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):
The first volume of The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick has finally been published. (Note: That Amazon link has it at half cover price, something I (and most probably other booksellers) can’t hope to match.) Paul Di Filippo offers a review: “It’s like the greatest Spalding Gray staged monologue ever conceived.”
Also of interest to the devoted Dickhead: The Philip K. Dick estate is suing the people who made The Adjustment Bureau, saying they’re owed additional money for the film rights. Media Rights Capital, in turn, is saying that the copyright was never properly renewed. Previous coverage of the dubious status of SF works that might (or might not) be out of copyright can be found here.
Finally, there’s another book of PKD interest coming out, not about Dick himself, but about his missing android head.
Howard Waldrop and I reviewed Hugo over at Locus Online, which we liked an awful lot.
The film involves (slight spoiler) the work of French film pioneer Georges Méliès, who produced, directed, wrote, and starred in over 500 silent short films, many of which no longer exists. But several of the ones that do are up on YouTube, and I thought I would gather them here. Méliès, a former stage magician, was the first to create a number of optical effects.
His most famous film, A Trip to the Moon, with the classic image of the shell embedded in the man-in-the-moon’s eye.
Interestingly, this was not his first film featuring the moon, as shown by The Astronomer’s Dream:
Another interplanetary voyage, this time by train, to the sun (in hand-tinted color, no less):
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea:
The Haunted Castle:
Mélies himself is front and center as each of The Four Troublesome Heads:
Likewise as the Man With the Rubber Head:
Neil Gaiman will be appearing on The Simpsons this Sunday. Neil has been mentioning it for a while, but this week is when it actually airs.
And here he is on Craig Ferguson talking about the episode:
I’m not a huge Orson Scott Card fan. I thought Ender’s Game was an effective Heinlein juvenile homage, but little more. (I also thought Speaker for the Dead was actually a better, more ambitious novel.) I also thought that Seventh Son and Red Prophet were good alternate history fantasies, and “Hatrack River” (which forms the beginning of Seventh Son) was probably the best thing Card ever wrote. However, after reading Xenocide (awful) and Prentice Alvin (disappointing), I decided to stop picking up Card’s new books (the occasional Subterranean novella excepted), and haven’t regretted the decision. (Someday I may read Hart’s Hope, which some people have told me is his best.)
But after I stumbled across this at the nearest Half Price Books, I thought it was odd enough to be worth picking up, especially at 50% off $35 (marked down from $60) during the usual coupon sale.
Card, Orson Scott. Doorways. No publisher listed (though I’m assuming this is Card’s own Hatrack River imprint), 2002. (Presumed) First Edition trade paperback original, perfect bound on white cardstock covers, a Fine copy, inscribed by Card: “to Sam—/Merrily…/Orson Scott Card”.
Not in the Locus database. Not in the ISFDB. Not even in Card’s own online bibliography. (Oddly enough, it’s referred to in a bibliographic PDF on his site, but there’s not a listing for the book itself.)
This is 98 pages long and contains two previously published novelettes along with several unpublished poems. If I had to guess, this looks like it might have been given away as some sort of promotional freebie on Card’s website.
Given how obscure this particular Card book is, here’s the complete list of contents:
Did you know that the first first filmed version of Frankenstein was not the James Whale movie, but a 1910 Edison studios film?
Though full of the hokey melodramatic tropes of early silent cinema, it actually follows the basic plot of the Mary Shelly novel more closely than the Whale movie, at least up until the happy (and vaguely slipstreamy) ending. The creation of the monster scene uses not one, but two special effects: running the film backwards and at high speed. I’m sure it blew people’s minds in 1910.
Jerry Pournelle and C. J. Cherryh have been among the first to report on the nefarious activities of Hephaestus Books, which seems to be publishing omnibus editions of hundreds or thousands of books which they haven’t bothered to obtain the rights for. I say “seems,” because a closer look shows that Hephaestus Books does seen to be ripping people off, but it’s the readers and buyers rather than the authors.
Since Jerry helped sound the alarm, let’s take this collection, titled Novels By Jerry Pournelle, including: The Legacy Of Heorot, The Mote In God’s Eye, The Gripping Hand, Footfall, Inferno (novel), Fallen Angels … Starswarm, Higher Education over at Amazon as an example. The text description reads:
Hephaestus Books represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Hephaestus Books continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge. This particular book is a collaboration focused on Novels by Jerry Pournelle.
The fact that the book length is a mere 82 pages should confirm that all the novels listed in the title are not in fact present.
So: They’re content scrapers, grabbing anything they can grab off the Internet (it looks like most of their content is scrapped off Wikipedia) and slapping it between two covers as a print-on-demand (POD) book. This is bad and dubiously legal practice, but their primary sin seems to be false advertising, since their “book” titles deceptively suggest that you’re buying an omnibus edition of fiction rather than a collection of stuff you can read for free on the Internet.
Personally, if I were in charge of Amazon or Barnes & Noble, I’d pull all the Hephaestus Books titles due to their dishonest tactics and customer dissatisfaction anyway. (I don’t think even my insane Jack Vance collector friends will be picking up this.) But from my cursory glance, it’s readers, not authors, who are the ones being ripped off.
(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
One problem with having a large library that you’re always adding books to is keeping up with shelving them in the proper place.
I have all my fiction shelved in alphabetical order by author within three form-factors (hardbacks, trade paperbacks, and mass market paperbacks). I leave “expansion joint,” i.e., empty slots in which to insert new acquisitions, on every shelf, but eventually they fill up and it’s time to add a new bookcase. Since they are shelved alphabetically by author, I can’t just stick the books randomly onto the new bookcase if I want to find them.
When I started out collecting books, I got the regular crappy 5-high, assemble-them-yourself particle board bookcases they sold at Target, just like every other college student. (Back then, anyway. I wonder if today’s college students use bookshelves at all.) Later, when I was a little less broke, I had some real 5-high wooden bookcases made for me (one fixed shelf in the middle, three adjustable shelves plus the base) to match the existing particle board shelves. later, when I started running out of room, I started getting 8-high bookcases (one fixed shelf, six adjustable shelves plus the base) to maximize the amount of storage space. in fact, when I moved into my new house, I immediately had three more 8-high built for me (along with a custom paperback shelf) to store books I hadn’t had room to put out in my apartment.
Because of the way the room is laid out, I’ve been replacing the five-high bookcases in my living room/library with the eight-high bookcases, and moving the five-highs back into a sort of den (with a fireplace, a futon, a coffee table, an old sofa for my dog, and the rest of the fiction bookshelves). But to do everything the “proper” way is a fairly labor intensive process:
This is not a difficult process, but it is time-consuming (and by now I’m mostly done). But it prevents heartache in the long-run, because my collection remains alphabetized, the shelves clean and in good shape. And I can always lay my hands on a book when I need to. (There was another bookseller/collector who packed up his library willy-nilly, depending on what fitted in the box, and it was very frustrating experience trying to pull things from those myriad boxes when he wanted to sell something to me…)
Ends TODAY! (October 23) To help out with Ed’s medical bills (as mentioned here).
Although I was a tiny bit disappointed by Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (I didn’t think the “Versus A.I.” single-player maps were as interesting as those in Brood War, and I was pissed that not all of the units were available for those, even if you weren’t playing online; damn it, I want my medic!), I’ll still pick this up. Pretty much everything Blizzard does is first rate.
And yes, you can preorder it.
Also: What the Hell?
Sounds like a bonus-ish, heroes-and-tower-defense type thing. Hmmm. I could really see myself getting sucked into that. Or would, if there were a way to avoid getting pwned by 17-year old Koreans…