New books!

Some days the mailman is kind to me. Today is such a day. No bills, and three books.

First, an ARC of Steampunk II. Been dying for this one!

Steampunk II: From Indiebound: Blending the romantic elegance of the Victorian era with modern scientific advances, the popular Steampunk genre spotlighted in this collection is innovative and stimulates the imagination. This artfully assembled anthology of original fiction, nonfiction, and art can serve as an introduction to the Steampunk culture or provide dedicated fans with more fuel. Stories of outlandishly imaginative technologies, clockwork contraptions, eccentric heroines, and mad scientists are complemented by canon-defining nonfiction and an array of original illustrations. This collection showcases the most sensational Steampunk talents of the last decade, including Daniel Abraham, John Coulthart, William Gibson, and Margo Lanagan, and demonstrates exactly why the future of the past is so excitingly new.

Next we have Zoo City by Lauren Beukes, a generous gift from author Adam Christopher who heard I was too impatient to wait for it to arrive in US book stores in January.

From Amazon: Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty online 419 scam habit – and a talent for finding lost things. But when her latest client, a little old lady, turns up dead and the cops confiscate her lastpaycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job: missing persons.

Lastly, I entered a contest at the Hendrick’s Gin website a long time ago, and this arrived today, to my amusement: