Lovecraft’s ideas

I don’t just read books, I write them. (Well, I have one novel completed, many more started, and a bunch of short stories that range from one-sentence ideas to completed.) I often get far more ideas for stories than I actually have the time or interest to further develop, much less finish. I think it’s important for any would-be writer to actually record these ideas, so as to not forget them if nothing else, and so I maintain a number of files of ideas, some of which I periodically return to, in order to further develop them as the Muse wills. I actually have some files with novel ideas I first had literally decades ago that return to every now and then. I remember reading a quotation by some famous writer (Stephen King maybe?) who sad this approach was bullshit and that any idea worthy of being fleshed out didn’t need to be recorded because the writer would naturally gravitate toward the good ideas and forget the dumb ones. That may very well be true, but I’m glad that I’m not alone in keeping a log of all my story ideas.

As it turns out, noted horror author H. P. Lovecraft also kept a notebook of his story ideas, and we now have access to a transcript of it. It’s a fascinating list, even though most of the ideas are only a single sentence long. Many of them seem to have been developed into the finished stories with which we’re familiar, or are so vague that we can imagine they were, but many of these 221 story ideas do not seem to have been developed further by Lovecraft unfortunately.

(And the image I’ve included here is one of my absolute favorites of Cthulhu because it was on the cover of the Arkham House collection The Dunwich Horror and Others, which was the first collection of Lovecraft I ever read at the tender age of thirteen. Checked it out of the library and it promptly blew my mind. Thirteen is undoubtedly the best age to be first exposed to the Cthulhu Mythos.)

Classic fantasy novel: The Ship That Sailed to Mars by William Timlin

Never heard of it? Me neither, until now. William Timlin’s The Ship That Sailed to Mars was published in 1923 by Harrap in the UK in a limited edition of 2000 copies (250 of which were sold in the US). It was a slender volume, with 48 tipped-in color plates, also drawn by Timlin, each with a facing page of text. Copies of the original edition survive, though it looks like a good or better copy will typically run you about $2000-3000. Stonewall Publications put out a new edition in 1993, and while it’s now out-of-print, it looks like you can land one of those for about $60-200 in the secondary market. Calla Editions (anther small press I’ve never heard of) is re-releasing another edition of it this Fall, and Amazon currently has it on pre-order for $26. If you want to read the story and look at the pictures, it has fortunately been made available online here.

The accompanying artwork is amazing, and it’s too bad that the book has never had a major release, as I suspect it could have been a childhood classic that we’d all remember fondly. I may just have to pick up a copy of the Calla edition when it becomes available.

Buy the book on Amazon

More on the future of book retail

A couple updates to the recent collapse of Borders (as I mentioned previously). First, there is one small bright spot thus far — it looks like Books-A-Million is interested in acquiring around 30 of the 399 Borders locations. If that deal goes through, it would save somewhere on the order of 10% of the jobs expected to be lost with Borders’ closure, so that would indeed be good news for those employees and the communities those locations serve. Note though that Books-A-Million, like Barnes & Noble, is not doing all that well this past year (the article linked above provides details), but hey, any port in a storm I guess.

And second, the obvious question is, so what happens now to book retail? What can we say about the market as a whole? Well, it’s not a particularly rosy picture. The physical book market is expected to fall 11% this year, with a 21% decline since 2008. The eBook market is compensating for some, but not all, of this decline, and the eBook market is expected to more than double this year, with 111% growth expected. That’s huge, and we certainly can’t ignore it, but as the UK case study shows us, when physical bookstores go away, customers don’t automatically just buy books elsewhere. In a significant number of cases, folks use their disposable income for other non-book purchases altogether. That’s bad for all of us, as it means that Borders’ closure may have a ripple effect on the industry as a whole.

Book Review: ¡Viva California! Seven Accounts of Life in Early California, edited by Michael Burgess and Mary Wickizer Burgess

I’m a historian by trade – though I don’t study California history – but I don’t normally publish reviews of historical or other non-fiction here on the blog. Since the editor of such a work was kind enough to provide me with a collection of first-person accounts of life in California in the middle and late 19th Century, I thought I’d bring it to your attention here.

The collection contains seven accounts, most fairly lengthy, though the last few are relatively short. To my knowledge these memoirs have not been previously published, and are transcribed and made readily available here for the first time. The accounts are as follows:

(1) Jose del Carmen Lugo’s “Life of a Ranchero” – This is an account of the life of a wealthy rancher in the Los Angeles area from around 1813-1890. It provides some fascinating accounts of various skirmishes that took place, as well some fascinating details about daily life.
(2) Benjamin Davis Wilson’s “My Life in Early California” – Wilson was a white settler who came to California in 1833. Interestingly enough, he was also the grandfather of General George S. Patton.
(3) Alexandre Holinski’s “California Gold Rush Days: A Contemporaneous Account of a Visit to Northern California in 1851” – Provides some fascinating details on what life was like for gold miners who came to California to make their fortunes in the early 1850s.
(4) The Autobiography of Mark Lafayette Landrum – This account had some great details on life as a farmer in California in the 1870s. The author became a fairly prominent populist politician in this period, and for those interested in the history of Populism, especially in the West, this account can provide some valuable details. I have read a bit on the history of populism in the South and Midwest, but this was the first account I read of West Coast populism.
(5) The Statement of Alexander H. Todd – This is a short account that describes some of the trials and tribulations experienced by those just trying to travel around California and the Pacific Northwest.
(6) The Adventures of William T. Ballou – Another short account; this one provides some good details and life as a prospector as well as various troubles with Indians in the Pacific Northwest.
(7) The Letter of Amos Carpenter Rogers – Another short account, this one too describes the entrepreneurial efforts of a man who settled in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.

The book closes with a detailed index that would seem to be especially useful for genealogists or others looking for mentions of specific individuals.

If I have any complaints about the collection, it’s that I wanted more contextualization for the primary source documents. Maybe a longer introductory essay that provides more background for the pieces and puts them in historical context. A map or two showing the relative locations of the events described in the various accounts would have also helped (yes, I know maps of California area available everywhere online, but I’d like one that specifically calls out the key locations cited in these specific accounts).

I give this one 4 stars out of 5 and recommend it to anyone interested in early California history or historians seeking published first-person accounts of the period.

Buy the book on Amazon

Review copyright 2011 J. Andrew Byers

New James Bond novel and Bond’s drinks

I love Ian Fleming’s Bond novels. Very different from almost all the films, though the excellent Daniel Craig Casino Royale adhered pretty closely to novel. Fleming’s estate has licensed a number of non-Fleming Bond novels, and while I own a few, I haven’t read any of them yet. I was a little disturbed to find out that in the latest, Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver, Bond doesn’t drink his (in)famous drink. What??? In fact, he drinks Crown Royal and Triple Sec. I’m no drink aficionado, but am I alone in thinking that beverage sounds just a little too low-rent for Bond? In any case, read all about it here, along with plenty of additional details on the new book.

Now that we’ve moved past that Bond beverage heresy, here are some comments on Bond’s original drink, courtesy of “Wheelgunner840,” who provides the bracketed comments in the following:

“Bond insisted on ordering Leither’s Haig-and-Haig ‘on the rocks’ [a quality Scotch whiskey] and then he looked carefully at the barman.

‘A dry martini,’ he said. ‘One. In a deep champagne goblet.’

‘Oui, monsieur.’

‘Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s [an English gin], one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. [this is NOT vermouth – see below!] Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?’

‘Certainly, monsieur.’ The barman seemed pleasant with the idea.

‘Gosh that’s certainly a drink,’ said Leiter.

Bond laughed. ‘When I’m … er … concentrating.’ he explained, ‘I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink’s my own invention. I’m going to patent it when I can think of a good name.’

He watched carefully as the deep glass became frosted with the pale golden drink, slightly aerated by the bruising of the shaker. He reached for it and took a long sip.

‘Excellent,’ he said to the barman, ‘but if you can get a vodka made with grain instead of potatoes, you will find it still better.’

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Lillet and Vermouth
Note that some claim that Kina Lillet is a vermouth. It is NOT A VERMOUTH 🙂 My research shows Lillet Kina is a wine based drink that has quinine in it. Kina refers to the Kina Kina (quinquina) tree where quinine comes from. In fact back in the James Bond days it was VERY bitter and the entire drink would have been quite bitter. They changed the formula in the mid-80s to have less quinine, and now it comes in “Lillet Blanc” and “Lillet Rouge”. They’re made in Podensac, in France. Technically they are “French aperitif wines”. They are a blend of wine grapes, oranges, orange peels and quinine.

As a further note, Straight Dope provides some insight as to why Bond insisted his martinis be shaken and not stirred, along with some additional thoughts on the canonical drink. I once had hoped to try one of these, but I’m kind of a lightweight and doubt I’d like it, to be honest. I’m man enough to admit I think I’d have a hard time choking it down, especially if Straight Dope is right and it does taste like “lighter fluid.”

Borders is shutting down

As we all suspected, Borders will be liquidating. All the 399 remaining stores will be shutting down by the end of September, and the liquidations likely begin at the end of this week. Kind of sad. That leaves us with B&N, Books-a-Million, a dwindling supply of small regional chains and mom & pop stores, and the Internet. It won’t be much harder to actually acquire books (Amazon is still your friend, after all), but it does mean that an important piece of bookish “culture” and community will be gone. Alas.

The state of the book retail industry

I’m back blogging, folks. The travails of completing a dissertation have drained me of any interest I might have in blogging or doing much creative writing over the last couple months. I’m not done with the dissertation, not by a long shot, though I still hope to defend next Spring, but life goes on and I hope to resume regular blogging and book reviews. I have a few reviews lined up over the next few weeks, and some interesting book-related news pieces I’ll relate as well (been saving those up).

Let me start with a news item and the rest will follow in the days to come: Borders, as we all know (I last blogged about it at the end of April), has been in serious trouble for at least the last year, though it’s been in slow decline for the last few. It entered Chapter 11 a few months ago, and has not yet been able to produce a plan to bring it out of its apparent death spiral. Well, I suspect that it’s going to bite the dust, and sooner rather than later. The latest and greatest deal to save Borders fell through and it looks like it’s facing liquidation next week. This does not bode well for the remaining 399 Borders stores or their employees.

Keep in mind that Barnes & Noble, the only other big book retail chain in the U.S., is also not doing terribly well, though it’s managed to survive better than Borders because it jumped into online book retail on its own fairly early on, and its eBook/eReader business is still pretty viable as the biggest competitor to Amazon. A billionaire businessman (wouldn’t we all like to be described that way?) by the name of John C. Malone has expressed an interest in B&N, and is purportedly interested in taking the company private. There’s been a lot of discussion as to why Malone, a demonstrably smart guy, would want to spend $1 Billion on a company in a dying industry, with most speculating that he’s primarily interested in the eBook side of the company. Should be interesting to see if this deal ends up going through.