The final post on The Demolished Man will be up soon, but until that happens, I wanted to quickly share the results of my recent expedition to the local used bookstore. Bookstores are dangerous places for me; I usually spend too much money and walk out with an armload full of stuff. In this case, I felt justified in my purchase because of this blog, which is a wonderful way of excusing the fact that my partner, whose beauty is exceeded only by her patience, had to deal with me happily frolicking in the science fiction section while I pulled book after book from my reading list off the shelf.

I found eleven Hugo winners I didn’t own on this trip, and probably would found more if I wasn’t already holding one of these with my chin. I’ve never read any of them, of course, but I have some familiarity with Roger Zelazny, and even my limited sci-fi experience has naturally included Asimov, so I’m really looking forward to those. I grabbed two of Vernor Vinge’s three Hugo winners — don’t know what to expect from those, as I had never even heard of him before. I have heard of Stand on Zanzibar, but I have no idea what it’s about as yet. As for Robinson, I already owned Red Mars, but its sequels are the ones that won Hugos, so I’m thrilled to have an excuse to read those. Blue Mars, sadly, was not available.

Picked up two old Heinlein editions, too, which will come in handy early on, because the first part of this project is going to involve so much Heinlein. Robert Sawyer is a mystery to me, as well, but the book seems interesting. Finally, I snagged two more Hugo winners from Lois McMaster Bujold, the unquestioned queen of the Hugo Award, bringing my total, I believe, to three of her six (!) winning novels (I already owned Paladin of Souls). These new ones are both Vorkosigan Saga, so it’ll be exciting to finally get into that.

Anyway, the real winner here is my wallet, because I got all 11 of these books for about 30 bucks. Used bookstores are my favorite thing. Especially when they have lots of sci-fi.