The New and Perfect Man (Postscripts 24/25) is Out

June 16th, 2011

Including my story “The Dog Parade.”

Here’s the traycase the signed, limited edition comes in:

And here’s the book itself nestled snugly inside that traycase:

It was actually an unusually long journey for the anthology to be published, as one of the sets of signature sheets got lost in transit, which set back the publication timeline considerably.

Contents of Postscripts #24/25: The New and Perfect Man, edited by Peter Crowther & Nick Gevers, are as follows:

  • THE NEW AND PERFECT MAN — Carol Emshwiller (cover story, illustrated by her husband, the late, great Ed Emshwiller)
  • FRIGHTENED ANGELS — Jeremy Adam Smith
  • TO SEE INFINITY BARE — Rudy Rucker & Paul Di Filippo
  • ELECTRIC BREAKFAST — Paul Meloy
  • A CRACK IN THE CEILING OF THE WORLD — Michael Kelly
  • THE DOG PARADE — Lawrence Person
  • THE LAST HERETIC — Darrell Schweitzer
  • THE STORY OF PRINCESS ROSEBUD — Alan Peter Ryan
  • THE INN OF DISTANT SORROWS — Thomas Tessier
  • A MOMENT AT THE HOUSE — T.M. Wright
  • WHISPER — Richard Calder
  • THE PRIMATE SANCTUARY — Quentin S. Crisp
  • CALL ME — Bob Strother
  • SO LOVED — Matthew Hughes
  • CONFESSIONS OF A TYRANT’S DOUBLE — Gregory Norminton
  • EUPHORIA — Robert Reed
  • TRUE BLUE — Darrell Schweitzer
  • CHRIST THE PAINTER — Allen Ashley
  • YOUR GOLDEN HANDS — Andrew Hook
  • THE GHOST OF LILLIAN BLISS — Rio Youers
  • ASHES IN THE WATER — Joel Lane and Mat Joiner
  • CHILD OF EVIL STARS — Anne-Sylvie Homassel
  • HER FINGERS LIKE WHIPS, HER EYES LIKE RAZORS — Jay Lake
  • DR. BLACK, THOUGHTS & PATENTS — Brendan Connell
  • THE ROOM BEYOND — Ramsey Campbell
  • THROWNNESS — Adam Roberts
  • IMAGO — Keith Brooke
  • THE VORKUTA EVENT — Ken MacLeod
  • Sold wherever fine SF anthologies are sold…

    Lawrence Person’s Library: Reference Books (Part 1)

    June 14th, 2011

    I haven’t posted much the last week because I’ve been busy doing this and that, and one of the things I’ve been busy with is a long-overdue cleanup of my office, including doing something about those Nova Express review copies cluttering it up. Now that I’ve finally finished moving books around, and gotten a new camera (a Kodak Slice) to replace the one that died, I thought I would put up some long-overdue pictures of the books in my office, starting with the reference shelf right next to my computer, which contains the reference works I tend to reach for most often.

    (Click to embiggen.)

    Going left to right (left being the side closest to the computer, and thus the books I reach for most often) are:

  • Currey, L.W. Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors: A Bibliography of First Printings of Their Fiction. G. K. Hall, 1978. The bible of the field, and absolutely essential for any serious collector of science fiction first editions. Only goes up to 1978. For dates after 1983, you can use The Locus Online Database. Currey also sells a slightly updated CD-ROM version, which still only goes up to 1978. (Now if only someone would compile a book that covers 1979-1983…)
  • Chalker, Jack & Owings, Mark. The Science Fantasy Publishers: A Critical and Bibliographic History. Mirage Press, 1991 (“Third Edition Revised and Enlarged”). If you’re a serious SF collector, you need this. The problem is, you can’t trust it. No other reference work offers the wealth and scope of knowledge of SF small press publishers that this one does. There’s a lot of good information in here. The print edition shown above had major errors and omissions, and a very odd organizational structure, not to mention several sneers and the constant sound of ax-grinding for SF figures the authors disagree with; the CD-ROM version is more accurate, but no longer up to date as both Chalker and Owings have died. What this book is best for is the chatty, informative histories of the various publishing houses listed here. (If nothing else, I can unstintingly recommend this book for anyone thinking of starting up their own small press, as it provides numerous examples of what not to do.) It’s also quite useful for uncovering titles and publishers you might not have known existed before. In summary: A valuable tool for those who possess enough experience in the field to know which parts to take with a grain of salt.
  • Clute, John, & Nichols, Peter. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. St. Martins, 1993 (first U.S. edition, offset from the same plates as the Orbit (UK) first). An absolutely essential general reference work.
  • Clute, John, & Grant, John. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. St. Martins, 1997 (first U.S. edition). Slightly more scattershot than the above, but still an essential guide.
  • Reginald, Robert. Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature: Indexes to the Literature, Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature:Contemporary Science Fiction Authors, and Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature: 1975 to 1991. Gale Research, 1980, 1981, 1992. Not the first reference work I reach for, but contains a lot of information that has slipped through the cracks of other works.
  • Levack, Daniel. Amber Dreams: A Roger Zelazny Bibliography. Underwood Miller, 1983. The first of the single-author bibliographies.
  • Levack, Daniel. PKD: A Philip K. Dick Bibliography. Underwood Miller, 1981. I have a copy of the trade paperback edition for sale over on the Lame Excuse Books page.
  • Hewett, Jerry. The Work of Jack Vance: An Annotated Bibliography & Guide. Borgo Press/Underwood Miller, 1994. I know Jerry pretty well, and not only has he signed my copy, he crossed out “Borgo” and wrote in “Bozo” on the title page. I think he had some problems dealing with them…
  • Bleiler, Everett F. The Checklist of Science-Fiction and Supernatural Fiction. Firebell, 1978. Slightly updated edition of Bleiler’s classic Checklist of Fantastic Fiction (which I have on another shelf), and an absolutely essential reference work for older SF/F/H books.
  • Joshi, S. T. Sixty Years of Arkham House. Arkham House, 1999. Not 100% accurate, but essential none the less.
  • Bleiler, Everett. The Guide to Supernatural Fiction. Kent State University Press, 1993. Very good, and very solid, as a general reference work, but not really concerned with first edition points.
  • Locke, George. Spectrum of Fantasy I-III. Ferret Fantasy, 1980-2002. Perhaps the only SF dealer as knowledgeable as Currey. These are Locke’s descriptions of his own personal library of fantastic fiction. Quite enjoyable works, and George is a nice guy.
  • One guideline I’d offer aspiring SF/F/H book collectors is: Don’t skimp on the reference works. Some of these books can be expensive, but all it takes is one real find (or one expensive dud avoided) for a good reference work to pay for itself.

    More pictures of my reference library when I have the time…

    The Sun Wants to KILL YOU

    June 8th, 2011

    Some nice turns of phrase (pathetic fallacy division) from the inimitable James Lileks:

    At the center of every solar system, perhaps, there’s not a benevolent disc that paints the world with light and heat, but a raging devil shouting its hate wordlessly across the void….Every civilization that has ever, and will ever, exist in this galaxy or the millions of galaxies in the heavens, revolves around a suicide bomber.

    I just thought that was a nifty turn of phrase and, being in a part of Texas suffering from one of the worst droughts ever, it struck a certain chord…

    Starr Faithfull, Andrew J. Peters, and the Scandals of Yesterday

    June 8th, 2011

    Today we come up on the 80th anniversary of an unsolved death that marked a major scandal for a prominent political figure. The badly bruised body of beautiful 25-year old girl washed up on the beach at Long Island, her liver showing traces of Veronal (the first commercially available barbiturate). The body turned out to be one Starr Faithfull, a “good time girl” well known on the Boston social scene.

    That would be interesting enough. But it turned out that Starr Faithfull kept a diary, in which she described having an affair with a prominent political figure. The figure turned out to be Boston Mayor Andrew James Peters, who denied the affair, but who ended up paying $20,000 worth of hush money to Starr Faithfull’s father.

    John O’Hara would later use elements of the story in his novel BUtterfield 8, though set in New York rather than Boston, which lead to Elizabeth Taylor’s Academy Award winning performance in the movie of the same name.

    But the movie (I haven’t read the book) changes one very big detail: the first time she had sex with Peters, Starr Faithfull was eleven years old.

    As to whether she was murdered or not, that remains unresolved to this very day…

    Liberty County Mass Grave: “Never Mind”

    June 7th, 2011

    You know that 0-30 range for that mass grave? It turned out to be on the low end of that range. Namely zero.

    Can I say I’m psychic for thinking this was bunk?

    Police Find Mass Grave of 0-30 Bodies in Liberty County, Texas

    June 7th, 2011

    Which is to say that so far they’ve found none. Which hasn’t kept other people from jumping the gun. You might want to wait on reporting that until you find, you know, actual bodies. Especially since the tip was reported to come from a “psychic.” This would keep distant outlets like The Sydney Morning Herald from reporting it as fact.

    Is “police investigating report of mass grave” just not sexy enough for the news cycle these days?

    Long Interview With Brian Eno

    June 5th, 2011

    Don Webb alerted me to this long interview with legendary musician/ composer/innovator Brian Eno on (of all places) Al Jazeera:

    Lots of fascinating information on his background, such as collecting music from American airbases near his childhood home (and only later realizing that almost all the music he collected was from black musicians), having a grandfather who lived in a converted church repairing early mechanical musical instruments (“they were the synthesizers of 1910”), and the birth of ambient music coming from listening to a too-quiet record of harp music while he was convalescing in the hospital.

    At one point he talks about trying to figure out what an Arab song he heard on short wave was, and it turns out to be Farid Al-Atrache’ “Hebeena Hebeena.” Since it was slightly hard to figure out what he was saying (Ferry De La Trash?), I tracked down a YouTube version of the track:

    Review Copypalooza

    June 3rd, 2011

    So about a year after I really needed to, I’ve finally got around to reorganizing my office. And by “reorganizing,” I mean “putting away a bunch of crap so I can actually put the books I’ve already bought in their proper places on my shelves.”

    One obstacle to this is all the Nova Express review copies that have piled up around the place. It hasn’t (quite) been a decade since The Fanzine That Walks Like a Semiprozine published its last issue in 2002. In 2003 I was unemployed most of the year, in 2004 I bought a house, and in 2005 I took a 10 day trip to the UK to see London and the Glasgow Worldcon, all things that ate up both time and money required to publish something that lost a good $1,000-2,000 an issue. (I contend that Nova Express is not in fact dead, but merely resting and pining for the fjords. It’s been my intention to resurrect the beast as some sort of online zine, but life has continued to get in the way.) Despite its non-published status, Nova Express has continued to receive review copies of books (proofs, ARCS, hardbacks, paperbacks, you name it), the more interesting of which I’ve put aside until I had time to bring the zine back to life, though I have reviewed something here every now and then.

    But rather than let all these review copies continue taking up valuable bookshelf space, I’ve decided to do two things:

    1. Offer them up to former Nova Express staffers (you know who you are) to review here on Futuramen (as a sort of low-calorie-Nova-Express substitute, or Nova-Express-in-Exile sort of thing), and
    2. Disperse the rest (sell/giveaway/put into my own library).

    Rather than spend time listing each and every copy (there are a lot), I’m just going to list the authors. If you’d like to review something by them, let me know. Keep in mind some of these are almost a decade old, but what the hell, better late than never.

  • Neal Asher
  • S. A. Bodeen
  • Kevin Brockmeier
  • M. M. Buckner
  • Ramsey Campbell
  • Storm Constantine
  • Brenda Cooper
  • Robert Conroy
  • Frank Corsaro
  • Ellen Datlow
  • Cory Doctrow
  • William Drinkard
  • Carol Emshwiller
  • Andreas Eschbach
  • Steven Erikson
  • Ian C. Esselmont
  • Michael Flynn
  • Gregory Frost
  • Anne Harris
  • Melanie Gideon
  • Daryl Gregory
  • Jim Grimsley
  • Peter F. Hamilton
  • Thomas Harlan
  • Howard Hendrix
  • Stephen Hunt
  • James Patrick Kelly
  • Liam Jackson
  • Jay Lake
  • Jean Lorrah
  • James Maxey
  • A. Lee Martinez
  • Sandra McDonald
  • Paul Melko
  • James Morrow
  • Jamil Nasir
  • Paul Park
  • Nicholas Pekearo
  • Kit Reed
  • R. Garcia Y. Robertson
  • Cameron Rogers
  • Mary Rosenblum
  • Rudy Rucker
  • Melinda Snodgrass
  • Stanley Schmidt
  • William R. Trotter
  • Vernor Vinge
  • Kit Whitfield
  • Kim Wilkins
  • David Wellington
  • Scott Westerfield
  • If you want to review any of these, drop me a line.

    The June Ansible is Up

    June 2nd, 2011

    For your skiffy reading pleasure.

    Manos Two: Twice the Hands, Twice the Fate!

    June 1st, 2011

    A certain Rupert Talbot Munch Sr. of Falls City, OR is working on a sequel to the classically bad Manos: The Hands of Fate called Manos: The Search for Valley Lodge.

    They’re going to be filming in El Paso, just like the original.

    Wait, it gets better: The film stars Jackey Raye Jones, who played the little girl in the original Manos: The Hands of Fate. Plus a character played by Joe Warren, the son of original Manos director Harold Warren.

    The kicker? Tom Neyman is back as The Master.

    And yes, there’s a poster:

    You could say that making a sequel to one of the worst films ever made is a bad idea, but frankly, the entire enterprise is beyond your puny mortal concepts of “good” and “bad”…

    And speaking of Manos, did you know that there was a puppet theater adaptation, Manos: The Hands of Felt?