• Armageddon's Children (audiobook) by Terry Brooks
  

Some members have asked for audiobooks, so we're trying out a few. If the response is good, I expect there will be more. (I can't find them on the website right now -- maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, so I'll hope to add links next week.)