No, I’m not referring to the song. Just an update on what you can expect to see here at the ol’ blog.
First, I had attempted to read the nominees for the David Gemmell Morningstar Award. This goes to best first fantasy novel. I’ve read two (reviewed here and here). I’m almost finished with Kings of the Wyld. I’ll review it. I decided a few days ago that it would be insane to try and push myself to finish the remaining two. I have copies and will read/review them at some point in the future. Right now I want to focus on shorter fiction as well as getting back to reading more Jack Williamson.
I also want to read some Robert E. Howard. Howard Days starts in less than a week. I’m really looking forward to it, even though I think there have been more triple digit temperature days in the last few weeks than not.
I’m not teaching Summer I, so I should have a more flexible schedule. That means I can get some writing done. That’s all I’ll say about that for now.
My son and I went to Scarborough Renaissance Faire a couple of weeks ago. It’s in Waxahatchie, which is south of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. (Lou Antonelli assures me that “Waxahatchie” means “where the buffalo poop”.) Since we came in from the west, I stopped at a couple of Half Price Books, one in Burleson and one in Fort Worth.
This past weekend my son was competing at the State Solo and Ensemble contest in Austin. Austin has five Half Price Books. I managed to hit four of them, two on the way in and two when I left. (I didn’t ride on the bus this year and went to visit family when I left, so I went out a different way than I came in.)
I bought more than you see here, a lot more. (Don’t tell my wife.) There were plenty of DAW paperbacks with the yellow covers to be had. Unfortunately none were the Lin Carter The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories or the Karl Edward Wagner The Year’s Best Horror Stories. That was probably a bit too much to hope for. I’ve got all of Carter’s volumes, but I’m missing some of Wagner’s. Although speaking of Wagner…
Looky what I found.
Paperbacks weren’t the only things I looked at. While I was primarily looking for pulpy paperbacks, especially DAW titles, I did peruse the hardcovers and trade paperbacks at all the stores. There were a few nice finds there, as well, the best of which you can see in the photo on the right. The title on the lower right is an anthology containing stories by Wagner, Joseph Payne Brennan, and David Morrell. I have a mass market paperback of this one, but they don’t show up often, so I grabbed the trade paper edition. The silver book at the upper right is Masques II. The book in the middle on the left is The Soft Whisper of the Dead by Charles L. Grant. Next to it is The Definitive Best of the Horror Show.
I’m not going to be buying many books for the next few months, at least not once Howard Days is over. My son is going to a trumpet camp where he’ll be staying in a hotel in Dallas later in the summer. I’ll be staying with him and driving him to camp. During the day, I’ll be at the hotel working on revising lab manuals. Dallas and the surrounding suburbs have plenty of good used book stores. I promise to be good.
Now to figure out where I’m going to put all of these…
The Tethered Mage Melissa Caruso
Paperback $12.08, ebook $4.99
(Prices are current at the time the review is posted and are subject to change.)
The Tethered Mage is the second Gemmell Morningstar Award finalist I’m reviewing. You can find the first review, for The Court of Broken Knives, here. (For some reason, the two finalists I didn’t already have copies of when the final ballot was announced were the two I read first. Oh, yeah, because I bought electronic copies and could read them on my phone in spare minutes.)
I decided to read The Tethered Mage second because I thought based on what little I knew about it, it would be the one least likely to hold my interest. I’m very glad to say that wasn’t the case at all. Continue reading →
The Court of Broken Knives
Anna Smith Spark
Hardcover $14.22 paperback $10.87 ebook $4.99
(Prices current at the time of posting and subject to change)
I had intended to write this review two weeks ago when I finished the book, but I was overtaken by final exams and the usual end of the semester stuff.
The Court of Broken Knives is a finalist for the David Gemmell Morningstar Award. I usually try (emphasis on “try”) to read these nominees because they are first novels. The Legend Award nominees tend to be books in series I’m not current on.
But I digress. Anna Spark Smith’s Twitter handle is queen of grimdark. I won’t argue it. This is a very dark book. Continue reading →
I’m involved in a conversation on Twitter in which the DAW Year’s Best Fantasy Stories series came up. The series was originally edited by Lin Carter followed by Arthur W. Saha. I’ve got most of them. I was thinking about reading through them and reviewing. Things should lighten up for a bit in about two weeks, once finals are over and I’ve gotten my grades in. I think I’ll have a little time.
But then I got to thinking. I’ve got several anthology series that might be of interest to readers of this blog. There’s the Swords Against Darkness edited by Andrew Ouffutt, Whispers (Stuart David Schiff), Shadows (Charles L. Grant), and Karl Edward Wagner’s Year’s Best Horror Stories from DAW.
I had been toying with the idea of reading through another DAW series, Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories when John O’Neill invited me to blog about the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series. I haven’t ruled that one out, but it’s probably not one I want to tackle right now.
So what do you think? Would you like to see a series of posts on one of these anthology series? If so, which one?
Today marks the anniversaries of two favorite writers, men who are no strangers to readers of Adventures Fantastic or fans of classic pulp and adventure literature. They are Rafael Sabatini and Jack Williamson. Plus a third pulpster whose work I’ve not read much of yet. Continue reading →
If you’ve followed this blog, you may remember me mentioning the Kickstarter for this publication. Well, it’s out now, and the second issue is in production.
I think the editor Howard Andrew Jones and his team have set the bar pretty high with this inaugural issue. It’s modeled after the old pulp magazines. I think this approach is a success. The illustrations, fan club index, and the editorial by Jones all complement the most important aspect of the magazine, the stories. Continue reading →
In the comments of this year’s Henry Kuttner birthday post, Sara mentioned the story “Design for Dreaming”, published in the February 1942 issue of Unknown Worlds. I thought I had read that story. I hadn’t, as it turned out. I was thinking about a different story. “Design for Dreaming” has never been reprinted.
Fortunately, about 19 years or so ago, I bought a ten issue run on Unknown/Unknown Worlds in a single, library-bound volume. One of the best investments I’ve ever made.
That issue is included in the run. So I read “Design for Dreaming”.
I also want to read some Robert E. Howard. Howard Days starts in less than a week. I’m really looking forward to it, even though I think there have been more triple digit temperature days in the last few weeks than not.
