Book Hauls!

Found a copy of Our Mutual Friend, Dickens 40s HC, in with some cookbooks. I like Powers SF covers, had rafts, now ya have to get them get on the net
 
Extollager said:
The art of Michael Whelan, too, bores me, to name another artist I associate with the later 1970s and 1980s. This kind of work stirs no desire in me to read the book...

bk-WhelanWorksOfWonder07.jpg
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I have to say that this style of artwork I think is very fantasy. I vastly prefer that era and high quality artwork like this than the modern era where it seems to be highly minimalist and dark and broody. Or you get a symbol (which is normally a crown or some kind of circle or seal) on the front. It just doesn't inspire the mind the same as rocky crags and a mighty dragon or other such scenes.
Its like I love the original Discworld covers; full of rich detail and colour that brought the world to life; whilst the minimalist dark ones looked more like something suited to a horror novel!
 
Victoria Silverwolf said:
I think what bothers me about this particular style of fantasy art (which I also see in the Brothers Hildebrandt and others) is that it is so darn literal. It doesn't create the feeling of fantasy at all.
[...]

Not only beautiful, but walking just the right line between realistic and abstract.
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I think you've nailed it for me, Victoria. That style was too literal and the comic book bright colors didn't help. on the other hand I appreciate the bright colors in Gallardo's work because it gives me the feeling of imagination and invention at work. When I read LOTR the covers were watercolor landscapes painted by Tolkien himself which lent the books a wistfulness and grandeur that greatly appealed to me.


Randy M.
 
Bick said:
Well, they are by Darrell Sweet, who's the absolute worst fantasy artist of all time, so its not hugely surprising. He cannot keep figures to scale - the hobbit upstairs looking out his hobbit hole is human sized. He also (always) has characters looking in random directions, as though uninterested in what's going on.
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an object lesson in why texhnical proficiency and cuteness does not equate to good, or even just effective art.
 
Free from the library:
Image (170).jpg

Twenty-three titles plus a chapter on Reprinted Pieces are listed in the table of contents. A lot of ground is covered in 243 pages, nearly everything seems to be here. One exception though. Scanning the chapter on Christmas Stories I don't recall seeing either the words Scrooge or A Christmas Carol anywhere in the text. Did I miss it I wonder, or is it just not that important?
 
Found a neat little item today at one of our favorite bookstores which had a 25% discount on their entire stock. This was normally $4.99 but with discount and tax cost me $4.03.

Image (171).jpg

This is stapled along the spine like a comic or small pamphlet. The cool thing about this particular item is even though you can't see it, it does have that anomaly known as a double cover and they're both still firmly intact. Kinda had to have it before I left the store.
 
Some more acquisitions . . .
(I spent a little birthday money, but there's still more to spend if I find something interesting and cheap ;) )

The Infinity Box - Kate Wilhelm
Agent Of Chaos - Norman Spinrad
The End Of The Matter - Alan Dean Foster
Recursion - Tony Ballantyne
The Weapon Makers - A E Van Vogt
The Dramaturges Of Yan - John Brunner
What Mad Universe? - Frederic Brown
Crescent City Rhapsody - Kathleen Ann Goonan
Evening's Empires - Paul McAuley
Relics - Tim Lebbon
Something Happened Here, But We're Not Quite Sure What It Was - Paul McAuley
The Diploids - Katherine MacLean
Netherspace - Andrew Lane/Nigel Foster
The Zen Gun / Collision With Chronos / The Grand Wheel / The Soul Of The Robot - Barrington J Bayley
The Sheep Look Up - John Brunner
Revenger - Alastair Reynolds

I'm beginning to think I'm aiming for a "waiting to be read" pile that looks like this :

My 'Black Books' store
 
Paul_C said:
Some more acquisitions . . .
(I spent a little birthday money, but there's still more to spend if I find something interesting and cheap ;) )

The Infinity Box - Kate Wilhelm
Agent Of Chaos - Norman Spinrad
The End Of The Matter - Alan Dean Foster
Recursion - Tony Ballantyne
The Weapon Makers - A E Van Vogt
The Dramaturges Of Yan - John Brunner
What Mad Universe? - Frederic Brown
Crescent City Rhapsody - Kathleen Ann Goonan
Evening's Empires - Paul McAuley
Relics - Tim Lebbon
Something Happened Here, But We're Not Quite Sure What It Was - Paul McAuley
The Diploids - Katherine MacLean
Netherspace - Andrew Lane/Nigel Foster
The Zen Gun / Collision With Chronos / The Grand Wheel / The Soul Of The Robot - Barrington J Bayley
The Sheep Look Up - John Brunner
Revenger - Alastair Reynolds

I'm beginning to think I'm aiming for a "waiting to be read" pile that looks like this :

My 'Black Books' store
Click to expand...
You know Recursion is the first in a trilogy. I really liked all of them, and his Penrose books, but Ballantyne doesn't seem to get much mention around these parts :( so it's good to see someone else reading him!

Re the TBR pile: I just bought 28 ebooks (you don't want to know what the price tag was!).
 
Vertigo said:
You know Recursion is the first in a trilogy. I really liked all of them, and his Penrose books, but Ballantyne doesn't seem to get much mention around these parts :( so it's good to see someone else reading him!

Re the TBR pile: I just bought 28 ebooks (you don't want to know what the price tag was!).
Click to expand...

Heh, I do try to keep individual prices to below £3.50 where possible - which doesn't mean I won't spend more in a shop or for a new book, but for s/h or kindle I work on the principle that I have so many books now that I don't need to pay more than I have to.

If all the above had been £3.50 each then the total would have been £66.50 (one or two were 99p ebooks so it wasn't that much).

My #1 wishlist has dropped to a measly 69, but there are quite a few more saved in a couple of Amazon wishlists (not necessarily to buy from there, it's just a handy place to save them).

My only fear is that having just reached the age of 54, will I have time to read them all ? ;)
 
Paul_C said:
Heh, I do try to keep individual prices to below £3.50 where possible - which doesn't mean I won't spend more in a shop or for a new book, but for s/h or kindle I work on the principle that I have so many books now that I don't need to pay more than I have to.

If all the above had been £3.50 each then the total would have been £66.50 (one or two were 99p ebooks so it wasn't that much).

My #1 wishlist has dropped to a measly 69, but there are quite a few more saved in a couple of Amazon wishlists (not necessarily to buy from there, it's just a handy place to save them).

My only fear is that having just reached the age of 54, will I have time to read them all ? ;)
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No excuse, I'm 60!!! I get through about one and half books a week so that lot will keep me going for about 18-19 weeks. I find it such an effort to read printed books now that I'm almost exclusively ebooks and I keep my wish list on Goodreads where I have an 'immediate' to read 'shelf' of 160 books and a longer term to read shelf of around 110. Don't think I'm going to run out of books to read any time soon!
 
And I'm 62. One thing I'm working on is trying to dispose of as many, or more, books as I have new acquisitions come in. This is working. Though I have added many books to my collection, my count today is about 50 books fewer than my total was, when I counted the lot a little over a year ago.

THE BOOK REPORT: How many books do you own?

I'll probably get a Kindle one of these days, but even if, at that point, I stop buying books -- and I know that I won't -- there will still be a lot of books on hand. I want to keep in mind the limitations of mortality -- what is a reasonable guess for how many more years I have left as a good reader? I figure perhaps 20 -- and also the matter of inheritance.

My four children (ages 24-32), especially the three younger ones, seem to share with their generation a reluctance to accumulate stuff. I must avoid the illusion that, after I'm unable to enjoy the books, they will be welcomed into the homes of my kids. There is something to be said for finding homes for books now, while there are still some people around who read books.

I suspect that, in the next ten years or so, there will be released on the used book market some fabulous collections of sf and fantasy, including books that, 15 years ago, might have commanded staggering prices. But many of them won't, then. I love Tolkien and this is no reflection on his work, but I wonder if the market value of some Tolkien editions that have gone for huge sums, will plummet.
 
I don't have a Kindle but do have the Kindle app on all my devices and have downloaded a lot of free stuff, like Strand Magazine, Blackwood Magazine, older SF and whatever pulp looks good. Worth having especially if assisted living becomes an unavoidable life style.
 
Extollager said:
And I'm 62. One thing I'm working on is trying to dispose of as many, or more, books as I have new acquisitions come in. This is working. Though I have added many books to my collection, my count today is about 50 books fewer than my total was, when I counted the lot a little over a year ago.

THE BOOK REPORT: How many books do you own?

I'll probably get a Kindle one of these days, but even if, at that point, I stop buying books -- and I know that I won't -- there will still be a lot of books on hand. I want to keep in mind the limitations of mortality -- what is a reasonable guess for how many more years I have left as a good reader? I figure perhaps 20 -- and also the matter of inheritance.

My four children (ages 24-32), especially the three younger ones, seem to share with their generation a reluctance to accumulate stuff. I must avoid the illusion that, after I'm unable to enjoy the books, they will be welcomed into the homes of my kids. There is something to be said for finding homes for books now, while there are still some people around who read books.

I suspect that, in the next ten years or so, there will be released on the used book market some fabulous collections of sf and fantasy, including books that, 15 years ago, might have commanded staggering prices. But many of them won't, then. I love Tolkien and this is no reflection on his work, but I wonder if the market value of some Tolkien editions that have gone for huge sums, will plummet.
Click to expand...
I just find my eReader (Sony not kindle) is easier to read than books because a) it's lighter (especially when reading say Peter Hamilton!) b) it's more convenient when I'm on the move (I spend about 5 months of the year on the road) and c) I tend to make the font larger; I can read the smaller font in paper books but I find it much more tiring than reading a larger font on my reader.

Re the inheritance; one thing to be aware of is your descendants cannot inherit your ebooks, which seems like a terrible rip off, but that is currently the law throughout, I think, both Europe and America and applies to all downloaded digital media. But we digress from the topic.

I do still by some older second hand books for the simple reason that they have never been released as ebooks. Several that I'll probably be getting soon are Ringworld Throne (the first two Ringworlds are available but not the third!!!) and two of Cherryh's that I've been meaning to read for ages - Down Below Station and The Foreigner - and haven't for the simple reason that I can't buy them as ebooks (annoyingly I think Down Below Station is available in America but not the UK - different publisher).
 
Last two (possibly ;) ) for a little while as I spent the rest of my birthday money on a guitar pedal.

Mr Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Distances (Conversation Pieces Book 23) by Vandana Singh
 
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