A Gently Mad Blog

The past few months I have picked up the classics. Or what people consider the classics in genre fiction. Novels from HG Wells, Jules Verne, MR James, Ambrose Bierce, and other contemporaries have been on my reading table and I have shifted from author to author. And in this retrospective of genre fiction I have brought some perspective of the new stuff that is currently being released in SF, horror, and other genres.

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SF, steampunk, horror, fantasy, and all the hybrids and crossovers of these genres interest me at many points in time. Overall, horror has been a genre that I have read since as long as I can remember. SF, maybe as much, though my early SF was related to tie-ins to games like Battletech and movies like Star Wars. I’ve always been a fan of SF) more so in the movies than books) but I have found my affinity for them has grown over the past few years.

What usually happens with how I think and operate is rather obsessive I suspect. Ok maybe not obsessive but definitely on the weird side. About a year ago I wrote this entry A Gently Mad Blog » History Books about how I get entangled in a subject and read as much as I can. It happens in fiction as well.

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What can I get for $75 that is well worth the money and is a solid buy. I will list a few things and I will avoid the small press since there are plenty of good buys from established presses like Earthling Publications and Bloodletting Press to name a couple.

Using Biblio.com, I have come up with these works that are $50 (some might even be overpriced if I took the time to search different sellers I could probably find them cheaper):

• The Fall by Simon Clark, First UK Edition
• Children of the NIght by Dan Simmons, First US Edition
• Demons by Daylight by Ramsey Campbell, First Edition, Arkham House
• The Last Call of Mourning by Charles L Grant. First Edition
• Cabal by Clive Barker, First Edition, Signed by Author

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments by George Johnson

Science, when it is distilled, comes down to experimentation. In this day science experimentation is relegated to huge teams of scientists with the goal of making a profit (this is broad generalization but for my purposes it makes a good point). It is rare that there are scientists doing science for the reason of pure knowledge. This is not to say that some of the scientists featured in Johnson’s book did not hope to profit from their discoveries but they sought knowledge as the principal driving force.

I am only have way through and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Johnson’s prose is succinct and clear. He has a knack of describing the experiments in a clear and concise way allowing the reader to understand what is going on. And he seems to have a genuine love for the stories he is telling. Continue Reading »

The Differences between the Collector and the Speculator with regards to intrinsic and monetary value.

A recent post on a message board I browse has given me this topic to explore. An interesting topic to say the least. The implication that buying books as an investment is something that collectors do and only do is something that needs to be explored. I spoke of something similar here: On the differences on Collecting and Reading in which I discussed collectors and readers and how they aren’t exclusive.

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