Another Rachel Goswell side project. Really more Shoegaze tinged retro ambient lounge, maybe somewhere between Malory and Echodrone at their softest.
Archive for April, 2019
Shoegazer Sunday: The Soft Cavalry’s “Dive”
Sunday, April 28th, 2019Library Addition: Limited Box Edition of Michael Swanwick’s Cigar Box Faust
Saturday, April 27th, 2019Here’s another weird Dragonstairs Swanwick production:
Swanwick, Michael. Cigar Box Faust. Dragonstairs Press, 2019. First separate edition and first edition thus, preceded by the 2003 Tachyon chapbook Cigar Box Faust and Other Miniatures, one of only 40 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in special cigar box. Here’s the description from the Dragonstairs Press site:
Now you can produce your own performance of Cigar Box Faust. Dragonstairs Press is offering everything you need to mount your own production! The theater (a cigar box), the cast (a cigar in the title role and a cigar cutter as Mephistopheles, the sun, moon, and stars– well, cutouts and glitter), an mp3 file of Swanwick reading the text, and a chapbook of the script (a limited edition, signed by Michael Swanwick and numbered)!
As received, there was a tremendous quantity of loose glitter in the package, which is why it is now safely sealed in the polybag.
I will have precisely one for sale in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
Library Addition: Signed/Limited Edition of Tim Powers’ Alternate Routes
Thursday, April 25th, 2019The latest elaborate Tim Powers edition from Charnel House:
Powers, Tim. Alternate Routes. Charnel House, 2018 (though not received until 2019). First edition hardback, #54 of 150 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, in boards embossed with a large capital “L” gold stamped onto the cover, in polybag, with a sheet of instructions to leave it in the poly bag (due to possible rubbing off of the gold foil) laid in, sans dust jacket, as issued. Already out of print from the publisher, with at least one companion volume forthcoming.
I will have precisely one copy available for sale in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog, currently in progress.
Library Addition: Manly Wade Wellman Associational Copy
Monday, April 22nd, 2019Picked up another Manly Wade Wellman associational copy at a bargain price:
Wellman, Manly Wade. Harper’s Ferry Prize of War. MacNally of Charlotte, 1960. First edition hardback, a Fine- copy with slight wear at heel and head in a Near Fine dust jacket with slight spine fading, a tiny bit of loss at tips, and a touch of edgewear at head and heel. Inscribed by Wellman to his brother and fellow author Paul I. Wellman on the pictorial front free endpaper: “author time to Paul/the old War Chief of the/Tribe/Centia Campa/from/Manly”. Civil War history book. Bought off eBay for $20.
This is the second Manly Wade Wellman associational copy inscribed to Paul I. Wellman that I own, the other being Third String Center.
Library Addition: Signed/Limited Edition of Lansdale’s Dark at Heart
Wednesday, April 17th, 2019Another addition to the Lansdale collection:
Lansdale, Joe R. and Karen, editors. Dark at Heart. Dark Harvest, 1992. First edition hardback, #120 of 400 copies signed by all the contributors, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with just a couple of touches of edgewear at top front (and a $45 price sticker on inside front flap, as per Chalker/Owings), in a Fine slipcase. Anthology of “dark suspense.” Includes some signatures I didn’t have in my collection heretofore, like Ardath Mayhar’s. Chalker/Owings (2002), page 1049. Nova Express Lansdale Bibliography, 1A.2. Hankow, A Checklist of Joe R. Lansdale, AA4a. Bought for $17.26 plus shipping off eBay, less than half the publication price of $45.
Chalker/Owings noted that the move into mystery is what killed off Dark Harvest, though I suspect they did OK on this (Lansdale’s a strong seller).
Gene Wolfe, RIP
Tuesday, April 16th, 2019Science fiction writer Gene Wolfe died on Sunday. If you know who Gene Wolfe was no explanation is necessary, and if you don’t no explanation is possible.
He was the best of us all: the cleverest, trickiest science fiction writer alive, capable of carrying off narrative gambits the rest of us could barely conceive of. And this was not just my opinion: it’s all but universally held in the field, from Neil Gaiman to Howard Waldrop.
In The Book of the Short Sun, protagonist Horn sets off to retrieve Patera Silk, the protagonist of The Book of the Long Sun. He comes back thinking he’s failed. The great tragedy of the work is that he hasn’t. In Return to the Whorl, there comes a line of just two words: “Silk nodded.”
And it’s absolutely heartbreaking.
Gene Wolfe was a Korean War veteran, a fact that greatly shaped The Book of the New Sun, whose last volume features protagonist Severian gradually being drawn into a distant war. He was also a working engineer, and helped develop the cooking portion of the machine that makes Pringles potato chips. He was also an editor on Plant Engineering magazine, where he handled (among other things) robotics and cartoons.
Gene was a friend, albeit one I saw only every half a decade or so. I interviewed him for Nova Express at the 1998 Worldcon, bringing a box of his books with me to sign. (Since then, of course, I’ve picked up many more.) We had lunch together at the 2012 Chicago Worldcon, by which time his beloved wife Rosemary was dying of Alzheimer’s.
Here’s a scanned picture of Gene and Rosemary on their wedding day from A Wolfe Family Album:
And here’s a picture of Gene and Rosemary (with Elizabeth Hand in-between) at the 2009 Readercon:
And here are some pictures of Gene’s books from my library:
He will be deeply missed.