Booklust

[coalescent]

In the post today, to review for Vector:

Trujillo: stories by Lucius Shepard

'Only Partly Here' [notes]
'A Walk In The Garden' [notes]
'Crocodile Rock' [notes]
'Eternity and Afterward' [notes]
'Hands Up! Who Wants To Die?' [notes]
'Jailwise' [notes]
'The Drive In Puerto-Rico' [notes]
'Senor Volto' [notes]
'The Same Old Story' [notes]
'The Park Sweeper' [notes]
'Trujillo' [notes]

It's a lovely hardback, with a ribbon bookmark, and it's huge. It might only be 11 stories but it weighs in at a shade under 700 pages, which means it's easily the biggest book I've seen from PS (although possibly not quite the biggest they've actually published). A big chunk of that length, note, is down to 'Trujillo' because that story is, in fact, a novel. A short novel, but still a novel, and a brand-new-for-2004 one at that.

Oh, yes. I think I am going to enjoy this.

There's one tiny downside: I only have eight hundred words for the review. I already know I could write eight hundred words about 'Only Partly Here', 'Eternity and Afterward' and 'Jailwise'. Each. Maybe I'll post more detailed thoughts here as I go along.

Comments

[snowking.livejournal.com]

You? Overly verbose? What are the chances?!

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Book envy! If any of them are half as good as Only Partly Here it'll be a ncie read.

Between SciFiction, and what stories I can find on the Analog and Asimov's website, I've got quite a chunk of stuff to read now.

BTW, shall I post The Snow onto someone else to read? Given that I don't think I'll be able to return it for the next few months.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

:-p

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

To be fair, 'Only Partly Here' is almost perfect--it just pips 'The Empire of Ice-Cream' as my favourite story from last year. I think 'Over Yonder' comes close, though. And your SCIFICTION reading includes 'New Light on the Drake Equation', right? And 'The Voluntary State'? And it might be interesting to compare 'The Women Men Don't See' with 'What I Didn't See'. too. :)

re: The Snow--if you're willing to post it, that'd be great. I think Geneva expressed interest, if only to find out what all the fuss is about. ;-)

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I may as well take advantage of my current "layabout wastrel" state to get some reading done. I've done the Hugo novelette list (barring the Lake which seems to be unavailable.

The Empire of Ice Cream is the best, yes. The Swanwick starts well but doesn't end as well, the Stross is exciting but a little confused, the Kelly is good and strange, and the Reed is quite nicely done, but too predictable from the start for my liking.

(Yes, I could probably do a proper post on this but I'm too lazy.)

After that I shall start on the novellas, then go back to Sci-Fiction. Ta for the recommendations. :)

[gummitch.livejournal.com]

That 800 word limit is just a guideline. If the book and/or the review justify it then it can be longer. My advice: write the review at whatever length you want, edit it down to 800ish words, then submit both. If the latter is the one they run with, then you can always use the longer one elsewhere.

(I speak as production editor of Vector, reviews of varying length make my life much easier.)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I've emailed a pdf of the Lake story to your urchin account.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's worth knowing, thanks. Although I think 800 words per story would be pushing it. ;-)

Hmm. I seem to have stopped receiving comment notifications again ...

[(Anonymous)]

Tell you what, just write it, using however many words it takes, then email it to me, and i'll take out all the superfluous ones. Deal?

-- tom

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on this monster series.

I don't know what Vector's policy is but can you turn this into one big review for, say, Strange Horizons?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It actually worked well as a way of reading the collection; I might do it again sometime. Possibly for Ian Macleod's next book ...

can you turn this into one big review for, say, Strange Horizons?

Yeah, I was wondering about something like that. If anything comes of it, I'll let you know.