Biblical Terror and Other Weird/Punkish Book Porn
August 27, 2010 § 13 Comments
Eight books have arrived this week that I think might be of some interest to readers here. Notice the groovy 1969 cover art for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition of Fletcher Pratt’s The Blue Star. I’m looking forward to reading Gail Carriger’s third novel in her The Parasol Protectorate series. Very witty writing. This sounds intriguing, to say the least. And a book on fairy tales that arrived today.
Heard some very good things about Robert Irwin, so I thought I’d try his The Arabian Nightmare. In the middle is a review copy of an October 2010 release, She Naied a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror. Intriguing. And then there’s Raymond Queneau’s 1940s novel, Saint Glinglin, that seems to be quite promising already a chapter into it.
My tenth translation/edition of one of my favorite stories arrived today. Now I have French, English, Spanish, Latin, German, Catalan, Italian, Serbian, Hungarian, and Portuguese editions of The Little Prince, second only to my collection of Bibles in various languages. Oh, and there’s this steampunkish anthology that arrived a couple of days ago. Anyone think it is worth reading?
So…which one of these books seems to be the “weirdest” to you? Which one(s) would you most like to read?
Vaguely Borgesian 
That Biblical Terror book looks great. Gail Carriger's series has gotten nice reviews, I'm curious to see your take on it. I'm holding off on urban and steampunk for the time being (well, unless one gets sent to me, ha). I'm pretty sure you're gonna read the anthology, based on the editors alone. My guess is that it will be good. Top of that book porn, for me, would be the Classic Fairy Tales, as I am of a mind to rewrite some for my world building. I like the classic fable, have managed one original (world building based) so far, and that one needs some beefing up before submission.
Steampunk, would go to the trash pile if someone gave it to me…
Bill,I think you've named most of the ones I'm going to examine first.Derrick,Why would you trash it? The first anthology I thought was excellent and the editors put out good stuff, or at least things that interest me.
Derrick: I would do the same thing. In fact, I would flame-broil it and incinerate it, and I would then crush the remains down into a diamond. And then I would take that diamond and I would take it and [REDACTED}.JeffV
Jeff,Are you sure Ann doesn't read my blog regularly? She might be expecting that diamond any day now 😉
Derrick, what's wrong with steampunk?
I agree w/Bill that the biblical terror one looks fascinating. Might inspire me to actually read some of the source material. Steampunk II? I know I'll buy it, and then be dissapointed and trade it back in. Because that's exactly what happened with the first one. 😦
Arabian Nightmare is great and his other stuff is well worth checking out.
I feel blessed to have so many potentially great reads ahead of me in the coming weeks and month, especially now that after Sept. 15, I'll be working 40 hours/week for at least one month straight.
Redhead–if you don't like Steampunk Reloaded, I'll refund your money (offer not available generally). But you won't. You'll love it. Even if you didn't like the first one.Cheers,JeffV
Jeff,Does that offer apply to me as well? Will I get my full money back if I don't like Reloaded as much as the first? 😉
Gail Carriger's first 2 books were indeed witty, so I'm looking forward to the 3rd volume in the series. I've got Steampunk I and it was a good collection of Steampunk stories, so I expect the VanDerMeers have done an excellent job for this second volume– with the codecil that you have to like the steampunk subgenre.Of the rest, the Robert Irwin book sounds really interesting, and so does the biblical one. Most of them sound like books I'd pick up, though, if I didn't already have 500+ waiting me.
In reply to all who've asked:I really, really, really dislike steampunk.I've read 3 or 4 novels, trying to like it, but each time, something just rubs me the wrong way. It's just one of those "things" of personal preference.I'll leave it to those who enjoy it [as long as they leave me out of it :-)]