Three used books, two of which were bought extremely cheaply.
Library Additions: Three Firsts (Asimov, King, Ruff)
September 17th, 2024Library Addition: Joe R. Lansdale’s In The Mad Mountains
September 12th, 2024Another Tachyon Lansdale first.
Lansdale, Joe R. In The Mad Mountains. Tachyon, 2024. First edition trade paperback original, a Fine copy. Stories inspired by H. P. Lovecraft.
I will have copies of this available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
Library Addition: First of Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education
September 11th, 2024I’m still working my way through the Temeraire books, but haven’t read any of Naomi Novik’s other works, so I was happy to pick this up.
Novik, Naomi. A Deadly Education. Del Rey, 2020. First edition hardback, a Fine- copy in a Fine- dust jacket with bumped corners. “Lesson One of The Scholomance.” Bought from Half Price Books for $11.92.
Library Addition: Tim Powers’ Empty Chamber
September 9th, 2024Another Charnel House signed/limited Tim Powers first:
Powers, Tim. Empty Chamber. Charnel House, 2024. First edition hardback, #54 of 250 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in embossed boards, sans dust jacket, as issued. New novella, elaborately decorated with gold and black Tarot-cardesque illustrations. “Handbound in full Corvon® Rust: An acrylic-coated, latex-saturated paper that imitates oxidized metal in all facets. A metal paper with a rusty finish. Printed on Mohawk 80lb. Superfine.” An attractive production. Bought from the publisher at the usual discount.
I will have a small number of these available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
Library Addition: Jack Vance’s The Man in the Cage
September 2nd, 2024This is one of the few Jack Vance titles I lacked.
Vance, John Holbrook. The Man in the Cage. Random House, 1960. First edition hardback, a Near Fine copy with slight bumping at head and heel and a few small, mild abrasions to topstain on pageblock, in a Very Good dust jacket with bumping and shallow loss at head and heel, with associated creasing at heel, 3″ scratch to rear panel, slight dust staining to white portions of dust jack, tiny, partial, thin abrasion line down middle of spine, spine possibly very slightly faded, small stamped “49” in a circle next to the (unclipped) price on front dust jacket flap, mild spotting to top and outer edge of rear flap, and mild foxing to blind side of dust jacket. Hewett, A10. Cunningham, 54.a. Levack/Underwood, Fantasms, 29.a. Currey, page 499. Bought from a customer who saw this on my Want List for $35.
Library Addition: Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Little Orange Book of Odd Orchestrations
August 28th, 2024Another Borderlands Little Book:
Doyle, Arthur Conan (Mark W. Whitback, editor). A Little Orange Book of Odd Orchestrations Borderlands Books, 2024. First edition hardback, #463 of 500 copies signed by the editor, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. Fantastic stories, several of which are covered in Bleiler’s Supernatural Fiction, pages 159-161, and Bleiler’s Science Fiction: The Early Years, pages 203-209. Part of their “Past Masters of Horror and Fantasy” series, focusing on late 19th/early 20th century writers.
I will have a small number of copies available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
Library Addition: Michael Swanwick’s Brief Lives
August 27th, 2024Another Dragonstairs Press chapbook:
Swanwick, Michael. Brief Lives. Dragonstairs Press, 2024. First edition chapbook original, #7 of 50 signed and numbered copies, a Fine copy. Brief essays on writers who died young, including Octavia Butler. Bought from the publisher at the usual discount.
I will have a small number of copies available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
Library Addition: Signed First of Jack Williamson’s Dragon’s Island and Other Stories
August 26th, 2024A signed Jack Williamson first I picked up (cheap) mainly due to the publisher.
Williamson, Jack. Dragon’s Island and Other Stories. Five Star, 2002. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in decorated boards and a Fine dust jacket, inscribed by Williamson: “To Dane,/Jack Williamson/Bubonicon/2003.” Note: The cover title is Dragon’s Island, while Dragon’s Island and Other Stories appears on the title, half title and copyright pages. Bought off eBay for $26.
Five Star is a subsidiary of educational publisher Gale. They started out doing romance and mystery hardbacks, but began doing significant amounts of science fiction in 2002, were active for several years, then started to trail off around 2009. According to Willie Siros, they were quite hard to deal with, as they wanted you to order at least 25 books at a time to get a reasonable discount. I have a signed Robert Silverberg omnibus first from them, plus a few others. I pick up signed Five Star firsts of important writers when I see them cheap, because I suspect they were geared for the library market, and that there aren’t as many signed Five Stars firsts as there are of firsts from other publishers for the authors.
Shoegazer Sunday: SPC ECO’s “Ray of Sun”
August 25th, 2024Been a while since I featured SPC ECO here, so enjoy “Ray of Sun” off The Art of Pop. With the lack of guitar this may be more possibly classified as dreampop.
Trailer For Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis
August 21st, 2024The new trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s new film Megalopolis just dropped. I’ll let you take a look at it before commenting further.
Is it just me, or does that look like pretentious crap? Sumptuous pretension crap, but pretentious crap none the less.
Nor is the Wikipedia entry any more encouraging. “The film was a longtime passion project for Coppola, who wanted to make a film drawing parallels between the fall of Rome and the future of the United States by setting the events of the Catilinarian conspiracy in modern New York. ”
Snip.
“An accident destroys a decaying metropolis called New Rome. Cesar Catilina, an idealist architect with the power to control time, aims to rebuild it as a sustainable utopia, while corrupt Mayor Franklyn Cicero remains committed to a regressive status quo.”
Yeah, I think a Roman parallel and an architect who cans stop time is a conceit too far.
Also, I’m not exactly thrilled by the “Coppola is a genius and the critics were wrong!” intro. The Godfather was hailed by almost all at the time as a classic and won Best Picture. Apocalypse Now got somewhat more mixed reviews, but was an Oscar nominee (losing to Kramer vs. Kramer), and John Simon was notorious for hating just about everything. Bram Stoker’s Dracula? I don’t think anyone looks back on that as a classic of cinema, or even vampire cinema, though opinions about that seem to have improved a bit as well. I noticed Jack and Twixt didn’t get mentioned…
Update: Evidently, some of those critics quotes are made up.