At his best, Henry Kuttner was one of top SF/F writers of the Golden Age.
The Dark World is not Henry Kuttner at his best.
Essentially I only picked this up because it had been a while since I read any Kuttner, and this paperback original fit nicely in my bag on my trip to Stavanger. Even though this shows up on the Cawthorn and Moorcock Fantasy 100 list, and Roger Zelazny cites it as an influence on the Amber books, it’s a very uneven (and sometimes overwritten) parallel world fantasy. Protagonist Edward Bond has returned home after a plane crash and long period of jungle convalescence in World War II. He finds himself drawn from his house to a “need fire” by people claiming to need his help in another world. Traveling to the world with them, he discovers he’s actually Ganelon, one of the leaders of The Coven, who ruled the dark world of the title, and who has been bonded to Llyr, a powerful being who demands sacrifice. Ganelon had been exchanged for Bond (his doppelganger on earth) by the magic of his enemies, but whose memories of the dark world are still incomplete. After his fellow Coven members secretly dress him in the robes of sacrifice, he decides that some adjustment of loyalties is in order…
Despite it’s brevity (The Dark World clocks in at 126 pages), modern readers are likely to have problems with this. For one thing, the prose occasionally takes florid flights that betray its pulp-era origins. (“Medea and Edeyrn and Matholoch! The names of the three beat like muffled drums in my brain.”) Exclamation points are freely dispensed, frequently in one-word sentences. (“Llyr! the though of it-of him-crystallized that decision in my mind.”) In the world of post-Lord of the Rings fantasy, the Dark World seems both underdeveloped and under-populated, and the semi-scientific mutant explanation is unconvincing.
It’s not awful; the story moves along at a steady clip. There are also a few points of formal novelty. It was probably rare to have a novel told from the viewpoint of the bad guy, and who remained the bad guy, pretty much all of the novel. Also, the scene where Edward Bond and Ganelon face off against each other in some sort of nether corridor between the worlds makes you wonder if Don Ingalls, the screenwriter for the Star Trek episode “The Alternative Factor,” read The Dark World, given the obvious parallels.
if you haven’t read any Kuttner, this is not the one to start with.
In the Before Time, the Long Long Ago (i.e., before I started this blog), I would ask The Vast Wisdom of Usenet (i.e. rec.arts.sf.written) what books I should read this year. Now that I have the blog, I’m posting the question here.
Below are 100 books (or a few more, counting multiple titles by a single author) of fiction I’m considering reading in 2012. With a few exceptions (like forthcoming books), they’re pretty much all books I already own in first editions. Most likely I’ll get to considerably less than 100. The first few are books I’ll probably get to (or are already reading), whereas the rest are a little vaguer (and in alphabetical order by author). That’s where you come in. Tell me which of the books below I should or shouldn’t read, and why. If a book’s not on the list, it’s probably because I’ve already read it, or have no interest in it, won’t get to it this year, etc., so save your electrons instead of suggesting alternates (there are plenty of other places for that). And if I list Book #2 in a linear series, rest assured I’ve already read Book #1.
I don’t promise I’ll read all the highest rated works, but those most highly praised are considerably more likely to be added to the reading stack, which is what’s happened the previous years I’ve done this.
Michael Shea: The Color Out of Time (read)
Jack Vance: The Killing Machine (read)
Stina Leicht: Of Blood & Honey (reading)
Joe R. Lansdale: Hyenas
Joe Dominici: Bringing Back the Dead
China Mieville: Embassytown
Robert Jackson Bennett: Company Man
Vernor Vinge: The Children of the Sky
Philip K. Dick: Clans of the Alphane Moon
Michael Moorcock: The War Hound and the World’s Pain
Greg Egan: Crystal Nights
Peter Ackroyd: Hawksmoor
Paolo Bacigalupi: The Windup Girl
Iain Banks: Against a Dark Background or Matter
John Barnes: Kaleidoscope Century or One for the Morning Glory
Stephen Baxter: Traces or Mayflower II
Peter S. Beagle: A Fine and Private Place
Greg Bear: The City at the End of Time or Hull Zero Three
Leigh Brackett: The Best of Leigh Brackett or The Long Tomorrow
David Brin: Dr. Pak’s Preschool
Tobias Buckell: Sly Mongoose or Tides from the New World
Octavia Butler: Fledgeling
Jack Cady: The Night We Buried Road Dog
Ramsey Campbell: Creatures of the Pool
Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
John Christopher: No Blade of Grass
Susanna Clarke: Ladies of Grace Adieu
Hal Clement: Iceworld
Avram Davidson: The Adventures of Dr. Esterhauzy or Limekiller
L. Sprague de Camp: A Gun for Dinosaur
Bradley Denton: Laughin’ Boy
Junot Diaz: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Paul Di Filippo: Lost Pages or A Princess of the Linear Jungle
George Alec Effinger: What Entropy Means to Me
Harlan Ellison: Deathbird Stories
Greg Egan: Crystals Nights or Zendegi
John M. Ford: The Dragon Waiting
Neil Gaiman: Fragile Things or The Graveyard Book
Hinko Gotleib: The Key to the Great Gate
John Gardner: Freddy’s Book or The Wreckage of Agathon
Ray Garton: Night Life or Nids
Jane Gaskell: The Serpent
Joe Haldeman: The Accidental Time Machine
Peter F. Hamilton: Mindstar Rising
Robert E. Howard: The Coming of Conan
Nalo Hopkinson: Brown Girl in the Ring or The Salt Roads
Shirley Jackson: We Have Always Lived in the Castle or The Lottery
K. W. Jeter: Noir or Dark Seeker
Ha Jin: Waiting
James Patrick Kelly: Strange But Not a Stranger
Stephen King: Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass or The Colorado Kid
Russell Kirk: The Surly Sullen Bell (and yes, I’ve read the 2 Arkham House collections)
Henry Kuttner and/or C. L. Moore: The Dark World or Black God’s Shadow or No Boundaries
R. A. Lafferty: Archipelago, Aurelia, or The 13th Voyage of Sinbad
Fritz Leiber: Night’s Black Agents
Jonathan Lethem: Motherless Brooklyn
Thomas Ligotti: Grimscribe, Noctuary, or The Shadow at the Bottom of the World
Ian MacLeod: Breathmoss and Other Exhalations
Ken MacLeod: Giant Lizards from Another Star or The Execution Channel
Gregory Maguire: Wicked
Barry Malzberg: Hervoit’s World
Richard Matheson: Duel
Maureen McHugh: Mothers and Other Monsters
Sean McMullen: The Miocene Arrow
Ward Moore: Bring the Jubilee
Richard Morgan: Woken Furies
Pat Murphy: The Falling Woman
John Myers Myers: Silverlock
William F. Nolan: Things Beyond Midnight or Wild Galaxy
Naomi Novik: Black Powder War
Chad Oliver: The Shores of Another Sea or The Winds of Time
Susan Palwick: The Fate of Mice
H. Beam Piper: Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen
Tim Powers: Three Days to Never or Pilot Light
Fletcher Pratt: The Well of the Unicorn
Mike Resnick: Paradise or Kilimanjaro
Alastair Reynolds: Redemption Ark
Rudy Rucker: Master of Time & Space or The Secret of Life or White Light
Matt Ruff: Fool on the Hill
Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children
Joanna Russ: The Female Man
John Scalzi: The Lost Colony
Karl Schroeder: Permanence or Lady of Mazes
Michael Shaara: The Herald or The Killer Angels
Lucius Shepard: Floater or Aztechs or Viator
Lewis Shiner: The Edges of Things or Black and White
Dan Simmons: The Terror or Hard as Nails
Robert Sladek: Roderick
Neal Stephenson: Zodiac or The Big U
Charles Stross: The Apocalypse Codex (forthcoming)
Theodore Sturgeon: Microcosmic God: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon Volume 2
Steph Swainston: The Year of Our War
Thomas Burnett Swann: The Day of the Minotaur
Manly Wade Wellman: The Sleuth Patrol or The Last Mammoth
Martha Wells: The Element of Fire
John Whitbourne: To Build Jerusalem or Binscomb Tales
The event was fairly well attended, with about 40-50 people showing up.
Two of the authors flew up for the event: Pepe Rojo of Tijuana:
And Bernardo Fernandez of Mexico City (who also works as a graphics artist and teacher, as well as a crime writer):
(I’m not sure if you can tell, but Bernardo’s shirt features a robot (or possibly an android) and an electric sheep.) I believe he mentioned that he was working on a graphic novel about William S. Burrough’s time in Mexico. I bet it ends with a bang.
I also found it interesting that both of their fathers were engineers.
In attendance were also many members of the Austin SF community, including a few that my pictures of weren’t completely awful:
Stina Leicht and Sara Felix.
Jessica Reisman, a few moments before the police arrested her for the Hollywood scriptwriter they found dead facedown in her pool.
On Saturday, there was a party at Chris Brown’s newly opened East Austin hipster-pad-cum-1970s-science-fiction-movie-set. Sadly, none of my photos of the house (taken at dusk) came out well. But I did get a few pics of the party attendees:
Don Webb, who co-edited one of the most influential Spanish-language anthologies of speculative fiction, for which he was paid $50 and three bottles of Tequila.
Stina and Jessica redux.
The rest of my pictures were various degrees of crappy. (Hopefully Jayme Blaschke, who was there with a bigger, better camera, will put some up.) Sadly, one picture that didn’t come out was that of Bernardo wearing a t-shirt depicting Mexico’s most famous science fiction character: Bender Bending Rodriguez.
Finally, no expects the Spanish Steampunk Zeppelin!
I don’t have a love/hate relationship with The New York Review of Science Fiction, but I do have a “Love/Meh” relationship with it. I’ve been a subscriber lo these many years, and have contributed the occasional piece. But frequently much of it will either strike me as the sort of close-reading, semiotic, postmodern academic grab fanny (“The Anvil of Dissonance: Contextualizing the Other in the Early Work of Joanna Russ”) that I tried to stay away from back when I was publishing Nova Express, or subjects that, while theoretically worthy of study, I would get so little out of that I see no point in spending the time to read (“The Evolution of the French Vampire Novel: 1867—1894”).
But every now and then they publish something absolutely vital to my interests.
This month it was Andrew Ferguson’s piece on unpublished R. A. Lafferty works, which is much more extensive than either the list in The SF Book of Lists or anywhere online. I knew about the unpublished In a Green Tree volumes and a few others, but there’s lots of stuff I’ve never heard of, including the novels:
Loup Garou, a werewolf mystery
Civil Blood, an anti-communist novel
Antonio Vescovo, a very early novel described as “a cross between Rabelais and The Lives of the Saints” (!)
Dark Shines, about gifted children and an evil protagonist, and
When All the World Was Young, a plague novel in which everyone over the age of 10 is killed.
And there’s a huge list of unpublished stories, poems and essays as well. All of which I’ll no doubt end up buying when it comes out.
Here are some pics from the section of my reference library where I keep contributor copies of publications my work has appeared in. Before the contributor copies, there are several book auction catalogs (including from the auctions I covered here), as well as some old S. M. Mossberg and L. W. Currey book catalogs of interest. After that the actual contributor copies start. You should be able to figure out what these are from my bibliography. The exception is the black tape-bound volume on the first shelf, which is a compilation of materials handed out for a Danish class on science fiction which includes my review of Donnie Darko. I have so many copies of Jim Baen’s Universe because FACT had boxes to give away at the 2008 Nebula Awards here in Austin and I snagged some leftovers.
As usual, click to embiggen.
I have a few of these available for sale through Lame Excuse Books as well.
Previous entries on my reference library can be found here and here.
Despite this big-ass list, I think my book buying is actually slowing down a little. It’s getting harder to find things that I want (and don’t already have) at Half Price Books or eBay. Despite that, I always seem to have a surprisingly large number of books every time I do one of these roundups, mainly due to new small press offerings. (And speaking of small presses, many of the books listed below from Subterranean, Golden Gryphon, Haffner, etc. will be on sale through Lame Excuse Books, so drop me a line if you want to be on the mailing list.)
Allston, Aaron. Doc Sidhe. Baen, 1995. First edition paperback original.
Anderson, Poul. Fire Time. Doubleday, 1974. Fine in a Near Fine dust jacket, inscribed to Locus editor Charles N. Brown.
Anonymous. Man Abroad. Gregg Press, 1978. First hardback edition, a reprint of the 1887 paperback, one of only 257 copies printed, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. From the Jerry Weist collection.
Bailey, Dale and Jack Slay. Sleeping Policemen. Golden Gryphon, 2006.
Beagle, Peter S. Strange Roads. Dreamhaven, 2008. First edition chapbook original, signed by Beagle and artist Lisa Snellings.
Bennett, Robert Jackson. The Company Man. Orbit, 2011. Trade paperback original.
Bester, Alfred. Virtual Unrealities. Vintage, 1997. Trade paperback original, NF- with 1/4 sticker pull at bottom of front cover.
Bester, Alfred, and Roger Zelazny. Psychoshop. Vintage, 1998. Trade paperback original (TPO) first edition, a Fine- copy with slight edgewear.
Bloch, Robert. Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper. Subterranean Press, 2011. Expanded from the Belmont paperback edition.
Bowes, Richard. From the Files of the Time Rangers. Golden Gryphon, 2005.
Brackett, Leigh. Shannach: The Last Farewell to Mars. Haffner Press, 2011.
Brown, Eric. Threshold Shift. Golden Gryphon, 2006.
Campbell, Ramsey. The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants. Arkham House, 1964. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Near Fine dust jacket with slight darkening to spine, and slight edgewear at heel and fold points.
Carroll, Jonathan. The Ghost in Love. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2008.
Chayefsky, Paddy. Altered States. Harper & Row, 1978. A Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with a few touches of wear.
Datlow, Ellen, and Terri Windling. The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Sixteenth Annual Collection. St. Martins Griffin, 2002. Inscribed to me by Datlow.
Diaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Riverhead Books, 2007.
Dick, Philip K. The Early Work of Philip K. Dick Volume One: The Variable Man and Other Stories. Prime Books, 2009.
Dick, Philip K. (edited by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem) The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. Non-fiction.
Dozois, Gardner. When the Great Days Come. Prime Books, 2011.
Donaldson, Stephen R. The Best of Stephen R. Donaldson. Subterranean Press, 2011. One of 250 numbered, leatherbound copies signed by the author.
Donaldson, Stephen R. The Best of Stephen R. Donaldson. Subterranean Press, 2011. Trade edition.
Farmer, Philip Jose. The Keeper of the Secrets. Severn House, 1985. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with a tiny bit of haze rubbing to the rear cover. First hardback edition of The Mad Goblin.
Farmer, Philip Jose. Love Song. Brandon House, 1970. Paperback original. Full details here.
Graham, H. E. The Battle of Dora William Clowes & Sons, Ltd. 1931. First edition hardback, a Very Good copy in a Good+ dust jacket with three 1/4″ chips at edges. Future war book set in an imaginary European country concerned with primarily with the evolving tactics of mechanized warfare. With fold-out maps!
Haldeman, Joe. A Tool of the Trade. Morrow, 1987.
Haldeman, Joe. World’s Apart. Viking, 1983. With review slips laid in.
Howard, Robert E. The Coming of Conan. Gnome Press, 1953. First edition hardback, a Near Fine+ copy with slight bends at head and heel and slight foxing to strip along front and back gutters, in a Near Fine dust jacket with slight dust staining to white rear cover and a few touches of rubbing to spine panel (but no spine fading). This completes my Robert E. Howard Gnome Press Conan collection. (At some point I suppose I’ll pick up the De Camp volumes but, eh. what’s the rush?)
Howard, Robert E. Marchers of Valhalla. Donald M. Grant, 1971. Bought from a notable SF book dealer for $8.
Hubbard, L. Ron. Final Blackout. Hadley Publishing, 1948. Full details here.
Leyner, Mark. My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist. Harmony Books, 1990. First edition trade paperback original, Near Fine+ with a crease to bottom front corner.
(Lovecraft, H. P.) Lockhart, Ross E. The Book of Cthulhu. Night Shade Boooks, 2011. First edition trade paperback original.
Lynch, Scott. The Lies of Locke Lamora. Gollancz, 2006. A Fine copy in a Near Fine dust jacket, signed by the author.
Martin, George R. R. GRRM: A RRetrospective. Subterranean Press, 2003. First edition hardback, Letter B of 52 signed, lettered, leatherbound copies, housed in a handcrafted traycase, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket; however, the traycase housing the book has a cracked bottom outer hinge, as well as a tiny bit of bend at the top front traycase tip.
Martin, George R. R., editor. Wild Cards: Marked Cards. Baen, 1994. First edition paperback original. Second book in the Baen Wild Cards series, and the Fourteenth overall.
Matheson, Richard. Born of Man and Woman. Chamberlain Press, 1954. Details here.
Matheson, Richard. The Shrinking Man. David Bruce & Watson, 1973. First hardback edition. Details here.
McCammon, Robert. The Hunter from The Woods. Subterranean Press, 2011. One of 1,000 signed, numbered copies.
Miller, Warren. Looking for the General. McGraw-Hill, 1964. Bought for $8 from a notable SF book dealer. Howard Waldrop recommended this.
Miyabe, Miyuki. Brave Story. Viz, 2007. First English-language edition.
Moon, Elizabeth. Lunar Activity. First edition paperback original (PBO), a near Fine+ copy with invisible spine creasing and slight edgewear. Signed by Moon.
Moorcock, Michael. Dr. Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles. BBC Books, 2010. Signed by Moorcock.
Moorcock, Michael. The Runestaff. White Lion, 1974. First edition hardback, a Fine- copy with just a tiny bit of wear in a Fine dust jacket. First hardback edition.
Moorcock, Michael. The Sleeping Sorceress. New English Library, 1971. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Near Fine+ dust jacket with color loss along inner flaps edges (possibly a printing flaw). First hardback edition of The Vanishing Tower.
Niffenegger, Audrey. The Time Traveler’s Wife. McAdam Cage, 2003. First edition hardback, a near Fine copy with slight lean in a Near Fine- first state (no logo) dust jacket with several long creases.
Niven, Larry. Strange Light. Dreamhaven, 2010. First edition chapbook original.
Niven, Larry. A World Out of Time. Holt Reinhart Winston, 1976. Bought from a notable Sf book dealer for 48. Review slip laid in.
Niven, Larry, and Steve Barnes. Dream Park. Phantasia Press, 1981. One of 600 signed, numbered copies in slipcase. From the Jerry Weist collection.
Novik, Naomi. Victory of Eagles. Del Rey, 2008. Fifth Temeraire book.
Oliver, Chad. Another Kind. Ballantine Books, no date (1955). First edition hardback (an unrecorded variant binding of green boards with red lettering), a Near Fine copy with slight age-darkening to page (most noticeable in one signature) and slight bending at head and heel in a Near Fine dust jacket with slight age darkening and touches of wear at extremities. Actually quite nice. All of the Ballantine SF hardbacks if this era are hard to find.
Paltock, Robert. The Life & Adventures of Peter Wilkins. Hyperion Press, 1974. Reprint of the 1928 edition, which in turn reprints a novel first published in 1750 or 1751 (sources differ; Bleiler’s Checklist (1978 edition) says 1753, which I believe is the publication year for the second volume). Fine- copy, with trace of wear along bottom board, sans dust jacket, as issued.
Pohl, Frederik, and C. M. Kornbluth. The Space Merchants. Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martins, 2011. “Revised 21st Century Edition,” trade paperback original thus.
Powers, Tim. The Bible Repairman and Other Stories. Subterranean Press, 2011. One of 500 signed, numbered copies.
Resnick, Mike. Blasphemy. Golden Gryphon, 2010.
Rickert, M. Holiday. Golden Gryphon, 2010.
Rochelle, Warren. The Called. Golden Gryphon, 2010.
Rochelle, Warren. A Harvest of Changelings. Golden Gryphon, 2007.
Rusch, Kristine Kathryn. Recovering Apollo 8. Golden Gryphon, 2010.
Sargent, Pamela. Thumbprints. Golden Gryphon, 2004. Signed by Sargent.
Scalzi, John. Fuzzy Nation. Tor, 2011.
Serviss, Garrett P. Edison’s Conquest of Mars. Carcosa House, 1947. Full details here.
Shute, Nevil. On the Beach. Heinemann, 1957. First edition hardback, a near Fine plus copy with dust staining to top page blocks and touches of wear to boards at heel, in a Near Fine dust jacket, with slight edgewear at head and heel and a few very short, closed tears.
Silverberg, Robert. The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume Six: Multiples 1983-87. Fine, sans dj, as issued.
Skillingstead, jack. Are You There. Golden Gryphon, 2009.
Skipp, John and Cody Goodfellow. Spore. Morning Star Press, 2011. Signed PC copy; the regular edition was 150 signed, numbered copies.
Smith, Clark Ashton. The Collected Fantasies Volume 5: The Last Hieroglyph. Night Shade Press, 2010.
Twain, Mark (edited by Harriet Elinor Smith). The Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1. University of California Press, 2010. Non-fiction, and large enough to stun an ox.
(Vance, Jack) Andre-Driussi, Michael. Vance Space. Sirius Fiction, 1997. First edition chapbook, a Fine copy in self-wraps. Signed by Vance. Non-fiction.
Willis, Connie. All Clear. Ballantine Books, 2010. Signed.
Williamson, Jack. At the Human Limit: The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume Eight. Haffner Press, 2011.
The book buying continues apace here at Stately Person Manor. I plan to have a comprehensive roundup of every damn thing I bought toward the end of the year (which is nigh), but here are a few particularly interesting, obscure, and/or lustworthy books I’ve picked up since Worldcon (a;; pics enbiggenable):
Graham, H. E. The Battle of Dora. William Clowes & Sons, Ltd. 1931. First edition hardback, a Very Good copy in a Good+ dust jacket with three 1/4″ chips at edges. Future war book set in an imaginary European country concerned with primarily with the evolving tactics of mechanized warfare. With fold-out maps!
Howard, Robert E. The Coming of Conan. Gnome Press, 1953. First edition hardback, a Near Fine+ copy with slight bends at head and heel and slight foxing to strip along front and back gutters, in a Near Fine dust jacket with slight dust staining to white rear cover and a few touches of rubbing to spine panel (but no spine fading). This completes my Robert E. Howard Gnome Press Conan collection. (At some point I suppose I’ll pick up the De Camp and Nyburg volume but, eh. what’s the rush?)
Oliver, Chad. Another Kind. Ballantine Books, no date (1955). First edition hardback (an unrecorded variant binding of green boards with red lettering), a Near Fine copy with slight age-darkening to page (most noticeable in one signature) and slight bending at head and heel in a Near Fine dust jacket with slight age darkening and touches of wear at extremities. Actually quite nice. All of the Ballantine SF hardbacks if this era are hard to find.
