Michael Shea: Heir to Jack Vance and H P Lovecraft

Подписаться 8 тыс.

Просмотров 3,3 тыс.

50% 1

Reviewing the work of Michael Shea and its connections to the oeuvres of Jack Vance and H P Lovecraft.
#sciencefictionbooks
#sciencefiction
#bookrecommendations
#booktube
#hplovecraft
#cthulhu
#fantasy
Music: theoccupier.bandcamp.com/

Развлечения

Опубликовано:

7 июл 2024

Ссылка:

Скачать:

Готовим ссылку...

Добавить в:

Мой плейлист

Посмотреть позже

Комментарии : 57

@salty-walt Год назад

This is the third time Michael Shea has come up for me recently: the vibes. . .

@danieldelvalle5004 Год назад

I have an Arkham House Lovecraftian Anthology, Cthulhu 2000, edited by Jim Turner. It has Fat Face by Michael Shea, Shaft Number 247 by Basil Copper, On The Slab by Harlan Ellison, and other stories by Bruce Sterling, Gene Wolfe, Joanna Russ, and others. It's a great anthology.

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

That sounds great, Daniel. I've definitely not read some of those -Sterling, Wolfe and Russ- and they are fave authors of mine, so I must watch out for it. Thanks as ever for your stimulating comments!

@danieldelvalle5004 Год назад

@@outlawbookselleroriginal These are some of the stories in the anthology I mentioned: "I Had Vacantly Crumpled It Into My Pocket...But By God, Elliot, It Was A Photograph From Life!" Joanna Russ (What a title for a story!) The Unthinkable-Bruce Sterling Lord of the Land-Gene Wolfe 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, By Hokusai-Roger Zelazny In all there are 18 stories total. I think it's well worth your time to check out. However I've had this anthology since it was published in 1995. I don't know if it is still available or out of print.

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

@@danieldelvalle5004 -Cheers Daniel. It goes on the list!

@apilgrim8715 Год назад

Don't forget Pickman's Modem

@JavierGonzalez-xg2tq 3 дня назад

Like a good book t his video benefits from repeated viewings. THANK YOU for crafting it!

@sciencefictionreads Год назад

Steve, you had me running to my shelves to track down my Daw edition of 'Nift the lean' and an omnibus I have of the four 'Dying earth' novels (I read 1 or 2 back in 2016 when I was first getting interested in Sff). I've been in quite the reading slump lately and these may just be the thing to turn that around! Also looking forward to your top ten heroic fantasy video!

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

Hi Matt, great to hear from you - yes, the dreaded 'reading slump' can strike at any time. I find sometimes it's just you read something that flies by, then another title takes you ten days to finish. Why not read some more Holdstock? Take care, my friend.

@rickkearn7100 Год назад

Great analogy OB! Spot-on, this Shea as heir to Vance and Lovecraft notion. I enjoy both Vance and Lovecraft, not must-reads but certainly I have no hesitation in pulling one of their stories from my bookshelves at the start of a stormy weekend. Thanks for this illumination of Shea, I'm looking forward to reading some of his work this coming winter. Cheers.

@zamiadams4343 3 месяца назад

Hi Stephen, i've just read "The Man in the Maze" which was brilliant, and have just ordered "Monday Begins on Saturday" and about ten other books. At the age of 49 i'm entering the world of science fiction for the first time, I was always put off reading SF as I thought that every book was part of a huge series so I never went near them and I was completely wrong. I've said it before but every single episode of your channel is like an extraordinary adventure into the mind of a man who can guide others into the realm of fantastic books, and even in saying that it's still a massive understatement. Hearing these titles and seeing you reviewing these books is a great experience. Thank you yet again.

@outlawbookselleroriginal 3 месяца назад

You're very kind. I'm delighted to hear of someone mature reading SF for the first time. The series model, which has become predominant as the decades wore on after the late 1980s, is responsible for destroying much of the literary quality of Genre SF. Seek out singletons and you won't go far wrong. Ecstatic to have you aboard!

@waltera13 Год назад

Great Vid! Sent me looking for what is around, and left me quite surprised! Michael Shea is WAY more expensive than it would seem likely!

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

Yes, his out of print books are going for silly money. He was never really much of a bestseller and his work was for the more discerning palate, so unlike the average 80s S&S writer, he didn't get multiple printings - too sophisticated a writer, basically! But keep your eyes open, you never know...

@apilgrim8715 Год назад

In Yana was my favorite Shea book. Quest for S is also good, the gambling scene and the journey into the underworld (especially the genetic engineering weapons like the trees) were quite memorable. Certainly horror (people as food).

@robertadamgilmour3375 Год назад

Learned a couple of surprising things about Shea recently. He written a book called Apricot Brandy under the name Lynn Cesar for the urban fantasy trend. And among his unpublished works is a 4th Nifft novel of which only excerpts have been published and I'm not totally sure if it was ready to publish; I think Baen is interested but that might be dependent on sales of the earlier novels and that sets my teeth on edge, I want some publisher to commit to all 4 novels. His widow is working to get his work back in print and Hippocampus and Valancourt have been the recent takers. I listened to a radio interview with Vance and he didn't sound much impressed by Shea's Dying Earth book. One of the best things about the Spatterlight editions of Vance is that his short fiction used to be so difficult to collect and now it's easy. I get people's issues with print on demand but I love them because it allows hundreds of gloriously uncommercial books to exist without being incredibly expensive limited editions (I buy plenty of those too, it would be a nightmare if they all cost those kinds of prices). About 60% of the books I buy these days are print on demand. My main issues with print on demand: (1) they get deleted with alarming frequency, I used to wait, assuming they would be available forever but now I buy them sooner than later. (2) The price of thicker books is vastly multiplied and I've heard that the price is rising enough that publishers like Valancourt are getting wary of printing larger books (3) Perhaps when something is print on demand it makes it unlikely it will get a major publisher reprinting it for a long time?

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

I'm not surprised Vance wasn't massively impressed by Shea's book, but then, like Vance's own work, it does meander, though it has overtones of Horror one wouldn't find in Vance- but the latter did authorise it. Your comments re Spatterlight - ease of access - are undermined of course by the other issues you're finding with POD. In theory, POD titles should be available 'forever', that being the point. My issues are that they prevent major publishers reinvesting in backlist reissues of out of copyright classics and around the quality of cover materials and unpleasant trade formats. In Spatterlight's case, they have copyright as Vance has only been dead a few years, so no other publisher can reissue. In the case of Classics (where authors are dead for 50-75 years or more) anyone can in theory issue POD editions: this discourages major publishers from bothering.

@robertadamgilmour3375 Год назад

@@outlawbookselleroriginal It also gets hard to actually find a public domain classic by Penguin or Oxford in among the POD editions. Sometimes I have to go through 10 pages on amazon to find one by a good publisher. But was there ever a good time for publishers keeping extensive back catalogues by a single author in print? What Gollancz did with Moorcock a decade ago seems almost unique in SFF aside from maybe Tolkien. I've been buying up POD editions of the vast back catalogues of Brian Stableford, SP Somtow and Tanith Lee and it's hard to imagine a world in which traditional publishers would keep all that available. If you count his translations of other authors Stableford has something like 300 books. He released his 100th novel recently.

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

@@robertadamgilmour3375 - Well, you'll note that nowhere do I speak about volume of titles, obviously for any publisher this depends on sales, while a POD publisher just has to have a digital file and POD service ready to print individual copies off, rather than have the expense of money tied up in stock on shelves. As most mass market publishers no longer issue paperback stocklists for booksellers to use, it's hard to assess how many prolific and long-lived authors have numerous titles in print- and of course many older authors have a substantial number of second-hand copies in circulation, so these will fulfill some demand while depriving the author of royalties. But to cite one example, Gollancz have most of Christopher Priests' titles in print at any given time- that's some twenty books- and he's not alone in this. Obviously popular authors like Al Reynolds, Pratchett, King, Banks and many others will have large backlists consistently available- though at any given time one of more of them will be in reprint. Clearly someone like Stableford - who has never been really popular, sadly - will ever have huge backlists in print, and of course this is another reason why some authors are so prolific. People like King and Christie are/were obviously compelled to keep writing despite massive commercial success, but many authors would hold back from this if they could afford to slow down- Dan Brown and Thomas Harris are two classic examples of authors with small outputs and huge sales, while Lee Child has huge sales and high output.

@Bookpilled Год назад

Shea sounds very much to my taste. I had no idea about Simbilis. I'll be picking up whatever I find from him. Great vid, Steve.

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

Thanks Matt. I think you'll find 'Simbilis' interesting as a comparison to 'Cugel's Saga'. I'm pretty sure you'll like 'Nift The Lean' - he is about the only S&S writer entering the genre after 1977 I like.

@erikpaterson1404 2 месяца назад

The world is indeed a comic, but the joke is on mankind - H. P. Lovecraft

@RodneyAllanPoe Год назад

Thank you so much for this Michael Shea profile. I'm a big fan of his Nifft novels and assorted short stories. You're probably aware that 'The Autopsy' was adapted by Netflix quite well. I like horror fiction, and so Shea suits me very well. MINES and ARAK are good but Shea's prose became overbaked in his later years - clever syntax, less fun to read.

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

I'm aware of the Netflix thing but have not watched it. I must remedy that. Always good to be in touch with another Shea fan.

@wbbartlett 2 месяца назад

Even here in the colonies his books are mostly going for ridiculous sums for 1980s/90s paperbacks (if you can even find them). For example, Nifft is currently $55 on Thriftbooks, while Nifft 2 is $80. Simbilis & Demiurge are both more reasonable, $14 & $24 respectively. That said, I just grabbed the two Grafton Cthulhu anthologies for a combined $30 so not everything is absolutely terrible on this side of the Atlantic.

@outlawbookselleroriginal 2 месяца назад

Much the same here. He was never popular, so the books were never printed in massive quantities- he was basically writing a modern for of S&S and Horror that were too literary for the mass market at the way it was by the late 1980s. You were lucky to get the Grafton anthologies as they only had single printings in the UK, baffling really as I never had any trouble selling them at work.

@roberthill2199 Год назад

King's Crouch End was adapted as an episode of the anthology TV series Nightmares and Dreamscapes. (TNT, 2006).

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

Was it any good? Thanks for the heads up.

@roberthill2199 Год назад

@@outlawbookselleroriginal It was okay, but nothing amazing. I think the DVD of the series can be picked up pretty cheaply.

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

@@roberthill2199 -thanks Robert. I generally find these things underwhelming the last twenty years or so. I think I was spoiled by growing up in the true Golden Age of Horror Cinema, from 'Night of the Living Dead' in 1968 to 'Prince of Darkness' around twenty years later, effects caught up with imagination and we were so lucky in those years...

@stuartmunro2474 14 дней назад

Shea likes the Dying Earth setting, but his heroes are a bit more Sabatini than Vance - even a fellow as clever as Cugel has to hike right across the world twice, to get one up Iucounu the magician.

@seppukuhiphop 10 месяцев назад

28:04 Tim White cover

@niriop Год назад

I think Polyphemus is a good candidate for a Valancourt reprint, just like they did with Tuttle’s A Nest of Nightmares. Those Mythos anthologies too come to think of it.

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

Yes, Valancourt would be a good fit. They're great on Anglophile reissues, my only beef is that I wish they'd drop cheap trade/print on demand formats and do good solid old A Format books, which would really suit their aesthetic, but it's probably a financial thing.

@niriop Год назад

@@outlawbookselleroriginal I thought my edition of Tuttle’s collection was of good quality-but maybe I’m missing something.

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

@@niriop -My bad! I forgot that the 'Paperbacks From Hell' series from Valancourt is in A Format - sadly their other material isn't in that classic size. The Tuttle is nice, but not as beautiful as the Sphere original (which I used to own), which had nicer laminate, spine and rear cover design, but the same artwork. The PFH reissue is welcome, but the details of the livery don't quite match the Sphere. But, given the scarcity of the original in fine condition, the PFH will do!

@littleredflying-fox Год назад

It appears that Michael Shea is yet another writer I have unfairly neglected. I will have to check out Demiurge. I had forgotten about L. Sprague DeCamp... I read his Reluctant King series in the 1980s and enjoyed them. One of the things about your videos that I enjoy the most is the connections you make between authors.

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

The ability to connect only comes with extensive reading that is about transcending boundaries - it's also a byproduct of decades of bookselling, trying to find books for people based on their existing tastes by tangentially similar authors whom they may not have read. Without being immodest, it has long been considered one of my keynote skills by friends, colleagues and customers.

@bad_brains_horror3613 2 месяца назад

Looking forward to the top SF films video. 🎥💀

@outlawbookselleroriginal 2 месяца назад

I've been meaning to do one for ages and am starting to move toward film material again- usually in a book-related context- so keep your eye on this channel and check out the existing 'Futurewatch' playlist here, which covers SF film.

@kid5Media 11 месяцев назад

Lancer pb of The Dying Earth with an Emsh cover.

@outlawbookselleroriginal 11 месяцев назад

That's an SF haiku, man.

@waltera13 Год назад

As Dying Earth books go, any feelings on Hodgson's "The Night Land" ?

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

That's a very good point. I haven't read it for decades. I've wanted to resurrect my Hodgson archive of late but sadly the Uk market is dominated by awful print on demand editions apart from a British Library collection, which is quite nice and residing in the hideout. Penguin did an A Format 'House on the Borderland' a few years ago and like a fool I didn't pick it up, my old Hodder one having fallen into the abyss of time known as a 'book unhaul' many aeons ago (again, bad decision). But I feel a Hodgson revival may come...

@waltera13 Год назад

@@outlawbookselleroriginal Keep your eyes open for the Nightshade Press editions: They are LOVELY - Just like their Clark Ashton Smith! To Be Clear: the HC is lovely & TPB are quite nice. P.S. Check for direct email.

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

@@waltera13 Copy that, comrade!

@benja6902 Год назад

Consider reading Kagen the Damned by Jonathan Maberry. It is grimdark fantasy mixed with Lovecraftian horror.

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

Thanks for the recommendation, but refer to my video on 'Grimdark' and why I don't feel it's a necessary usage. Cheers!

@sylvanyoung Год назад

Have the ' Nifft The Lean ' in Daw . There is some thing about the Daw covers which i prefer , not only here but in other books . Yes cant mention Lovecraft and Ashton Smith and not mention the third member of Weird Tales ..Howard , mayhaps best known for Conan . But he wrote way more . I agree the Cthulhu anthology have been done to death . Even porn added 😏. I recently decided to try " The Children of Cthulhu " anthology , which promices to be different . The first story by China Mieville . A video on heroic fantasy sounds good . As usual this was informative and encouraged to go and find more by those authors .

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

I think I did mention Howard in the video, though only in passing, saying about his horror tinges. But yes, he did so much more than ol' Conan. Been re-reading some Conan recently, funnily enough. Good to hear from you, Sylvan.

@rickkearn7100 Год назад

Thanks!

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

Thanks very much, Rick!

@allanlloyd3676 Год назад

I have a bit of a problem with Jack Vance. I appreciate that he is a great writer and I love his style, but I hardly ever finish one of his books. After about 50 pages I get tired of too many descriptions of strange societies, and a bit fed up with heroes that just wander around the planet on quests that don't achieve very much. Perhaps I should just read bite-sized chunks and be happy with that. I don't get on much with Lovecraft either. I can (with some difficulty) make allowances for his racism, but his general disgust and hatred of mankind in general shows much of his whole state of mind. I find his language laughable, with all those meaningless words to describe "undescribable horrors", and I just don't find his horror scary. I think it was Keith Roberts who said that anyone who is obsessed with horror stories should go out and spend some time with a police traffic unit or in a casualty department of a hospital. I have spent 40 years as a livestock farmer and seen many unpleasant and bloody incidents with animals and just don't want to read more descriptions of body horror. I don't have any books by Michael Shea but will consider giving some a try if they turn up. On an unrelated subject, but because I know that you like Dave Hutchinson's work, I found an early collection of his short stories (called Fools' Gold, as by David H) in Hay last week. It was his second book and written when he was 18 years old and studying for his A-levels! I haven't read it yet, but after I've finished, I wondered if you would like it. It is a hardback from Abelard Press and in lovely nick. It would be better in your collection than mine, and I could post it to you (for free!) or you could pick it up next time you are in Hay.

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

Allan, I would LOVE that Dave Hutchinson book, that's very kind, but you must read it first. I entirely understand your misgivings re Vance - as I said in the Shea video, I have to read him slowly and simply enjoy the prose as I don't find his plotting that gripping. Lovecraft again, I like a few things but I much prefer (some) of the material that spun off from his work, like the Wilson. Keith R was almost certainly right- but of course he's a writer on an entirely different level to HPL, JV or Shea- he is one of my most revered scribes and in the top echelon. More than anything else, this video was to alert readers to the broader worlds of Vance and Lovecraft's influences. Although I'm noted for my love of pioneers, cleaving to them and giving them the fealty they deserve, often writers from the founding pulp genre days of say 1910 to 1940 are more significant for their inspiration, with later writers took further. I always say SF is an evolutionary, revolutionary genre and there's no doubt that between 1950 and 1990 is reached its highest claims to be art. Thanks for your insightful comments.

@allanlloyd3676 Год назад

@@outlawbookselleroriginal The Hutchinson book will be yours. Are you planning another Hay trip? I would love to meet for a chat and a pint if you are. I agree with you about the Lovecraft influence on modern writers. Have you tried the works of Caitlin Kiernan? The prose is very ornate, but the Lovecraft influence is more humane. The early works are full of gothy punks, but I prefer the more mature stories.

@outlawbookselleroriginal Год назад

@@allanlloyd3676 -I've never got around to reading Kiernan, but the obvious Gothy Punks elements put me off, though more recently I've been drawn to CKs work. I am, however, trying not to add to my huge TBR pile too much, though my buying of collectable SF shows no sign of fading, but that's a long-term, lifetime project. I am planning to visit Hay again soon, but I tend to have limited time there (there is a designated driver who is not myself) so I have to limit it to a few hours. I am, however, considering staying in Hay for a few days sometime next year and would very much like to meet up. Let's stay in touch and I'll let you know!

@allanlloyd3676 Год назад

@@outlawbookselleroriginal Sounds good to me. Must keep the designated driver happy!