{"id":684,"date":"2006-09-27T00:23:48","date_gmt":"2006-09-27T04:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/09\/27\/bookish-links-of-the-day\/"},"modified":"2006-09-27T08:43:46","modified_gmt":"2006-09-27T12:43:46","slug":"bookish-links-of-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/27\/bookish-links-of-the-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Bookish links of the day"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Rick Kleffel has really been burning it up over at <a href=\"http:\/\/trashotron.com\/agony\/index.htm\">The Agony Column<\/a>. There&#8217;s been some really top quality stuff there over the last couple of days, including: A lengthy <a href=\"http:\/\/trashotron.com\/agony\/news\/2006\/09-18-06.htm#091806\">interview with Naomi Novik<\/a><footnote>I think I wanted her to sound like Patrick O&#8217;Brian or something.<\/footnote> (<a href=\"http:\/\/trashotron.com\/agony\/audio\/naomi_novik_2006.mp3\">mp3<\/a>), A lengthy <a href=\"http:\/\/trashotron.com\/agony\/news\/2006\/09-25-06.htm#092506\">interview with Charles Stross<\/a><footnote>&#8230;who does not sound &#8220;Scottish enough&#8221; to me. I wanted him to sound like Gavin Grant when he&#8217;s been at the bottle.<\/footnote> (<a href=\"http:\/\/trashotron.com\/agony\/audio\/charles_stross_2006.mp3\">mp3<\/a>), and a review of the why-isn&#8217;t-it-here-yet <a href=\"http:\/\/trashotron.com\/agony\/news\/2006\/09-18-06.htm#091906\">new Tim Powers novella<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.marthawells.com\/\">Martha Wells<\/a> has started <a href=\"http:\/\/marthawells.livejournal.com\/83057.html\">online serialization<\/a> of her debut novel <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marthawells.com\/element.htm\">The Element of Fire<\/a>. I&#8217;m quite a fan of hers&#8211;I&#8217;m not going to start on my &#8220;publishers in collusion with the large chain buyers are killing promising midlist writers&#8221; rant here, but I want you to know I am only barely restraining myself&#8211;and I&#8217;m delighted to have the chance to point people to this. Many of you reading this were given copies of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marthawells.com\/death.htm\">The Death Of The Necromancer<\/a> by me. I&#8217;m actually following the serialization myself, since she&#8217;s updated the text slightly.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/storms.typepad.com\/booklust\/2005\/01\/reading_is_sexy.html\">The Kama Sutra of Reading<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Well, there\u2019s drug-addicted space vampires. One drug-addicted space vampire, anyway. Except he\u2019s only in space because we brought him with us. I would like to think that I have conjured up the most rigorously-plausible biological rationale for vampires yet devised by a hack writer.&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/memetherapy.net\/02\/science-fiction-author-peter-watts\/\">Meme Therapy interviews<\/a> author <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/\">Peter Watts<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Even though some of the way <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Travis_McGee\">Travis McGee<\/a> interacts with women hasn&#8217;t aged well, I think <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kirjasto.sci.fi\/jdmacd.htm\">John D. Macdonald<\/a> is still likely the best storyteller America produced in the 20th century. Here&#8217;s a <a href=\"http:\/\/therapsheet.blogspot.com\/2006\/07\/color-him-memorable.html\">link to some links about him<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/therapsheet.blogspot.com\/\">The Rap Sheet<\/a>. <\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkicon.com\/lovecraft.htm\">The Random H.P. Lovecraft Story Generator<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Apparently the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkicon.com\/lovecraft.htm\">number of attempts to get libraries to ban books went down last year<\/a>. I guess that&#8217;s a &#8220;yay!&#8221;, even if the absolute number of attempts is still ridiculously high. As a gesture of protest against the banners, go <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/googlebooks\/banned\/\">browse 42 banned-at-some-time &#8220;great books&#8221;<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/googlebooks\">Google&#8217;s Book Search<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Read a couple of interviews with mystery author <a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertcrais.com\/\">Robert Crais<\/a>. One at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.januarymagazine.com\/profiles\/rcrais.html\">January Magazine<\/a>, and one at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shotsmag.co.uk\/interviews2006\/r_crais\/r_crais.html\">Shots<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Is a silver gravy pot suddenly worth \u00a32,100 b<a href=\"http:\/\/books.guardian.co.uk\/news\/articles\/0,,1870905,00.html\">ecause Agatha Christie owned it<\/a>?<\/li>\n<li>SFSignal has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsignal.com\/archives\/004219.html\">a reader-generated list of overlooked SF books<\/a>. My reactions are as follows:\n<ul>\n<li>Happy to see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theworksoftimpowers.com\/\">Powers<\/a>&#8211;because some of his later books are better, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theworksoftimpowers.com\/dinner.htm\">Dinner At Deviant&#8217;s Palace<\/a> often gets overlooked. For my money it&#8217;s the best book out there at capturing the way that the self-destructive rock&#8217;n&#8217;roll rebellion can sometimes save the world.<\/li>\n<li>Happy to see <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mary_Gentle\">Gentle<\/a>&#8212;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0575069007\">The Book of Ash<\/a> really rewards a careful reading, and I almost passed on it as I was initially really put off <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mary_Gentle\">Gentle<\/a> by starting with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0593019563\">Grunts<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Happy to see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kwjeter.com\/\">Jeter<\/a>&#8211;For every 10 <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Philip_K._Dick\">PKD<\/a> fans, there&#8217;s one person who knows (and loves) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theworksoftimpowers.com\/\">Powers<\/a>. For every 5 people who know <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theworksoftimpowers.com\/\">Powers<\/a> there&#8217;s one person who knows (and loves) <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_Blaylock\">Blaylock<\/a>. And, for every 5 <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_Blaylock\">Blaylock<\/a> fans, there might be one person who is familiar with the third point of the post-Dick triangle: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kwjeter.com\/\">K.W. Jeter<\/a>. It&#8217;s a shame, because his works can be really excellent, as shown by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsite.com\/01a\/noir48.htm\">Noir<\/a>. (Actually, in a broader sense <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kwjeter.com\/\">Jeter<\/a> might be the best known of the four, since he also has written Star Wars\/Blade Runner\/Star Trek novels, and probably has a larger audience through them than the others do&#8211;but that doesn&#8217;t count as far as I&#8217;m concerned.)<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s really time for me to investigate <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William_Hope_Hodgson\">Hodgson<\/a>, isn&#8217;t it? I&#8217;ve been putting it off in a (probably vain) attempt to avoid needing to buy <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nightshadebooks.com\/author.aspx?authorid=8&#038;searchtype=author\">another set of books<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nightshadebooks.com\">Nightshade<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Similarly, I probably should revisit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0803280041\">A Voyage To Arcturus<\/a>, which I last read at age 13 or so.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Among many things I owe <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dennislehanebooks.com\/\">Dennis Lehane<\/a> for, far and away the biggest is leading me to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.georgepelecanos.com\/\">George Pelecanos<\/a>. God he writes a good novel. The NYT had <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/07\/26\/books\/26pele.html\">a big piece on him<\/a> a while back. I&#8217;ve got a copy of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0316156507\">his new book<\/a> waiting for me, right now, as I write this. Oh, and for those of you who do more TV than novels, Pelecanos is also one of the writers of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hbo.com\/thewire\/\">one of the three best shows on television<\/a>. I got the link to the Times from <a href=\"http:\/\/therapsheet.blogspot.com\/2006\/07\/pelecanos-and-what-it-means-to-write.html\">a piece at The Rap Sheet<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Another author I&#8217;ve been meaning to investigate is <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ernest_Bramah\">Ernest Bramah<\/a>. I keep hearing things about <a href=\"http:\/\/greatsfandf.com\/AUTHORS\/ErnestBramah.php\">the Kai Lung books<\/a>, often in the same breath as people talking about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barryhughart.org\/\">Hughart<\/a>. I&#8217;ve been toying with buying <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wildsidebooks.com\/search.asp?keyword=bramah&#038;search=GO\">the books from Wildside<\/a>, but I think I will just try reading t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/browse\/authors\/b#a529\">he free e-texts from Project Gutenberg<\/a>. If I like them as much as everyone says I will, then I can spring for the Wildside editions. I&#8217;m going to start with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/dirs\/etext98\/klsgh10.txt\">Kai Lung&#8217;s Golden Hours<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.halduncan.com\/\">Hal Duncan<\/a>, author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.ca\/gp\/redirect.html%3FASIN=1405052082%26tag=homosum-20%26lcode=xm2%26cID=2025%26ccmID=165953%26location=\/o\/ASIN\/1405052082%253FSubscriptionId=1D7RNC9A4DZJNRAARVG2\" title=\"Vellum\">Vellum<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/notesfromthegeekshow.blogspot.com\/2006\/09\/magic-101.html\">goes off about his version of magic<\/a>. I suspect Hal and Alan Moore could have a lovely chat about this stuff, and it sure is fun to read, even if it is a bit on the pretentious side. (Actually, that was my reaction to Vellum: full of of lots of really fun ideas, well manipulated, resulting in a very pleasant read, but not quite as clever as it thinks it is.) Some of what he says lines up nicely with my ideas about how you can be a complete rationalist and still enjoy the ideas of chaos magic.<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s another <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsite.com\/lists\/10odd04.htm\">overlooked books list<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsite.com\">SFSite<\/a>. Actually, it&#8217;s one of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsite.com\/10odd01.htm\">list of lists<\/a>. This particular one is of note because I haven&#8217;t read anything on it except the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsite.com\/12a\/qs141.htm\">Whittmore<\/a><footnote>I have, obviously, heard of Peake and Tinniswood, but not much about these particular books.<\/footnote>, and I <strong>really<\/strong> like the Whittmore, so that suggests that these might be new things I would like. It&#8217;s actually pretty rare for me to find things I&#8217;ve never heard of, so that&#8217;s exciting.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">Rick Kleffel has really been burning it up over at The Agony Column. There&#8217;s been some really top quality stuff there over the last couple of days, including: A lengthy interview with Naomi NovikI think I wanted her to sound like Patrick O&#8217;Brian or something. (mp3), A lengthy interview with Charles Stross&#8230;who does not sound &#8220;Scottish enough&#8221; to me. I&hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/27\/bookish-links-of-the-day\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-linkapalooza","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-b2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}