I tend to buy few books sight unseen. This year I may have bought more books online than ever in my life, and I’ve bought maybe a couple of dozen this year, if that. Three times now, however, I’ve been bitten. Two books were listed in fine condition. One was in far from fine, with multiple tears in the dust jacket, and the book itself askew. The other had a few small tears in the dust jacket. The third, well, it was in great condition, but the seller never mentioned the glued owner plate from the previous owner, and even misrepresented the publisher. My bad for not researching the latter item, seller’s bad for not mentioning the first part.
In all three cases I’ve had to suppress my anger. True, I’ve missed things in books even when looking at them in stores, such as remainder marks, or a previous owner’s name, or a second edition when I thought it was a first edition. Those were all my fault. That last item doesn’t affect me too much, though I prefer first editions when buying nice copies of books. We all make mistakes. That’s how we learn. Far more of the books I’ve bought online this year have been fine. Even when buying from “reputable” bookstores online I’ve sometimes received books with creased covers, hastily shoved into boxes by overworked and underpaid employees. Still, relying on the word of others in this case can be frustrating.
Avoiding online purchases of used books in the past means that I’ve missed out on many books, but I’ve always preferred to hold in my hands the book that I want to buy, whether new, used from a bookstore, or a dealer at a convention. I have, maybe once or twice, swapped a cover onto a book where one book was in good condition but the cover not so much, and the other book had a nice cover. If they’re the same book, for the same price, I felt a degree of guilt, but also thought it would be allowed.
What happens to these three books that arrived in poor conditions? Well, they’re hard to find, so I suspect I’ll keep them around as “reader copies,” and if by chance I find replacements, bite the bullet and buy a second copy. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t.
I’ve now significantly increased my collection of these books, having gone from one to six to 26 volumes. There’s a hint of madness in my eyes when I look at them all lined up, or even laid down flat and line up next to each other. Maybe that madness gets dulled somewhat when I consider that I own less than half of the books in that series, and at some point I’ll run up against insane collector prices. Not to say that around $30 for a small volume with less than 150 pages doesn’t seem insane, but I’ve seen some of the books listed for over $300.
When compared side by side, there are certain physical variations in the books. This isn’t just in color, as is expected from their titles, but in size, materials, and design. Some are smooth, while others are bound in a rough cloth-like material. I like the rougher ones best, as I find that a certain roughness feels better than the smoother, earlier volumes. Still, the ones with smooth covers seem to hold the print of the titles better, while the rougher designs may over time lose some of the text and
In terms of the design, some books have just text on the cover, some have text and art. The fonts are not the same, and some use small caps while others regular text. The titles and bylines also are all over the place vertically. None of the books have any text on the spines, so when lined up there is no way to tell the title of any book. I supposed that’s part of the reason Borderlands Press created display cases for each grouping of five books (or, a quick way to make some additional cash).
In terms of the writers, aside from these books I don’t own a single other copy of their other works, with minor exceptions, such as F. Paul Wilson and William Hope Hodgson. Wilson is the author whose sole book I had when I started this vacuuming up of books in the series. As for Hodgson, I’d bought to books published by Donald M. Grant many years ago. I’d heard of most of the other authors, with certain exceptions: Charlotte Riddell, a long-forgotten Victorian era writer, and a few newer writers like Mort Castle, Brian Keene, Josh Malerman, etc. Some writers appear in collections that I own, but I’ll confess (and apologize to the authors) that this didn’t lead me to track down their own works.
Speaking of Riddell, there are few women writers in this series, which is a shame. There are only three other women writers so far out of the 52 published books , meaning the other 48 are male. The books appear infrequently; the series started prior to 2004, and with 52 books listed published and one announced for later this month. Perhaps the publishers and editors will find more women writers as they continue with the series. Or maybe not. Maybe the series will run out steam, or interest, although hopefully it will continue and also bring attention to many other writers out there. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll now actually look for some of their other books.
Recently I bought a collection of stories, a set of collaborations between Gardner Dozois and other writers, called Slow Dancing Through Time. When I bought it I didn’t realize that I’d bought the special limited edition, and that it came in a slipcase. Published by Ursus/Ziesing back in 1990, this book is one of 374 numbered and lettered copies signed by all contributors, including Dozois, Pat Cadigan, Michael Swanwick, Jack Dann, Jack C. Haldeman II, Susan Casper, Michael Bishop, Tim Kirk, Vern Dufford, and Dick Ivan Punchatz (the latter three the illustrators). A trade edition also appeared, though in an unknown number.
It’s a beautiful book, with a wonderful illustration inside the front and back covers by Tim Kirk. It’s a book I’ve seen previously somewhere, but without remembering where. Possibly at some SF convention. Reading it now, more than 30 years later, with several of the contributors no longer alive, is a strange feeling. A book like this doesn’t feel 30 odd years old, or maybe I don’t feel that the passage of time has stretched so long from 1990 to the present.
Collections and anthologies are an interesting breed of book. Writers of short stories usually sell their stories to magazines, and they sell enough, and reach a certain degree of fame, sometimes succeed in getting several of their stories published in a collection, or an anthology of like-minded tales. When it comes to books, the novel market dominates. Short story collections usually only appear in smaller print runs, unless you’re someone like Stephen King. They thrive within the embrace of small press publishers, as these publishers generally have print runs of a few thousand copies. The great part about collections is reading short works of fiction, but what I find just as much fun is reading the intros. These may be in the form of the general introduction, usually where the author bemoans the lack of markets for short stories, and the limited press run of their collection, how they begged and pleaded for their publisher to cobble together this great volume. Or, they could be smaller intros to each story (or in some cases, afterwords, where the writer patiently asks the reader to make sure that the reader actual read the story before the afterword—sometimes unsuccessfully, I might note in my case).
Some writers seem to put as much work into their introductions, as their stories. Harlan Ellison is like that. Others try to let the stories speak for themselves, such as Jack Vance, who only wrote a few brief intros to his collections. Part of my fascination with the non-story pieces is because these often are insights into the mind of the author, who tries to recreate the genesis or meaning of the story. This isn’t something you can do we you write a story, but once written many writers seem to want to look backward and try to explain, to themselves as much as to the reader, how that story came about and what it means to them.
Perhaps, at least in my case, the juxtaposition of the story and the accompanying pieces are a reminder of the work that goes into any fiction, even quite short ones. Good short stories must have an impact, a short sharp shock. A simple joke told by a comedian has been honed and re-written multiple times, to reach the payoff. A short story has been conceived, written, stripped down to its essentials. After that effort, getting an insight into what brought that story to life adds to it, makes the writer seem human and not like some god.
The intro, afterword, or whatever one calls that accompanying text, provides not only insight into the genesis of a story, but the time and place around that story. Sometimes the writer will go into detail how they sold it to a book or magazine. Many of these no magazines no longer exist, or seem like strange choices. Some stories have a winding life until they finally find a home, or end up forgotten and alone until restored among its siblings in a volume of the author’s work.
Collections without such intros are often sad, sterile affairs. Sure, you can read the stories, but by themselves they feel, well, empty. That, of course, is the personal choice of the author who’s likely not getting paid by the word for writing those non-fictional pieces. It does seem a shame, in the age of the internet, but even prior, that many of the short story markets and publications no longer exist. From the pulps to the slick, to specialty magazines and fanzines, many now lie lost and forgotten. Such is it, I suppose, with some older writers, whose books no longer are in print. The genre market is a tough one, even for living authors. Dead ones for the most part now also live in the past. Rediscovering this volume maybe keeps their memory alive a little longer.
Recently I mused upon lazily collecting some of the chapbooks in the Little Books series from Borderlands Press. Having having owned one of the books for many years I happened to pick up a couple more. Perhaps that strange human characteristic of wanting to gather more of the same, I went ahead and looked for other books.
There are two limitations in this effort. First, my price threshold is fairly low; I don’t foresee spending more than $45 for a single book, especially given that these are small chapbooks. Sure, they’re limited to 500 (in most cases) copies, and are signed. But, is that such a big deal? Second, some are hard to find. I’ve checked the usual suspects like Bookfinder and eBay, and so far have been able to locate listings for all but 11 of the books.
What’s my ceiling here, I wonder? So far 53 books have been published. I now own 7, and possibly may pick up another 10-15 before I hit my price ceiling. At what point does it become an obsession? Probably never. To consider having less than half of the complete set is, to a completist, somewhat of a disappointment. The most expensive listing I’ve seen so far is $200 for (to me) an unknown author. There are two or three writers whose books in this series likely will never reach the market for less than $500. Is it then worth it owning a tiny piece of cardboard and paper?
As I’ve said before, I’m more of a haphazard collector when it comes to books. I want the ones that I can read, that fit my interests, and fall under a reasonable budget. My interests are narrow. Generally I’ll focus on authors I like, such as Jack Vance, James P. Blaylock, Tim Powers, Michael Shea, a few others. In a few small cases I’ve looked at publishers as an option. I own all but one of the Golden Gryphon hard covers. I considered trying to collect Arkham House or Dark Harvest, but many of the books from the former are beyond expensive. When it comes to the latter, I only really focused on their Night Visions series, where the only one I don’t have is impossible to find.
I read about other book collectors and marvel at their persistence and resourcefulness. To me there’s a certain joy in holding a rare book, but if there are multiple states, such as trade, limited, and deluxe limited, then I’ll happily own the trade edition. Slipcases, tray cases, these mean nothing to me if I can have the same book in a decent edition.
Many years ago, so far back I cannot remember when or when, I bought a copy of F. Paul Wilson’s chapbook, A Little Beige Book of Nondescript Stories. This apparently is a series of small chapbooks published over the years by Borderlands Press. I was, at that time, more interested in picking up books by Wilson than in collecting a series of small (and, to me at least, expensive) chapbooks, so I never looked at buying any of the other books. Wilson’s book was apparently the ninth (or thereabouts) published, and part of what was then called Series I. Each book is published in a limited edition of 500 (though I have seen reports of some up to 600).
Over the years Borderlands Press has continued to release new books in the series. There are now over 50 of these books. There are 15 books in each series, and it’s now up to series IV (4). In looking for other books—unrelated to this series—I’ve seen mention of these again and again, which piqued my curiosity. At this point, there are so many in the series, and most of the older ones are prohibitively expensive, or impossible to find, that joining the search for them seems insane. The rabid collector out there might be picking up and storing what they can find, as well as some dealers who bought a bunch of each title and have held onto them, listing them for sale at handsome (to them) prices. I can’t see spending some of the money being asked for a few of the rarer ones.
All that being said, I recently picked up a pair of other books in this series, almost by chance. I was amused to find that they are not a uniform size. With each series, the height of the books increases slightly. If someone were to display all books in a shelf, they would appear in various colors (fine), but not a uniform height (strange for a dedicated series like this). Whether this was a conscious decision, or an aesthetic one, I don’t know. As a matter of idle curiosity, I made a list of all the books, then did searches online to compare prices. Of the ones that I found, there are a few that approach or exceed $150, which seems a lot for such a little book. Most of the newer releases can be found for $30-40, and there are some older ones that simply do not show up in any searches.
This all goes to show that if you want to collect a series like this, and be able to find all of them at decent prices, you need to get in early, and stick with the program. Arriving to the scene years later, like myself, means that I will need to be content with owning maybe five to 15 of these books. Again, this goes to show that I’m among the lower left side of the curve of the collector bell curve.
Many years ago, I read the first four books of Stephen King’s series about the Dark Tower in sequence. I figured it would end with the 4th novel, although there really was no ending in sight. The story, incomplete from the first instance, remained incomplete with each book. At the same time, each subsequent book grew in size (not much different from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series).
At some point, the series took on a life of its own, spanning several additional novels, either direct sequels or ones set in the same “universe.” Back in 1997 I quit reading Stephen King novels. This was after the fourth Dark Tower book, as I lost interest in his stories. King just seemed to repeat himself, or maybe I just lost interest in that genre. Not the first time, or first author, where that’s happened.
In 2012 King released the first of three sequels to the original four Dark Tower books. At that time I wasn’t too keen on reading them, as it just seemed that the story would endlessly loop: the protagonist, Roland, reaches the Dark Tower, only for events to reset and he needs to restart his quest. At least, that’s what I figured based on the first book, and I saw nothing in the other books that would indicate otherwise. I read some reviews, discovered pretty much what I expected, plus read about some bizarre mention of King as a character in his own novels, and skipped them.
A few months ago I picked up book six, Song of Susannah, in a used bookstore. The book, published by Grant, was in decent shape. I’d seen some copies in stores over the years, but passed them up. Perhaps this time I was just bored enough to buy it. I read the book, even though I’d not read book five, so this meant I missed some context. Nonetheless, is was pretty much as expected: King rambles on, taking five times as long to tell a story as one should, throwing in repetition after repetition. It was a quick read, despite being a thick book (or maybe I skipped some passages). I even saw King as a character in his own book, a cheap gesture, in my option; it detracts from the story.
A few months later I found a semi-decent copy of Wolves of the Calla, book five. The events in this book were heavily referenced in book six. Then, finally book seven; although I’ve not read the final book, I did read a synopsis. As I suspected, King couldn’t close the door, couldn’t stick the landing, and even though the telling (or parts of it) might be entertaining, the ending of the series may not be that great, may not be worth the journey.
I’ve read many a series, though most tend to be three (maybe four, sometimes five) episodes (books) long. A seven book series should have some great conclusion. Rarely happens, in books or cinematic/TV shows. Most people don’t know when to end things. J. K. Rowling went seven deep with her Harry Potter books, each longer than the previous iteration. Some parts suffered, but on the who she had a conclusion, an ending. C.S. Lewis destroyed his Narnia in his many-book series (all much slimmer than any King or Rowling books).
Meanwhile, George R. R. Martin is still working on (supposedly) his long series. Each of Martin’s books grows in scope. It begs the question: do some writers just not know how to edit, or how to condense a story down to its essentials? King’s seven book series maybe should have stopped at three, but he kept churning out massive sequel after massive sequel. It’s tough (and sad) when writers wander off the path. Maybe they feel the need to include every little bit of information from their story notes, add minutia because they think it matters. It really doesn’t.
I’m fairly certain I’ve read Frank Herbert’s novel, Dune. I own a battered paperback copy of the book, bought many years ago. Certain passages in the book are underlined or highlighted, and many words in the detailed terminology appendix are circled. Still, that may or may not be not be my handwriting; there’s a phone number scribbled on the last page, an 800 number with no explanation, and that’s not in my crabbed handwriting, so who knows.
I really wanted to watch the latest movie adaptation of the novel, as the previews looked fantastic. But, timing failed me, or maybe it was the fact that no one else in my immediate family seemed eager to head to the movie theaters to watch it; we tend to make the movies these days an occasion, and for some reason Dune didn’t make the cut.
Dune is on my mind lately, though, because of the movie. I do remember watching the David Lynch adaptation, many years ago, and thought it was too comedic. Setting aside the multiple appendixes, the book clocks in at nearly 500 pages. I’ve not read any of the sequels, of that I’m sure. And yet, if I did read the book, not much of it stuck with me. Supposedly it’s a notable book, one of the major achievements of science fiction. And yet, neither this book nor the series appealed to me, and I can’t remember reading anything else by this writer.
Herbert was friends with Jack Vance and Poul Anderson, and I’ve read far more of their books than Herbert’s books. Yet, for some reason, Dune gets more press than either of those two authors combined. Surely he wrote other stories, and not just books set in this series?
Jack Vance has authored far better stories than anything by Frank Herbert, but maybe they’re not as cinematic. Regardless, I wonder whether it’s worth my time to re-read the novel, and if I do re-read it, whether I’ll remember anything about it two or three years from now? As far as Jack Vance, I remember many details of his stories and novels. Then again, I’ve read them multiple times.
As far as the book goes, when I do think of it, I tend to remember scenes from the earlier movie, and not passages from the book. I find that somewhat annoying, but maybe that speaks more to the lack of excitement the book provided, or the visuals (however unintentionally funny they came across) from the Lynch movie. Dune likely is not a book I’ll ever re-read, not any of the sequels. Still, the previews looked good, and maybe I’ll get a chance to watch the sequel on the big screen.
A while ago I became fascinated with the Appalachian Trail. I watched documentaries, read blogs and books, including a humorous one by Bill Bryson called A Walk in the Woods; I even watched the movie based on the book (a disappointing, but truly Hollywood-glossed yet tiresome affair).
I wasn’t on the lookout for other Bryson books, but recently I picked up and read The Lost Continent. I slogged through this hate letter to America, trying to find some redeeming value within its pages, but came away empty. There’s so much bile in this book, and I’m sure Bryson meant every nasty word, from personal attacks to snarky comments on road, cities, states, and the various people who inhabited them.
The sub-title of the book is “Travels in Small-Town America.” It’s based on two road trips he took in the autumn of 1987 and spring 1988, totaling 13,978 miles. He covered most of the states in the lower continental US, or at least parts of them. He had mostly nothing good to say about any of those states, or any of the places he visited. Every historical monument is a tourist trap, a bad marriage of run-down buildings, surrounded by gewgaw sellers, and the entrance fees exorbitant.
Although the book makes me want to take a similar type of road trip, driving through multiple states, I’m not sure of the best use of such a plan. A possibility might be a National Parks road trip, trying to see all the National Parks in the US in one go. I’m sure someone has mapped out the most efficient route, if not the most efficient time of year and place to start. Some National Parks require watercraft, or maybe air, to visit, but most are drivable. There are some tricky logistics, such as dealing with crowds in the most popular attractions, and the range of weather from Florida to Alaska. Having only been to four National Parks in the US, and only ones on Texas, New Mexico, and Utah, such a road trip would be epic, a 20,000+ mile voyage spanning many months.
I’ve done a few road trips in my time, mostly in Texas and New Mexico, although a few miles here and there in Colorado and California; the US is a vast continent. There are massive cities, concrete jungles where you take your life in your own hands in one area, and see marvels of human ingenuity a few blocks away. There are pockets of darkness in the wilderness I wouldn’t dare venture, remote areas where you need to weigh your car of choice and your accent carefully. America is like multiple alien worlds in one continuous place. Some of that feeling might be perception from reading books or watching movies.
I’ve visited quite a few places of note, and yes they charge entrance fees. You can’t expect to walk into the Hemingway House in Key West without forking over a few bucks. Not all places can exist solely with the help of unpaid volunteers catering to Bryson’s whims and feelings about walking through someone’s former house as if he was an invited guest.
As for Bryson’s trip, he must surely know that it’s not a uniquely American feature for people to set up shop near places that many people visit. Is that ideal? Maybe not, but it’s the same in virtually every corner of the world. I’m sure there were people in the Red Square during the heyday of the USSR who tried to offload an item or two when people came to visit. I’ve seen the same in many countries in Africa, as well as Norway, England, and other European locales. As a former Norwegian, I sometimes feel sad when walking through Bergen and seeing so many shops and places catering to tourists by selling overpriced crap. The fish market in Bergen used to be a fun place to visit, but not so much any more. The top of Fløien has expanded the viewing area to a point I no longer recognize it. Yet, walk a few hundred meters further, and you’re in forest. Walk the streets of the city away from the harbor, and you find regular shops. It’s the same in the US; step outside the core area of concentrated tourist spots and you still find genuine people and places.
Why Bryson hates his home country so much, one can only wonder, unless it was a gimmick to sell his book. “Look, ” one can image he said to his publisher, “I know Steinbeck wrote a travel book, a glowing paean to America. I want to do the opposite. I’ll do a road trip, and at every stop I’ll rip into everything I see. It will sell millions, just on my name alone. Also, people abroad hate America. This is a win-win proposition.”
Well, hell. Robert McCammon’s latest novel, the eighth in the Matthew Corbett series, is due to be published in 2022. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the hardcover is a deluxe limited by a new press, Lividian Publications. I’m not sure why there are multiple publishers in the series, from Subterranean Press (who publishes most of them) to Cemetery Dance (only one). I like the books in hardcover, but I don’t mind a trade edition. A deluxe limited with a slipcase will probably just cost too much for me to care, and as the book is over 700 pages long, the next edition (paperback) will take a while and just look wrong on my bookshelf. After catching up with all the novels, this may just mean that I skip the next two.
Setting aside the books written under the house name of Ellery Queen, noted SF Grandmaster, Jack Vance, wrote nearly a dozen straight mystery novels. The same tropes from mystery/detective stories appeared in his SF works, from the short stories featuring Magnus Ridolph, to his Gallactic Effectuator novellas, and even his five-novel Demon Prince books, but it was under names other than “Jack Vance” that he wrote what I’d consider the pure mysteries.
The books I consider pure mysteries are: The Deadly Isles, The Man in the Cage, The Dark Ocean, The View from Chickweed’s Window, The House on Lily Street, Strange Notions, The Dark Ocean, The Fox Valley Murders, The Pleasant Grove Murders, Bird Isle, and Take My Face. Arguments can be made for other books (Bad Ronald, for example), and possible some of these might be considered not pure enough (The House on Lily Street). Both these last novels are interesting because they are told from the viewpoint of evil people, although I’m possibly spoiling something here with The House on Lily Street.
In many of these books, the main character (and often the reader) doesn’t know the identity of the antagonist. Even in The Deadly Isles, when the protagonist is well-aware of the identify of the man who tried to kill him, neither he nor the reader is aware of that person’s accomplice. Like with Agatha Christie’s books, we learn the true identity of the murderer at the end. It’s a delicious tease, and almost never fails to surprise.
Both The Fox Valley Murders and The Pleasant Grove Murders feature a police detective, or rather sherrif, and thus represent The Law. The other books feature private individuals forced to become detectives to uncover nefarious deeds and evil motives. Murder is so easy that even a housewife can kill, when pushed in a certain direction. Hardened criminals exist as well; they occur elsewhere in his fiction as well, shrugging off ethics and scruples as if these elements do not matter in the grand scheme of things. We find all sorts of people in Vance’s stories, across the spectrum of good and evil. There’s a healthy mix of the in-between, but he doesn’t shy away from portraying people on the far end of the evil spectrum.
Although Jack Vance achieved some success in the fields of science fiction and fantasy, his mystery books were generally published under assumed names, or his real name—John Holbrook Vance. They therefore found little success. The original books are rare; reprints were published by small press publishers such as Underwood-Miller or Subterranean Press in limited editions. Even these latter editions now are hard to find, and often fetch premium prices on the collector’s market. As Vance didn’t make a career out of writing mysteries, no doubt few modern publishers would be interested in releasing mass market editions of his books, so aficionados are left with limited opportunities to read his books.
How well do they age? The Deadly Isles, which is set among islands in the Pacific and on that ocean itself, is artifact of a bygone age. Progress has long since caught up with these distant places. The tale itself is one deeply-rooted in human motivations. It comes down to love or lucre, at the end, as P.D. James once wrote. The other books are in the same category, but then so are most books, they are products of their times. The Fox Valley Murders and The Pleasant Grove Murders take place in an invented county in Northern California, and today seems almost as alien as any science fiction work. The View from Chickweed’s Window is a tale of revenge, and so perhaps one might call Take My Face. The Dark Ocean, set on a steamer heading down the California coast and through the Panama Canal, might be one of the tensest books, taking place mostly aboard the steamer, with characters trapped together. Bird Isle reads almost like a Wodehousian farce, as does some of the characters in other books. Humor in Vance’s books tends to be incidental, though, aside from those Magnus Rudolph stories. Aside from occasional lines here and there, none of what he writes even approaches the chuckles of a Jeeves and Wooster tale.
All in all, anyone who enjoys classical mystery novels will enjoy these books. The style in these books is uniquely Vance. Sometimes the plots are repetitive, and the question as to the identity of the murderer too akin a Hercule Poirot book. I’ve read all of them multiple times (aside from Bad Ronald, which for some reason I feel I will never read a second time; it was just too evil), and even though I know the plots, part of the appeal is the color and texture of the characters and the language.
