Mailbag: Christmasbooksapalooza!

I went nuts this past Christmas spending all my money on a stack of virtual books that, much as I would love to, I know I won't finish this year. It is a nice assortment of fiction and non-fiction. Only one's a book I've read before and several are by authors I haven't read yet all.

This is the sequel to the wonderful Goblin Moon (which I reviewed at Black Gate). I already have it, by its original title, The Gnome's Engine, in paperback, but this is cheap and has a couple of short stories set in the same universe.

Another volume of Langdon St. Ives' adventures from one of the creators of steampunk.

I like Stoddard's site a lot and I figured, since I just bought The High House, why not buy the rest? 

More spooky short stories from the author of the good and brutal Charlie Parker spooky crime novels.

A novella from the best American horror writer. The blurb on the back, referring to assassin schools in the Himalayas and a space probe "accidentally" launched into a wormhole were enough to make me hit the "buy now" button.

Keene writer gonzo horror, Charles Rutledge recommends it, and with that cover how long could I really hold off buying it?

I've become interested in 18th and 19th century nautical warfare, so this looked to be a good intro. So far, it's very good.

Napoleon's Vietnam. Bloody, vicious grind for six years, that led the Corsican to call it the "Spanish Ulcer," as it cause a steady erosion of his resources and prestige.

A conflict I'm fascinated by and have never found a book that adequately untangles its complexities for me. At times both a war over real religious beliefs and over which power would hold sway over Germany. A terrible war with consequences that effected Europe for centuries.

EPIC: Some Last Notes on The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

After nearly forty years of not reading them, I've finally finished The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I tried to read Lord Foul's Bane a couple of time back in my youth, but Covenant's character and Donaldson's prose threw me off. They're still hard to handle, but the reward is rich and worth the work, something younger me couldn't be bothered with.

If I haven't been clear enough in my three Black Gate reviews, these books are great and powerful. If you haven't read them, you should. You will by turns be disgusted with, hate, and rage at Thomas Covenant. As Sarah Avery commented, when she first read, them she wanted to throw them against the wall multiple times. If you stick with them, though, you will encounter storytelling of scope and power rarely seen in genre fantasy, especially these days.

Somehow, the Castalia House blog picked up the review of The Illearth War as part of their "Pink Slime Watch." The implication is that it's the sort of weak, derivative fantasy that proliferated in the post-Shannara days and seriously lessened the overall quality of the genre. Tom 

I'm a big fan of the Castalia blog. Jeffro's Appendix N articles are stellar, and I really like the wargame articles. But to lump Donaldson in with Terry Brooks, and all the crap that flowed downward after him is just plain wrong. Putting Thomas Covenant alongside Drizzzzzzzt implies a lack of actual familiarity with these books. These books are complex, adult explorations of guilt, redemption, and heroism (among other things), using the fantasy genre to make the story operatic, MYTHICAL. And without giving anything away, Donaldson comes down pretty strongly on the side of taking action and being a hero. He just wants to point out those things can come with a steep price. 

John R. Fultz commented the other day on my Black Gate review of The Illearth War that:

In a very real way, Donaldson’s humanizing of Tolkien’s basic themes set the tone for the gritty, realism-drenched fantasies of today.

I think that's a true statement, but sadly the doors were opened for far more bad books than good ones. I'm not going to rehash the grimdark wars again, but so much of the fiction being peddled as such is just an excuse to drape easy cynicism and ultra-violence in a mantle of worldy insight into the miserable reality of life, the universe, and everything. 

Creating a world of gray and gray morality filled with characters hued in wondrous shades of gray is no deep insight. Personally, I think it's a childish one that should only sound insightful to a college freshman. There's nothing gray in Thomas Covenant's world. His world, in fact, it's a pretty black and white one, it's just that even good actions can have terrible consequences. It's a much more nuanced and realistic vision, something missing in most of today's supposedly more "realistic" fantasy. 

Finally, for anyone who has read these books I can't stress enough about checking out Fantasy Bedtime Hour. For nearly five years, two women, in bed, read, puzzled over, and created wonderfully low-rent recreations of Lord Foul's Bane. Each episode also feature conversations with experts. The last two episodes' expert is none other than Donaldson himself. I haven't watched them all yet, but the ones I have are priceless.

Mr. K's Used Books, Music, and More

The luminous Mrs. V. and I just finished a whirlwind road tour of the Deep South (NY to St. Augustine to New Orleans to Vicksburg to Charleston to back home). The last thing we did before beginning what was supposed to be a ten hour plus drive straight through to Staten Island from Charleston, we stopped at Mr. K's Used Books. Wow, I didn't think places like this existed.

Here in NYC, even the paperback book traders are pretty much all gone. Skyrocketing rents and the competition from online sellers and e-books did them in. And, truth be told, most of them aren't too much of a loss. The really good used books stores were far off in Providence and distant parts of New Jersey. Anyone who ever tells you how great the Strand is isn't a person who buys genre books. The store's selection is pretty poor.

Mr. K's is a bookstore dream come true. Its selection in every genre is large and fairly comprehensive. While newer books tend to predominate, each section (especially mysteries) has a decent selection of older books. And the prices are great. Norton Critical Editions (books I pick up used whenever I come across decent copies) sell for $6 and under, a very good price. The prices I saw on mass market editions ranged from as little as $1.50 to $5 for rarer paperback originals. Hardcovers looked to priced the same way.

And, as the title implies, they don't only sell used books. They have a huge selection of CDs, and DVDs. The place is huge to the point of being overwhelming, which is great. 

And despite all my praise, I only made a few purchases (while Mrs. V. picked up a stack of decorating and art books, and mysteries). But what purchases they were. And I only found one of them, my wife found the others.

Mrs. V. spotted both the three-disc The Sabata Trilogy and Lin Carter's Imaginary Worlds. The first was on a shelf of new arrivals and the second was shelved in the literary criticism.

The last thing I got was on a whim. I was skimming the Political Thriller section when the Len Deighton books caught my eye. I've only read a couple of his books (the searing Bomber and the Hitler-Wins-thriller SS-GB), but I've always meant to read The Ipcress File. And now I've got a nice copy for under two bucks. Even if it stinks, who cares?

And that's what I most loved about the old days roaming around used book stores. Of course I wanted to find that perfect (and underpriced) copy of a Ballantine Adult Fantasy book, but it was taking a chance on something completely new. That's a lot harder now and I'm probably never going to spend money on a brand new book without a real serious recommendation from someone I really trust. In the past, I could go to the Book Pit in Red Bank, NJ, and fill up a shopping bag of horror books with cool covers, mysteries that looked nicely off-kilter, and all sorts of classic sci-fi I had never gotten around to reading.

So, if you have the chance, check out Mr. K's. They also have several other locations: Greenville, SC, Asheville, NC, and Johnson City and Oak Ridge, TN. If you get the chance, definitely stop in.

More Worlds Fantastic and Strange

A few years ago I wrote a piece titled Worlds Fantastic and Strange fantasy maps. Just this past Tuesday, I wrote a sequel over at Black Gate called Guides to Worlds Fantastic and Strange with more ruminations on maps at the front of fantasy books. 

The thing about maps and fantasy is there's an endless supply of them, at least it seems that way. So, here's a bunch of especially good ones.

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P.C. Hodgell's maps of Rathilien. Hodgell's an artist from a family of artists. Her maps are clean and elegant, with attractive fonts for the titles. There are also detailed 3-d style maps of various buildings in many of the books as well. Good stuff. 

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Pauline Baynes, illustrator of the Narnia books, also ended up doing artwork for several of Tolkien's books. She did gorgeous maps of both author's worlds. Both of these would make wonderful wall posters (hey, that's an idea).

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Drawn by Cliff Bird for REHupa #34 in 1978, I wish this map of Charles Saunder's Nyumbani had an outline of modern Africa behind it just like the one of Hyboria. Alas, it doesn't, and we just have to enjoy it for what it is: a guide to Imaro's travels. If that's not good enough for you, I've got nothing else to say.

Last Year and This Year

This past year was a haphazard one here at Swords & Sorcery: A Blog. First I tried to review all of Chaosium's Cthluhu Mythos anthologies, but Lin Carter killed that for me. Really, it was just too much of too much of the same stuff over and over again. To get to the really good stories I had to wade through lots of meh, to lousy, to hair-torn-out-at-the-roots bad stories. So after only a few volumes that whole business crashed and burned.

Then, in reaction to reading nothing but fantasy and being driven nuts by the state of the nation and the world, I turned to the Long 19th Century Project. While it crashed and burned as well, I will still go back to it. 

The rise of Western Imperialism and its attendant wars is one of the most compelling and interesting periods of world history. The great powers of today, save China, were forged into their modern versions during this era: industrialized America and Japan, Germany and Italy both united, Russia's completion of its southward and westward expansion, England and France chopping up Africa. 

My problem was I went overboard, trying to cram a vast stack of of books into my brain too quickly. I will definitely return to this in the coming year, just not with as concentrated attention, probably no more than a book or two at a time, but I will return.

Finally, there was, and still is, EPIC. It's going to be around at least until I finish the several series I've already started reviewing: First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Riddle-Master of Hed, and Fionavar. I need to read the next Kencyrath book from P.C. Hodgell, To Ride A Rathorn. Heck, I might even throw another Shanarra book in just for the heck of it. If I can think of anymore good stand-alones like Red Moon and Black Mountain I read/review them as well.

Then there are the reviews I've been asked to do (or will be shortly). The next Charles Saunders book should show up soon (oh, yeah!), a Gonji collection. Some other things I don't even know what they are yet.

And, as I've been doing for several years now, my short story reviews. I really don't read much new fantasy except in bite-size form, which suits me just fine. I get to read a wider array of authors, styles, and encounter dozens more ideas in a stack of doorstoppers. 

I do read a few books, mostly by people I know now, but very little of the popular stuff the kids are digging. With their terrible photo-realistic covers and their monstrous thickness and endless sequels, they just don't catch my eye. I need to read from people whose taste run similar to mine that a new book's good for me to chance it. I'm turning fifty this year, so I'm allowed to be crotchety.

And, of course, other posts about things that catch my fancy. Genre related things just not necessarily about a specific book or story, though they could be. You know, whatever.

I hope nobody got too bored or frustrated with my rapidly changing interests here during the last year. I like to believe I'm providing decent value (or amusement) for your dollar. I hope everyone sticks with me for the next twelve months. I don't know what it'll really bring, but I'm still having fun here and at Black Gate, so I with any luck that'll be apparent in what I write. Here's hoping, and a Happy New Year to everybody!

Mail Bag - pre-Christmas presents to myself

The e-book revolution continues as more and more books long out of print come on line. There's a long list of titles tucked in the back of my brain, of books I want to read but never found a copy of. Usually it's because they're out of print. Problem is, that list is old and rarely consulted. I need something to trigger it. So I have to wait for some random event to remind me I'm supposed to be keeping an eye open for a title and then look to see if it's available at some reasonable price. That little mental "ping" I'm listening for went off twice in the last month.

The first time was for James Stoddard's The High House. I've been curious about this one since Howard Andrew Jones wrote about it this past summer. Tooling around the net looking for other people's comments on Joy Chant's Red Moon and Black Mountain I came across Stoddard's site and saw The High House (and its sequel The False House) was now out as an e-book. So I bought it. Haven't started it yet, but am very curious.

The other e-book I snagged is MAR Barker's The Man of Gold. The prompt for this one came when I was reading some stuff about James Maliszewski's Empire of the Petal Throne magazine, The Excellent Travelling Volume. I've always been curious about EofPT. Even though most reviews of the book emphasize it's kind of dull, they all point out, it's a great introduction to the mad inventiveness of Tékumel. So I bought it. At $5.99 it's a really "Why not?" situation.

The last book is different. By the recently retired Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, it's The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretative History of Russian Culture. With an eye more to cultural history, it looks at Russia from the founding of Kiev, Moscow's ascendancy, and finally to the Revolution and the Soviet Union. Published in 1970, I expect it will feel a little truncated today. 

This was referenced in one of the laudatory reviews I've read of the recent novel, Laurus by the Russian author Eugene Vodolazkin. It's about a Russian holy man in the Middle Ages and sounds great, but I think I'll benefit from a better grounding in the period before reading it. 

I've read the long sample of Billington's book offered by Amazon and loved it, so I think I might get to this book sooner as opposed to later. 

EPIC: The Riddle-Master of Hed Preview

From all I've ever heard or read, Patricia McKillip is a tremendously talented author. Based solely on the three books of the Riddle-Master trilogy I have to agree. Based on her twenty-two other books, I have no idea. I've read the trilogy several times over the past thirty-five years but I have not read anything else by her, which is pretty sad. Some of them look really good. Oh, well, too many books too little time.

My mom took them out for my dad from the YA-section in the St. George Library back in 1979. She thought he'd like them and she turned out to be right. I only read them when he got his own paper back copies from the Barrett Book Trader. I would venture a guess that he read them half a dozen times from then until his death in 2001. I think I've read them three times. While I'm only a little way into the first book I'm finding it as engaging and well done as I remember it. It's always pleasant to find out a book enjoyed years ago holds up to changed tastes and age.