My monthly trip to Melbourne was last Saturday, and I picked up a few things of interest…
Books:
Burnt Offerings by Laurell K. Hamilton – I hadn’t actually read this one. I approached the Anita Blake series in a haphazard fashion, reading them somewhat out of order, and this one fell through the cracks. It’s actually a really good book, and a few things that happen in it are important later. Very happy to finally have it!
Interesting Times by Terry Prachett. I’m reading this series even more out of order than Anita Blake. I’m not a big fan of the Rincewind books, but this one was moderately amusing.
The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson. This is another of the tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen – book 6 in a series of 10 – and it’s absolutely excellent. One of the really great fantasy series of our time.
Olympos by Dan Simmons. Book 2 of 2. Book 1, Ilium, was interesting but rather tough to get through – not quite of the same quality as the Hyperion series, which is truly great SF. I haven’t reached this yet, but will soon.
D&D
The Sinister Spire – alas, no MMV was present in the shops, so I settled for a bunch of adventures. Barrow of the Forgotten King was an interesting – if linear – dungeoncrawl, and I thought that the second in the series would be more of the same. I was delighted to find something quite different – a town in the underdark, with many dangers to challenge the PCs. There aren’t really that many combat encounters in the adventure, but there is a *lot* of potential for the DM to have fun with.
Eyes of the Lich Queen – haven’t really had a chance to look at it yet.
DCC #2: The Lost Vault of Tsathzar Rho – One aspect of living in Ballarat is that I really haven’t seen much outside of Wizards’ products; and I prefer buying things from a LGS. So, noticing the rack of DCC adventures, and being in the mood for some adventures, I settled on this one. (Hey, it’s by Mike Mearls!) As I read it on the train back, I realised I’d recently been involved in a debate on EN World about this adventure – whether the ogre proved the CR system worked or not! I’m going to say this about the adventure: there aren’t any dead areas. Pretty much every encounter area is a battle or trap. I’ll probably use this to kick-start my next campaign after my Ulek game finishes up.
DCC #11: The Dragonfiend Pact – It was really cheap, it was ENnie-nominated. I haven’t looked at it much yet. The two DCC adventures have made me interested, though, and I’ll probably pick some more up in the near future. 
DT4: Ruins of the Wild – my second set of these absolutely excellent wilderness tiles. I’ve used the first set already in the Savage Tide game, and, based on the experience, I knew I wantedto get a second set to allow large wilderness areas. I really hope Wizards bring out a second set of Wilderness tiles soon!
Board Games
Power Grid – currently ranked #3 on BoardGameGeek.com, this game has been on my “must get” list for the last 7 months, but it hasn’t been in stock. It was yesterday, so I snaffled it. It isn’t my favourite boardgame (yes, I’ve played it before), but it deserves further study.
The Lord of the Rings – Friends and Foes expansion – one of the rare co-operative games, I really wanted this expansion but haven’t seen it for some time. Nice to get it finally.
Runebound: Sands of Al-Kalim – I’m not really a fan of Runebound, but I’d heard that the big expansions did good things to the game. We actually got to play it last night, and it wasn’t bad. 
Runebound expansions – a few small expansion sets: Crown of the Elder King; Artifacts and Allies; The Dark Forest; and Terrors of the Tomb. Just because I wanted to see how they changed the game.