Reviewing the Mail: Special Festive Edition 2023

I've gotten into the habit of doing these "Reviewing the Mail" posts, when I have books to list, on Sundays. That's fine when I only get books once a week, but sometimes, even in these lesser latter days, it happens faster than that.

So today I'm listing things I unwrapped yesterday, even though I already have a short post scheduled for this coming Sunday. I did briefly consider pushing this one out to the next Sunday, in January, but I'm also thinking about a possible bookstore trip later this week, and would that then mean those books would get listed on January 14? That way lies madness.

So, anyway: all of these were presents. Several of them I bought myself, which I will not apologize for - it's the best way to make sure you get what you want.

System Collapse is the new "Murderbot" book by Martha Wells, seventh in the series. They're kind of a big deal. You may have heard about them. And Wells has been a fun and inventive writer for a long time - I read her first book way back in my SFBC days, and I think pretty early in those days, too - so it is wonderful to see her get a big success when she's been doing such good work for so long.

4 Fantastic Novels is a collection of - just in case we have any slow students in the back, barely paying attention - four novels, which are fantastic in at least two ways, by the inimitable Daniel Pinkwater. The books are originally from 1979 to 1992, and the omnibus was published in 2000. I had a copy of this before my flood, but I've been without it for about a decade now. My long national nightmare is now over.

The Demon Princes, Volume One collects the first three books in that five-book SF series by Jack Vance. I just finished the last of the four "Dying Earth" books in that Vance omnibus, so I wanted something else to pick up intermittently overt the next couple of years, and Demon Princes it will be. As I recall, this is some of his best work, so I'm looking forward to revisiting it.

The Problem of Susan and Other Stories is another one of the series of books from Dark Horse that seem to be aimed at adapting every last short story Neil Gaiman ever wrote into comics. This one has two stories and two poems adapted into comics, which I think are each drawn by someone different. (The book is still wrapped in plastic as I write this.) Credited on the cover, besides Gaiman, are P. Craig Russell, Scott Hampton, Paul Chadwick, and Lovern Kindzierski (who I think is a colorist, so maybe one person did both poems?)

Children of Palomar and Other Tales is the fifteenth book in the uniform "Love and Rockets Library" series, collecting that long-running and excellent series. This one is all Gilbert Hernandez, with a couple of stories written or co-written by his brother Mario - it collects Julio's Day and New Tales of Old Palomar/The Children of Palomar, plus those also-with-Mario tales.

Monica is the big new Daniel Clowes graphic novel this year. He's talented and always an interesting creator, but I've found his stuff chillier and more distant as I've gotten older (or he has, or we both have). This one has gotten ecstatic reviews, which I hope is a good sign.

And last is Fallout: The Vault Dweller's Official Cookbook by Victoria Rosenthal, a line extension from a video game series I play a lot. It got it from Thing One, and I don't think it's a joke gift. I don't cook much, and these all have odd names (as fitting the theme and fictional world), but I think these are all real recipes that can be made in the real world with real food, that make things that people will generally enjoy eating. In other words: it's the kind of book that could be a joke, but I don't think it is. I guess I'll have to see.