In my opinion, there’s a special circle in hell for people who mark their places in books with dog-ears—folding over pages in a triangle. May these people reside in eternal flames alongside people who break the spines of the books they read; use a bookmark! Then, there are those equally cursed people who paste in their personalized bookplates or stamp their ownership with “in the library of” with their names, who I cannot forgive. On the outer rim of hellish circles are those who write in books with pens. Pencil marks I can erase, but why mark a book with a pen if you don’t intend to destroy the book?
Scottish writer Iain Banks, who also published science fiction under Iain M. Banks, published books in the UK and USA. In the UK, some of these appeared in trade paperback by Abacus. A few years ago, an influx of these books appeared in the USA. I bought some as I came across them, always hoping to find more. Many years passed with no such luck. However, recently I came across a copy of The Business. Of course, in this book, someone had written “R” next to the titles Banks’ other books. I guess this is a handy way to keep track of what they had read. If so, I thought, why then would this book end up in a used bookstore in Phoenix, Arizona? What strange circumstance would put this book there? They’d also dog-eared the book, and stored it where the sun yellowed its pages. Otherwise the book was ok, and as Banks’ books are hard to find where I lived, I bought this copy.
Three of the five Abacus books I own only list other books written by Banks. The Business, as well as The Steep Approach to Garbadale, show twelve images of covers of Banks’ books from Abacus. The titles are hard to read, so I don’t quite know the seven books in this set that I lack. Given that I’m in the USA, and these are UK editions, and Banks died a few years ago, if I find any of those seven it will be a miracle.
The previous owner of The Business, the person who dog-eared the book, made it as far as chapter three ( page 61). nothing else appears to indicate they completed the book. Did they give up and chuck the book, or pass way before they could finish it? At least they didn’t write their name in the book, but even then, it would take some effort to find their fate if the name did appear there.
Somewhere in the USA those other books must exist. If I find them, I hope they’ll be absent of writings, ownership stamps, and other jiggery-pokery.
Dreams of Dark and Light is a collection of stories by Tanith Lee (1947-2015), published by Arkham House in 1986. This my 51st Arkham House book. There are a few barely imperceptible spots on the outside edges of the pages, but otherwise it’s in good shape. I’d missed out on a couple of bids for other copes this book, so I was somewhat surprised when I ended up with this one. At any rate, I’ve long wanted a copy. So, many years after it was first published, I ended up with my copy at twice the original price.
I own only a handful of paperbacks by Lee (ok, five, but were it not the fact that I avoid paperbacks with broken spines I would own a fair amount more), which is a tiny fraction of her total output of “90 novels and 200 short stories.” She’s one of three authors in Dark Harvest’s first volume of the horror/dark fantasy anthology series, Night Visions. I bought that book many years ago. I’m fairly certain that I read her stories, but since then I’ve read so much that they’ve long vanished into the mists of time. Finding her books in bookstores, at least since the late 1990s and 2000s, however, is almost impossible.
According to an obituary in The Guardian, “her career went through the doldrums, exacerbated by changes in publishing in the 90s and thereafter. [T]hose qualities that had built her career…were liabilities in a publishing world obsessed with strict category and with authors who produce the same reliable product. At one point, she complained that she was writing books because she could do no other, but was stacking them unpublished in a cupboard.” This probably explains why it’s hard to find her books these days, and also makes you curse those publishing changes. I don’t really read modern fantasy, and maybe that’s due to those changes.
Perhaps now is a good time, as I start to read these stories, to take another look at her other books, and those stories of Lee’s in Night Visions 1.
Not even halfway up the trail to Mount Whitney, disaster struck. Shouldering my Gregory Zulu 30 backpack after a short break, the sternum strap snapped, sending two pieces flying into the night. In the darkness I managed to find both pieces, but there was nothing I could do except pocket them. For the rest of the hike I would be forced to occasionally grip my shoulder straps or continually adjust them, as they constantly cut into my shoulders. At least this effort took my mind off the endless switchbacks.
We’d started our hike, as planned, around 10pm Sunday night. Along the trail we’d met a few people heading downhill. The two or three people who were friendly enough to chat said they’d summited around 2pm that day. They’d then made the perilous descent from Trail Camp in the dark, while we would do the reverse. They trudged in silence past us, maybe too tired to care at that point. At 11:30 we reached the Whitney Zone sign. There, we sat for half hour in the quiet dark waiting for our moment.
At a few seconds after midnight, we stepped into the Whitney Zone. The first mile or so to Outpost Camp and slightly beyond is an easy hike. A short distance past Outpost Camp we crossed a creek, where we met a solitary figure on the other side. It was nearly 1am at this point. The lone figure, a man, asked if this was the path to the trailhead, and we assured him that he was only four miles away. He sighed, gestured at his feet, and said that with his sore feet he hoped he’d be able to make it. We wished him good luck. Our path took us onward, and from here it was almost all uphill.
In the darkness we made our winding way up, up, up, for what seemed like the entire night. We took several breaks, including one where my sternum strap met its sad fate. For a long time it seemed that we were the only people on the trail. At last, we reached Trail Camp. It was still dark, and we tried to not make too much noise as we walked past the tents. At the far end of camp we encountered two groups of hikers as they emerged from their campsites. Together we started the infamous 99 switchbacks, and then spent the next hour plus leapfrogging each other. At the sun struck the horizon to the east, we arrived at Trail Crest, a pass that lay around 13,000 feet above sea level. Here we paused for a longer break, then walked down to the intersection to the John Muir Trail. Past this intersection stood a sign warning people of lightning danger. As it was around 6:30am, we didn’t think this would be an issue for us. From here, however, the summit is still nearly two miles away, and pur pace would slow.
Those next two miles were almost the toughest miles of the trip. The trail hugged the mountain side. Occasionally we scrambled ove boulders, where one wrong step would send you plummeting many hundreds of feet below. We passed a couple of windows between more solid paths, then walked along some dagger-like smaller peaks. At last, we were on Whitney proper. The summit at this point still seemed distant. We crossed a small ice-field; no need for micro-spikes here. Then, it was a matter of surviving the final push. We took many breaks the last half-mile, then finally reached the Smithsonian hut at the summit. Here we rested for a while, before making our way back.
Getting to Trail Crest from the summit was still tough, but the 99 switchbacks in daylight was nothing short of torture. The sun at this point was out, and no shade was to had for many miles. We staggered back and forth along endless 180 turns. As we made our way down toward Mirror Lake, we thought we were on the wrong trail. I kept checking my GPS, which showed us on trail, and we even stopped and asked people if it was the right trail. We’d walked up here in the dark, so nothing looked familiar. I can only imagine how the hikers who walked through this part of the trail at night must have felt. Did they go off trail? Some people have fallen here, several have died. So close to the end, and yet such a lethal place. Here we saw our first and only marmot, a curious little fellow.
We walked through Outpost Camp, crossing creeks and dusty plains. Then, more switchbacks, and finally exited the Whitney Zone. No one asked for our permit, which was somewhat disappointing. The last three miles from Lone Pine Lake to the trailhead took forever; we finally reached the trailhead at 3pm. We’d been awake for close to 40 hours at this point, and headed back to our car and Lone Pine consumed only by thoughts of food and sleep.
Hiking Mount Whitney in one day is no joke. I’m glad we started at night, especially in the Summer. Afternoon thunderstorms would mean that people summiting past noon would be exposed to lightning, rain, hail, and also would have to hike from Trail Camp to the trailhead in the dark. To me that doesn’t sound like fun, especially when tired. I’ll never do the trip in a single day again. That said, if I were to hike Mount Whitney again, I would plan a multi-day trip from Horseshoe Meadows instead. Take three or four days, enjoy the lakes and meadows, even though it would mean going down the endless switchbacks again.
Now, if only there was an easy way to slide the replacement sternum strap back on my backpack…
Slowly, slowly, I’m trying to acquire more Arkham House books. It seems that I’m mostly picking up books from the 1970s onward, as older books are harder to find.
Frank Belknap Long, mostly a writer of fiction within the Lovecraft circle, published a slim (66 pages!) Arkham House book in 1977. In Mayan Splendor collects a variety of poems by Long, and is illustrated by Stephen Fabian. Originally sold for $6, I picked this book up for just under twice the cover price, many, many years after it first was published.
From Evil’s Pillow is my third Basil Copper Arkham House book, but his first published by them. I already have And Afterward, the Dark (1977) and The House of the Wolf (1983), but when I saw this book listed for less than $12 I went for it without hesitation. There are a few scrapes or smudges on the back cover, but all in all the condition is quite good for a book published in 1973 and listed at $11.75. This book also originally was listed at the low cover price of $6.00, which makes me somewhat nostalgic for the 1970s.
Books like this in the current age would fetch $25 of more, given inflation and other related changes based on small press publishers. Of course, these days such books would have multiple states, such as signed/limited copies, vs. just published in an announced number of copies (3,500) in this case. It collects five short stories, with a cover by Frank Utpatel, who illustrated many Arkham House books.
This year I’ve been on an Arkham House bender, after many years of not looking for their books. I think that most of my AH purchases prior to 2025 were in-person acquisitions, but now I’m tossing my hat more in the online world. In many cases, at least where there are auctions involved, I’m losing out on books. So, instead, I’ve turned to fixed price options from resellers elsewhere. This means I’ll probably stall in terms of adding more books, as I do have an upper limit in terms of what I want to spend, and most fixed-price AH books from earlier than 1970 are well beyond my price range.
James P. Blaylock’s The Adventures of Langdon S. Ives collects four short stories (“The Ape-Box Affair”, “The Hole in Space”, “The Idol’s Eye”, “Two Views of a Cave Painting”) and two novels (Homunculus and Lord Kelvin’s Machine) featuring Victorian inventor, Langdon St Ives in various adventures and escapades.
I already own both novels—Homunculus in the Morrigan edition and Lord Kelvin’s Machine from Arkham House. The short stories appear in other books that I also already own; “The Hole in Space” in the Subterranean Press edition of The Man in the Moon, and the other three in the Edgewood Press collection, Thirteen Phantasms. Why then buy this book? I recall buying The Further Adventures of Langdon St. Ives because, although I owned three of the novellas collected in that book, I lacked two of the short stories. But, I’d looked at the contents of the first Langdon St. Ives book many years ago and decided back then that I didn’t need it.
The itch was still there, somehow, and when an opportunity came along to pick it up at cover price, I took it. Originally published in 2008 as a trade and limited edition, I thought the copy I bought was a trade edition. However, when I received the book, the dust jacket listed the trade edition price, but the book was one of 200 numbered and signed copies, which matched the limited edition description. I suspect that I have a mix of book and cover, which is a strange circumstance. At any rate, it looks good next to my other Subterranean Press Blaylock books, and the introduction by Tim Powers and afterword by Blaylock are fun reads. Blaylock’s afterword, however, covers much of the same territory as his afterword to “The Hole in Space” in The Man in the Moon. I’ve read, I think, almost all of Blaylock’s works, barring a short story or two. So, all in all, I’m happy that I finally went ahead and got this book.
I mostly know of Lin Carter (1930-1988) as an editor of fantasy anthologies (such as the Years Best Fantasy books from DAW, as well as the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series), plus so-called pastiches of earlier tales (H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and other sword and sorcery writers).
Dreams from R’lyeh is a collection of some of Carter’s poems, published in 1975 by Arkham House. It’s a slim volume, originally priced at $5, with a fantastic cover by Tim Kirk. I recently obtained a copy, in my effort to try to broaden my Arkham House collection, an effort that remains ongoing, at least to some slight degree.
It’s strange—at least I think so—to read L. Sprague de Camp’s introduction and Lin Carter’s afterword in 2025, as these were written more than 50 years ago. Both de Camp and Carter are now long gone. I met de Camp many years ago (1989? 1990?) at a convention in Austin. I shook his hand, and he remarked that he had shaken the hand of someone who once had shaken the hand of Charles Darwin. It’s almost eerie, as I start to read Carter’s poems (at least those he wanted preserved), to think that by the time I shook de Camp’s hand, Carter was already dead, and yet at that time I was just starting to look for books written and edited by Carter.
There are less than 100 pages between the covers of Dreams from R’lyeh, and yet I sense a great deal of presence in this book.
In 1992, while Jack Vance was still writing books (he died in 2013), Underwood-Miller published The Jack Vance Lexicon, compiled by Dan Temianka. Vance, a prolific creator of new words in his fiction, remains my favorite writer to this day. I still remember the first Jack Vance story I ever read. Norwegian SF writer Øyvind Myhre had recommended Vance in a speech that I attended in 1985, and when I came across a DAW edition of The Narrow Land, I bought it, not knowing that it would change my life.
From the moment of the title story, I was hooked. I immediately bought every Vance book I could find. In Bergen and Oslo, Norway in the mid-1980s, this amounted to a small handful of UK Grafton editions (to my great regret, I donated the three Lyonesse Grafton editions, as I’d upgrade to the Underwood-Miller hardcovers).
When I visited the US in 1987, I went to several bookstores, and there I had more luck than in Norway. My carry-on bag was stuffed to the brim with DAW editions of Vance’s books, as well as Vance paperbacks by other publishers. Due to a shuttle mishap, I almost lost that bag, which held other important things. Eventually, I was able to get it back, and returned to Norway with my precious cargo. Little did I know then that the next year I would return to the US, this time permanently. Upon my arrival back in the US, I scoured every bookstore for Vance’s books.
Eventually, I was able to afford hardback copies of Vance’s books, even the Underwood-Miller editions. However, I cared only about Vance’s fiction. In 1992, I saw something about Temianka’s book, but I ignored it, as back then I cared little for reference works. I also ignored the Vance Integral Edition, as the cost then was beyond my means (today a VIE complete set will cost 10 times the original price, or more). On a whim, I bought a copy of the trade edition of Underwood-Miller’s Lexicon today. A more recent edition has been published by Spatterlight Press, but the U-M edition looks better. Glancing through the book just makes me want to re-read several of Vance’s stories, though I’ve re-read most of them at least three to five times. Vance likes to say he only wrote for money, but based on some these words, I think he also wrote for fun. His sense of imagination remains nonpareil.
By chance I acquired a pair of books published by Owlswick Press. This was a small press than ran from 1973 through 1993, founded by George Scithers, who at one point also edited Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. These two books are Anita, by Keith Roberts, and The White Isle, by Darrell Schweitzer. I bought two the books from Schweitzer, along with another one of his books.
Anita collects 16 stories about a witch, written years before either Discworld (Terry Pratchett) or Harry Potter (J. K. Rowling). Published in 1990 and illustrated by noted fantasy artist Stephen Fabian (who illustrated many Jack Vance books, ad tons of other fantasy books), the production value of the book is quite stunning. I don’t know the production run, but apparently Schweitzer had a bunch of these books still in his garage and was selling some of them at quite cheap prices.
The White Isle is Schweitzer only debut novel. The Owlswick edition is from 1989, also illustrated by Fabian. The book was signed by Schweitzer, a nice addition, with a gorgeous wrap-around cover. I mainly wanted the Keith Roberts book, but I could not pass up a hardcover book at the price listed, and as the cover looks interesting I hope the book will match it.
This was our second acclimation hike prior to attempting Mount Whitney, and our introduction to the trail toward the summit. The first three miles of the trail are open to the public. But, shortly thereafter you cross into the Whitney Zone, where you need a permit. We had secured a permit for August 5th, and so two days prior we hiked up the trail to Lone Pine Lake, just outside the Whitney Zone. To get to the trailhead from Long Pine, you drive ca. 30 minutes up a winding road into the mountains. Our GPS decided we needed a tour of the camp site first, and so we ended up slowly winding our way through that location before continuing upward. There was no parking near the trailhead, as we arrived in the middle of the day on a Saturday. We ended up parking as the second to last car in a long line of cars along the road, roughly a quarter of a mile from the trailhead.
We walked up the road, then found the trailhead. This was our initiation to the many switchbacks up the Whitney trail. It was a warm day, middle of summer, and the sun beat down on us. Along the trail we encountered a large group of backpackers, possible heading to Trail Camp with plans to summit the following day, possibly starting along the John Muir Trail from Whitney. We forgot to ask, even as we leapfrogged each other a few times. We did pause to ask a couple heading downhill about the ideal time to start, and they suggested 10pm, which would let us cross into the Zone around midnight. That became our plan.
Ahead of us towered the mountains. The path was dusty, with three creek crossings, each wider than the last. After a mile or so, we passed a side trail going straight up a hill, which takes you to the Mountaineering Route to Mount Whitney. Few people probably use this trail during the summer. The most interesting feature for hikers might be the log crossing, where multiple flat logs lead you across a wide creek. Some of the logs need to be replaced, but we made it across. Shortly afterward we came to the intersection leading to either the Whitney Zone or Lone Pine Lake. We turned left and walked downhill to the lake.
Several people were hanging out by the lake. Some actually went swimming in the water, and a couple tried their hand at fishing. I think they gave up quite quickly, and went back to lounging by the water’s edge. After a short break for lunch, we headed back up the short hill, then down the trail again. With less than a mile left, we met a person heading uphill who asked us if we’d seen a cell phone. We had not, and continued to the trailhead. After a break near the store to drink a well-deserved cold soda, we headed back to the car. Not far from where we’d sat drinking out sodas, we saw the same person again. He and his wife asked if we could give them a lift to Lone Pine. They’d just finished the John Muir Trail from the north, covering the distance in 19 days. We said sure, and dropped them off in town, where I think they were planning to celebrate their journey with friends, and possibly some bottles of wine.
At this point we still felt confident about the Whitney hike. We’d be returning the next day, but around 10pm, when it would be pitch black, to begin the actual hike to the summit. We’d covered the three miles to near the Whitney Zone with no issues, so we figured it would take us maybe an hour and half the following day. Now it was time to rest, and maybe get a pizza to celebrate stepping onto the Whitney Trail.
In preparation for a Mount Whitney hike, my son and I hiked from Horseshoe Meadows to Cottonwood Lakes #4 and 5. As an out and back trip, this was close to 13 miles, with around a thousand feet of elevation gain. This doesn’t sound like much, but the trailhead was already at 10,000 or so feet above sea level.
Starting from Lone Pine, the nearest town, most of the elevation gain up to that 10,000 foot level was done via car. From Highway 395, we drove down narrow roads until we began the ascent. The road winds up multiple switchbacks, many of them visible from the highway. After around 40 minutes of driving we reached the campground. Here we found a single parking spot open. There were multiple signs about bear activity. Many of the campsites were taken, but this is also a staging area for people hiking northbound along the John Muir Trail to Mount Whitney (or beyond, though I suspect many hikers on that trail get a shuttle from Lone Pine).
The terrain is mostly flat for the first couple of miles. There are trees, and the ground is dusty, gray. In early August the temperature was already in the 80s F, with almost no cloud cover that day. We started our hike around noon, after getting our Whitney Permit signed and looking around the visitor center (as well as dealing with a battery issue on the nearly brand new rental car). Along the way we passed many people returning from caping or hiking. We also ran into a group that was planning to hike the New Army Pass and then onward to Whitney. They planned to summit the same day as our Whitney Permit, and we left them with a “see you at the top” hail, being then full of confidence.
Slightly after two miles, the ascent begins. It’s only a short one, and we reached the top after a few short breaks, all cut short due to mosquitos. Along the way we marveled at the many meadows and wonderful scenery. Yes, it’s rocky and dusty, but the Eastern Sierras are a marvel to behold. The trail is well-marked and appears quite popular.
At the top of the climb, the trail is fairly flat. We passed the first couple of Cottonwood Lakes, then saw the wonder of Cottonwood Lake #3, the largest of the five such named lakes. At the far end there’s a small waterfall. Near the trail as it approached the lake, we founded a shaded spot and rested for lunch. We saw several people walking back from the lake, or continuing along the trail beyond the waterfall.
After our break we walked over to the waterfall, then walked up a short distance to the final two lakes. The Old Army Pass trail lies between lakes #4 and 5. We stood there and saw no trail, so we wondered how anyone would make it up that pass. On the way back, we did speak to someone who planned to camp near those two lakes and go up the Old Army Pass, so I guess it’s still possible.
Going downhill is so much better, and we quickly passed groups of people that we’d seen leaving half an hour or more before our walk to the last two lakes. We reached the trailhead in daylight, but figured some of the people that we’d passed likely would arrive there after dark, based on their pace. For our first day at altitude, this seemed like a great hike. Mount Whitney lay three days in the future, and as we drove back down the switchbacks we thought it would be just as easy as Cottonwood Lakes. Reality would prove different.
