Collect, collect, collect...
Saturday, December 01, 2012
Honestly, guv, I haven't been buying books lately. They just fell into my pockets. I don't even know where they came from!
This latest stack of books is pretty much attuned 100% to me. Everything here is Type I or II - either part of an actual collection or becoming very, very close to one.
Michael Coney's Monitor Found in Orbit is a gift (or perhaps a loan-that-may-never-be-returned) from Mark Charan Newton, who cites Coney as a huge influence. I'm only a couple stories in, but I'm seeing the parallel. Sneaky, socially-conscious SF. It is a bit more one-twist, Golden Age magaziney than I normally read, but I like it so far. Plus, DAW paperbacks are definiteily a Type II collection. Especially with Kelly Freas art.*
*Fun fact! I once bought some scraps of Freas art at an auction - literally, just doodles and scrawls and whatnot. I had a mad scheme of identifying what book the art connected to, putting it all together, etc. Two problems: Freas illustrated a billion books and in detail, they're all kind of identical. Oh well.
As something by China Miéville, London's Overthrow is 100% part of a proper collection. Penny (@galoot) got this for us at the Edinburgh conference and I promptly misplaced it. I just found it yesterday whilst going through the infinite boxes of books that are piling up on the landing. Huzzah!
There's a slim possibility that publishing Thy Kingdom Come was all part of an elaborate plot to lure Simon Morden to London so I could get my books signed. Not pictured: a copy of the first Thy Kingdom Come (which came as a CD). My copy of Heart is mysteriously missing the first four pages. Which kind of sucks, but it did merit a little frowny-face doodle from Mr. Morden, which makes it all worthwhile.
You can barely see it, but right underneath London's Overthrow is a copy of Hugh Howey's Wool. I really like this book/series/thing, and, as a collector, I'm a little baffled by what to do. Century have a gorgeous edition coming out next year. But there are also a lot of print on demand editions from the US - they're not still being printed, they're just sort of... lingering. This might be the first case where a POD edition is actually of value? Either way, with Howey coming over next year, I thought I'd stockpile.
The comic book is Lavie Tidhar's Adolf Hitler's I Dream of Ants. Not only do I love Lavie's work, I'm really fond of using the word "Tidhariana". Obviously, must collect. (The comic is wonderfully bonkers. I'm sad the whole thing isn't color.)
Is Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go the most-cited non-winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award? Discuss. My gut feel is... yes. Despite not winning, Never Let Me Go comes up quite a bit as an example of the prize's literary credibility (as it should). Anyway, I've been collecting the Clarke for a couple of years now. Although finding all the winners has been my first priority, when I saw a signed copy of Never Let Me Go going for (way too cheaply) on eBay, I pounced.
The last two books in the pile are Pandemonium titles. See "infinite boxes of books", above - a recent scrounge turned up a dozen copies of Lost Souls and, much to my surprise, a copy of Adam Roberts' An account of a voyage from world to world again, by way of the Moon, 1726. Not sure what to do with it - I suspect it'll wind up as a competition prize when The Lowest Heaven comes out. Maybe. Anyway, it is nice to know that we've somehow hit achieved the level of book clutter wherein we can be surprised by copies of our own books.