Books in the Mail (W/E 6/21)

Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson – I read and reviewed the Hardcover release of this book and liked it quite a bit. Tor seems to be really behind Sanderson or else they wouldn’t have passed along the reins of The Wheel of Time to him. This is the paperback with an “introductory” price of 4.99. As I said, I enjoyed the first two Mistborn novels and look forward to the final volume, The Hero of Ages in the fall.

Mistborn: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson – See my comment above. For the paperback release, Tor has rebranded the books, which isn't necessarily bad, but not as distinguishable from other fantasy novels on the shelves as were the cover design/dress for the initial hardcovers. I think the covers are pretty nice, but I hope the final volume keeps the same design that was used for the initial Hardcover releases. The new paperback design gives our heroine a bit of a different look than on the original cover, almost like a hobbit from the LOTR films. The depiction of Vin on the covers is pretty accurate, I think. It’s all about marketing and I suspect these new covers will indeed help sell the book(s). I hope so, because I really like what Brandon has done with this series, thus far.

Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik – This is, of course, the fourth book in her Temeraire series and the first book to be released in hardcover in the US. I liked the first two, but thought the third not quite up to par with the previous. I don’t know if that’s because I read the three books in succession and I was a little over-worked on ‘my dear,’ or what. I’ve still got the third book unread on the pile.

Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi – A side-quel to John’s popular (and very good) saga begun with Old Man’s War. I liked the series very much, as well as The Android’s Dream, so this book will be pushed up on the priority pile. There’s a reason why John’s been nominated for and won genre awards – he loves the genre, gets it, has fun playing in the sandbox, and writes terrific stories. John gets another SciFi Essentials label on the book, too.