Posts Tagged ‘Amazon’

Library Addition: Willard M. Oliver’s Robert E. Howard Biography

Monday, August 18th, 2025

Here’s a rare case of my buying a book from Amazon:

(Howard, Robert E.) Willard M. Oliver. Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author. University of North Texas Press, 2025. First edition hardback (“10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1” numberline), a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Hefty 580 page biography of Howard that’s gotten lots of praise in the various REH-adjacent bibliographic groups I visit on Facebook. Bought for $20.80, a hefty discount off the $40 list price.

This is the fourth full-length biography of Howard I own, including the Mark Finn, Novalyne Price and de Camp et. al. biographies (plus two shorter ones), none of which I’ve read yet. I’ll probably read the considerably shorter Finn biographer before this one.

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Library Addition: Robert Bloch: An Unconventional Bibliography

Thursday, July 10th, 2025

The field has long needed a better, up-to-date Robert Bloch bibliography. I’m not sure this new Print-on-Demand volume quite ticks all the boxes.

  • Nemeth, Jim (with Randall D. Larson). Robert Bloch: An Unconventional Bibliography. No publisher listed (but probably Amazon KDP), 2025. Print-On-Demand “first edition” (printing date of “03 July 2025”), a Fine copy. “This bibliography, as unconventional and idiosyncratic as Bloch himself, documents the entire oeuvre of his varied and diverse career, sprinkled throughout with Bloch’s own remembrances regarding many of his works.” Alas, one “unconventional” touch is the omitting of standard bibliographic information like first edition points (there is no mention of how to tell apart the two printings of Sea Kissed, for example), or things like page counts, prices, etc. Still, there’s a good bit of useful information in here, and the Larson essays look interesting. Bought from Amazon for $18.99.

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    Posted in Books, Horror | No Comments »

    A Tale of Two Halloween Lights

    Thursday, November 9th, 2023

    See this?

    This is a two-pack of Hompavo LED Flame Light Bulbs. It simulates having a flickering firelight instead of your outdoor lights for the Halloween season. I’ve been using them since 2021 and they still work fine. If you like that sort of thing for Halloween, I recommend them.

    See this?

    It’s “Red Light Bulb 9W (60W Equivalent) E26 Base, LED Colored Light Bulbs for Halloween Christmas Party Holiday Lighting 2-Pack.” They’re absolute worthless garbage. Both bulbs stopped working within minutes of screwing them in and turning them on. No wonder there’s page after page of one-star reviews.

    Avoid.

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    Gonna Pass on the Expedited Shipping, Thanks

    Tuesday, January 16th, 2018

    Actual screen cap from an Amazon order I placed yesterday (click to embiggen):

    Think I’ll have to pass on the $12 million in expedited shipping costs. I don’t need it that bad…

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    Hephaestus Press Gone From Amazon?

    Monday, September 10th, 2012

    It took a while, but it looks like Hephaestus Press’ offerings have finally been removed from Amazon. If you don’t remember Hephaestus Press, they were the ones who published “books” that were just articles scrapped from Wikipedia, many of which looked like omnibus editions of several novels.

    Given other evidence, it looks like they’re finally kicking all similar crap off their system as well.

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    Posted in Books | 1 Comment »

    Texas Tax Free Weekend August 17-19

    Thursday, August 16th, 2012

    It’s that time of year again. Texas is having it’s annual tax free weekend this weekend, August 17-19, for back-to-school goods like clothing under $100, school supplies, etc. And this year, the previously tax-free but now-tax-covered Amazon is participating as well.

    Official state guidelines for what is and isn’t covered.

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    Testing Out that Amazon Link Thingee

    Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

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    Posted in Science Fiction | No Comments »