Book, oh, books
Aug. 25th, 2009 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nonionayWas massacred today by the free book box. Even though I'm all, "no more books!" I still have a few exceptions. One of which, at the moment, is awesome short story collections. It looks like some sf fan dumped his collection, and I was there to gather the spoils. I got a bunch of ghost story collections full of old, old writers (Rudyard Kipling, Bram Stoker, etc.) One is, "Ghouls" and focuses on classic monster movie inspirations. I didn't even know Freaks started out as a short story. Vincent Price does the forward, and Christopher Lee the afterword. It's got an ad for True cigarettes in the middle.
Also:
"The Conan Swordbook," a series of essays on heroic fantasy by L. Sprague DeCamp. Someone went overboard with the tracking in that one--the letters overlap each other!
"Approaching Oblivion", by Harlan Ellison (which, now that I look at it, is the one and only Ellison collection I've already read. Dangit. I got it from the library right before my first ever convention, when I figured I should probably read something by the guest of honor that wasn't Babylon 5. I have memories of sitting in the food court of Bellevue Square reading about Yiddish aliens.)
"Billion Year Spree: The True History of Science Fiction" by Brian Aldiss. The cover is set in a beautiful, not-quite-classic-computer font. It's from 1973.
And my favorite: A Treasury of Great Science Fiction, Vol. 2. Forgive me for leaving behind Vol. 1, it didn't have Alfred Bester in it, and wouldn't fit in my bag. The sometime owner, John H. Fredrickson, wrote in the table of contents his opinion of each story. All the authors I recognized (Clarke, Heinlein, Poul Anderson) received a "No!" The Stars My Destination" got an underlined "no." Don't know if that's better or worse than getting an exclamation point.
The latter story is what I'm debating curling up with in bed. On the one hand, I really want to read it, on the other hand, the book owner also had a dog, and every turn of the page wafts hair into the room. I probably should take it into work and use the air blower on it.
Also:
"The Conan Swordbook," a series of essays on heroic fantasy by L. Sprague DeCamp. Someone went overboard with the tracking in that one--the letters overlap each other!
"Approaching Oblivion", by Harlan Ellison (which, now that I look at it, is the one and only Ellison collection I've already read. Dangit. I got it from the library right before my first ever convention, when I figured I should probably read something by the guest of honor that wasn't Babylon 5. I have memories of sitting in the food court of Bellevue Square reading about Yiddish aliens.)
"Billion Year Spree: The True History of Science Fiction" by Brian Aldiss. The cover is set in a beautiful, not-quite-classic-computer font. It's from 1973.
And my favorite: A Treasury of Great Science Fiction, Vol. 2. Forgive me for leaving behind Vol. 1, it didn't have Alfred Bester in it, and wouldn't fit in my bag. The sometime owner, John H. Fredrickson, wrote in the table of contents his opinion of each story. All the authors I recognized (Clarke, Heinlein, Poul Anderson) received a "No!" The Stars My Destination" got an underlined "no." Don't know if that's better or worse than getting an exclamation point.
The latter story is what I'm debating curling up with in bed. On the one hand, I really want to read it, on the other hand, the book owner also had a dog, and every turn of the page wafts hair into the room. I probably should take it into work and use the air blower on it.
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Date: 2009-08-26 04:49 pm (UTC)