(no subject)

[yagathai]

In happier news, all of my de Lints and Lansdales seem to have survived intact. grrm's Dream Songs, too. And my 1871 Complete Works of Tennyson seems to have beaten the odds again. That book is like a cockroach, I swear. It was the sole surviving piece of my Tennyson collection after the flood I had a few years ago when I was still living with kylecassidy.

Most of the Zelazny seems to have made it through relatively unscathed as well, though I can't find Vol. 3 of the recent NESFA Press collections. I'm only about halfway through unpacking and it's probably buried somewhere in the other boxes, but it's bothering me that it wasn't with the other three (I haven't bought 5 or 6 yet). Similarly, I can only find one of the two new Waldrop collections from Old Earth Books. Still, I remain hopeful that the other will turn up soon.

I was also pleased to see that the 1971 Ben Bova-edited "The Many Worlds of Science Fiction" survived relatively intact. That one's a sentimental favorite, as I adore how of the period it is. There's a (fairly uncharacteristic, IMO) story by Anne McCaffrey in there, and Bova introduces McCaffrey as a woman that writes about "the kind of girl who doesn't need Women's Lib because she's obviously talented... and tough". There's also a gem of a first contact story by Keith Laumer in there. It's a pretty standard 60's ray guns and monsters first contact story, until you get to the very end and the big twist is that the heroic human captain was a black man the whole time.

ETA: Oh, look. Footfall survived. That book is like a cockroach too, though in an entirely different way.

Comments

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

I have nightmares that when alien palaeontologists excavate what's left of Earth in another billion years or so, the only traces of humanity are copies of Footfall and West of Eden.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

I actually have a kind of amused affection for West of Eden, personally. It doesn't make my lip curl or nose wrinkle like Footfall does.

[harrytheheir.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, Footfall. To this day it's the only science fiction novel that I ever got my father to read. (I must have been eleven or twelve when I read it.) Haven't thought about that book in years.