Saturday, May 29, 2010

The Month in review and of Things to Come

I'm posting a few days earlier as I'm anticipating taking a temporary leave of absence from my senses this long holiday weekend.


Not the most productive month, I'll admit; nor am I happy about it. I've already complained enough about The Count of Monte Cristo cramping my style, and now that I've learned how to handle it, I'm hoping for a better June: a return to regularity with reviews, and a new monthly feature (which will be awesome and perhaps unprecedented) in place of the rum reviews.


I wrote the first draft of my statement of purpose in hopes for Ph.D admissions. The deadlines aren't even in sight but I like to be ahead. It's way too long but I find it easier to edit when you have something on the page.


My near insolvency is yet again hindering my new book acquisitions. I used credit card rewards points to pick up Daniel Abraham's Leviathan Wept, because he is awesome. (Should you be unaware of his awesomeness read this.) I quite literary can't hardly wait for that to get here. Also I picked up The Dragon Book as edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. I read Wizards by the same editors last year and greatly enjoyed it and have similar high hopes for this original collection. Both of these books can be had for great prices right now. Wizards for five bucks at the Barnes and Noble bargain bin and The Dragon Book for the same price at Books-a-Million. If you like to read--even if you don't--I highly recommend both, one on the strength of the other. Speaking of dragons…


The homogenous landscape of speculative fiction book blogging seems to have collectively overlooked Wings of Fire from Nightshade Books in March. (Or perhaps I'm being premature? Due to that homogenous landscape I don't read many fantasy book blogs. Or perhaps the collection is completely unremarkable, which I doubt.) Rest assured, I'll be picking that up shortly. Briefly scrolling through Nightshade's catalogue is mind-blowing in how much awesome stuff the publish. (I must have those Kage Baker short story collections.) I could easily read exclusively from Nightshade and Taychon for a three to five years and be happy.


What's in store for June? Other than the previously mentioned new monthly feature, which I hope to kick off with Subterranean Press (Who needs the Six Sisters!?!) June doesn't hold anything new that I can foresee. I'll choke down three hundred more pages of The Count because I'm too stubborn to put it down, The Dispossessed by Ursalua le Guin, and the previously mentioned Abraham collection are up for reading. Also I hope to do one of my, "Not a commentaries" for Greg Keyes The Kingdom of Thorn and Bone.


As boring and inactive as May has been, I'm planning on creating work for myself in June.

2 comments:

Terry Weyna said...

I preordered Leviathan Wept through Amazon, and don't have it yet. How do you rate?! (I'm guessing you ordered it directly from Subterranean, right?)

Hadn't heard of Wings of Fire -- thanks for the heads up on that one. Unfortunately, my local library doesn't have it, so it looks like I'll be shelling out a few more hard-earned dollars on books -- as if I needed to add even a single book to this collection for the rest of my life.

Chad Hull said...

I pre-ordered from Amazon as well... and like you, I still don't have a copy. I sent an email to Subterranean and they said, quite curtly I might add, the book, "will ship in two-three weeks." The original ship date as posted on Amazon, when I pre-ordered, was either May 31 or June 1.

No explanation offered. For this, and a few other reasons I've come across with Subterranean, their management does make raise an eyebrow to say the least.

As your collection is so huge you may want to hold off on Wings of Fire, it's a compilation with only two new stories in it. I wouldn't be surprised if you had the others in various places.