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Well, thanks for introducing me to the following authors: C.L. Moore
the art of Virgil Finlay and reading Gygax's fiction was fun, as was rediscovering Silverberg and some of the Moorcock. I hope PS makes a return sometime.
all good things must come to an end, I suppose
Incidentally, great name for an indie rock band: incoming inventory.
Thank you Sara. Yeah...but July?
Anyone know why Amazon and Bookdepository have pushed the publication date on this back to July all of a sudden?
Still not complaining.
Is that the final cover in the end? I'm not complaining if it is.
Yes, its Stark and the Star Kings. There is also an (out of print) collection called Martian Quest which you may be able to find, also excellent. Haffner also do some Kuttner which is good fun.
Aargh! Nice to see that PS is not dead post-Silverberg though, as I was starting to fear. I wasn't sure about 3 Silverberg collections in a row - and I'm still not, to a degree - but Space-Witch was pretty good, and Planet Killers is on its way now, and I am really looking forward to it. I wonder what that Kuttner collection was like? Its funny, there is actually a little bit of Kuttner & Moore floating about, its just (for the most part) somewhat expensive. I can certainly see a great pulp collection volume out of what I have read, throwing in a little Moore too.
Huh, and once again Amazon alleges that this will be published in Jan 2012. They seem to have Chalice of Death out in late November though. All very strange.
Nice to see...now I just have to go pester bookdepository to get it in stock...
Is there a particular reason this is showing up on Amazon and Bookdepository as not released until Jan 2012, or is it a glitch somewhere?Amazon seem to like making up dates. However, I'm surprised they don't actually *have* this, because it's been out since May. We'll look into it. Thanks for that!
Is there a particular reason this is showing up on Amazon and Bookdepository as not released until Jan 2012, or is it a glitch somewhere?
Well, it looks like Haffner Press have picked up Wellman's complete Thunstone, so I assume this is off the PS radar for now.
I missed Brackett/Hamilton's Stark and the Star Kings until today. Is it worth the 45$US? Ouch. And it's huge! I'd like to hear more about this from folks who've read it (sans significant spoilers). Is it good? Yes. This a more mature Hamilton, pretty darn good space opera. And Brackett of course is always excellent, even if I have already read an expanded version of two of the three novellas here. They are pretty different actually. Is it the best use of $45? Depends on how much spare cash you have.
Yeah, it was good stuff. Does anyone know if Poul Anderson ever read "Day of the Conquerors"? It reminded me of The High Crusade, but was written a bit earlier.
I've been looking at bits of old Weird Tales mags - cover, contents and some letter reprinted in the Haffner Edmond Hamilton - and Seabury Quinn seems to have been popular in a very early UF sense. I understand Lovecraft was not a fan, but lets face it, the man had issues with the publishing side of writing, so Quinn may be worth thinking about bringing back to the masses.
Night Shade Books have just finished off a hardbound 5-volume complete works, but there are a lot of cheaper short story collections out there, if you look.
I didn't mind the "primitive" look of the placeholder cover, but this final one looks really nice. Is PS going back to two-column text and interior art on this one?This one is single-column, with no interior art. Hmm, I thought if nothing else there might have been old pulp illustrations to reprint, but thats good to know at least.
I didn't mind the "primitive" look of the placeholder cover, but this final one looks really nice. Is PS going back to two-column text and interior art on this one?
Elak of Atlantis is as good sword & sorcery as any. Well worth a look.
Thanks for that update - Hok the Mighty sounds fantastic.
So it appears we have Hok the Mighty pushed back to Feb '11, and then a pair of Silverberg volumes - Hunt the Space-Witch and The Planet Killers. Any news on what's up after that - one more Silverberg sometime, I assume - in the second half of 2011?
Well, to be fair, Sojan is not really a novella so much as a collection of loosely interconnected chapters of a few pages each. Sojan seems to get hit on the head from behind a lot (invest in a helmet!) and rescued by some variety of deus ex machina (even offscreen sometimes). The best bit is the pastiche of HPL and REH's Tower of the Elephant that happens when Sojan crosses the Demon Sea and visits the isle of Rhan. Apart from that...well, its pretty good for a 15 year old. A lot better than the 14 year old Mieville in Before they were Giants. I don't know how much rewriting Moorcock did; I assume not a lot. I'm up to Warrior Star now; hopefully that will be better.
I remember reading about Sojan the Shieldbearer about 25 years ago, and thats all. It will be interesting to see what Moorcock has done to the story with 45 years or so to think about it.
Miracle in three dimensions - a CL Moore collection - has a nice little short story set on Venus called "There Shall be Darkness" which is really superb. The best in the collection, I think. It would make a nice package with Clash by Night and a few other old stories, but to an extent that splits the market far too much - Haffner Press' Detour to Otherness looks nice, but I pretty much have all of it already, in various forms.
Spider Robinson's story was probably my favourite, Salvatore did better work than I expected - it was nice to read something unpretensious (although its a stretch to call it SF). Stross' The Boys was good until the end, and Ginungagap was pretty good SF.
Did I read that right, and that this is first of three Silverberg collections for 2011? Out of 6 PS books for the year? Still, it does look interesting.
I've just started this now, and only realised 30 pages in that the book is not in two-column with line art format. So is PS being revamped again, or is it just a we'll see how each book would be best treated sort of thing?
James Malizewski tricked me into it, and now I am waiting for The Last Enchantment later this year. Also, back to W&W - after Virgil Finaly art in Ship of Ishtar, dont bother if you cant get good art.
In the face of all the glory being heaped on Cook's The Walrus and the Warwolf, I feel compelled to add an opposing opinion. Simply put, I'm finding it really hard to understand the love for this book and I've put it down for Many Wade Wellman. The narrative is like reading a sociopath's stream of consciousness acid dream. I'll give Cook a little credit as a writer for being able to make a story seem completely disjointed even when it is not. Unfortunately, I found nothing remotely compelling about any character or their story. Finally, when it came down to make sport of rape, I just couldn't continue. I can understand appreciating the novelty of the narrative but, really, this just isn't a book for me and it won't be going on my shelf. Yep, I really did not enjoy this book a great deal either. The characters were cartoons, the plot rambling. The dialogue was occasionally funny, but too often missed the mark completely. The book just ...ended... all at once, either 25 pages too soon or 200 pages too late, depending. In addition, I dont think I really found any of the characters at all likeable, save perhaps Jon Arabin. Faced with all that, when a few sentences/paragrapsh/pages went missing around the last 2-3 illustrations, I was not terribly worried that I was missing anything. One last thing - is it just me, or does Drake shrug off a bodkin in the testicles with no lasting ill effect, or complaint? I would have thought that might have had a bit of an impact on Drake, but its like it must have been in a dream because it happens, and is then ignored. So, two stars for me. This stuff is not really why I subscribed to Planet Stories.
Actually, I liked the other cover better. Also the other Matthew Hughes cover. They looked more like the old pulps. By calling them 'Planet Stories', you are invoking the old pulps. By throwing a modern cover on the book you lose that feel. I'm also not happy about the missing pages. Missing pages?
I did love this book. I think my favourite phrase was "things that don't have a hankering to be bothered" or words to that effect. So much of the language made me think of Firefly, I'm not sure I can see anyone other than Captain Mal as SIlver John in my head.
Yeah, I was wondering about that cryptic note also. I'd be surprised if it was REH though (even given Almuric has already been published). I assume it ties in to the big announcement in the next week or so.
That reminds me I need to Amazon up the Skaith trilogy. I can understand, a little, how Kuttner is largely overlooked these days. But for the Skaith stuff, written mid-70's, to be forgotten by the mass market, is an absolute tragedy.
I did like it, but not as much as I expected to. The punctuation drove me insane - too many dashes and exclamations! - which just jarred throughout the book. I hoped I would get used to it, but I did not. If I ever see the phrase "Possess - Sharane!" again I will cry just a little. I can see what Merrit was doing with the tempo of the language at the time, but that does not mean I like it. The Virgil Finlay illustrations are uniformly superb. Completely different in style to Aubrey Beardsley, but just as unique and striking.
Well, I threw up a review on Amazon: I did like it, but it wasn't as great as I was expecting (bar the Finlay artwork, which is superb). 3 stars was about right - out of all the Planet Stories I have read, this was maybe the one I have enjoyed the least, although I have yet to pick up the Moorcock stories. I loved Kuttner and Brackett, and enjoyed C.L.Moore's prose, while realising that like rich food, a little Moore goes a long way. In the end, the exclamation marks and dashes were just too much - it kept dragging me out of the story every time I saw a "Possess - Sharane!" line in the text. I know it was a deliberate attempt to create a storytelling rhythm, but it just grated on me too much. I can see the tale in my head - it would make a great movie, and I am surprised no one has apparently tried - but the punctuation broke me.
Well, I decided to subscribe - I can manage the shipping in the end, and I'll pick up the back catalogue over time. Looking forward to Ship of Ishtar.
What, no love for "Doc" Smith and the Lensman series? Space opera at its best! A bit too much power creep over the course of the novels as I recall, but it was close on 20 years ago I read them now. Certainly the story keeps moving along.
Guys - I'd love to take out a subscription, having read the Kuttner and Moore stuff, and starting to enjoy Brackett. Here's the thing: living in the arse-end of the world makes shipping tough. If I can combine cleaning up the backorder of older titles with subecription orders for a while, thats great (but I dont know if your systems can handle an order "on hold" for a while). Once I chew that up though, I'm happy to take an order shipment every 3-4 books to cut the shipping rate - is that possible? |
