Reviewing the Mail: Week of 10/22

Hello and Happy Monday, as always.

I got a couple of books in the mail this week, so I'm going to write about them. But I also bought a couple of books, for let's-use-up-these-gift-cards-that-we've-already-had-for-two-years reasons, so I'll list those as well. I trust that I've been communicating professionally for long enough that I can make it clear which books are which.

(In case you're confused, the first two are the ones that came in the mail.)

Steven Erikson is back in space-opera mode with Willful Child: Wrath of Betty, one of the least likely space-opera titles I've ever seen. It's a sequel to last year's Willful Child, and continues the adventures of a crew that Treks through the Stars, if you know what I mean. Do not expect subtlety. This is a Tor hardcover, available the first of November.

Also appearing in my mail: Liselotte & Witch's Forest, Vol. 2, by Natsuki Takaya. (Yes, not "in" forest, and also not "the" forest. I suspect this series will be misnamed more often than not.) I think this is one of these stories about a girl who is way too perky and happy all the time, despite being exiled to the ass-end of nowhere and saddled with other serious problems. This one is from Yen Press, and is available right now.

Obtained with my own money: Hellboy in Hell, Vol. 2: The Dead Card. I understand this is the very last Hellboy story, until Mike Mignola thinks of something else for him to do. It's by Mignola with colors by Dave Stewart.

And last, and also from my shopping trip, is Stephan Pastis's Pearls Gets Sacrificed, the latest treasury-sized collection of his comic strip. I seem to have gotten out of the habit of buying collections of current newspaper strips -- maybe because that genre is dying and mostly infested with zombies -- but Pastis annotates his collections, which makes them that much better and worthy of my money.