Yesterday I received a box with a dozen or so books. A second one will arrive next week, I hope. From Amazon.com. Not sure if I’ll do this again, at least not soon; shipping charges were higher than I had imagined initially.

As some of you may know, I’m a science-fiction collector. Twenty or even fifteen years ago, it was easy to buy SF paperbacks in Brazil; at least three bookstores got regular monthly shipments. Then the time between arrivals started to lengthen, and the quality started to drop. Today, every three months or so they get something straight off the so-called “bestseller” lists; Danielle Steel, Anne Rice, some Tom Clancy, and so forth. Bleh. About once a year I find a SF paperback worth buying.

For some years, I used to abuse my yearly US or Canada trips by coming back with huge heaps of books. Now that we’ve moved into a smaller apartment, even this had to be scaled down.

Anyway, as it seems there’ll be no such trip this year, I broke down and selected two dozen books which I’m pretty sure will be essential additions to my library. The latest from Iain M. Banks, Greg Bear, David Brin, Greg Egan, R. A. MacAvoy, Terry Pratchett, James P. Hogan, JanWillem van der Wetering, and so forth. I’ll try to write some brief comments on each one as I finish it.

Happiness is a new book…