Lord, Ah Am Sooo Tired
27. Nov, 2009 
3 Comments
(Workin in a Coal Mine, Devo)
Black Friday has taken its toll.
No, we did not leave for the stores at midnight to stand on line until 4 or 5 am.
But we did drive into Nashua this afternoon and spent about 8 hours wandering around. Picked up a cookie maker and two new baking sheets, and I picked up a Robert Sawyer novel, seeing as how my first choice – Niven and Lerner’s Destroyer of Worlds – was not in stock.
I will say though that the Nashua Borders was a breath of fresh air – an honest to goodness SF&F section that actually took some time to look through, had more Scalzi titles in stock than Card, had substantial offerings of the grandmasters (not the usual one book by Asimov, one by Clarke, three by Heinlein), decent holdings in folks like PK Dick, Jack Vance – and relatively few ‘based on this awful television series/game/movie’ crapola.
Still too many vampires, werewolves, goblins, dwarves and unicorns creeping in there, but I’ll take in favor of what most SF/F sections have turned into – the one shelf wonders (seemingly modeled after airport bookstores).
Nashua has now become my destination for buying new books in a store – there’s a Barnes and Noble one block away from the aforementioned Borders, and BOTH stores are multi-story affairs.
Tomorrow – sugar cookies, num num num…
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Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and enjoy those sugar cookies. There’s still pumpkin pie, cheesecake and brownies – and vanilla ice cream to go with them – here, andwith the family gone home, it’s apparently up to me to eat it all. Right. It’s going to disappear, but not down my gullet, I don’t think. Well, maybe the brownies.
The season is upon us. What is your # 1 science fiction novel (old, reprint or new) gift recommendation?
MMMMMMMMM brownies……………
Old: I’d recommend any of the really great anthologies, if you can find them (ABE):
Conklin’s The Big Book of Science Fiction
Silverberg’s Science Fiction Hall of Fame
Asimov’s Before the Golden Age
Healy & McComas Adventures in Time and Space
Campbell’s Astounding Tales of Space and Time
New – I’d have to go with Finch by Vandermeer (not strictly SF, but has SFnal elements and is really something new!), the new Known Space series by Niven and Lerner (Fleet, Juggler, Destroyer of Worlds), Stross, Scalzi or Robert J Sawyer offerings
I have all those old anthologies in hand, have for years, most since their publication or SF Book Club offering. Have read the Niven you mention, also the Scalzi. I haven’t tried Sawyer since his Farseer books, which I enjoyed, but he’s gone other directions since, I believe. I’ll have to look into his books. Thanks