Here’s New Zealand’s Baltier Space with the title track from their Robot World shoegaze album, which checks in on the crunchier side of classic shoegaze:
Shoegazer Sunday: Bailter Space’s “Robot World”
December 15th, 2013Insanely Awesome Japanese Lego Ball Machine
December 13th, 2013Happy Friday the 13th!
I’m not a LEGO fanatic, but I know two people who are, so I thought I’d put this up for them:
This is for Kurt Baty and Steve Jackson, who now need to step up their LEGO game…
Library Additions: C. L. Moore’s Judgment Night
December 12th, 2013Another notable book from the golden age of the genre small press:
Moore, C.L. Judgment Night. Gnome Press, 1952. First edition hardback, a Near Fine+ copy with slight crimping at head and heel, mild foxing to inner gutters, and a few tiny spots of wear to bottom boards, in a Near Fine+ dust jacket with 1/4″ closed tear at heel, slight wrinkling at rear head, and a touch of edgewear. A truly superb, bright example of the dust jacket. Collection of five longer stories. Currey (1978), Page 377. Chalker/Owings (1991), page 199. Anatomy of Wonder 4, 3-130. Bought for $65 off eBay.
Library Additions: Earnest Bramah’s The Moon of Much Gladness (in dust jacket)
December 11th, 2013If you like Barry Hughart, you should really try reading Earnest Bramah’s Kai Lung series, which is exceptionally entertaining. Though most of the Kai Lung first editions were published slightly before my main collecting period, I do snatch up nice copies in dust jacket when I see them at an affordable price (though I doubt I’ll ever have a Bramah collection to rival Mike Berro’s).
Bramah, Earnest. The Moon of Much Gladness. Cassell & Company, 1932. First edition hardback (Berro A17), a Fine- copy with slight bends at head and heel in a VG+ dust jacket with a 1/8″ chip at rear head join, slight cracking at top edge of front cover, and dust soiling to rear, otherwise a fairly bright and attractive copy of a book seldom offered in dust jacket. Bought for $300 off the Internet from a major SF book dealer.
(Click to embiggen, but note that the what appear to be tiny spots of white rubbing to the black dj are in fact scanner artifacts.)
New Godzilla Trailer
December 10th, 2013There’s a new Godzilla trailer out:
Points:
Mood: Cautious Optimism.
Library Addition: A [Gene] Wolfe Family Album
December 10th, 2013I’ve been busy and have gotten slightly behind in cataloging books that have come in. In the interests “some content is better than no content,” I’m going to catalog the more interesting ones one at a time until I catch up with the backlog.
Up first: One of the few Gene Wolfe chapbooks I didn’t already own:
Wolfe, Gene. A Wolfe Family Album. United Mythologies Press, 1991. First edition chapbook original, a Fine copy. Signed by Gene Wolfe. Chapbook of mostly Wolfe family photos, evidently issued with the hardback edition of Letters Home (which I’ve owned for some time, but which didn’t come with the chapbooks when I bought it).
Photos from the 2013 San Antonio Worldcon
December 9th, 2013I knew that dealing books at Worldcon would eat up a lot of time, but I had no idea just how much time it would take me to not only get all the books back on the shelf, but to catch up on everything I set aside while getting ready for, then recovering from, Worldcon.
Which explains why I’m just now putting up the pictures I took there. Here are the handful of pictures I took at Worldcon that came out decent.
Clotheshorse that she is, the lovely and talented Gail Carriger kicks off our review with the first of three outfits I managed to photograph.
A second.
And a third.
And here’s the same outfit she insisted I snap with her own camera. “You’ve got to include the shoes!”
Stina Leicht, sitting next to me at the Rayguns Over Texas event at the San Antonio Library.
Scott Cupp and Josh Rountree at the same event. The other photos I took there came out crappy.
Bookseller and con chair Mike Walsh.
Lou Antonelli channels Flavor-Flav.
Howard Waldrop and Eileen Gunn, just before Howard went three rounds with a concrete step.
And here’s Howard just after that bout.
Andrew Porter, now free of the terrible burden of publishing a semi-prozine.
Pat Murphy, back again.
Ex-NASA employee Al Jackson.
Ex-Austinite Maureen McHugh.
Kim Stanley Robinson, back from whatever frozen locale he’s visiting this time. Possibly Iapetus.
Gardner Dozois at full rant.
Gardner Dozois at full rest. The two modes are deceptively similar.
In 2012, Pat Cadigan asked me to take down one of her pictures. So this year I made sure that this picture with Robert Silverberg was 100% flattering.
I think this is a very good picture of Dwight Brown.
Rich Simental, who spent much of the con in his room working on a completely different con.
Ben Yalow. Or possibly one of those hundreds of Ben Yalow impersonators you hear so much about.
Max Merriwell, in a very clever diusguise.
David Kyle, who I think has passed the late Forrest J. Ackerman for Most Worldcons Attended.
I’m sorry that I didn’t get pictures of Alastair Reynolds, David Brin, Jack McDevitt, Joe and Joy Haldeman, and Lois McMaster Bujold (among others I missed), who were all kind enough to come by the Lame Excuse Books booth.
Shoegazer Sunday: Eluvium’s “Don’t Get Any Closer”
December 8th, 2013I was in the mood for mellow, and Eluvium‘s “Don’t Get Any Closer” (which has a definite ambient film score tinge to it) fits the mellow bill.
Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark
December 6th, 2013Thanks to the keen eye of SF Signal’s John DeNardo, we have word that the auteurs at The Asylum or offering their homage to Terror of MechaGodzilla: Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark.
It looks like pretty much everything we’ve come to expect from The Asylum…
Library Additions: Dan Robertson’s The Ideal, Genuine Man inscribed by Stephen King
December 2nd, 2013While it’s gotten much harder to find undiscovered gems in used bookstores thanks to the Internet, there are still bargains to be had if you know what you’re looking for.
Take, for example, this:
Robertson, Dan. The Ideal, Genuine Man. Philtrum Press, 1987. Second Printing of the first edition hardback (numberline starting with 2 and “Distributed by the Putnam Group” on the copyright page), a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with a slight indention and 1/16″ closed tear along spine. Signed by Robertson and inscribed by introduction author Stephen King: “1/29/88” then further down: “To Lady Pat and/Sir Barr/all best,/Stephen King”//.
Friends tell me that King used to regularly attend SCA events on the east coast (which is where his cameo in Knightriders came from), and the inscription suggests that this might have been inscribed to someone King knew in that context.
Philtrum Press, of course, is Stephen King’s own press, and he did initially tour with Robertson (a writer King long admired) to promote the book. So I always check copies when I come across them. This one I found at the Half Price Books on outer Westheimer in Houston for $18, minus roughly 25% off thanks to a coupon for the day after Thanksgiving.
This is, I think, the 6th book signed Stephen King book in my library, but the first I’ve found cheap in a used bookstore…