Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Reading Into the Past: Week of 5/14

I must have pulled out old D&D dice or something, because I'm rolling high this month. Tonight I got a 14, which means I'll list the books I read this week in 1992, and see how much I can remember of them:
  • Piers Anthony & Robert E. Margroff, Dragon's Gold (5/8)
    See far below.
  • Jacques Tardi & Benjamin Legrand, Roach Killer (5/8)
    Some kind of Euro-comics thing that I really don't remember. Isn't Tardi famous? Oh, well...
  • Tom Mason, editor, Teen Angst: A Treasury of '50s Romance (5/8)
    More comics, and something I've utterly forgotten. I also can't remember why on earth I'd want to read this.
  • Frank Miller, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (5/9)
    Official Wielding of Fanboy Credentials: this wasn't the first time I read it. Boy, wasn't it great when Frank Miller was good? I miss those days.
  • Piers Anthony & Robert E. Margroff, Serpent's Silver (5/9)
  • Piers Anthony & Robert E. Margroff, Chimaera's Copper (5/9)
  • Piers Anthony & Robert E. Margroff, Orc's Opal (5/9)
  • Piers Anthony & Robert E. Margroff, Mouvar's Magic (5/10)
    I don't know if there's anything I could say that would adequately convey the feelings this series of books engendered in me. The depth of feeling -- it came right from the pit of my stomach -- was truly amazing. I could barely contain the upwelling. And to continue on in that vein for five whole books was an amazing, nearly unbelievable tribute to the consistency of the authors' vision. No -- I really can't put those feelings into words.
  • Tim Powers, The Stress of Her Regard (5/10)
    A wonderful palate-cleanser. I never liked the Romantic poets much, so I enjoyed what Powers did to them here; those who are big fans of Shelley will probably enjoy this book less than I did. But it's a wonderful, dark trip through history, the way no one does as well as Powers. And it's still one of my favorites of his books.
  • Chris Foss, Diary of a Spaceperson (5/10)
    One of the fake-non-fiction art books that used to be around a lot but seem to have died out. (And that's a shame, since I always liked that kind of thing.) This one is, as you might guess, the diary of a nubile young woman who wandered through space, often against her will. To appreciate the art you have to remember that Foss, at the time of this book, was best known for two things: paintings of rusty old spaceships and pencil drawings of naked girls. This book combines both of his strengths, and it almost makes sense.
  • Gardner Dozois, Geodesic Dreams: The Best Short Fiction (5/14)
    Yet another book I'm stunned to realize that I read. I'm sure it was great -- Gardner is as good a writer as he is an editor -- but I had completely forgotten it.
  • Andre Bernard, Rotten Rejections (5/14)
    A fun little piece of literary marginalia, with lots of nasty things various publishing people said about books that went on to become famous and successful. Suitable for reading late at night, by the fire of a hundred burning rejection slips.
This week I got through this before lunch on Tuesday -- maybe I am improving. (Or maybe it's a fluke; we'll see next week.)

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