End of May book arrivals

Here are the last of the book arrivals for May 2012.

The Dragon Griaule by Lucius Shepard collects all of his stories in the series along with a new 40,000 word story, "The Skull." The jacket illustration by J. K. Potter is beautiful, nearly monochromatic.

Flora's Fury by Ysabeau S. Wilce is concluding volume in her Flora trilogy.

The King's Blood by Daniel Abraham is the second volume in his The Dagger and the Coin series, following The Dragon's Path.

In the Land of Time and Other Fantasy Tales by Lord Dunsany is edited, with an introduction and notes, by S. T. Joshi. A substantial sampler of Dunsany short fiction. Joshi quotes C. L. Moore: "No one can imitate Dunsany, and probably everyone who's ever read him has tried."

The Shadowed Sun by N. K. Jemisin is the second in her Dreamblood series.

The White People and Other Weird Stories by Arthur Machen has a brief forward by Guillermo del Toro. It is edited, with an introduction and notes, by S. T. Joshi. Despite the image of Pan on the cover, this collection omits Machen's story "The Great God Pan."

Year's Best SF 17 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer is an anthology collecting the best short science fiction from 2011. In addition to the authors mentioned on the back cover, this anthology includes Ken Liu, Nnedi Okorafor, Paul Park, Charlie Jane Anders, Judith Moffett, Robert Reed, Bruce Sterling, Gwyneth Jones, Genevieve Valentine, Carolyn Ives Gilman, and many others.

Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer includes numerous pictures by Maurice Sendak. Singer was one of the greatest fantasists of the 20th Century and the late Maurice Sendak was no slouch either. Their collaboration is a treasure. (Click to enlarge images.)

Even more May book arrivals

More books arrived in the mail, including some that I am particularly excited about.

If you've read this blog for a while you'll know that I think Kim Stanley Robinson is a first rate writer. I've been looking forward to the arrival of his new novel, 2312. In a previous post I excerpted the Gary K. Wolfe review of the book that appeared in the May 2012 issue of Locus Magazine. Locus Online has now made the entire review available (follow here).

Ad Eternum by Elizabeth Bear is a novella in her New Amsterdam series from Subterranean Press.

Byzantium Endures by Michael Moorcock is the first in his Colonel Pyat Quartet. This is the first American edition from 1981.

Part of his Deepgate Codex series, Damnation for Beginners by Alan Campbell has a lovely cover illustration by Ian McQue and interior illustrations by Bob Eggleton. (Click to enlarge images.)

Tales from Gavagan's Bar (expanded edition) by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, illustrated by Inga Pratt and Tim Kirk, published by Owlswick Press in 1978. This is a collection of stories in the "club story" tradition of Lord Dunsany's Jorkins stories, Arthur C. Clarke's Tales from the White Hart, Larry Niven's The Draco Tavern, and many others.

The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers recently won the 2012 Arthur C. Clarke award for the best science fiction novel published in Britain in 2011. It's now available in a United States edition. I like the epigraph from Euripides and couldn't resist including it here.

The Moon Moth is one of Jack Vance's best known stories, a classic of science fiction that has been anthologized many times, including The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two B. Here is a new adaptation as a graphic novel by Humayoun Ibrahim. The story is stripped of most of Vance's distinctive prose, still the artist has done a wonderful job telling the story with a visual style that matches Vance in surprising ways.

Railsea, the latest from China Mieville, is marketed as a young adult novel. Interior illustrations by the author.