My TBR pile keeps growing! Gaah! Can’t keep up! The real world keeps interfering with the time I’d like to spend in fictional worlds—I’m sure many of you can empathize. But seriously, between all the great books coming from authors I already know and love to all the new debuts I’d like to try, it’s getting difficult to keep pace. Here’s what I’m currently working on:

You will notice a dearth of fruit. One lonely Granny Smith surrounded by all those hot books. This indicates my need to go to the grocery store more than anything else.

So I grew up reading Conan comic books, but I could only find a few of Robert E. Howard’s original stories here and there when I was a lad. I now have his complete works on Conan—there are a few more collections like this one put out by Del Rey, following Conan’s career from the beginning to this particular collection, The Bloody Crown of Conan, where he’s king of Aquilonia. If you like sword n’ sorcery, it’s a good idea to get lost in the world of the master—it’s a world full of mighty thews and flagons of ale. (I confess that I giggle a little bit every time he talks about mighty thews.)

Next book is a debut called Sins of the Angels by Linda Poitevin. We chatted a bit on Twitter and she was kind enough to send this to me. Normally I’m not one for angel stories, because both the heavenly and fallen ones strike me as rather flat characters,  you know? White ones good, black ones evil, yeah, we got it. But Linda’s done something different here, cramming the angels into a police procedural, and there’s some mythology (or theology?) that I’m unfamiliar with too, so though I haven’t finished it yet, I’m digging it so far.

Um. I’m a Cherie Priest fanboy, so of course I’m reading her latest Clockwork Century novel, Ganymede.

I got a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories selected and edited by Joyce Carol Oates because, well, it’s H.P. Lovecraft and Joyce Carol Oates. I’m thinking this will be a felicitous combination like peanut butter and jelly, or peanut butter and chocolate, or peanut butter and bananas, or maybe I should just go make myself a peanut butter sandwich now. Yeesh.

Wayfinder is C.E. Murphy’s follow-up to Truthseeker, a complex world of the Fae and a really mysterious bad guy I gotta know more about. Lots of plot twists in this.

Jenn Bennett’s debut, Kindling the Moon, uses some Greek-based terms for magic that have intrigued me so far (I’m on chapter 3), and I really enjoyed how she made fun of Ghost Hunters. She’s gotten some outstanding reviews for this book; it’s witches and demons, not vamps and werewolves, so if you’re looking for something/someone new, this is probably a safe bet. Also in Jenn’s favor: she has a couple of pugs! This means she’s spiffy. I have a pug too. :)

Last but not least is Phoenix Rising by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris. I’m hoping it’s good; I like steampunk (see Cherie Priest above) and this is clearly a steampunk adventure thingie. But honestly, you need to just spend some time figuring out what’s going on with this crazy cover. (And remember that the cover is often not up to the author at all, and may have very little to do with the actual contents of the book.) Both characters are wearing obligatory goggles in an cobblestone alley (maybe a street?), as if they were going to hop a passing dirigible at any moment, and as if their Victorian attire wouldn’t advertise that this was a steampunk book otherwise. The woman is holding a really large gun of some kind, and there’s actually a piece on it with a smiley face (right underneath her chin). It’s truly huge and there’s no visible holster, so you are left to conclude that she pulled that monster out from under her dress. I mean, why else would she be standing like that with her dress all hiked up? She has another weapon of some sort tucked into the fishnet on her left thigh. I’m unsure how she managed not to rip the fishnet when she stuffed that thing in there, nor am I confident that a heavy, metal weapon wouldn’t shift around in that elastic as she walks, but whatever. This lady carries dangerous weapons underneath her skirt, AND SHE WANTS YOU TO KNOW. But, um, Miss? If you want us to know you’re carrying weapons, why not just wear them outside the skirt? Do we have to look at your legs as you do a little Captain Morgan pose? I think perhaps we’re supposed to conclude this is a woman of action? All kinds of action, hence the spread thighs? The man, meanwhile, is definitely not up for any action. He’s drinking tea with his pinky raised and one leg crossed in front of the other while his companion is busy flashing her goodies at us. Is he a voyeur? A pimp? Lost? Why is he carrying a cup of tea and a saucer around with him in a dark alley, for crying out loud? Now let’s look at the type for a second. The title, Phoenix Rising, is at the very top in a lurid green sans serif. The color is so offensive and the font so plain that you almost don’t want to read it. It’s like they designed it so you wouldn’t read it—anything so small and ugly must be unimportant. But the series title, A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel, takes up perhaps four times as much space, gets fancy little descenders here and there, and it’s a kind of vermillion, I think, a really bright orange-red. Hovering over the woman who looks like she’s working in the red-light district, albeit with more weaponry than you might expect. I think perhaps that they wanted to make the titles pop out from the fog of the cover illustration—and they succeeded!—but it’s a clashing effect more than anything else. On the back you get the cover copy in the same radioactive green as the title. It honestly sounds like a fun book, and I stress that you really can’t judge books by their covers (even though we do it all the time). I’m sure the words inside are infinitely better chosen than the color and font for the title, and I’m looking forward to it.

Hope you’re all reading something spiffy. Feel free to share in the comments! :)