Black Gate

Last week I was in Seattle and Portland, where I made pilgrimages to venues possible interest to readers here.  One was Powell’s Books, which claims to be the largest independent bookstore of both used and new books in the nation.  It’s an amazing place, with floors of books in a range of almost every conceivable category that would put any Barnes and Noble “superbookstore” to shame even in its heyday.  Needless to say, the science fiction and fantasy aisle alone is something you could easily browse for an hour or two.

Though I could easily have gone nuts in stuffing a shopping basket, I managed to restrict my purchases to a single used copy of Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (I resisted the urge to also get the mammoth Against the Day because, well, as much as I’m interested, I don’t have the time to commit to 1104 pages of one-stop reading; the audio version comprises 42 CDs for 54 hours of listening) and a gift vegan cookbook for my daughter.  One thing that helped keep my book jones in check was that Powell’s isn’t inexpensive. As much as I’d like to contribute to the physical presence of the bookstore, even one that I’m not likely to visit frequently, the fact is that other than maybe some featured bestsellers, I could get just about anything new or used less expensively at that other big bookstore you may have heard of that exists only virtually.  And when you buy a lot of books like I do (and probably you do), many of which spend extended periods on the “to read” shelf, keeping cost of acquisition down becomes an important buying decision.

…

Read More Read More

If you don’t understand the headline, you’re probably too young to remember Max Headroom, originally a British television movie that became a short-lived series for American broadcast (1987-1988) featuring a computer generated talking head–that would be Max–who later became a music video host, a “spokesperson” for New Coke (and if you don’t know what New Coke was, you’re really too young to care about this), and later brought out of retirement in the United Kingdom to explain the switch from analog to digital TV (this, you might remember). Though, today, any 12 year old with a cheap laptop could probably program a character like Max, back in the 1980s this was beyond the technical reach and budget constraints of broadcast television; Max was played by Canadian actor Matt Frewer outfitted in a latex get-up to make him appear pixalated.

I was excited to learn that the series had recently been released for the first time on DVD: I vaguely remembered the program from its initial broadcast (because, yeah, I’m that old) and was eager to revisit something I remember as being very cool.

Alas, as Tom Wolfe used to say, you can’t go home again.

…

Read More Read More

Strange Horizons not only pioneered the notion of an on-line “magazine” devoted to speculative fiction, but is still around today to talk about it.  In fact, Strange Horizons is celebrating its tenth anniversary, which also happens to coincide to its annual fund drive. The magazine is somewhat unique in that it operates on a “PBS-like” donation model (without the nature and cooking shows coupled with pop concerts from performers whose better days date back to the 1970s that  your financial support of  somehow makes you a last bastion of “high culture”).  It seems to have worked.  Take a look at its very first issue.

On a more somber note, this just in on the continuing decline of the physical bookstore, albeit the big box model that a few years ago everyone was lamenting was killing off neighborhood independent bookstores.

Whatever the fate of the physical book, the future looks like it might be in the hands of the little guy who can figure out a niche to, if not thrive in, at least be comfortable in. Not such a bad thing,