Last year at World Fantasy, I learned that one of the perks of an attending membership is that you get a massive bag of free books. What’s more, there’s a table where people can informally swap books (since everyone gets a slightly different bag).
The really cool part, though, is that most people don’t have room in their luggage to pack all the books. Some people ship them home, but most just dump them on the table for anyone to grab. On most days, if you arrive early enough (when everyone else is nursing their hangovers), you can get some really good picks.
So this year, my unofficial goal was to hang out around the book swap table and see how much I could make in free books. Here’s the list at final count:
Asher, Neal. Shadow of the Scorpion: A Novel of the Polity. $7.99
Asher, Neal. Prador Moon: A Novel of the Polity. $7.99
Austen, Jane, and Ben H. Winters. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. $12.95
Baker, Kage. The Anvil of the World. $14.99
Cook, Glen. Starfishers: The Starfisher’s Trilogy Volume Two. $14.95
Cook, Glen. Star’s End: The Starfisher’s Trilogy Volume Three. $14.95
Cook, Glen. Passage At Arms. $7.99
Holland, Cecelia. Varanger. $16.99
Kollin, Dani and Eytan. The Unincorporated Man. $25.95
Mallet, Nathalie. The Princes of the Golden Cage. $7.99
Marks, Laurie J. Water Logic. $16.00
North, Pearl. Libyrinth. $17.99
Pitts, J.A. Black Blade Blues. $25.99
Sanderson, Brandon. Warbreaker. $7.99
Strahan, Jonathan, and Lou Anders, eds. Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery. $15.99
Turtledove, Harry. After the Downfall. $24.95
Vigneault, Francoise ed. Elfworld. $12.95
Waltz, Jason M. ed. Rage of the Behemoth: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure. $16.99
Williams, Walter Jon. Implied Spaces. $24.95Total: $296.54
All in all, I more than made back the cost of admission and the hotel. Not too shabby–and this list doesn’t count all the ARCs and free samplers I took as well.
Yep, World Fantasy is pretty much awesome. Now I just need a bookshelf…
Holy crap, that’s a ton of books.
I haven’t heard of many of those. I hope you’ll write some reviews of some.
Hey, I hooked you up with that Sense and Sensibility book.
I should do this and see how much I made. A bunch of authors at the signing gave me free books when I was shmoosing with them.
Pretty tight. Now I have a bunch of new authors to read.