@@SciFiScavenger -No worries, I posted before I'd read your comment, I was just watching the clips back and thinking 'Where the hell did Pemberton come from?'
Great haul!! Bruce Pennington is your tip-of-the-tongue cover artist. I was very lucky to be given (free!) an entire collection of over 250 books last Friday, all SF, nearly all A format pbs and nearly all in remarkably good condition, mostly 70s and 80s, some 60s. Several of your books today are also in my recent acquisition. Haul video (or 3 or 4 of em) coming soon.
Very enjoyable video. I’ve read and owned few of those that you have. All of the Jack Vance ones. Over the years, I’ve haunted Troutmark, Cardiff, Ponty Market Books & Brecon Bookshop. Winds of Altair by Ben Bova was a good find. My recent buys are A Ballantine SF Original -Chthon by Piers Anthony (July 1967, 1st edition) and The Prisoner of Zhamark By L. Sprague de Camp(Ace SF book: 1983). Also Helliconia Summer. The Blue World looks V interesting.
I took a look at the books in Ponty market last time I was there in Spring 2022- lots of them, all in appalling condition. I bought a lot of my early seminal SF books new in Pontypridd, my home town, from Menzies, Woolworths, off newsagent rack spinners and 2nd hand from The Yellow Book Shop. All long gone now...
I hate buying from places like World of Books but often roll the dice for the cheap price. I just bought a Leigh Brackett hardcover from one of those places and just pray it arrives with a dust jacket. Doesn't have to be mint, just better be there lol. Great stuff here! A few things to add to my list of things to hunt down.
Yeah, it's just so much of a gamble buying from those kind of sellers, sometimes you're lucky. I love Brackett, but it's hard to find editions with beautiful cover designs, am watching out for some more handsome ones currently.
I'm actually reading Vance's Planet of Adventure at the moment. It's just as you said it is : mostly escapist/action SF, but it is written in Vance's usual scalpel clean prose, which is worth the price of admission in itself IMO. It reads a little bit like a novelization of Clark Ashton Smiths short SF adventure stories....
Hi, thanks for another great video. The only one of these I've read is The Integral Trees which is the first of the series. I enjoyed it, but my memory of it very faint. I bought The Smoke Ring, but it is as yet unread.
A fantastic haul. I know you're not a fan, but just so you know, Equal Rites is the 3rd Discworld book, not Wyrd Sisters. Lovely condition for those editions though.
"Run, Come See Jerusalem " is a 1950s Calypso ballad by Blind Blake Higgs about the 1929 Bahamas Hurricane. I have a signed hardback copy of The Integral Trees somewhere, which was Niven's latest book when he was in Australia in 1985. I hadn't read it beforehand, and didn't particularly enjoy it. Oh well.
Thanks for that, Mike, you know me, always like to know the sources. Re Niven, I'm not really a fan, it's just the warm glow of nostalgia, like I said. Some of these books are part of my history, even the bad ones LOL!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal An interesting contemporary BDO novel to investigate is MARROW by Robert Reed. I don't think it succeeds 100% but for sheer nutty invention it's worth a look. Same for the sequel THE WELL OF STARS.
That is a nice book call! Yesterday I picked up a really nice copy of The Hobbit from 1966 and the cover is actually a drawing from JRR Tolkien when he was writing The Hobbit.
I prefer Tolkien's artwork to his prose if I'm honest- if you look at my Tolkien videos, they are mostly about his artwork and iconography. Does the edition you bought depict Smaug flying, lots of grey pencil marks? If so, I have that one too.
Interesting video Steve. Bruce Pennington is among my favourite cover artists, top 5 certainly, probably top 3. Richard Powers who is on the cover of that de Camp book is my favourite SF illustrator but Pennington or Chris Foss (certainly sentimentally) are next in line. Pennington's cover of the 'Shadow of the Torturer' by Gene Wolfe is my Favourite artwork of all time with that wrap around jacket.. just magic. The Jack Vance Lyonesse books you picked up, I recon you are pretty harsh condition wise. I don't require a mint copy, I'm happy with a merely very good or fine lol. I think they are perfectly acceptable. In general I will accept almost any book over no book, better to have a book you want to upgrade than not have any copy. I'm sure you are aware [maybe even know him] of Joseph Connolly's book, "'Modern First Editions. Their Value To Collectors" from back in the early 1980s (1970s 1st) he has a nice section on book condition, basically (and I'm paraphrasing here) there is Fine, Good, Bad and destroyed, Fine and above means Fine, anything below Fine i.e. very good, is merely good, good and similar means bad and reading copy means destroyed lol. It's quite an amusing section and an interesting book. Even though well out of date it gives a nice perspective of the rarity of books from earlier in the 20th century, even as book whims and desirability has changed since then. But, back to the video at hand, Those Lyonesse books are beautiful. I never really collected any of those Venture publications, I always though they were pulpish (my snobberyishness here) I might be wrong. I never read David Drake, although I bought the hardcover volumes of the complete Hammers Slammers when they published by Night Shade Press 15 years or so ago. (gee time flies). That Malzberg edition, I also have in similar condition, I've never read him, since, I think, I read in one of David Pringles books that he was quite a knotty read - a bit obtuse maybe, but it turned me off of reading him. I've meant to comment of few of your other videos but time flew and I didn't. (part 2 of your best SF, for example, and the glaring omissions haha). BTW this isn't totally my fault, I have all good intentions but I watch UA-cam on my TV but cant comment there and have to go to my computer (or phone - but that's impractical) to comment and then I too forget so ... Anyway good stuff.
Thanks Andrew, glad you're enjoying the channel. Yes, I'm VERY tough on condition, it's one of my key curating standards and I aim to keep it as high as I can. I see a lot of people saying 'mint' about books in very average nick here on UA-cam- and of course if one can only get a reading copy, yes, that's better than none! Venture isn't really me either as I say, but it's the nostalgia factor...I never bought them at the time, not even the Brunner!
I have a friend who loves Hammers Slammers. He was always trying to get me to read it. There's still a war game with miniatures based on the ip which I don't know much about, although I did play Ogre which is I similar theme I think.
Night Walk was great! I think i saw it mentioned on Bookpilled channel and coincidentally picked up a copy not long after. So many interesting ideas in it. Surprised it hasn't been made into a TV series. I then read Vertigo by Shaw, which is a more straightforward and smaller story. It isn't quite as satisfying, feels a little too linear and underdeveloped but is still entertaining. I'll be after more of his work, I just like his style.
I think I recommended Bob Shaw to Matt originally and then he read 'Palace of Eternity' and loved it. I've been reading Shaw since the late 70s and there's a video here a few months back where I review almost all of his career. He was a good author.
Great haul . The only MacDonald i have ( somewhere ) is the SF ? " The Girl , the Gold Watch & Everything " . I believe there is a movie . Seems more fantasy . Speaking of covers 😉 i have Laumers book an ACE with a more eye catching cover . Bye .
Not a bad buckshee book haul, even if, as you said, mostly at the lower end of the literary spectrum. I recall that the selections for the Venture list were made by Rog Peyton of Andromeda Bookshop in Birmingham. I think he had a pretty good eye for the commercial.
Yes, Rog did edit that series, you're right. This was much more LCD than usual for me, the next one will be higher end hardcovers I'd say. Thanks again for your pointers the other day on my research, I have started filming...
I'm a big fan of Lustbader, have read most of his thrillers from the 70s/80s that were put out by Granada/Grafton, most of which I have in hardcover. The first I read was a battered paperback copy of The Ninja my mum picked up for me at a jumble sale. His mix of eastern mysticism and contemporary thriller is pretty unique. If I see one of his books I'll buy it immediately. I enjoyed the Sunset Warrior trilogy but haven't yet read any of his other fantasy novels (or the Bourne ones). Biggle's All The Colours of Darkness was enjoyable but can't remember much else about it now. I remember reading a Malzberg SF book about a gambling system, had a skeletal horse on the cover but can't recall the title.
The Malzberg would have been 'Overlay', one of his most difficult books to read and one he is very fond of himself. I used to sell those Lustbader Granada/Graftons back in the day, good memories.
I really enjoyed this video. It was nice to hear “Today’s Steve” talk about what “Past Steve” liked to read. I think nostalgia is wonderful and I enjoy going back and rereading books that my younger self read. As usual with your videos Steve, I was scribbling like mad while watching to write down titles and authors to check on after watching. It’s always a pleasure to listen to you talk books and hear your opinions. Cheers!
The cover art on Vance's "The Blue World" is in my top ten of all time. I've not seen any of his books that didn't have great cover art. I can't say how many SF books I've purchased simply by merit of its cover but it has to be close to 50% of them. Such a powerful sales tool, appealing to one's imagination through visual means! Another fine post, OB, as usual. Cheers.
Yes, it's the best cover that book has had and I love the typefaces of those Grafton editions- why I didn't buy them at the time I don't know, I was pretty immersed in the late New Wave and Cyberpunk in those days..
100% agree with your comment about padding and editing. Books, films, tv series etc should be only as long as necessary to tell the story. Authors and editors need to take the Michelangelo approach and keep cutting away the superfluous material revealing the statue within the block. Publishers need to support that process. I feel my time is abused by a writer when I finish a book and my take away is great idea but so unnecessarily long.
Completely agree- but mass market readers are equally to blame. If you look at amazon reviews -for example- of Adrian Tchaikovsky's novellas- buyers often complain about how short the book it, usually in relation to price. While I understand the value for money thing- in this case they are writing about limited edition hardcover signed books at £25 a pop, which invalidates their price moans- but quality of writing counts for more, I think. There's also the factor that at creative writing classes, students are taught what publishers want, which usually means an extra fifty pages of padding. This issue is one of the main reasons why SF has declined as a form over the last thirty years, I feel.
When I was a child my therapist gave me five boxes full of paperbacks of 70s/80s sci-fi and fantasy titles but never a single complete series between any of them (book 1 of one, book 3 of another lol). I still have most of them and most of them I dare not open for fear of damaging them.
My rule for reading commercial fantasy series is quit after volume 1- that way you miss the boring quest and the inevitable world-changing tedium of the climax- unless you read M John Harrison's 'Viriconium', which is the way to wean yourself off formula fiction. So don't open them, keep them pretty on a shelf.
I never assume those old rock bands are having fun, often they're playing the old favourites because their audience responds negatively to adventurous new directions that don't pay the bills. I've heard of people booing New songs on principle. I have a lot of respect for bands that resist playing the crowdpleasers. On the other hand, I saw Mark Eitzel say his fans were sick of a certain song but he kept playing it because he loves to and Teenage Fanclub looked so happy playing the old favourites.
Well, I didn't mention old songs specifically, but I take your point. I don't blame old rock stars for still touring -after all, it's better than a day job - but I am now at the stage where I don't go and see old heroes since many are dead, lineups have changed too much for them to be authentic and new material is weaker. But if people want to do it, that's fine with me- and I like artists who play what they want. There is nothing as dull for an established fan as a greatest hits set...
Love the nostalgia! Your inclusion of Fritz Lieber has me wanting to ask you about a book of his I read years ago called “Our Lady of Darkness .” I remember it being about a group of horror literature enthusiasts in San Francisco meeting to discuss old and obscure volumes. The book references many titles and authors, none of which I was certain were real. I would like your thoughts on the book, if you know it(if anyone does, it’s you).
Yeah, I know it, haven't read it for almost 40 years and am hoping to pick up a new copy sometime- my old one is long gone. My fave Fritz horror novel was always 'Conjure Wife', but I am due for a revisit of this aspect of his work.
Eric Van Lustbader got my honours from writing a character so disgusting, I burned my copy of his novel. Now, almost 50 years later I've forgotten which, who or what its was. I thought, then, that he was just a bad copy of Ludlum. Maybe I was wrong.
I really enjoy the background information about the book selling world. I got to the final interview for Penguin books in '86 but I think my advertising agency background wasn't to the liking of one if the guys. I was gutted not to get the reps job 😢
Shame. Those were great days in the book trade. The whole Rep culture is pretty much gone now0 I made lots of friends in publishers sales jobs, made the industry more enjoyable more often than not- though there were one or two reps you'd think 'Oh No, not them again,' but overall, subscription buying from reps was a fun if time consuming part of the job. From the very start I built up a reputation for knowledge, being keen as mustard then, but I learned a LOT from publishers too...
@@garryrickenbacker They were truly great times in the trade and that's not rose-tinted spectacles- one day, I'm going to make a video about WHY they were great times. It's objectively provable, though I'm sure older booksellers could argue that for the 1970s and 1960s, but in the 80s...well, I'll explain in the video!
My suspicion is that the publishers wanted him to pad it, as around this time, Fantasy novels had started to bloat due to the influence of the post-Tolkien newbie bestsellers -see my recent 1980s Fantasy bestsellers vid and the one entitled 'The Artificial Fantasy Trilogy since 1977'. His books prior to this were short, sharp and flavoursome.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal yeah, Suldrun's Garden was a magical master piece, the other 2 meandered a lot. Like Wheel of Time, that could have being cut down 3 or 4 books just with tighter editing and trimming unnecessary story lies.
@@neiltaylor513 How anyone can sit through a series as long as Jordan's is beyond me - these things are done purely for commercial reasons and are the very opposite of imaginative, I'd say, something Fantasy is supposedly all about- but in reality, it's about giving an audience more of the same.
I won't go into detail on this I'm afraid other than to suggest you refer to the essay from 'A Slip of the Keyboard' entitled "Advice To Booksellers" - which I mention in the video- in which he complains about how authors get nothing out of book signing tours. This attitude to me summed up the disregard he had for his audience- as if he owed his audience nothing, despite the fact that they paid his wages by buying his books. I found him terribly self-centred compared to almost every other author I've ever met- well over a hundred in all- and other book trade works and genre fans have told me anecdotes that didn't present him in a good light.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal interesting, ok thank you for the insight. He comes across well in interviews I think and is obviously a very talented man (regardless of what you think about his specific books), but I agree that feeling like you owe your readers nothing and being self centered is a disappointing mindset to have.
@@outlawbookselleroriginalI don't know abt Pratchett but I met David Gemmell in Borders 20 some years ago. As I'm dyslexic, Legend got me into reading... He gave a wonderful talk and wasn't too kind abt how Tolkien had treated his crowd when he once went to listen to him😂 so he said he'd do the opposite... He signed my treasured copy of Legend 'For Julie' rather than To... I know he did this for everyone but it's always stuck with me... To me it meant he wrote that story FOR me and all the others like me. He was larger than life, self deprecating, funny, awesome and I hope when I die I get to walk the walls of Dros Delnoch with Druss and him. He was one of the few heroes in my life who truly were worth meeting. RIP David❤
@@J3335 I've heard nothing but good about him: my recently departed friend Christopher Priest knew him well and said good things. I always used to enjoy selling his work, especially in the 80s, when he was one of the few British S&S authors to hold their own against the American cadre.
Yes, I know it's Bruce Pennington LOL. You'll fluff this stuff too when you're my age, you know...
Ah I see, beg pardon. Several of his covers in my recent influx.
@@SciFiScavenger -No worries, I posted before I'd read your comment, I was just watching the clips back and thinking 'Where the hell did Pemberton come from?'
Every day is Christmas!! I have two books coming in the mail today! Yes.... you're costing me $. ......life is good!
Heeh heh I have many of those books, some different covers though, good haul.
Great haul!! Bruce Pennington is your tip-of-the-tongue cover artist. I was very lucky to be given (free!) an entire collection of over 250 books last Friday, all SF, nearly all A format pbs and nearly all in remarkably good condition, mostly 70s and 80s, some 60s. Several of your books today are also in my recent acquisition. Haul video (or 3 or 4 of em) coming soon.
I'll look forward to seeing that.
Very enjoyable video. I’ve read and owned few of those that you have. All of the Jack Vance ones. Over the years, I’ve haunted Troutmark, Cardiff, Ponty Market Books & Brecon Bookshop. Winds of Altair by Ben Bova was a good find. My recent buys are A Ballantine SF Original -Chthon by Piers Anthony (July 1967, 1st edition) and The Prisoner of Zhamark By L. Sprague de Camp(Ace SF book: 1983). Also Helliconia Summer. The Blue World looks V interesting.
I took a look at the books in Ponty market last time I was there in Spring 2022- lots of them, all in appalling condition. I bought a lot of my early seminal SF books new in Pontypridd, my home town, from Menzies, Woolworths, off newsagent rack spinners and 2nd hand from The Yellow Book Shop. All long gone now...
Been meaning to read more Bob Shaw, and the premise of Night Walk sounds really interesting!
If only more entertainment level SF was as fresh and innovative as 'Night Walk'.
Love the shirt!
I hate buying from places like World of Books but often roll the dice for the cheap price. I just bought a Leigh Brackett hardcover from one of those places and just pray it arrives with a dust jacket. Doesn't have to be mint, just better be there lol. Great stuff here! A few things to add to my list of things to hunt down.
Yeah, it's just so much of a gamble buying from those kind of sellers, sometimes you're lucky. I love Brackett, but it's hard to find editions with beautiful cover designs, am watching out for some more handsome ones currently.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I just started her "Best of" the other day and am really enjoying it so bought an omnibus of the John Stark stories.
I'm actually reading Vance's Planet of Adventure at the moment. It's just as you said it is : mostly escapist/action SF, but it is written in Vance's usual scalpel clean prose, which is worth the price of admission in itself IMO.
It reads a little bit like a novelization of Clark Ashton Smiths short SF adventure stories....
Hi, thanks for another great video. The only one of these I've read is The Integral Trees which is the first of the series. I enjoyed it, but my memory of it very faint. I bought The Smoke Ring, but it is as yet unread.
A fantastic haul. I know you're not a fan, but just so you know, Equal Rites is the 3rd Discworld book, not Wyrd Sisters. Lovely condition for those editions though.
Yes, they weren't bad at all, most copies you see now are ****ed.
"Run, Come See Jerusalem " is a 1950s Calypso ballad by Blind Blake Higgs about the 1929 Bahamas Hurricane.
I have a signed hardback copy of The Integral Trees somewhere, which was Niven's latest book when he was in Australia in 1985. I hadn't read it beforehand, and didn't particularly enjoy it. Oh well.
Thanks for that, Mike, you know me, always like to know the sources. Re Niven, I'm not really a fan, it's just the warm glow of nostalgia, like I said. Some of these books are part of my history, even the bad ones LOL!
Epic book haul. Perfect streaming content after a gruelling day at work. 📖 Nobody disses Niven!!! 😂
I'm afraid MM and me tend to diss Larry, though I do have an affection for his place in SF history.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal RINGWORLD was the first novel I ever read for enjoyment; this was in senior high school. I reread it every few years.
@@RodneyAllanPoe I'm due a re-read of it actually, trying to overcome my fear of Big Dumb Objects Novels.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal An interesting contemporary BDO novel to investigate is MARROW by Robert Reed. I don't think it succeeds 100% but for sheer nutty invention it's worth a look. Same for the sequel THE WELL OF STARS.
@@RodneyAllanPoe I have a Reed on my enormous TBR pile currently as it happens...
That is a nice book call! Yesterday I picked up a really nice copy of The Hobbit from 1966 and the cover is actually a drawing from JRR Tolkien when he was writing The Hobbit.
I prefer Tolkien's artwork to his prose if I'm honest- if you look at my Tolkien videos, they are mostly about his artwork and iconography. Does the edition you bought depict Smaug flying, lots of grey pencil marks? If so, I have that one too.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal yes it does. That is the one
@@robertlynn7746 -love that cover!
Interesting video Steve. Bruce Pennington is among my favourite cover artists, top 5 certainly, probably top 3. Richard Powers who is on the cover of that de Camp book is my favourite SF illustrator but Pennington or Chris Foss (certainly sentimentally) are next in line. Pennington's cover of the 'Shadow of the Torturer' by Gene Wolfe is my Favourite artwork of all time with that wrap around jacket.. just magic. The Jack Vance Lyonesse books you picked up, I recon you are pretty harsh condition wise. I don't require a mint copy, I'm happy with a merely very good or fine lol. I think they are perfectly acceptable. In general I will accept almost any book over no book, better to have a book you want to upgrade than not have any copy. I'm sure you are aware [maybe even know him] of Joseph Connolly's book, "'Modern First Editions. Their Value To Collectors" from back in the early 1980s (1970s 1st) he has a nice section on book condition, basically (and I'm paraphrasing here) there is Fine, Good, Bad and destroyed, Fine and above means Fine, anything below Fine i.e. very good, is merely good, good and similar means bad and reading copy means destroyed lol. It's quite an amusing section and an interesting book. Even though well out of date it gives a nice perspective of the rarity of books from earlier in the 20th century, even as book whims and desirability has changed since then.
But, back to the video at hand, Those Lyonesse books are beautiful. I never really collected any of those Venture publications, I always though they were pulpish (my snobberyishness here) I might be wrong. I never read David Drake, although I bought the hardcover volumes of the complete Hammers Slammers when they published by Night Shade Press 15 years or so ago. (gee time flies).
That Malzberg edition, I also have in similar condition, I've never read him, since, I think, I read in one of David Pringles books that he was quite a knotty read - a bit obtuse maybe, but it turned me off of reading him.
I've meant to comment of few of your other videos but time flew and I didn't. (part 2 of your best SF, for example, and the glaring omissions haha). BTW this isn't totally my fault, I have all good intentions but I watch UA-cam on my TV but cant comment there and have to go to my computer (or phone - but that's impractical) to comment and then I too forget so ... Anyway good stuff.
Thanks Andrew, glad you're enjoying the channel. Yes, I'm VERY tough on condition, it's one of my key curating standards and I aim to keep it as high as I can. I see a lot of people saying 'mint' about books in very average nick here on UA-cam- and of course if one can only get a reading copy, yes, that's better than none! Venture isn't really me either as I say, but it's the nostalgia factor...I never bought them at the time, not even the Brunner!
Thanks brother
I have a friend who loves Hammers Slammers. He was always trying to get me to read it. There's still a war game with miniatures based on the ip which I don't know much about, although I did play Ogre which is I similar theme I think.
I have that very copy of the DeCamp. Love that cover. Malzberg is seriously strange.
I love Barry - if SF isn't strange, there's something lacking in it, you could say....
Night Walk was great! I think i saw it mentioned on Bookpilled channel and coincidentally picked up a copy not long after. So many interesting ideas in it. Surprised it hasn't been made into a TV series. I then read Vertigo by Shaw, which is a more straightforward and smaller story. It isn't quite as satisfying, feels a little too linear and underdeveloped but is still entertaining. I'll be after more of his work, I just like his style.
I think I recommended Bob Shaw to Matt originally and then he read 'Palace of Eternity' and loved it. I've been reading Shaw since the late 70s and there's a video here a few months back where I review almost all of his career. He was a good author.
Nice program, thanks...Whiskey Galore was made into a well known Brit movie though I've not seen it
Pretty sure I mentioned this in the video. In my Capri Vlog series I visit Mackenzie's house at Cetrella.
Great haul . The only MacDonald i have ( somewhere ) is the SF ? " The Girl , the Gold Watch & Everything " . I believe there is a movie . Seems more fantasy . Speaking of covers 😉 i have Laumers book an ACE with a more eye catching cover . Bye .
That John D is in ALL the reference books.
Not a bad buckshee book haul, even if, as you said, mostly at the lower end of the literary spectrum.
I recall that the selections for the Venture list were made by Rog Peyton of Andromeda Bookshop in Birmingham. I think he had a pretty good eye for the commercial.
Yes, Rog did edit that series, you're right. This was much more LCD than usual for me, the next one will be higher end hardcovers I'd say. Thanks again for your pointers the other day on my research, I have started filming...
I'm a big fan of Lustbader, have read most of his thrillers from the 70s/80s that were put out by Granada/Grafton, most of which I have in hardcover. The first I read was a battered paperback copy of The Ninja my mum picked up for me at a jumble sale. His mix of eastern mysticism and contemporary thriller is pretty unique. If I see one of his books I'll buy it immediately. I enjoyed the Sunset Warrior trilogy but haven't yet read any of his other fantasy novels (or the Bourne ones).
Biggle's All The Colours of Darkness was enjoyable but can't remember much else about it now. I remember reading a Malzberg SF book about a gambling system, had a skeletal horse on the cover but can't recall the title.
The Malzberg would have been 'Overlay', one of his most difficult books to read and one he is very fond of himself. I used to sell those Lustbader Granada/Graftons back in the day, good memories.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Yes it was Overlay, I did enjoy that one.
I really enjoyed this video. It was nice to hear “Today’s Steve” talk about what “Past Steve” liked to read. I think nostalgia is wonderful and I enjoy going back and rereading books that my younger self read. As usual with your videos Steve, I was scribbling like mad while watching to write down titles and authors to check on after watching. It’s always a pleasure to listen to you talk books and hear your opinions. Cheers!
Thanks as ever, my friend, glad I'm still entertaining you.
The cover art on Vance's "The Blue World" is in my top ten of all time. I've not seen any of his books that didn't have great cover art. I can't say how many SF books I've purchased simply by merit of its cover but it has to be close to 50% of them. Such a powerful sales tool, appealing to one's imagination through visual means! Another fine post, OB, as usual. Cheers.
Yes, it's the best cover that book has had and I love the typefaces of those Grafton editions- why I didn't buy them at the time I don't know, I was pretty immersed in the late New Wave and Cyberpunk in those days..
While Laser book covers tend to be my favourite, I love Venture's covers almost as much. They put the class in classic sci-fi in my opinion.
Josh Kirby is an elite level cover artist 👌
👍🚀🚀
Love all that publisher stuff
An insight into my 'day job' mentality.
Great video as usual!
100% agree with your comment about padding and editing. Books, films, tv series etc should be only as long as necessary to tell the story. Authors and editors need to take the Michelangelo approach and keep cutting away the superfluous material revealing the statue within the block. Publishers need to support that process. I feel my time is abused by a writer when I finish a book and my take away is great idea but so unnecessarily long.
Completely agree- but mass market readers are equally to blame. If you look at amazon reviews -for example- of Adrian Tchaikovsky's novellas- buyers often complain about how short the book it, usually in relation to price. While I understand the value for money thing- in this case they are writing about limited edition hardcover signed books at £25 a pop, which invalidates their price moans- but quality of writing counts for more, I think. There's also the factor that at creative writing classes, students are taught what publishers want, which usually means an extra fifty pages of padding. This issue is one of the main reasons why SF has declined as a form over the last thirty years, I feel.
When I was a child my therapist gave me five boxes full of paperbacks of 70s/80s sci-fi and fantasy titles but never a single complete series between any of them (book 1 of one, book 3 of another lol). I still have most of them and most of them I dare not open for fear of damaging them.
My rule for reading commercial fantasy series is quit after volume 1- that way you miss the boring quest and the inevitable world-changing tedium of the climax- unless you read M John Harrison's 'Viriconium', which is the way to wean yourself off formula fiction. So don't open them, keep them pretty on a shelf.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Thanks for the advice!
I never assume those old rock bands are having fun, often they're playing the old favourites because their audience responds negatively to adventurous new directions that don't pay the bills. I've heard of people booing New songs on principle. I have a lot of respect for bands that resist playing the crowdpleasers. On the other hand, I saw Mark Eitzel say his fans were sick of a certain song but he kept playing it because he loves to and Teenage Fanclub looked so happy playing the old favourites.
Well, I didn't mention old songs specifically, but I take your point. I don't blame old rock stars for still touring -after all, it's better than a day job - but I am now at the stage where I don't go and see old heroes since many are dead, lineups have changed too much for them to be authentic and new material is weaker. But if people want to do it, that's fine with me- and I like artists who play what they want. There is nothing as dull for an established fan as a greatest hits set...
Love the nostalgia! Your inclusion of Fritz Lieber has me wanting to ask you about a book of his I read years ago called “Our Lady of Darkness .” I remember it being about a group of horror literature enthusiasts in San Francisco meeting to discuss old and obscure volumes. The book references many titles and authors, none of which I was certain were real. I would like your thoughts on the book, if you know it(if anyone does, it’s you).
Yeah, I know it, haven't read it for almost 40 years and am hoping to pick up a new copy sometime- my old one is long gone. My fave Fritz horror novel was always 'Conjure Wife', but I am due for a revisit of this aspect of his work.
I should have a copy somewhere - I believe it's a Fontana A Format - but like you I haven't read it for a very long time.
@@leemason6897 I think you're right re Fontana
Eric Van Lustbader got my honours from writing a character so disgusting, I burned my copy of his novel.
Now, almost 50 years later I've forgotten which, who or what its was.
I thought, then, that he was just a bad copy of Ludlum.
Maybe I was wrong.
Well, writers should write about disgusting characters sometimes I think- this 'reader sympathy' rule is for kids!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal lol - I grew up late.
@@northof-62 As long as you enjoy it, that's what matters most!
I really enjoy the background information about the book selling world. I got to the final interview for Penguin books in '86 but I think my advertising agency background wasn't to the liking of one if the guys. I was gutted not to get the reps job 😢
Shame. Those were great days in the book trade. The whole Rep culture is pretty much gone now0 I made lots of friends in publishers sales jobs, made the industry more enjoyable more often than not- though there were one or two reps you'd think 'Oh No, not them again,' but overall, subscription buying from reps was a fun if time consuming part of the job. From the very start I built up a reputation for knowledge, being keen as mustard then, but I learned a LOT from publishers too...
I really get a sense of "great days" from your videos Steve, thank you.
@@garryrickenbacker They were truly great times in the trade and that's not rose-tinted spectacles- one day, I'm going to make a video about WHY they were great times. It's objectively provable, though I'm sure older booksellers could argue that for the 1970s and 1960s, but in the 80s...well, I'll explain in the video!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal look forward to it!
I loved lyonese but what happened with the last chapters where he seemed to have got bored and just put everything on fast forward
My suspicion is that the publishers wanted him to pad it, as around this time, Fantasy novels had started to bloat due to the influence of the post-Tolkien newbie bestsellers -see my recent 1980s Fantasy bestsellers vid and the one entitled 'The Artificial Fantasy Trilogy since 1977'. His books prior to this were short, sharp and flavoursome.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal yeah, Suldrun's Garden was a magical master piece, the other 2 meandered a lot. Like Wheel of Time, that could have being cut down 3 or 4 books just with tighter editing and trimming unnecessary story lies.
@@neiltaylor513 How anyone can sit through a series as long as Jordan's is beyond me - these things are done purely for commercial reasons and are the very opposite of imaginative, I'd say, something Fantasy is supposedly all about- but in reality, it's about giving an audience more of the same.
May have missed it so apologies but why didn't you lile Pratchett when you met him?
I won't go into detail on this I'm afraid other than to suggest you refer to the essay from 'A Slip of the Keyboard' entitled "Advice To Booksellers" - which I mention in the video- in which he complains about how authors get nothing out of book signing tours. This attitude to me summed up the disregard he had for his audience- as if he owed his audience nothing, despite the fact that they paid his wages by buying his books. I found him terribly self-centred compared to almost every other author I've ever met- well over a hundred in all- and other book trade works and genre fans have told me anecdotes that didn't present him in a good light.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal interesting, ok thank you for the insight. He comes across well in interviews I think and is obviously a very talented man (regardless of what you think about his specific books), but I agree that feeling like you owe your readers nothing and being self centered is a disappointing mindset to have.
@@eggbert6900 -I think I've mentioned in videos how clever TP was, but sadly I think it affected his ego negatively, shame.
@@outlawbookselleroriginalI don't know abt Pratchett but I met David Gemmell in Borders 20 some years ago. As I'm dyslexic, Legend got me into reading... He gave a wonderful talk and wasn't too kind abt how Tolkien had treated his crowd when he once went to listen to him😂 so he said he'd do the opposite... He signed my treasured copy of Legend 'For Julie' rather than To... I know he did this for everyone but it's always stuck with me... To me it meant he wrote that story FOR me and all the others like me.
He was larger than life, self deprecating, funny, awesome and I hope when I die I get to walk the walls of Dros Delnoch with Druss and him. He was one of the few heroes in my life who truly were worth meeting. RIP David❤
@@J3335 I've heard nothing but good about him: my recently departed friend Christopher Priest knew him well and said good things. I always used to enjoy selling his work, especially in the 80s, when he was one of the few British S&S authors to hold their own against the American cadre.