Five Books I Couldn't Live Without

My geekness has been reduced to reading and watching movies as of late. As I mentioned in a previous post, gaming just isn't in the cards for me right now. So my perusal of all things geek has been limited this summer, mostly to reading.

Just for fun, I thought "what five books in my collection could I absolutely not live without?" This was not an easy selection to come to. I love books. The selections I made are not necessarily my all-time favorite reads, but they are books that I love to read, and over the years have returned to continually.

The list:

5. The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft, edited by S.T. Joshi


Here is a book that I continually enjoy reading. Some Lovecraft enthusiasts are not in agreement with Mr. Joshi's criticism, but I always find his studies enjoyable and approachable. He can be opinionated, and I don't always agree with his opinions, but still, hands down, this is my favorite way to enjoy and study the works of H.P. Lovecraft. I only wish that one day I will acquire the book More Annotated H.P. Lovecraft, also edited by S.T. Joshi.



4. J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings, Illustrated by Alan Lee

In my opinion, the best way to read tLotR is a marathon session of all three volumes together, as one massive book. If you're going to do that, then again in my opinion, nothing sets the tone better then the gorgeous water colors and pencils of Mr. Alan Lee. This is a massive book that I have read twice (putting my times of reading tLotR at three - not high enough to put me in the ranks of "serious Tolkien fans". It does not fit easily in a back pack, and thus might not be the best book to take to the beach, but is awesome just to behold.





3. The Annotated Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Douglas A. Anderson

Tolkien makes my list twice. The Hobbit was my first introduction to his writing, and it is a book I have read more times then I can count. I enjoy it more than The Lord of the Rings, and this is my favorite edition of the work to read.

Douglas A. Anderson is a good editor. His notes are intriguing, and this is actually the book that put me on the path of discovering for myself the roots of fantasy. If the roots of fantasy is a subject you enjoy then I can not recommend this book more.

2. The Essential Ellison, a 35 - Year Retrospective

Harlan Ellison to me is one of the greats. His short stories hit the range of emotions for me from tantalizing to "I think I've been punched in the stomach and might be sick" with everything else in between. He has an amazing mind that I admire.

Ellison has challenged me, angered me and sickened me. While this book doesn't have all of his greatest stories, it has enough to serve as an introduction to him and the world of speculative fiction. I've read it cover to cover, and four or five times a year, I pull it off the shelf, turn to a random selection and read. Great stuff from stories to essays.



1. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

Absolutely, hands down, if I were told I could have only one book to last me the rest of my life, it would be Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. I am not putting forward that it is the greatest book ever written, but for me, it is the book that fired my imagination and sent me spiraling into the world of science fiction. I was a science fiction fan before reading this, but this is the one book that I recommend to anyone who even remotely likes sci-fi. If they hate sci-fi, I even encourage them to read it, in hopes that it will change their minds. I've bought many copies of this over the years, as I tend to hand it off as a gift to people I've encountered that have not read it, but I always replace it with a copy from one of my favorite used book stores.

It is action packed, thought provoking and at times gut-wrenching. Yes, I love me some Ender's Game.

More Frank Frazetta Art Inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs

I found a few books that I had forgotten that I bought in San Diego on a recent family vacation. Among them was this gorgeous Frank Frazetta cover for Savage Pellucidar. My copy is a fourth priting by Ace Books circa 1973.

Again, I am struck by how sexy the women in Frazetta's art were. Heavy breasted, round butts, savage, yet innocent.

Enjoy.

More Frank Frazetta Appreciation, or My Wife Has A Frazetta Drawn Ass

I visited my local favorite used book store today and scored some very fine books. Amongst the score were numerous Edgar Rice Burroughs books to add to my collection. All together, I hauled in some booty of seventeen ERB books, plus a nice clean copy of E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, and a nice copy of Fritz Leiber's Ill Met in Lankhmar Volume 1, which had some stories my Leiber collection was missing.

Some of the Burrough's books I all ready had, but five of them featured Frank Frazetta cover art, which I am a proudly and loudly a self proclaimed panting fan-boy of. I will always buy a second copy of a book I all ready have, if said copy features Frazetta art.

The image which I found myself gazing upon the most was the image above, the cover for The Moon Maid. Now please draw your eyes to the shapely bum of the maid herself. Go ahead, and take your time.

Back? Good. The women depicted in Frazetta's art have always...well, we'll just say I've always found them inspiring. Frazetta has forever burned into my head what female beauty is and could be. Call me a pig if you will, but Frank captured my imagination like no other artist ever has.

Here is where I brag. I have always been enraptured by my wife's rear assets. It was not until today that I realized why: my wife has a Frank Frazetta Drawn Ass. I would post a picture to prove it, but it would be the last picture I ever posted, for I would be dead.

However, for your viewing pleasure, two more fabulous ERB inspired Frank Frazetta Art, which show cases my favorite aspect of his dames, the rear view.

The Moon Men

Escape On Venus

Appendix N: Leigh Brackett III

I have a lot of blogging to catch up on, so the final three volumes in the Planet Stories series reprinting classic Leigh Brackett stories are going to get the short treatment.

The Hounds of Skaith and The Reavers of Skaith complete Brackett's John Erik Stark trilogy begun with The Ginger Star and introduced in The Secret of Sinharat. In my last exploration of Brackett's work, I mentioned that her writing generates world building ideas for me. That statement remains true with both of these continuations.

Brackett's writing is ripe with several world building concepts for the hungry DM's mind. I'm still fighting the temptation to scrap my own world of "the Dark Ways" and base my world upon Skaith. No doubt, several ideas will emerge that are steeped in her writing.

I don't want to give away particulars of the story itself, but I do wish to mention that I feared there would not be a satisfactory ending to the trilogy. In my opinion, The Reavers of Skaith does conclude nicely. I can not say it does so without the use of deus ex machina.

The Sword of Rhiannon delivers just as well as her Stark stories; perhaps even a bit better. As much as I enjoyed the Stark works, I enjoyed Rhiannon even more so. It is a well told, fast paced, action packed work that has just as much imagination as her other works.

In D&D terms, the actual Sword of Rhiannon of the stories name sake serves as an excellent example of how an artifact can be used well to form an excellent story. Other then that, I saw no direct examples of tropes from the game that were obviously influenced by Brackett's works. No doubt, the level of action and adventure were what the games designers were shooting for. In that way, there is a direct influence.

I have a tendency when reading works written around the same time period as Tolkien to see if the old scholar had any influence upon the author. In Brackett's case, it is easy to say no he did not. While there are parallels with Edgar Rice Burrough's works, there is a definite lack of High Fantasy Tolkienism. "High Fantasy" as a sub genre does not apply to her either.

Her stories that I have read would most likely be classified as Sword and Planet; for this reason, Edgar Rice Burrough's name shall always be tagged to her. I believe that to classify her as a Burrough's mimic is a naive assumption. Yes, she does work with the tropes first made popular by ERB, but her writing is too original for her to be called an imitator.

Overall, I have enjoyed Brackett's writing immensely. Of the Appendix N writers I reviewed for this series thus far, I've enjoyed her writing the most, with Poul Anderson being a very close second.

I do have to state a criticism towards Planet Stories itself. The typos continued through all three of these books. Please Pazio, hire better copy editors.

GRRM's "A Dance with Dragons" -- Do I Care?

GRRM has finally finished the fifth tome in his "Song of Ice and Fire" series. The release date is July 12, 2011 and this time, he promises he isn't just making shit up. I had lots of enthusiasm for this series during the first three books, but after waiting too long for book four (five years) and finding the fourth volume lacking, my inertia for the series waned. For those not familiar, Martin's books really cooked all the way to the end of book three. Book four moved away from the main characters and took the story no-where (shades of Robert Jordan). Martin followed this sucker-punch to his fans by first promising a fast turn around between books four and five, but ultimately he made us wait six more years. That makes a total of eleven years without the story moving forward.

I resisted reading George Martin's "Ice and Fire" books. Years before, I was talked into Robert Jordan's Rand Land books a go (The Wheel of Time). I gave up after five books in total despair and cursed the terminology "Epic Fantasy". The only reason I ever picked up A Game of Thrones by GRRM, was I was deployed in the Middle East (this was shortly after the events of 9/11) and couldn't afford to be picky about my reading materials, due to the fact that they were in short supply. I picked up AGoT, only because it was long and was a fantasy novel. I enjoyed it so much, I begged my wife to purchase and mail me a copy of book two, A Clash of Kings. I ripped through both volumes while deployed. When I returned stateside, I bought a copy of A Storm of Swords. Finishing that in mid-2002, I waited three more years for book four A Feast for Crows, for which I all ready stated my disappointment.

One of my long time players is a fan of the series, I talked him into reading it. He plans on buying his copy of Dance on publication date, and has even recently re-read the first four books. I'm not so sure I will.

I am leaning towards waiting for a few reasons. The foremost is, I wish to express my anger with Martin for leading his fans on for eleven years. I plan on doing so by not purchasing his book in hard cover. I may wait for the paperback, but I prefer to wait until I find a copy in a used book store. I don't want one penny of my money to go to GRRM.

Fuck him.