anything that sells for more than $15 used is 'crazy money' by my own frugal standards. but apparently it was a limited edition of 3,957 copies (is that typical for Arkham House?) so yeah, I guess $35 isn't too bad considering.
― the geographibebebe (unregistered), Tuesday, 26 May 2015 20:21 (nine years ago) link
Three volumes of Lord Dunsany's Lost Tales---intriguing; I really need to read more of his stuff:http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2015/05/dunsanys-lost-tales.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Wormwoodiana+%28Wormwoodiana%29
― dow, Tuesday, 26 May 2015 23:44 (nine years ago) link
ok, $175.00 for a chapbook is definitely crazy money. judging by some of the titles, a lot of these stories are probably non-fantastic. with all this revived interest in Dunsany, hopefully someone will publish an affordable collection of his late-career realistic fiction. I really enjoyed his novel The Curse of the Wise Woman (basically a memoir of his early life in Ireland, with some fantasy elements mixed in) and I'd like to read more Dunsany in that vein. I'm not really a fan of his early whimsical wonder tales, but his postwar novels The Charwoman's Shadow, The Curse of the Wise Woman, and of course The King of Elfland's Daughter are all excellent.
― the geographibebebe (unregistered), Wednesday, 27 May 2015 14:08 (nine years ago) link
Obituaries with comments highlighting some of the favourite books.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 27 May 2015 19:46 (nine years ago) link
Here, sorryhttp://io9.com/tanith-lee-was-an-indispensible-fantasy-author-1707086691http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/26/fantasy-and-horror-writer-tanith-lee-dies-aged-67
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2015/02/exclusive-behold-the-table-of-contents-for-sisters-of-the-revolution-edited-by-ann-and-jeff-vandermeer/
Didn't realise this was out in two months.
Looking at the Vandermeers output there is also a pirate anthology.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 27 May 2015 22:16 (nine years ago) link
tip: if you google hard enough, you can find an unauthorized, 3500-page-long, immaculately copy-edited etext of R.A. Lafferty's short stories. it claims to be a complete collection, and it includes about 50 uncollected stories as well as tables of contents corresponding to previously published anthologies (Nine Hundred Grandmothers, Strange Doings, etc.). given the general unavailability of Lafferty's work, I feel only a tiny bit guilty for downloading it.
― the geographibebebe (unregistered), Thursday, 28 May 2015 02:09 (nine years ago) link
heck, even wikipedia links to it, so why not:
https://sites.google.com/site/thebooksofsand/the-man-who-talled-tales---r-a-lafferty
― the geographibebebe (unregistered), Thursday, 28 May 2015 02:11 (nine years ago) link
Holy cats!
― as verbose and purple as a Peter Ustinov made of plums (James Morrison), Thursday, 28 May 2015 05:19 (nine years ago) link
I actually got my first ereader years back because of lafferty -- because I couldn't find an affordable copy of nine hundred grandmothers anywhere but came across a pdf online.
― demonic mnevice (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 28 May 2015 11:08 (nine years ago) link
B-b-but then you will deprive yourself of the fun of chasing down old library copies of such anthologies as In The Wake of Man, Four Futures and Universe 7, and aggravating your dust allergies therewith!
― Hup The Junction (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 28 May 2015 11:49 (nine years ago) link
Forgot A Day In The Life, ed. by Gardner Dozois.
― Hup The Junction (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 28 May 2015 13:25 (nine years ago) link
annoying ", and" up there should have used different word.
― Hup The Junction (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 28 May 2015 13:52 (nine years ago) link
wow that Lafferty thing is nuts. what is the deal with his estate anyway? my coworker made some comment that he had idly looked into how much it would cost to purchase the entire estate.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 28 May 2015 15:58 (nine years ago) link
finished "Lord of Light" - pretty good, what else should I check out by Zelazny? (only other thing I've read is Deus Irae). LoL kind of a rambling, disjointed series of battles and exchanges of brief dialogue with some mellifluous prose thrown in here or there to give it the proper religious/spiritual trappings. I can see why Gaiman (whose quotes are all over the edition I read) loves it, it has the same kind of adolescent-playing-with-cosmic-dolls approach that he so often likes to indulge in. "those wacky gods, they're just like US!" Didn't feel particularly profound or groundbreaking, just a solid yarn. But would read more if there's other/better stuff out there.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 28 May 2015 16:33 (nine years ago) link
By chance I am also dipping my toe into zelazny right now-- the three novella fixup novel My Name Is Legion. Dug the first story, just started the second. Enjoying the sort of shaggy hipster almost 70s Marvel tone.
― demonic mnevice (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 28 May 2015 17:34 (nine years ago) link
I don't have an ereader, what should I use to open this Lafferty in epub format? Windows did a search, came up with Free Editor and a couple of others.
― dow, Thursday, 28 May 2015 17:40 (nine years ago) link
Calibre, or there should be a free desktop version of the Nook app
― demonic mnevice (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 28 May 2015 17:55 (nine years ago) link
shaggy hipster almost 70s Marvel tone
haha yeah Lord of Light reads like it could've been written by Englehart or Gerber
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 28 May 2015 18:26 (nine years ago) link
what is the deal with his estate anyway? my coworker made some comment that he had idly looked into how much it would cost to purchase the entire estate.
apparently the Locus Foundation bought his estate in 2011 for $70,000 and a profit-sharing agreement. a Lafferty fansite says this:
Today (2013), all of these books are unexplicably out of print, all over the world. Neil Gaiman and Locus Press, who recently have bought the rights to Lafferty's estate, have planned the launching of a bunch of new editions in 2014, the year of the centenial of the birth of 'the cranky old man from Tulsa'.
but obviously the anniversary came and went without any publications
― the geographibebebe (unregistered), Thursday, 28 May 2015 18:41 (nine years ago) link
I wonder what's going on with Robert Sheckley's estate, because it seems like a lot of his pre-1964 works have lapsed into the public domain (judging by their availability on project gutenberg et al.). though I guess it's possible that was a terrible Lovecraftian businessman and he simply didn't bother to renew the copyrights during his lifetime.
― the geographibebebe (unregistered), Thursday, 28 May 2015 18:46 (nine years ago) link
*that he was
― the geographibebebe (unregistered), Thursday, 28 May 2015 18:47 (nine years ago) link
Centipede published two collections in 2013 and January this year but as with most of their books, they were crazy expensive.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 28 May 2015 18:51 (nine years ago) link
Of Lafferty that is.
Re: Zelazny. I usually just get the most complete omnibus of anything. Chronicles Of Amber has the first 5 books but Great Book Of Amber has 10 books. But many reviewers say the latter five are very poor and kind of a different story from the first five.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 28 May 2015 19:11 (nine years ago) link
I previously quite enjoyed Walter De La Mare's "Seaton's Aunt", it had an interesting strangeness but found "Out Of The Deep" to be a real pain in the ass. It was only written (or published at least) a year later but it's a totally different style. That sort of Henry James thing where the teensiest things are obsessed over. I'm going to be wary of this guy now.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 28 May 2015 20:16 (nine years ago) link
Fizzles touted him in another thread once. I have his novel Henry Brocken on my reader and am still looking forward to checking it out
― demonic mnevice (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 28 May 2015 21:22 (nine years ago) link
He's supposed to be a very good poet.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 28 May 2015 21:38 (nine years ago) link
sumatra reader is v. lightweight and will open epub/mobi (for windows)
calibre is pretty awesome but it's way overkill if you're just looking at one ebook
― mookieproof, Thursday, 28 May 2015 22:01 (nine years ago) link
There is a Zelazny collection called The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth which seems to have a good selection of some of his most famous stories, including the title one and "A Rose For Ecclesiastes." Available as an ebook pretty cheap.
In theory would read the first of those Amber books to see what they are all about, but don't want to contend with doorstop omnibus of diminishing returns and limited portability.
― Hup The Junction (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 28 May 2015 23:53 (nine years ago) link
Thanks guys, sumatra's doing fine, and these pages look nice, not some crude scan; I'll try Calibre too, now that I'm finally inclined to try downloads from the local library.
― dow, Friday, 29 May 2015 00:04 (nine years ago) link
Hey, just was starting a book by Gene Wolfe, who I have resisted for years, and noticed a reference to that Zelazny story. Prior to that I read something else by GW, "Seven American Nights," which I find interesting but slightly incomprehensible until I turned to the intranetz for explication.
― Monstrous Moonshine Matinee (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 30 May 2015 13:10 (nine years ago) link
I'm rereading Farmer's Riverworld series, about 35 years after the first time. I still love the central concept, but god, PJF could be a dull prose stylist. Some of this stuff reads like an episode of Dragnet, people expositioning at each other for dozens of pages at a time.
― Chuck Lorry Peter Lorry (WilliamC), Saturday, 6 June 2015 00:48 (nine years ago) link
http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/the-story-as-database
what up nerds, is this any good
― j., Saturday, 6 June 2015 18:29 (nine years ago) link
I dunno but the quote fails the random read test: ten ways of splaining how "she was herself, but different"---oh wowwwww man. And the description seems as deja vu as her lives, and I spend enough time dealing with computers, don't want no book with cyber-garble and error messages.
― dow, Saturday, 6 June 2015 19:13 (nine years ago) link
Nebula Awards presentations livestream---some people are still having trouble with it, but I'm getting it on Chrome (I just now checked back in, after delay):http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nebulaawards
― dow, Sunday, 7 June 2015 02:30 (nine years ago) link
third imperial radish book, Ancillary Mercy, keeps popping up in my recommendations. she doesn't hang about. not out until october though.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0356502422
i'm about 130 pages into the third of Reynolds' Poseidon's Children series but i'm not sure i'm enjoying it, mostly because i can't really remember what happened in part 2. (it also bugs me that the first 3 covers are all in different styles)
he (Reynolds) also has another book out, Slow Bullets, but it seemed expensive for the length so i haven't bought it (yet)
― koogs, Tuesday, 9 June 2015 10:21 (nine years ago) link
first Poseidon's Children was really boring. I guess it doesn't pick up
― Number None, Tuesday, 9 June 2015 14:44 (nine years ago) link
it's more that there was a 18 month gap and about 60 other books between the 2nd and 3rd.
the second had more spaceships in it than the first.
― koogs, Tuesday, 9 June 2015 15:00 (nine years ago) link
Finished Cixin Lui's The Three Body Problem. Starts off as a decently compelling whodunnit (and whodunwhat) but gets bogged down with infodumps in the second half and ends with a ridiculous and ridiculously rushed conclusion. Can't say I'll be looking forward to the sequels.
― ledge, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 12:53 (nine years ago) link
Now I need to get on with the list of ten I promised to read this year. Only managed three so far.
― ledge, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 12:56 (nine years ago) link
Let's have the list now please.
― dow, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 13:46 (nine years ago) link
i enjoyed three body, i liked the oddness of it. i don't know if it was conceived as part 1 of a trilogy but i liked where it ended and i am not sure i want any more of a resolution.
― Roberto Spiralli, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 13:54 (nine years ago) link
Zelazny was a big deal in SF/fantasy at one point, wasn't he? Can easily imagine his slangy style striking a chord with young comic book writers of the late 60s/early 70s. I know Neil Gaiman is a big Zelazny stan, and the Amber books definitely feel like the biggest influence on Sandman - some of the points of similarity are p striking.
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 10 June 2015 13:57 (nine years ago) link
Yeah, I always figured that zelazny and moorcock were real influences on the second wave of marvel writers.
― demonic mnevice (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 10 June 2015 14:32 (nine years ago) link
Yes and leave us not forget the comics background of Alfie Bester.Now reading God Emperor of Dune. After figuring out how to keep a lid on the helpful and torturous voices of ancestral memories and prescient options, times at least a couple of galaxies, for 3,500 years, the GE is understandably getting bored out of his skull. He doesn't really have a skull anymore, but it's becoming a throbbing phantom part, like some other parts, when He greets the unpretentious, gracefully sincere young Ambassador of the IXians. The IXians make all the implements He's becoming dependent on---including, lately, the de facto computers, officially still banned in the wake of the ancient Butlerian Jihad ("Thou Shalt Make No Machine In The Image of Man"). Now He realizes that the comely Ambassador is bred to be the most exquisite, diabolical IXian creation yet. Yet, so bored is He,that He welcomes the unexpectedly fresh bit of torture, adding something new to the cat and mouse game he always plays with opponents. Still awaiting that list, ledge.
― dow, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 15:31 (nine years ago) link
i enjoyed three body, i liked the oddness of it.
It was indeed odd. it started off like a hardboiled thriller, then became a history textbook, and finished off like flatland or the even weirder lesabendio. but i hated flatland and couldn't finish lesabendio.
for those keen on tracking my reading ambitions
― ledge, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 16:07 (nine years ago) link
is second imperial radish book worth reading. enjoyed the first but didn't love it
― hot doug stamper (||||||||), Wednesday, 10 June 2015 20:55 (nine years ago) link
Question cosigned.
Thinking about the three body problem, I did enjoy the videogame sections. Although for a fictional game it seemed strangely lacking in any kind of actual gameplay, it did provide some memorable images - e.g. a mediaeval knight on horseback and on fire, galloping in from the horizon shouting "dehydrate! dehydrate!" as an enormous burning sun rises in the sky behind him.
― ledge, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 22:32 (nine years ago) link
Have just actually properly finished the book - author's and translator's notes... and a brief preview of the second instalment. I couldn't help but be slightly intrigued.
― ledge, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 22:40 (nine years ago) link