Book Hauls!

[K. Riehl]

Got another box from Ebay, Rocket to the Morgue by Anthony Boucher, a signed Psion by Joan Vinge, signed Spinneret by Timothy Zahn, signed Claw of the Concilitor by Gene Wolfe, Lords of Creation by Eando Binder, and Android at Arms by Andre Norton. All first editions.

 

[Pyan]

JD ... have fun with the Father Christmas letters. I love that book.

Second that, Nesa...one of the nicest books I ever read....

 

[ravenus]

Beyond the Black River, the seventh in the Weird Works of Robert E. Howard set....

IIRC, that's the title of Wild West-esque Conan story Rob wrote...one of his best IMO

 

[Marky Lazer]

For "Sinterklaas," the Dutch equivalent of Christmas presents, I got:

Company by Max Barry
Utopia by Sir Thomas More
Death Proof - A Screenplay by Quentin Tarantino

 

[Connavar]

Another couple of Howard books (The Best of, vols. I & II) came in today... like all the books of this set, beautiful things, and I very much like the contents....

You got let me know how you feel about these editions.

If the stories it has are his better ones.

It the editions are good REH's, aka worth the prize.

 

[Nightmare]

Library book sale:

Shōgun - James Clavell
Second Contact - Mike Resnick
Ship of Fools - Richard Paul Russo
The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut

As with most of my recent purchases, I've not read any of these authors before.

 

[GOLLUM]

Looks like I'm slighlty behind JD on this one but I too picked up:

The Best Of Robert E Howard - Vol 2 *As he said these are beautifully presented books with a nice set of illustrations.

Also purchased some more graphic novels:

Midnight Days - Neil Gaiman
Violent Cases - Neil Gaiman & avid McKean
Lovecraft - Rodionoff & Breccia *Supposed to be a reasaonably acccurate biographical look at Lovecraft's life, thought it may be interesting to check out in comic book format.

 

[Nesacat]

JD ... what are the contents in the Howard books and could you and GOLLUM please tell me if they would be something I might want to be looking out for. Not that I have seen them in stores yet. But a new Borders just opened and you never know what they might have.

Be nice to the postie JD ....

 

[GOLLUM]

JD ... what are the contents in the Howard books and could you and GOLLUM please tell me if they would be something I might want to be looking out for. Not that I have seen them in stores yet. But a new Borders just opened and you never know what they might have.

For the production values alone they're worth getting, such beautiful covers and internal illustrations.

They are a series worth getting, so I'll PM you on the details now.

 

[Nesacat]

Thank you GOLLUM. Morpheus is visiting so I could haul him along down to the new Borders store. And Christmas is around the corner.

 

[GOLLUM]

Thank you GOLLUM. Morpheus is visiting so I could haul him along down to the new Borders store. And Christmas is around the corner.

Hint, hint....

 

[j d worthington]

Lovecraft - Rodionoff & Breccia *Supposed to be a reasaonably acccurate biographical look at Lovecraft's life, thought it may be interesting to check out in comic book format.

Well..... On this one, I have to strongly disagree. It is anything but an accurate biographical look at his life -- about as far from it as possible. Even where certain events are based (very loosely) on fact -- which isn't often -- the chronology of events are completely off. Mostly I'd say it's very much based on a careless and inattentive reading of De Camp's biography coupled with a lot of the "myths" that have grown up about Lovecraft since. So I'd advise not going into it looking for anything resembling the man himself.

However, as an "alternative universe" HPL, it can be quite interesting at times, and some of the artwork is evocative, to say the least. I just wish they'd marketed it as a Lovecraftian vision or "a tale of H. P. Lovecraft and his mythos" rather than playing on the completely erroneous idea that it in any way resembled the man's life or personality. When it comes to the popular media -- especially graphic novels -- we have yet to see anything even vaguely approaching that aspect.....

Nesa: yes, they are beautiful volumes, and the contents are well worth getting. They don't just repeat things from the previous volumes of the set, but bring in all sorts of tales, from his fantasies to his horror to his westerns to his humorous regional stories to his tales of the crusades, as well as a nice selection of some of his verse. They don't contain all his best (which is actually a surprisingly large amount of work), but they're a very good sampling, and well worth the price.

 

[Adasunshine]

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

I received a £15 Waterstones voucher for winning a quiz (my friends know me so well) and saw this and from the blurb it sounds great, it's his debut novel and I must say I'm really looking forward to reading it.

xx

 

[GOLLUM]

Well..... On this one, I have to strongly disagree. It is anything but an accurate biographical look at his life -- about as far from it as possible. Even where certain events are based (very loosely) on fact -- which isn't often -- the chronology of events are completely off. Mostly I'd say it's very much based on a careless and inattentive reading of De Camp's biography coupled with a lot of the "myths" that have grown up about Lovecraft since. So I'd advise not going into it looking for anything resembling the man himself.

I gathered that speaking to Nesa. I'm now about half way through the book and there are few aspects that are factual and it is very loosely based on his life. I don't mind it per se but I had hoped for something a bit more scholarly.

 

[HoopyFrood]

My friend and I went on an epic tour of Exeter today, searching for independent bookshops (she's writing an article for the student magazine about them) and managed to find five before running out of steam (it was epic trek). Yet despite going into five different bookshops, I surprisingly only bought one book: 65 Great Spine Chillers (authors include Stephen King, H.P Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, John Wyndham, Roald Dahl, Ambrose Bierce, Saki, Bram Stoker, Evelyn Waugh (woop, big fan of him) and many others).

 

[gully_foyle]

I just got back from a holiday with the family down in Melbourne (aka Gollum Town) and didn't get to as many book shops as I would have liked, but managed to haul enough to get a "more bloody books" comment from the cheese and kisses. All lovingly secondhand bar one.
Timescape by Gregory Benford
Fairyland by Paul J McAuley
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Mockingbird by Walter Tevis
The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
and
The Goldilocks Enigma: Why the Universe is just right for life by Paul Davies, which was a gift (I used to read alot of books like this).
and I almost picked up Zelazny's Damnation Alley, but the cover was a really cheesy movie tie in. I'll look for an older version.

 

[j d worthington]

My friend and I went on an epic tour of Exeter today, searching for independent bookshops (she's writing an article for the student magazine about them) and managed to find five before running out of steam (it was epic trek). Yet despite going into five different bookshops, I surprisingly only bought one book: 65 Great Spine Chillers (authors include Stephen King, H.P Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, John Wyndham, Roald Dahl, Ambrose Bierce, Saki, Bram Stoker, Evelyn Waugh (woop, big fan of him) and many others).

Ah, yes, one of the Mary Danby volumes.... Nice set, those:

65 Great Tales of the Supernatural (1979)
65 Great Spine Chillers (1982)
65 Great Tales of Horror (1981)
Realms of Darkness (1985)

Despite some flaws, they are very meaty compilations from throughout the genre....

She also edited several of the series of the Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories as well as the Armada Ghost Books....

 

[Fahim]

Got in the mail just now by kind courtesy of Connavar of Rigante:

The Black Company - Glen Cook

Thanks, Conn

 

[Connavar]

No problem, i hope you enjoy it more than i did

 

[quidscribis]

Connavar, I'll be reading it first - I finished my latest book series last night - and I go through books way faster than Fahim does, so... I'll let you know. Thanks for the book.