![](\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/517u4ySZCeL._SL500_AA300_.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLet\u2019s take a quick look to see what\u2019s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound. <\/p>\n
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Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures<\/span><\/a> Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n The immortal legacy of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Cimmerian, continues with this latest compendium of Howard\u2019s fiction and poetry. These adventures, set in medieval-era Europe and the Near East, are among the most gripping Howard ever wrote, full of pageantry, romance, and battle scenes worthy of Tolstoy himself. Most of all, they feature some of Howard\u2019s most unusual and memorable characters, including Cormac FitzGeoffrey, a half-Irish, half-Norman man of war who follows Richard the Lion-hearted to twelfth-century Palestine\u2014or, as it was known to the Crusaders, Outremer; Diego de Guzman, a Spaniard who visits Cairo in the guise of a Muslim on a mission of revenge; and the legendary sword woman Dark Agn\u00e8s, who, faced with an arranged marriage to a brutal husband in sixteenth-century France, cuts the ceremony short with a dagger thrust and flees to forge a new identity on the battlefield.<\/p>\n Lavishly illustrated by award-winning artist John Watkiss and featuring miscellanea, informative essays, and a fascinating introduction by acclaimed historical author Scott Oden, Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures<\/span> is a must-have for every fan of Robert E. Howard, who, in a career spanning just twelve years, won a place in the pantheon of great American writers.<\/p>\n I’m loving these Del Rey collections of REH stuff, but when does Mark Finn, our own resident Howard expert, get to write an introduction?<\/span><\/p>\n \n The Wolf Age<\/span><\/a> Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n "Spear-age, sword-age: Wuruyaaria: city of werewolves, whose raiders range over the dying northlands, capturing human beings for slaves or meat. Wuruyaaria: where a lone immortal maker wages a secret war against the Strange Gods of the Coranians. Wuruyaaria: a democracy where some are more equal than others, and a faction of outcast werewolves is determined to change the balance of power in a long, bloody election year.<\/p>\n Their plans are laid; the challenges known; the risks accepted. But all schemes will shatter in the clash between two threats few had foreseen and none had fully understood: a monster from the north on a mission to poison the world, and a stranger from the south named Morlock Ambrosius.<\/p>\n \n The Human Blend<\/span><\/a> Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n Alan Dean Foster\u2019s brilliant new novel is a near-future thriller that has all the dark humor and edgy morality of an Elmore Leonard mystery, in addition to the masterly world-building and quirky but believable characters readers expect from Foster. This gripping adventure reveals a place where criminals are punished through genetic engineering and bodily manipulation\u2014which poses profound questions about what it means to be human.<\/p>\n Given his name because radical surgery and implants have reduced him to preternatural thinness, Whispr is a thug. His partner in crime, Jiminy Cricket, has also been physically altered with nanocarbonic prosthetic legs and high-strength fast-twitch muscle fibers that give him great jumping abilities. In a dark alley in Savannah, Whispr and Jiminy murder what they take to be a random tourist in order to amputate and then fence his sophisticated artificial hand. But the hapless victim also happens to be carrying an unusual silver thread that appears to be some kind of storage medium. Ever quick to scent potential profit, Whispr and Jiminy grab the thread as well.<\/p>\n Chance later deposits a wounded Whispr at the clinic of Dr. Ingrid Seastrom. Things have not gone smoothly for Whispr since he acquired the mysterious thread. Powerful forces are searching for him, and Jiminy has vanished. All Whispr wants to do is sell the thread as quickly as he can. When he offers to split the profits with Ingrid in exchange for her medical services, she makes an astonishing discovery.<\/p>\n So begins a unique partnership. Unlike Whispr, Ingrid is a natural, with no genetic or bodily alteration. She is also a Harvard-educated physician, while Whispr\u2019s smarts are strictly of the street variety. Yet together they make a formidable team\u2014as long as they can elude the enhanced assassins that are tracking them.<\/p>\n \n Bloodshot<\/span><\/a> Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n Raylene Pendle (AKA Cheshire Red), a vampire and world-renowned thief, doesn\u2019t usually hang with her own kind. She\u2019s too busy stealing priceless art and rare jewels. But when the infuriatingly charming Ian Stott asks for help, Raylene finds him impossible to resist\u2014even though Ian doesn\u2019t want precious artifacts. He wants her to retrieve missing government files\u2014documents that deal with the secret biological experiments that left Ian blind. What Raylene doesn\u2019t bargain for is a case that takes her from the wilds of Minneapolis to the mean streets of Atlanta. And with a psychotic, power-hungry scientist on her trail, a kick-ass drag queen on her side, and Men in Black popping up at the most inconvenient moments, the case proves to be one hell of a ride.<\/p>\n \nMore in Part II<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let\u2019s take a quick look to see what\u2019s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound. Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures by Robert E. Howard Illustrated by John Watkiss Promo copy: The immortal legacy of Robert E. Howard, … Continue reading
\nby Robert E. Howard
\nIllustrated by John Watkiss<\/span><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/515mOExKreL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg\"){kind=icon}
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\nby James Enge<\/span><\/p>\n
\nshields are shattered.
\nWind-age, wolf-age:
\nbefore the world founders
\nno man will show mercy to another."<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51DmnNrUBuL._SL500_AA300_.jpg\")
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\nby Alan Dean Foster<\/span><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51M5vQ6%2B4hL._SL500_AA300_.jpg\")
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\nby Cherie Priest<\/span><\/p>\n