New Book Arrivals and a Sony T1

This week I received some books I ordered from Awesomebooks.com in mid December. I was surprised that they got here in just a little over 17 business days. I was expecting a much longer wait since international post tends to take so much longer over the Christmas period due to all those public holidays and increased package volumes.

Fantasy:
The War of the Dwarves by Markus Heitz. I need to catch up to the rest of this series in order to be able to review the latest release Revenge of the Dwarves which I received for review last year. These are tomes, so don't expect a review anytime soon.
Dragonfly Falling and The Scarab Path by Adrian Tchaikovsky. These are also books I ordered so I can catch up with the series. I still need to find copies of books 3, 4 and 5 before I can start on these.
The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan. This book has an absolutely gorgeous cover which the photo doesn't do any justice at all. The sword shimmers in mesmerizing colors and is stunning to look at.

Science Fiction:
Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley.
Resplendent by Stephen Baxter

The Sony PRS-T1 eReader

As a Christmas present to myself I ordered a new ebook reader as a companion to my aging Cybook Opus. After countless feature comparisons and deep contemplation I settled on the Sony PRS-T1 a.k.a. the Sony Reader Wi-Fi. Sony doesn't view South Africa as a viable market for their eReaders so I was forced to order this from the US via an import service. Luckily Sony had a special on the T1s during December so in the end everything worked out for the best and I got mine for less than the Kindle Touch would have cost.

I've only had it for a day, but so far I'm very happy with it. Initially I expected a much better improvement in screen quality over my Opus, but all the extra features and ease of use made up for that slight disappointment. I prefer the general looks of the T1 over the Kindle and it sits very comfortably in my hands. The user interface is very easy to use and I like the fact that they've included physical buttons in addition to the touch capability.

I noticed that The Book Depository is also selling the Sony PRS-T1 eReaders. If, like me, you live in country where the PRS-T1 isn't available locally they might be a good option since their free international shipping applies to the eReaders as well.