Pynchon wins by one, new poll up

119 people voted this time to see which book I'll read/review by 8/22. The final tally was very close, as Thomas Pynchon's just-released Inherent Vice beat out the George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois-edited tribute anthology to Jack Vance, Songs of the Dying Earth, 31 votes to 30. In third place was Clive Barker's The Books of Blood, vols. 1-3 with 13 votes, followed by a tie for fourth between Jesse Bullington's soon-to-be-released The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart and Steve Erickson's Zeroville, each with 11 votes. In sixth place was Brooks Hansen's The Chess Garden with 10 votes.

Since the difference between first and second was only one vote, I'm going to try and review both by the 29th and I have put the 3rd-6th place vote getters in this week's poll. To replace the other four, none of which received more 6 votes, I have added the following books:

Daniel Abraham, The Price of Spring (recently released - still need to read the other volumes first, but since none are over 400 pages, that won't be too much of a problem)

Iain M. Banks, The Use of Weapons (been on my shelf for virtually a month now)

Ursula Le Guin, Changing Planes (excellent short fiction collection that I finished reading almost a week ago)

Toni Morrison, Beloved (started reading that tonight, about damn time that I did)

Issui Ogawa, The Lord of the Sands of Time (first of a series of Japanese SF that will be published by the new Haikasoru imprint)

Sherri Tepper, Beauty (part of the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks series, this book has been on my shelf for a couple of weeks now)


Voting lasts until Saturday, August 22, 2009 in the evening sometime. Will try my best to have a review of the winning book up by Saturday, August 29, 2009, if not sooner. May the best book win?