Secondhand bookshop success

[philmophlegm]

On a whim, we went into Liskeard on our way back from picking up from gooseberries off my parents. (We were a little short on cream, and I like to smother my crumble in cream).

Anyway, we went into a couple of bookshops. Failed to buy anything in one, but struck a rich vein of SF and fantasy in the second, a purely secondhand bookshop.

For the grand total of just £8.50, I was able to buy:

Slave Ship, Frederik Pohl
Time Enough for Love, Robert Heinlein
Tau Zero, Poul Anderson
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
Children of Dune, Frank Herbert (and in the same edition as all the other Dune books that bunn has, so it fills the gap from the previous copy of Children that she's lost)
Orion Shall Rise, Poul Anderson
Legacy, Greg Bear
Cradle, Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee
Rama Revealed, Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee
Dreamsongs, a George R.R. Martin retrospective (in mint hardback for just £2.50!)

So quite chuffed by that. Three of those books were on my Amazon wishlist! Anyone read any of them and care to provide comments?

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I've read the top five, and it's a mixture. I love Slave Ship (animal lib before animal lib, and Victor Hugo as a saint) and like Tau Zero (good hard SF) very much. The Rediscovery of Man is one of those books you either love or hate. Smith's writing can irritate me because it is not very grammatical, but the ideas are often an knockout. Time Enough for Love is, for me, the last of the readable Heinleins. I like Lazerus Long's thoughts and still quote some of them, but the rest is a patchwork of interesting and boring.

I find Children of Dune nearly unreadable (while God Emperor is unreadable, and so is everything else until Chapter House Dune which is not as good as Dune Messiah but is readable. Once.

I don't own that particular collection but Martin is one of the greatest of SF short story writers and if it contains most of the stuff from Sandkings and Tuf Voyaging it will be excellent.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. I have Tuf Voyaging on my to be read shelf. Bunn keeps on at me to read it because it's a) by GRRM, b) very Travelleresque and c) has lots of cats in it.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Well, I have given up on A Song of Ice and Fire but think Fevre Dream is the best vampire novel ever written, and The Armageddon Rag is the best rock horror novel ever written (even better when you can identify the people he's based The Nazgul on - I have an advantage in that I share a house with one of the great Winter brothers fans) and some of his short stories are not only worthy of their Hugos and Nebulas but are worthy of inclusion in a Best of All Time anthology.

Actually, because I have this opinion, I really have started to dislike A Song of Ice and Fire and not just because I don't share his view of the Wars of the Roses, or because I really don't like books that are so s-l-o-w or that kill off everyone I get find of, but because it has stopped him writing those wonderful stand-alones.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

He wrote one of the short stories in 'Songs of the Dying Earth' (see userpic) which he also edited. That's a collection worth getting anyway, but you have to be a Vance fan.

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

Rediscovery of Man is one of those books you either love or hate. Smith's writing can irritate me because it is not very grammatical, but the ideas are often an knockout.

I love Cordwainer Smith, but rarely find anyone else who does!

[chainmailmaiden]

Dreamsongs is excellent, GRRM's sci fi stuff reminds me a lot of Robert Silverberg, whose work I love. I've not read through Dreamsongs in order, instead it's one I tend to dip into when I need a GRRM fix.

I've not read any of the other books, I gave up on the Dune series some time ago and I've avoided anything by Greg Bear since college. I just couldn't get into his books, though my then boyfriend raved about his work.

[clarienne.livejournal.com]

I've not read any of them, but yay for a good second hand bookshop haul. :)

Классный блог!

[fonsecaarysa.livejournal.com]

И все же, многое остается не ясным. Если не затруднит, распишите подробнее. (http://zimnyayaobuv.ru/) (http://zimnyaya-obuv.ru/)