Reviewing the Mail: Week of 3/11

Since this is a Monday, it's time for Reviewing the Mail, the fan-favorite blog feature in which Your Humble Blogger roots through his mail from the week before to find books to surprise and delight you.

(Note: surprise and/or delight are not guaranteed. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited by law.)

This week, I have two books from the fine folks at Tachyon, and let me dive right into them....

Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade is a follow-up to last year's Hap and Leonard, which collected all of the stories about Joe R. Lansdale's crime-fighting odd couple that had been published to that point. Well, Mamma Lansdale's youngest son has been very busy this past year, because Blood and Lemonade contains thirteen more stories about Hap and Leonard (though I think one of them was the new story in last year's book), all copyright 2016 or 2017.

You'd think there was a new season of a Hap and Leonard  TV show hitting, or something!

(Note: there is.)

Anyway, this has a whole bunch of new Lansdale stories, about probably his most popular characters, right at the moment when they're getting on TV for all the world to see. I suspect this will be reasonably popular, and it's available in trade paperback on March 14 (which would be tomorrow, for those of you trying to count on your toes).

And the other book is In Calabria from Peter S. Beagle, whose last novel, Summerlong, came out last September. Which means this is the first time Beagle has had two novels within a six-month period since...um.........well, ever, as far as I can tell. This is probably a novella, though -- like "Lila the Werewolf," among other things -- so you may insert an asterisk if you wish.

In Calabria is out now; it hit stores in February as a hardcover. And it's a new unicorn story -- this one set in the modern world (in Calabria, as the title indicates) and featuring a farmer whose solitary happy life is upended when that unicorn wanders into his life.

Two new Peter Beagle books within a year! Maybe the world isn't doing so bad, after all.