16Nov Reviews For, Well, the Last Ten Months
My last series of reviews was back in January (it was meant to be monthly). I'd like to blame covid, but alas, it's mere forgetfulness. Anyway, on with it.BooksI've read a good 60 books since January, so it's going to be tricky to narrow it down. I'll start with the…
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08Jan Reviews for January 2020
BooksThe GoodDecember never bore much good fruit for me. Perhaps the best was The State of the Art, by Iain M. Banks. Odd Attachment is a truly funny short story, and Descendant is quite moving. Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold was middling, an excellent start to a novel or trilogy, but not…
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08May The Greatest Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Writers to Ever Have Lived, with Rock-Solid Proof
Heads Up: Don't take this too seriously, I think, perhaps, it's primarily nonsense pitted with opinion and anecdote. But hey, it's the 21st Century. So it goes.The IdeaDo you know who's a better fantasy writer than Tolkien? Terry Pratchett. That's a fact*. Also, H.G. Wells is a terrible writer (see…
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18Oct Detail from The Invisible Man
Detail from the first edition of The Invisible Man, one of H.G. Wells' best known works. I'm going to say third best-known book after War of the World and Time Machine, but before The Island of Dr Moreau and First Men in the Moon. The Invisible Man was Wells' fifth…
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01Jul What Are Association Copies?
What is an association copy?An association copy can often be the pinnacle of collecting for a particular book. A book is designated an association copy if it was owned, at some time, by someone associated with the book. This can be somewhat tenuous, and the less tenuous the association the…
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08Jan Matrix Collecting - An Alternative Method of Book Collecting
When I dismantled and sold my first collection nearly a decade ago it was nearly a decade old. When I look back, it was an unruly collection, with more than a smidgen of simple amassing. It was my first collection and I enjoyed it immensely. I enjoyed receiving the books.…
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30Sep Collecting Arkham House and H.P. Lovecraft First Editions
// An introduction to our 'Collecting Arkham and Lovecraft' category in the ideas section above (here) //One of our most common requests is for books published by Arkham House, often specifically with an interest in H. P. Lovecraft. Let's just a look at a background of the two, and their…
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