Search Results for: book club

New Treasures: Warhammer 40,000: Lord of the Dark Millennium: The Dan Abnett Collection

Comments 1 comment

Cover by Ignacio Bazan-Lazcano Recently I’ve been listening to a host of audiobooks on Amazon’s Audible service. I’ve enjoyed Craig Davidson’s The Saturday Night Ghost Club, Martha Wells’ All Systems Red, Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim, and the first two volumes of S.K. Dunstall’s terrific Linesman trilogy. But the best one so far, an audio drama that kept me absolutely riveted for four days, was Dan Abnett’s Warhammer 40,000 novel The Magos, narrated by the great Toby Longworth. Half story collection, half novel,…

Read More Read More

The Ash-Tree Anthologies, edited by Barbara Roden and Christopher Roden

Comments 7 comments

Covers by Jason Van Hollander Ash-Tree Press was a highly respected small press publisher of ghostly fiction. It was founded in Ashcroft, British Columbia, in 1994 by Christopher and Barbara Roden, and over the next 20 years produced 160+ collections, anthologies and novels of supernatural fiction, mostly reprints. They published volumes by M. R. James, H. R. Wakefield, A. M. Burrage, David G. Rowlands, Richard Marsh, Robert W. Chambers, E. F. Benson, Margery Lawrence, Marjorie Bowen, Alice Askew and Claude…

Read More Read More

The Golden Age of Science Fiction: The 1973 Ditmar Award for Best Australian Fiction: “Let It Ring,” by John Ossian

Comments 1 comment

Infinity Three, edited by Robert Hoskins (Lancer Books, 1972). Cover by Jim Steranko 1973 was the fifth year of the Ditmars, awarded in Australia. I have already covered the Ditmars for International Fiction (The Gods Themselves) and for Australian Fanzine (Bruce Gillespie’s SF Commentary.) The Award for Best Australian Fiction went, curiously, to a short story, “Let It Ring”, by “John Ossian”. “John Ossian” was a pseudonym for the very well-known Australian fan and critic, John Foyster. The other nominees…

Read More Read More

The Joy of Starter Kits, Part Two

Comments 26 comments

Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set Second Edition, edited by Tom Moldvay (TSR, 1981). Cover by Erol Otis. I often wonder how new players discover role playing these days. I mean, I know how it happens in theory. You’re introduced to the concept through video games, or friends, or a gaming club, or maybe Stranger Things. The whole thing sounds pretty cool. Eventually you take the plunge and shell out for a set of hardcover rule books and dice, and become a genuine…

Read More Read More

All the Leftovers: The Early Asimov by Isaac Asimov

Comments 7 comments

The Early Asimov (Doubleday, 547 pages, $10 in hardcover, September 1972) By Isaac Asimov Cover by Barry Kiperman This is a book I’d never read before, and debated recently about whether to ever read it. On the one hand, life is too short to read every book one might have accumulated, and this book consists, frankly, of all the stories from Asimov’s early career that had not already been included in 10 earlier collections — all the leftovers. (Those 10…

Read More Read More

Blogging Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu, Part Nine

Comments 7 comments

Master of Kung Fu Annual #1 was a reworking of what would have been Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu #5 had Marvel’s short-lived line of quarterly publications not been prematurely discontinued. As it stands it was the only King-Size Annual Marvel published for the series. Marvel Annuals were generally a mixed bag and this is no exception. A few select ones offered truly special longer stories which were a delight for loyal readers, but most were either hurriedly produced or…

Read More Read More

The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Alexis Gilliland

Comments 1 comment

The Best Fan Artist category was not one of the original Hugo categories in 1953, not introduced until 1967, when it was won by Jack Gaughan. The award has been presented every year since then. Gilliland was nominated for the Hugo every year between 1978 and 1985, winning that award in 1980 and for three years running from 1983 to 1985. While several fan artists have won the award more times than Gilliland, his three year streak ties those of…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Re-Birth (The Chrysalids) by John Wyndham

Comments 4 comments

Cover by Michael Herring In the 1950s, Ballantine Books reprinted much of John Wyndham’s science fiction in the US with memorable covers by Richard Powers, including The Kraken Wakes (1953), The Chrysalids (1955), Tales of Gooseflesh and Laughter (1956), Trouble with Lichen (1960), and The Infinite Moment (1961). In the process they also made up new names for it, because, you know, America. So The Kraken Wakes became Out of the Deeps, and The Chrysalids became Re-Birth. In the mid-70s, which was when…

Read More Read More

Mindhunter: A Bloodless Noir about Serial Killers

Comments 2 comments

All genres have their tropes that get returned to again and again. Historians write about the Civil War and World War II and the Civil War; singers write about breakups. For crime shows, serial killers represent the genre’s bottomless well. Netflix’s Mindhunter seeks to explore that vein as deeply as possible, and in the process creates television’s quietest noir. FBI Special Agents Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) are the founders of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit,…

Read More Read More