Tuesday Library Post - 12/28/2010

Schedule should probably get back to normal once the semester starts again, and then there will be Monday posts, probably. I didn't get to the library yesterday, and so here is a Tuesday post.

Two books today. I'm trying hard not to bring a bunch more books into the house, since I got a pile for Christmas, and I have a pile from before Christmas, and it's all a little overwhelming.

Charles DeLint - The Painted Boy


With the two DeLint I got last week and this one, I think next week may be DeLint Week.

Scott Westerfeld - Behemoth


I loved the first book of these - Leviathan - they are a steam-punky alt-histy World War One series. Points in their favor - 1) lovely struggle between English genetic modification and Germanic mechanical things. 2) World War One is a favorite period for me, historically. 3) They are very well written. 4) They are illustrated! The decision to illustrate a book that is not for little kids is apparently a really big deal; Westerfeld wrote about it here. (The image seems to be broken, but the essay is below the broken image, and it's worth a look.) Best of all, the coverleaf is a fantastic allegorical map of Europe - Westerfeld wrote about THAT here - which is really worth looking at for its own sake. I suspect that when this series is done (I'm expecting a trilogy, the third book, Goliath, is due out in October of 2011) I may actually buy them. They're that good.