Book Sale 2015

It's a simple fact, not to mention am easy opening statement, that everyone's got their own traditions. Long time readers may recall among pumpkin carrying and horror marathons, I also look forward to the annual library book sale as part of my Halloween celebration. While this year's haul wasn't quite as large as past visits, the crazy factor more than makes up for it.

Alright, so I couldn't resist the opportunity to shoehorn my new mask into this post. It's just so rare not only to have one this far in advance, but to actually have one matching my chosen costume. Most years I go searching only to end up with just the best I could afford. That method often necessitated the reuse of old costumes but not this time. I was dead set on being one of the three classics costume types I'd yet to wear, with scarecrow being tops on that list. Witch was second. Not Warlock mind you. I'm going full cross dresser when that day finally comes. Mummies are in third place as the notion of an overweight ancient corpse just doesn't seem right. If this mask looks familiar to any of you it's because it's officially licensed from the classic TV movie, Dark Night of the Scarecrow. A major advantage to this costume is that I can wear enough comfy regular cloths to stay warm. This is vital since most of our Halloween nights have been very chilly and nobody want's to worry about their member freezing off while handing out candy.

Back to the books. The primary point of interest for me during every book sale is horror novels followed by fantasy and downright pulp nonsense. There's a pretty solid offering of each, so let's take a look.

Despite a long standing love of spooks & scares I'd generally avoided printed horror until our first trip to this sale made me think it was time to finally dive in. Since then the genre has overtaken fantasy for reading frequency. Neither group matches up to the amounts of classic literature or comics, but that's competing with titans right there. Nabbed four titles in this area with The Hellbound Heart being far & away the big score. Not the biggest fan of Clive Barker though there's still enough interest for me to occasionally dig into his work. Really wanted to read this one for a number of years as I'm eager to see the differences from Hellraiser and I thought it'd make for a nice segway to his new novel that serves as an almost comic book style crossover for his horror creations.

Two Vampire stories caught my eye enough to warrant picking up. The description for Vampire Knights makes the story seem pretty basic with a woman investigating her husband's secret life which just so happens to be vampire hunting. I imagine there's more to it than that since the book runs well over three hundred pages. The Last Vampire sounds like a post apocalyptic tale with a girl struck by the virus that destroyed civilization. Honestly, the cheesy cover art kept my attention more than anything plus a look inside revealed a section about boning in an old farmhouse. Somehow that was enough to earn it a trip home.

Last on the spooky line-up is a licensed Universal Monsters book about Frankenstein. Seems there was a whole series of these where a group of friends have to stop classic film monsters that escape into reality. The Wolfman entry in the series was also available but it was in pretty bad shape and had a clump of hair in it which instinctively made me want to vomit in terror. It's short and simple looking enough that I should be able to whiz through it without an issue. Maybe it'll warrant a post before Halloween gets here.

Even with the rise of horror fiction taking up my reading time I still enjoy a solid fantasy tale from time to time, and there was an ample supply at this years sale. If there had been a return trip I'd probably be buried in Forgotten Realms titles by now. As it stands I was very pleased to come across some Terry Prachett that's perfectly tailored to the upcoming Christmas season. Nearly Jumped with joy at finding the first book in the Druidhome Trilogy as I'd previously bought the second and third books at hospice thrift. Nice stroke of luck there. Then there's quite the wild card with The Devil Wives of Li Fong. Asian inspired fantasy is too rare an item to pass up and demonic serpent women make this one look like a winner.

Finally we have the less easy to classify stuff. For whatever reason I'm always intrigued by licensed superhero novels (actually keep an enormous list of em for shopping purposes.) Both of these team-up novels belong to separate trilogies but there was no way I was gonna leave them behind. May not even wait to hunt down their prequels as some confusion might add to the entertainment value. The x-men/Avengers one is by Greg Cox who I've heard is actually a fairly decent writer. If nothing else, both of these may allow me to pick up the review work I started so long ago with Fantastic Four: To Free Atlantis. It will probably take a while but keep an eye out for reviews over the next few months.

Towering above all my other finds is something my sister brought over to me just a minute after entering the sale. It's a tiny Space Ghost novel complete with illustrations, which is essential for the inevitable moment when Jan & Jace get captured. The only thing that could make this book more awesome would be appearances by Zorak and Moltar, or even Brak for that matter but they're sadly absent from this adventure. Instead old SG has to contend with some space witch. There really is a lot of supernatural stuff happening in outer space, ain't there?

I was a little disappointed at the lack of VHS tapes this year after nabbing some nice ones during the previous sale. Still; I'm quite satisfied with what I got, and it cost next to nothing to bring all this madness home. Sure I coulda gone back for more fantasy and a heaping selection of Star Trek stuff but at least this way I'll actually finish reading everything before another sale rolls our way. No reading for now though. I've gotta get my beauty rest for work. Had a surprising amount of hours lately which means there should be plenty of scratch to make the holidays even more fun. Start your week off nicely, everyone.