- A review or commentary on William Blake's work.
- A SF/F reviewer posting about a non-genre work.
- Reviews of lit journals in addition to coverage of genre publications, as there are some great lit journals. I can't do this now, however, due to my series editorship of BAF and the demands it puts on me.
- A group of people, over the next year or so, to combine to review all of the Gollancz SF and Fantasy Masterworks books. I would imagine that 10 reviewers, covering 5-10 books each over the course of a year, could achieve this without emptying their savings.
- More reviews of non-Anglophone literature, whether it be genre or mimetic fiction or both. I do know that I plan on writing a review of Portuguese writer's David Soares' latest work, O Evangelho do Enforcado within the next month or two.
- More YA fiction coverage and not just Pat calling a derivative work he didn't like "YA" without having a full understanding of what constitutes YA fiction.
- More reviews of Peter Beagle's stories and novels.
- Someone who might be willing to (re)read David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and write a review of it, as I plan on reading it for the first time either this month or next.
- People talking about cover art developed by small presses or for midlist authors rather than focusing on a few covers that are designed for commercial bestsellers. Previous coverage has given, I believe, a distorted view of cover art for genre work in the US and elsewhere.
- Someone who is willing to (re)read either Edward Whittemore and/or Angela Carter's works, or at least one book of theirs. Blogging by several people of virtually the same types of books can lead to rather weary reading after a while.
- More cowbell in reviews, or at least more squirrel.
There, that ought to cover my wish list for the remainder of the year.
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20 comments:
hard to argue with that. Particularly interested in Infinite Jest as I'm planning to read it for the first time soon. I'm a little scared of it.
I am about to push out an essay on his short fiction for publication locally, so it will interesting to look for similar themes...
I've been meaning to read DFW's fiction for some time, but I kept putting it off until recently. It certainly is a daunting book, size-wise.
If I didn't have kids I reckon I'd be doing at least 2 and 4. I'd be totally down for doing 4 now actually if I could commit to the lower end of reviews (5 rather than 10). I've been trying to get through them regardless.
I already do reviews of non-genre work.
I have recently reviewed Peter S Beagle's short Dirae on Next Read (and plan to pick up the two books he is releasing in 2010).
If you want YA fiction coverage, then go to the Book Smugglers everytime. Their YA coverage is peerless (both genre and non-genre).
The Masterworks read/review idea project sounds boss!
A group of people, over the next year or so, to combine to review all of the Gollancz SF and Fantasy Masterworks books.
You could piggyback on SF Site. I wrote five SF Masterworks reviews for them and meant to do more. They have already covered about half of them so a concerted effort my bloggers could quickly fill the gaps.
Plus I reckon I cover 2, 6 and 9.
It's good to know some, if not all, of these are already being done (I just like to provide some encouragement for more to try to do more, that's all :D).
Martin,
I might, as I do have plans for reading 1-2 of the Fantasy Masterworks books a week and writing short reviews this autumn and winter.
I do plan on grabbing some classics and explore non-genre work, so Blake may be a good suggestion. [pt. 1 & 2 covered]
pt. 3 & 4 will have to wait until I move to an English speaking country to stack up the books and a less hectic schedule.
I have a collection by a French writer I want to read & I am finally taking a plunge with Bulgarian literature [contemporary I mean].
YA is in the works. I think I have done a YA in the very first reviews.
Beagle, Foster & Carter are now on my radar, while the whole cover art thing is still developing in my head. [not initially included in my re-invention, but good to list]
Cowbells are necessary.
Have you been semi-reading my mind?
For William Blake stuff, would point you in the direction of http://zoamorphosis.com (I am something of a fan of his...)
I'm going to be doing something on Burning Your Boats.
and probably The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman as well.
I HAVE read Infinite Jest recently, but writing a review of it is beyond the realm of what is possible (beyond some general impressions that do not touch in any way what's written in the book and how it can affect you).
That book can swallow you whole and then swallow everything else. You can maybe comment a specific chapter or aspect, but that's all.
Definitely DO read it, there's nothing like it.
I'd also suggest to buy Elegant Complexity, maybe on Kindle for PC, since it helps a lot to track certain themes.
http://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Complexity-Wallaces-Infinite-ebook/
I'm about half way through The Last Unicorn and should have a review up next week. :) I also have a copy of The Folk of the Air, but I'm not sure when I'll get to it. Probably soon since I'm loving The Last Unicorn.
I'm sure you'll find all those things online if you dedicate enough time to googling.
I read Quin's Shanghai Circus a few months ago.
http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2010/04/quins-shanghai-circus-by-edward.html
I plan to get through the rest of Whittemore's work this summer.
Larry - the problem with reading whittemore is that, last time I checked, all his books are out of print. A few years back Old Earth Books put them back in print, but that only lasted a couple of months. At least in my corner(s) of the world (I tried in NZ and Canada), there aren't many second hand copies either, which means that prohibitively expensive trips to abebooks are the only way to get hold of his stuff.
As you just found out on Twitter, it appears I will be reading Infinite Jest whenever a copy becomes available at the library. It has been on my to-read list for some time and I just haven't gotten around to reading it. Your mention of it earlier was a good reminder. The length of it is a bit worrying, but I'll make it through… probably. The review is another matter.
Unfortunately, I only read English. I do want to read more translated fiction though and plan to do so. The Golden Age by Michal Ajvaz is sitting unread on my shelf alongside Labyrinths by Borges and I would really like to read more Zivkovic. I've a handful of translated short fiction about, too.
I do plan to read some of Angela Carter's work, since you have her on the list of fifty books you posted a while back (I also need to read more books by women). Edward Whittemore is out of the question for the moment though as my library system does not have any of his work and I pretty much lack the extraneous funds required to purchase books (the top reason why I have not read more Zivkovic, actually…).
As far as cover art goes, I do not cover it all that much. By the time I stumble across cover art, it has already been posted and reposted by those not living under a rock. I do tend to post art related to books I have an interest in though--the latest being, I believe, the covers to Graham Joyce's upcoming novel and Michal Ajvaz's The Golden Age, as well as the French art for Hal Duncan's Escape From Hell!. I should probably start visiting more sites for small presses, but then that would involve me moving from the safety of my rock... :P
Eddie, James--
The Whittemore can take time to track down, but I managed to get a hardback of all his work for under $20 at the start of the year.
All five of his books could probably be had for $20 if you don't mind a worn paperback.
ebay, powells, abe, google shopping, and a host of other sources can make it pretty easy, and cheap too. (All the above info may be for nothing if you live out side the US.)
- A SF/F reviewer posting about a non-genre work - checked
- A group of people, over the next year or so, to combine to review all of the Gollancz SF and Fantasy Masterworks books. - started
- More reviews of non-Anglophone literature, whether it be genre or mimetic fiction or both - checked
- More reviews of Peter Beagle's stories and novels - checked
- Someone who is willing to (re)read either Edward Whittemore and/or Angela Carter's works - checked
But my blog is portuguese... :)
I suspect a non-genre stint will be coming up for me, maybe next year if not this. In fact, possibly a non-fiction stint, since I was recently distressed to find that some of my knowledge of WW2, the Napoleonic era and Roman history had degraded from my pre-blogging years when I read was much non-fiction as fiction.
Chad - the problem, at least while I'm in New Zealand, is that abebooks shipping is outrageous, and I was looking at 10 bucks US per book, plus 15 bucks shipping, for each whittemore book.
Although I didn't realise there was a hardback omnibus - will try to track it down!
Eddie
Sorry for the confusion. There is no Whittemore omnibus hardback to the best of my knowledge; I was speaking of all the works individually.
And now that I give it some more thought, it was probably closer to $30 I spent. Still, not too bad for five hardback books.
Best of luck in tracking them down; my sympathies.
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