http://gentlymadpress.com/blog Adventures Among the Gently Mad Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:07:58 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Back on April 29th I showed what $75 could buy you from the secondary market. I was discussing the price point of limited editions in the specialty press and how, for certain publishers, they have gotten out of hand. I could look around and find some examples from a number of ... http://gentlymadpress.com/blog/2008/08/18/more-small-press-price-point-problems/ Has a new book coming out, Anathem. Wired had a pretty interesting article on him and the Long Now and long time and stuff. The book sounds pretty interesting. Maybe I'll make it my first foray in Stephenson's work. I have Snow Crash on my shelf, just haven't ... http://gentlymadpress.com/blog/2008/08/18/neal-stephenson/ Differences in interpretation of The Dark Tower and How King Might have Missed the Point A qualifying statement must be made before I move forward with this essay. I have enjoyed King's The Dark Tower. It had its stops and starts but King was able to craft a wonderful ... http://gentlymadpress.com/blog/2008/08/13/the-dark-towers-king-browning-and-the-childe-roland/ Mainspring by Jay Lake From Publisher's Weekly: Lake (Trial of Flowers) envisions the universe as an enormous clockwork, put in motion by God, complete with gears and a mainspring hidden at the Earth's center, in his intriguing first trade hardcover novel, a fantasy set in the magic-tinged late 19th century. Archangel Gabriel ... http://gentlymadpress.com/blog/2008/08/11/mainspring-by-jay-lake/ It has been sometime since I posted in my book blog. I have a couple of entries in the preliminary stages and I hope to get back to them soon. Life intervened and took up more of my time that I anticipated. Cemetery Dance is moving along with getting ... http://gentlymadpress.com/blog/2008/07/30/book-delivery/ 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 ... http://gentlymadpress.com/blog/2008/06/11/on-how-and-why-reading-older-books-gives-me-persepective-on-new-books/ 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 ... http://gentlymadpress.com/blog/2008/05/15/on-how-i-end-up-going-overboard-reading-a-new-to-me-genre/ 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 ... http://gentlymadpress.com/blog/2008/04/29/75/ 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). ... http://gentlymadpress.com/blog/2008/04/29/the-ten-most-beautiful-experiments/ 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 ... http://gentlymadpress.com/blog/2008/04/28/on-the-collector-and-the-speculator/