Not exactly how I would do it, but worth taking a look at…
Archive for the ‘Fantasy’ Category
The History of Science Fiction
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011R. A. Lafferty Estate for Sale?
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011Assuming it’s not a hoax or scam, the estates of R. A. Lafferty is being auctioned off, including the rights to all his novels and short stories, etc. The ad says the current bid is $70,000.
How much is the lafferty estate worth? Artistically, millions. Lafferty was perhaps the greatest, most original writer science fiction (and the world) ever knew. Financially? Harder to say. I have been noticing that his rarest books (Tales of Chicago, etc.) have all but disappeared off the collector’s market, so maybe a Lafferty revival is in the offing.
Maybe some rich fan should buy the estate and work top bring it all back into print. Anyone know if Paul Allen is an R. A. Lafferty fan?
(Hat tip: SF Signal.)
Howard Waldrop’s Review of the Decade of SF/F/H Film Now Up
Friday, February 25th, 2011He took a little different approach than mine, just covering things we reviewed.
My Top SF/F/H Films of the Noughties Piece is Now Up
Friday, February 25th, 2011Howard’s piece should go up pretty soon as well.
He’s Mister Heat Miser
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember the Rankin Bass production of A Year Without a Santa Claus. Like all the other warhorse Christmas specials of my youth, it got trotted out pretty much every year.
All the works of Rankin Bass are hard to evaluate separate from the nostalgia factor they invoked. On a level of technical proficiency, they weren’t particularly proficient. At it’s very best, their animation was of the quality of Hanna-Barbera, which is to say it sucked, and their stop motion work was more stop than motion. (I have not seen their animated film version of Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, which I am given to understand is better.)
For an example of both good and bad, take a look at the classic “Snow Miser/Heat Miser” songs from A Year Without a Santa Claus:
I don’t think the lyrics of that songs are going to be taught in songwriting classes (it takes a special type of lyricist to rhyme “degrees” with “degrees”), but damned if that song doesn’t stick in your head. Go up to just about anyone from my generation and sing “He’s Mr. Heat Miser,” and you’re virtually guaranteed to have them sing back “He’s Mr. Sun.” (Who was it that said “Memory is a crazy beggar woman that hordes bright bits of tinfoil and throws away food”?)
Whatever their flaws, Rankin Bass productions usually had a few bits of cleverness and interest scattered throughout.
The same can not necessarily be said of the cheap spinoffs done of their work. Did you know that they did a live action remake of A Year Without a Santa Claus? If you think to yourself, “Wow, that sounds like a really, really bad idea,” you’re not the only one.
As proof, take a look at this:
Well, Snow Miser can certainly sing, and Heat Miser…uh, goes a long way toward making Snow Miser’s singing sound that much better.
And this…this is Just. Freaking. WRONG:
It’s like if Ralphie from A Christmas Story came back at age 35 to do an infomercial for winterizing your home. Yes, it’s from the sequel to the original A Year Without a Santa Claus, A Miser Brothers Christmas, and, if this clip is any indication, it looks to be as fondly remembered as The Christmas That Totally Ruled and KISS Saves Santa.
Stop. Just stop.
I leave you with one other Rankin Bass piece of music, the high point of their otherwise-not-even-remotely-fondly-remembered version of The Return of the King:
Local Girl Makes Good
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011My friend and fellow member of the Turkey City Writer’s Workshop Stina Leicht just had her first novel, Of Blood and Honey, published by Night Shade Books (which seems to have recovered from their organizational difficulties).
I hope to have some signed copies available for the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
She also has a piece on what prompted the novel up on John Scalzi’s Whatever.
Congrats, Stina!
Items in Evidence of a Case of Bibliomania (or, How I Spent $1,000 in One Week and All I Got Were These Cool Books)
Sunday, February 6th, 2011You may have noticed that I buy a lot of books. This year I had another family event in the Dallas area in mid-January, so I took time out to drive up to Recycled Books in Denton (where I found so much cool stuff that time last year) once again, though this time I only found $500 in books worth buying (as opposed to the $1,200 last year). And the same week I had an order come in from a notable SF book dealer having a 50% off sale, including a couple of Stephen King signed/limited editions. I don’t normally concentrate on limited and ultra-limited editions, but when one comes along at the right price…
So here’s a description of what I bought. As usual, all books are Fine hardback first editions in Fine dust jackets, unless otherwise noted. The books on their side in the first picture are ones I bought to sell, and should show up in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
Stuff I bought at Recycled Books in Denton:
Stuff I bought at 50% off from a notable SF dealer:
Of course, since that week, more books have come in…
Most Significant Book Acquisitions in 2010
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011You may have noticed that I bought a lot of books last year. Since I’m getting ready to do another “this is what I bought recently” post, I thought I would do a recap of my most significant acquisitions in 2010. These may be significant for being important, valuable, cool, beautiful, hard to find, or some combination therefore. As usual, all of these are Fine/Fine copies unless otherwise listed. Ala George Locke’s Spectrum of Fantasy volumes, I’m listing where I got them and how much I paid, plus occasional notes on the books (with links if I’ve already described them before).
- Bear, Greg. Sleepside Story. Cheap Street, 1988. One of 52 signed and numbered, traycased “publisher’s edition” copies, a fine copy in tray case, sans dust jacket. For full details see here. Bought for $175 from a notable SF book dealer having a 50% off sale.
- Bradbury, Ray. Dark Carnival. Arkham House, 1946. First edition hardback, good only, with lettering on spine almost completely worn away, spine lean, general wear, and lacking the dust jacket. Bought from someone selling their late father’s collection (mostly, alas, book club editions) for $20.
- Brunner, John. Stand on Zanzibar. Doubleday, 1968. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with just the tiniest bit of wear. Replaces an ex-library copy. (I bought this online back in June for $199.99 and forgot to list it last time around.) Brunner’s undisputed masterpiece.
- Dick, Philip K. Eye in the Sky. Gregg Press, 1979. First hardback edition. Fine-, with a tiny bit of crimping at head, sans dust jacket, as issued. Bought from a notable SF dealer having 50% off sale. Replaced an Ex-library copy in my collection.
- Dick, Philip K. Vulcan’s Hammer. Gregg Press, 1979. First hardback edition. Fine, sans dust jacket, as issued. Replaced an Ex-library copy in my collection.
- Hill, Joe. Horns. PS Publishing, 2010. First UK and first limited edition hardback, one of 200 copies signed by both the author and artist Vincent Chong in traycase with three extra chapters not in the trade edition, extra art not in any other edition, etc. a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket and traycase. Notably thicker than the slipcased edition. Bought at a pre-publication dealer discount from the publisher.
- Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Chatto & Windus, 1932. VG- only, lacking the dust jacket. Bought for $35 from a notable SF book dealer having a 50% off sale. I don’t usually buy books without dust jackets, but the price was right for this space-filling copy of this famous dystopia.
- Lafferty, R. A. The Devil is Dead. Gregg Press, 1977. First hardback edition, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. Found at Recycled Books in Denton for $36. Replaces a more worn copy in my library. For a while this wasn’t too hard to find, but recently copies have become scarce. In fact, it seems like a lot of the rarer Lafferty books have gotten scarce as of late. Looks like years of just about every SF writer talking up Lafferty have finally paid off…
- Lovecraft, H.P. Collected Poems. Arkham House, 1963. VG/VG, with top inch of boards discolored and sun-fading to dj spine. Bought at auction for $75.
- Oliver, Chad. The Wolf is My Brother. Herbert Jenkins, 1968. First UK and first hardback edition, a Near Fine copy in a Good+ only dust jacket, missing an irregular 3/4″ x 1/2″ chip at head, and shallow chipping and edgewear. I didn’t even know there was a hardback until I chanced across this copy (though it is in Currey). No other copy online as of this writing. Bought for $50 during a Half Price Books coupon sale.
- Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Secker & Warburg, 1949. See here for full details. Arguably the most important novel of the 20th century. Bought from a notable SF book dealer for $500.
- Powers, Tim. Deliver Us From Evil. Charnel House, 2010. One of 100 signed, numbered copies in slipcase with accompanying manuscript page. See here for full details. Bought at a pre-publication dealer discount from the publisher.
- (Powers, Tim) Berlyne, John, editor. Powers: Secret Histories: A Bibliography. PS Publishing, 2009. One of 26 signed, lettered Deluxe copies in slipcase with two companion volumes, The Waters Deep, Deep, Deep and bound, photographic reproduction of the original hand-written manuscript for The Anubis Gates, not included with the trade or Slipcased editions. Slipcase and Anubis Gates volume very slightly bumped, otherwise Fine/Fine.
- Temple, William F. 88 Gray’s Inn Road. Sansato Press (AKA Ferret Fantasy), 2000. Roman-a-clef that features a thinly-disguised Arthur C. Clarke (who provides the introduction) as a character, with Clarke’s signature plate affixed to the FFE, reportedly one of only 50 such copies. Found at Recycled Books in Denton, priced the same as the non-signed edition (I paid $32 for it). Replaced a non-signed copy in my collection.
- Vance, Jack. Bird Isle/Take My Face. Underwood/Miller, 1988. One of 500 signed, numbered sets in slipcase. Found at Recycled Books in Denton for $160 for the set.
- Vance, Jack. The Dark Side of the Moon. Underwood/Miller, 1986. One of 200 signed/numbered copies. One of the rarest Underwood/Miller Vance books. (Are they being snapped up by Pink Floyd fans?) Found at Recycled Books in Denton for $160. Replaced a trade copy in my library.
- Wells, H. G. The World of William Clissold. Published by Ernest Benn (UK) 1926 in three volumes, one of 198 copies signed by Wells on the title page. For full details see here. Bought at the main Austin Half Price Books for $175, marked down from $350, during their coupon sale. Scott Cupp told me this copy formerly belonged to him, and that he obtained it at one of UT’s library sales.
H. G. Wells: The World of Williams Cissold, three volume set of the first edition, signed by Wells
The limitation page, with H. G. Wells' signature
- Zelazny, Roger. Bridge of Ashes. Gregg Press, 1979. (Replaces my Ex-Library copy.) Found at Recycled Books in Denton for $40.
- Zelazny, Roger. Hymn to the Sun: An Imitation. NA Publications, 1996. Poetry chapbook, a Near Fine- copy with some rubbing to price code on rear cover, spot on front cover, and black dot at heel. I missed this when it came out, and it’s been devilishly hard to find. Bought it off a dealer on Amazon, of all places, for abut $25. (99 times out of 100, Amazon is going to be higher than buying directly from a dealer on Bookfinder for collectible books.)
- Zelazny, Roger. Nine Princes in Amber. Doubleday, 1970. An Ex-Library copy, but cleaner than the Ex-Library copy previously in my collection. Reportedly Doubleday ordered their warehouse to pulp all Zelazny’s books the same day this came in from the printer, so only review copies, pre-orders, and library copies escaped the pulper, which is why non-Ex-Library copies are exceedingly rare. The first Amber novel, and one of Zelazny’s best. Found at Recycled Books in Denton for $160.
The February Ansible is Out
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Tuesday, January 25th, 2011Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Written by Michael Bacall and Edgar Wright (based on the graphic novel by Bryan Lee O’Malley)
Directed by Edgar Wright
Starring Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Ellen Wong, Jason Schwartzman, Chris Evans, Brie Larson, Brandon Routh, Alison Pill, Mark Webber, Johnny Simmons, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza
I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World recently, and enjoyed what I thought I would enjoy about it, and was slightly less annoyed than I thought I would be annoyed by.
The setup (for those of you who didn’t watch a single film in theaters for the first half of 2010; the trailers were pretty ubiquitous) is that schluby Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera, about which there shall be much more anon) splits time between sharing a tiny efficiency with his gay friend and playing bass with his band, Sex Bomb Omb, before he meets Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the girl of his dreams, and has to fight her seven evil exes to win her affections. Actually, Pilgrim doesn’t seem quite as schluby as the trailer makes him out to be, because he previously dated a hot girl named Envy (Brie Larson) who’s now a pop superstar, and when the movie opens, he’s just started dating a 17-year old Chinese schoolgirl “with the uniform and everything” (Ellen Wong). I should point out that his schoolgirl girlfriend is cute as a button, and looks absolutely nothing like Korean model Hwang Mi Hee in the following picture:
Scott Pilgrim's 17-year old Chinese schoolgirl girlfriend looks absolutely nothing like this
Hmmmm….where was I? Oh yeah. She looks nothing like that. Anyway, Pilgrim soon throws her over for Ramona, whose evil exes come out of the woodwork to fight him in flat-out-impossible video game battles in real life. All of it is good, over-the-top fun. If you’ve ever watched a Coyote-Roadrunner cartoon and gone “Hey, wait a minute, there’s no way he could have survived that long a drop,” well then, this movie isn’t for you. I’ve never read the graphic novel it’s based on, but I’m guessing it’s very true to it.
All the evil ex fights are filled with amusing and completely insane action. The best is probably the fight with Envy’s bassist (Brandon Routh), which is not only high on the splat-fu, but also combines the absurdity of veganism giving you supernatural powers with the even more amusing absurdity of Vegan Police stripping away those same powers (“Chicken isn’t vegan?”).
The movie has a lot going for it. Edgar Wright is a hell of a director. Hot Fuzz is one of the funniest (and most underrated) movies of the last ten years, and he’s a master at keeping the action moving along at a steady clip. That aesthetic serves him well in a movie designed for Generation Twitch, in which almost every aspect of the characters “real” life has been speed up and Nintendofied. Also, although I didn’t grow up Nintendo, I’ve played enough video games that the antirealism of it (when Pilgrim dispatches an evil ex, coins rain to the floor; when he gets in a particularly good blow, a voice announces “Combo!”) was amusing rather than annoying. And the acting is almost uniformly excellent. Except…except…
(sigh)
Except for the Michael Cera Problem.
There are many actors in Hollywood with a broad range of characters. Michael Cera is not one of them. While he was fine in Superbad, he wasn’t any better than McLovin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) or the fat kid (Jonah Hill), and while he was also fine in Juno, he was probably the weakest link in an otherwise exceptionally strong cast. After watching both, I got the distinct impression that Cera’s range extended from teenage awkwardness to awkward teenageness. “Do you…want an actor…who can…pause………awkwardly?” He does the awkward pause thing even more frequently than Topher Grace does his “slight pause before the…eyerolling delivery” thing, and it’s considerably more annoying. There’s no reason he should have become this generation’s Hollywood go-to guy for male teenager leads over the likes of, say, Zombieland‘s Jesse Eisenberg, who looks a little bit like him. (Then again, since The Social Network is a serious Oscar contender and Scott Pilgrim wasn’t quite the hit the studio was hoping for, we all know who got the better end of that decision…)
In Juno he had a supporting role, but here he’s the center of the film. Fortunately, the nature of the film tends to accentuate his strengths and (generally) mask his weaknesses. You don’t notice his flatness of range nearly as much when everything around him is exploding. But he’s still the weakest actor here, except…
Except that his love interest, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, is if anything even flatter. Maybe this was a conscious decision on Edgar’s part, given the source material and the film’s overriding aesthetic. Maybe Ramona’s anime-hair colors are suppose to indicate that she’s every bit as useless and ornamental as the Princess in Donkey Kong. She’s a goal with a backstory, not a person.
So, can you enjoy Scott Pilgrim vs. the World if the actors playing the two central characters aren’t that great? I did. Your mileage may vary.
If you can buy into the cartoonish nature of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, this is quite an enjoyable movie (though nowhere near as good as Hot Fuzz). If you’ve ever mastered the art of mashing six controller buttons at the same time to rip off an opponent’s head, this is the movie for you.