Mogsy's Book Haul - For Review, Purchased, and Goodies From Balticon

I'm putting up an impromptu Book Haul post this week -- a few review books came in and I also made several purchases, most of which came from Balticon which took place over Memorial Day weekend.

Flight of the Golden Harpy - harpies! An underrated and underused creature of fantasy for sure. That was enough pique my interest in this book, my thanks to Tor for a copy of this ARC.

The Boost - another review book from Tor, this techno-sociological novel sounds fascinating and seems my kind of sci-fi novel, not to mention a nice change of pace from my usual reads.

Cibola Burn - speaking of sci-fi, I was ecstatic to receive this for review from Orbit! I love The Expanse series and have been gobbling each book as they come out, and I'm so pumped for book four.

The Three - easily one of my top books of 2014, as you can see from my review here. The Three was released earlier this month and obviously I just had to have a beautiful hard cover copy to call my own.

This year was my first Balticon, and my first convention in years, actually. There hasn't been much con action since a year or so before my daughter was born, so this was a great event for the entire family, being the perfect size and a very friendly and intimate environment. I got to meet a bunch of writers and get my books signed, from authors Brandon Sanderson (who was the Guest of Honor -- and like the nicest guy ever), Jon Sprunk, Tom Doyle, Jo Walton, and others. 2013 Compton Crook Award winner of last year's Balticon Myke Cole also signed my Shadow Ops trilogy and EVEN MY BABY. My daughter was surprisingly calm considering someone was scribbling on her knee, actually. Two years old and showing an affinity towards authors already, that's my girl.

Here are a couple cool new acquisitions from the con I wanted to feature:

Among Others - I have a copy of My Real Children by Jo Walton that I have to get to, but I couldn't resist also picking up a copy of the award winning Among Others to get signed as well. Ms. Walton told me she wasn't too fond of the cover to this, but I think the color's actually quite eye-catching.

Firstborn/Defending Elysium - at one of the autograph sessions for Brandon Sanderson, the vendor still had about a dozen or so of these convention-exclusion tête-bêche hardcover editions featuring the two short stories previously released online. So excited that I was able to snag a copy!

And yes, we actually have a few books from the digital pile:

The Mirror Empire - this book is so drool-worthy! Ideally, I had wanted to read Kameron Hurley's Bel Dame Apocrypha series first before even thinking about hitting up this book, but dammit, I have the willpower of a bendy straw! I caved and requested this from NetGalley.

The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter - looks like it's Angry Robot week! Another one of their books I'm really looking forward to, which I also got via NetGalley. This one just sounds so cool!

Skin Game - Dresden Files audiobook. Enough said. I love the audio versions of this series, not least because of narrator James Marsters. The voice of James Marsters IS Harry Dresden, and there is absolutely no doubt about that in my mind.