more updated listings

It's been slower going than I hoped getting things cataloged, with all the distractions and my poor work habits. I think I will post these in increments of five, instead of one at a time (especially if all I have to show for whole day is one or two listings).

Here now the latest stab at revised and updated listings:

GAUNTLET: Exploring the Limits of Free Expression #2, '91, (Stephen King Special; Ray Bradbury, Piers Anthony, David Wojnarowicz, Andrew Vachss, Graham Masterton; "Top Ten Censors of 1990, MPAA Exposed, 2 Live Crew, Kiddie Porn; Recommended for mature adults; 402 pages), perfectbound, vg $8; as new 15.00

McAuley, Paul J. WHITE DEVILS, Simon & Schuster UK, 2nd, (hard-edged near-future biotech thriller; thought-provoking heart-stopping white-knuckle ride; 521 pages), vg-f in dj 12.00

Lobdell, Jared THE WORLD OF THE RINGS: Language, Religion, and Adventure in Tolkien, Open Court '04, 1st, (classics study, here revised and expanded; eccentric and compelling), f $15

Smith, Clark Ashton THE LAST OBLIVION: Best Fantastic Poems of..., Hippocampus ('02), 1st edn, (includes glossary of unusual words and names; S.T. Joshi & David E. Schultz [eds]; 194 pages), new 15.00 

NOVA EXPRESS #19, spr-sum/00 (Volume 5, Number 3), (Neil Gaiman interview Part 1; Russell Blackford on Greg Egan, Patrick O'Leary Fails to Analyze Gene Wolfe, Nick Gevers on Paul J. McAuley's Confluence; more) •---#21, spr-sum/01, (interview with Tim Powers; reviews; more), new 4.00 [listed at $2 on biblio because I have a hefty number of these on hand - I'll be happy to honor that price; also, I'm sure I have a similar number of #20 too, but there's only one copy right here beside me, so I won't re-list it in earnest now, but I could maybe be prevailed upon to mount an expedition for it]

updated listings

Updated listings (with links added):

Lupoff, Pat & Dick Lupoff THE BEST OF XERO, Tachyon, 7/04, 1st edn, (an array of highlights from Hugo-winning fanzine published between 1960 and 1962; Roger Ebert intro), new in dj 29.95

[30% discount]

LITTLE LULUª: Lulu Goes Shopping, Dark Horse, 11/04, 1st edn, (reprints issues six through twelve in Dark Horse's complete run of John Stanley and Irving Tripp's legendary Little Lulu comics), f 12.00

further re-cataloging

Catalog listing update:

Di Filippo, Paul THE STEAMPUNK TRILOGY, Four Walls Eight Windows, 4/95, 1st, (collects Victoria, Hottentots & Walt and Emily; invests history with a cockeyed verisimilitude; set in the very alternative 19th century; 352 pages), as new (but about vg-f) in dj 20.00

---now down to my last copy -- new but not perfect (unread - probably a bookstore return but not a remainder.

forward listings

Revised listings with links to covershots:

Forward, Robert L. DRAGON'S EGG, Del Rey, 5/80, 1st edn, (author's first novel; one of a handful of books that stretch the mind), vg-f in dj 20.00

Forward, Robert L. STARQUAKE, Del Rey, 10/85, 1st edn, SIGNED by author, (hard SF; sequel to Dragon's Egg), vg-f in dj 20.00

---I also still have a nice pair of the above, both SIGNED, vg-f in djs 50.00

book listing

New listing of used book (whoopie!):

St Martin's Minotaur 96864 Hess, Joan STRANGLED PROSE, 5th, (A Claire Malloy Mystery; Is killing a romance novelist considered a crime of passion?), vg-f 2.00

---Pretty sad this is all I could get done today. 

further revised listings

Revised listings:

O'Neill, Gene THE BURDEN OF INDIGO, Prime ('02), POD edn, (sf/fantasy/horror tale of the search for salvation; After an economic/ecologic collapse, the Shields along the coast of  Cal Wild cast out their criminals and malcontents to wander the dangerous wastelands), as new $20

O'Neill, Gene GHOSTS, SPIRITS, COMPUTERS AND WORLD MACHINES, Prime ('01), POD edn, (horror stories by the best kept secret in horror fiction; introduction by Kim Stanley Robinson; Scott Edelman afterword), new 15.00

O'Rourke, Monica J. SUFFER THE FLESH, Prime ('02), POD edn, (horror novel; Zoey Masterton didn't know what pain was before, but she's learning fast), new 15.00

Womack, Jack LET'S PUT THE FUTURE BEHIND US, Grove Press, 4/97, 1st pb edn, (one of the most cannily on-target accounts yet about the helter-skelter fast lane of life in the New Russia), vg 7.50 ---although I think I have this listed as a "new" copy elsewhere -- it sure looks new; came from someone who was a heavy smoker whose books stank, so that was the chief demerit; by now, quite a bit later, the book has lost the aroma.

recataloging Xgau's 90's Consumer Guide

I'm recataloging my Xgau's 90's Consumer Guide, which I have one new copy of left now after today. So I'm on its Amazon site, and am bemused (actually amused almost to the extent of spewing my wine all over the keyboard) by one reviewer:

• I'll never forget what he once said about Waylon Jennings ("Reminds us that he has balls by singing as though someone were squeezing them")
• I wish he weren't such a sucker for world music, much of which, in my opinion, would be dismissed as pablum if it weren't for the exotic veneer.
• It's supposed to be a consumer guide, not a flight manual.
• Deduct 2 stars for form, but credit 1 back because it's important to keep Christgau's brand of crankiness alive. Four stars.

This reviewer (same one?) seems to make the same confusion of the words obtuse with abstruse that Allmusic makes in their assessment of Xgau. "Dim, slow-witted" are not attributes I would apply to Xgau, probably not even into his twilight years -- still a ways away from current evidence.

The listing now:

Christgau, Robert CONSUMER GUIDE: Albums of the '90s, St. Martin's Griffin, 10/00, 1st edn, (ever-open-eared, mercilessly rigorous; essential; the dean of American rock critics tackles the decade when music exploded; over 3,800 reviews), as new 20.00