In Which We Discuss Fantasy Masterworks

A list of the books in Gollancz' Fantasy Masterworks series. I've included pictures of the covers of the ones I own.

Number	Name	Author	Owned?
1	The Book of the New Sun, Volume 1; Shadow and Claw	Gene Wolfe	---
2	Time and the Gods	Lord Dunsany	---
3	The Worm Ourobouros	E. R. Eddison	---
4	Tales of the Dying Earth	Jack Vance	---
5	Little, Big	John Crowley
6	The Chronicles of Amber	Roger Zelazny
7	Viriconium	M. John Harrison	---
8	The Conan Chronicles, Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle	Robert E. Howard	---
9	The Land of Laughs	Jonathan Carroll	---
10	The Compleat Enchanter: The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea	L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt	---
11	Lud-in-the-Mist	Hope Mirrlees
12	The Book of the New Sun, Volume 2: Sword and Citadel	Gene Wolfe	---
13	Fevre Dream	George R. R. Martin	---
14	Beauty	Sheri S. Tepper
15	The King of Elfland's Daughter	Lord Dunsany
16	The Conan Chronicles, Volume 2: The Hour of the Dragon	Robert E. Howard	---
17	Elric	Michael Moorcock	---
18	The First Book of Lankhmar	Fritz Leiber	---
19	Riddle-Master	Patricia A. McKillip	---
20	Time and Again	Jack Finney	---
21	Mistress of Mistresses	E.R. Eddison	---
22	Gloriana or the Unfulfill'd Queen	Michael Moorcock
23	The Well of the Unicorn	Fletcher Pratt	---
24	The Second Book of Lankhmar	Fritz Leiber	---
25	Voice of Our Shadow	Jonathan Carroll	---
26	The Emperor of Dreams	Clark Ashton Smith
27	Lyonesse I: Suldrun's Garden	Jack Vance	---
28	Peace	Gene Wolfe	---
29	The Dragon Waiting	John M. Ford	---
20	Corum: The Prince in the Scarlet Robe	Michael Moorcock	---
31	Black Gods and Scarlet Dreams	C.L. Moore	---
32	The Broken Sword	Poul Anderson
33	The House on the Borderland and Other Novels	William Hope Hodgson	---
34	The Drawing of the Dark	Tim Powers	---
35	Lyonesse II and III: The Green Pearl and Madouc	Jack Vance	---
36	The History of Runestaff	Michael Moorcock	---
37	A Voyage to Arcturus	David Lindsay	---
38	Darker Than You Think	Jack Williamson
39	The Mabinogion	Evangeline Walton	---
40	Three Hearts & Three Lions	Poul Anderson
41	Grendel	John Gardner
42	The Iron Dragon's Daughter	Michael Swanwick	---
43	WAS	Geoff Ryman
44	Song of Kali	Dan Simmons
45	Replay	Ken Grimwood
46	Sea Kings of Mars and Other Worldly Stories	Leigh Brackett	---
47	The Anubis Gates	Tim Powers	---
48	The Forgotten Beasts of Eld	Patricia A. McKillip	---
49	Something Wicked This Way Comes	Ray Bradbury	---
50	The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales	Rudyard Kipling	---

In Which We Discuss Fantasy

I love Gollancz SF and Fantasy Masterworks series.

For those unfamiliar with them, the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series are great fantasy and sci-fi novels, reprinted by Gollancz in covers that look really, really pretty on a shelf together. Each one has a number - I think they initially released one every month or so, although they seem to have stopped at just over sixty for both - and comes in pretty colours which complement each other.

What I really like about the series is that it's encouraged me to read books that I might not have picked up otherwise. My logic is that I like most of the books in the series, so there's a pretty good chance that I'll like the rest of them.

I picked up my first, Hope Mirrlees' Lud-in-the-Mist in a charity shop a few years back. I got Sheri Tepper's Beauty in Waterstones, mostly because I'm a big fan of Tepper, ever since I found a copy of Jinian Footseer in another charity shop years ago. Those are both in the Fantasy series, numbers 11 and 14 respectively. I decided then to try to get the rest, since I enjoyed both of those.

Then I picked up another Tepper, Grass, in the SF series, and decided to collect those. I usually think of myself as more of a sci-fi than a fantasy fan, but I seem to have much more of those.

I'm going to list down the novels in two tables, in another post, so I can keep track of what I've got, and which ones I need.

Initially, I began this post to talk about Jack Williamson's Darker than you Think. I love the title - whenever I read it, I imagine David Bowie in Labyrinth. You know that line where he says "it's further than you think"? Well, exactly the same tone.

Random trivia; my middle name is Jareth.

Anyway, the book's got a pretty interesting take on werewolves and vampires, and other mythical creatures. It's a little hard to explain, but the explanation is essentially mathematical, and links to probability and telepathy. It's fascinating. But far too short.

Anyway, off to make tables.

In Which We Discuss Books I Want

I want to work on completing my collections of graphic novels this year, mostly Sandman and Misfile. I also want to fill in more of my sci-fi and fantasy masterworks.

When I get home, I need to rearrange my bedroom so I can fit in two or three more bookcases. That should be enough. Hopefully. I have seven at the minute.

I may just possibly have too many books.

In Which We Discuss January 2010

A record of the books I've read this month;

Number	Name	Author	Date Began	Date Finished
1	Bad Science	Ben Goldacre	2009	10/1/09
2	Roadworks	Stephen King (as Richard Bachman)	2009	8/1/2010
3	Confessions of a City Girl	Barbara Stcherbatcheff	3/1/2010	4/1/2010
4	Everywhere We Go	Dougie and Eddy Brimson	4/1/2010	20/1/2010
5	'Salem's Lot	Stephen King	2009	15/1/2010
6	The Official DSA Guide to Learning to Drive	DSA	12/1/2010	15/2/2010
7	Nightwings	Robert Silverberg	15/1/2010	16/1/2010
8	Quirky, Yes. Hopeless, No.	Cynthia La Brie Norall, Ph.D	16/1/2010	???
9	The Thoughtful Dresser	Linda Grant	19/1/2010	20/1/2010
10	We Need to Talk About Kevin	Lionel Shriver	20/1/2010	23/1/2010
11	Cookie	Jacqueline Wilson	23/1/2010	23/1/2010
12	Ring	Koji Suzuki	23/1/2010	25/1/2010
13	Fast Food Nation	Eric Schlosser	25/1/2010	???
14	The Butterfly Tattoo	Philip Pullman	26/1/2010	26/1/2010
15	Memoirs of a Geisha	Arthur Golden	30/1/2010	8/2/2010

I'm going to split this into monthly posts, and then put it all together next year.

In Which We Discuss Sex

Let's start this post with a confession, just for a change.

When I was a little girl - about nine or ten - I thought being a prostitute didn't look like a bad career choice. Mostly, this was due to Pretty Woman. Sex and money, what could be bad about that? Of course, as I got older I learned a little more about it, and decided it wasn't for me. I'm not a girl who can separate sex and romance, or my homelife from my worklife, not to the extent required.

Still, I remain fascinated by the sex industry. A book I found very interesting was Dawn Annandale's Call Me Elizabeth, the true story of a woman who worked as an escort- (or call-) girl in order to fund the education of her six children. An articulate middle-class woman in her thirties, in many ways she didn't fit the typical idea of a prostitute - but, in another way she did. She'd been sexually abused by her father as a child, and although these events don't appear to directly influence her decision to sell her body, it seems telling that she saw fit to include this part of her history. Annandale had been away from her father for many years before she began work as a call girl, and it was in response to mounting debt, rather than, say, drug addiction or pressure from anyone else.

Another book about the sex industry which I found absolutely fascinating was Miranda Austin's Phone Sex, another set of memoirs. These are mostly anecdotes from Austin's time as a phone-sex operative, and make for a very interesting read. The book is absolutely laugh out loud hilarious, while still getting across the creepy feeling Austin got from certain clients. Austin actively enjoyed sex, and had always been told she had a sexy voice. She hadn't been abused, and nor was she on drugs.

Earlier, I bought a copy of Confessions of a Working Girl, by 'Miss S'. This one is the 'true story' of a prostitute who works in a brothel ('massage parlour', since brothels are illegal here in the UK), rather than on a street corner or going to client's homes, like a call girl. The blurb on the back cover reads as follows;

Miss S is smart, sassy, sexually frustrated and broke. With the rent money due, she spots an ad for a student job with a difference - in the massage parlour at the bottom of her road. Suddenly she can earn money doing something she is good at and get all the sex she needs.

Offered a job on the spot by Mrs B, an ex-working girl herself, Miss S quickly gets to grips with the rest of the girls. They include; Bella the house 'Domme', Carry the resident shrink, Tina the house snitch and Suzie the amateur porn star. That's not the mention the cast of clients; Mr Suck It Bitch, Mr Gay, Mr Pacemaker, Mr Councillor and Mr Willy Whacker...

Confessions of a Working Girl is the true, intimate diary of Miss S's extraordinary first year in a brothel and reveals exactly what a Gemini half hour really involves....

Honestly? My first thought at this point was "bollocks". Then I wondered why I thought that. I suspect it's because it sounds too happy. Do I honestly believe that every single prostitute in the world is unhappy, and dismiss entirely the idea that they aren't? I guess, instinctively, I do. And that can't be right, can it, to instantly disbelieve something just because it doesn't fit my preconceived stereotypes? After all, I can't exactly claim to have any intimate personal knowledge of the sex industry.

So, I started reading it. I'm now halfway through, and it turns out that while the blurb is complete bollocks, the book itself is really quite interesting. Most of those 'characters' only show up once, and the whole sexually frustrated thing is more understandable when explained in depth. Then there's the fact that although Miss S herself seems happy with her choice, and doesn't feel forced into it, or bad about herself, she does have some problems. Like condoms splitting, other girls on drugs, gossip, cattiness, and the paranoid idea that everyone around her knows what she's up to. Plus, it becomes clear after a while that she is the lucky one; she seems to be more of an anaomly than the majority. The other girls aren't middle class university students with high sex drives saving up for school supplies and their future - some of them are indeed on drugs, some have been kicked out by their families, some are single parents, and so on.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, my world view is restored. I don't know what that says about me. It's not that I want women in the sex industry to be unhappy - it's that I've always learned that the majority of them are. If they were all as happy and secure in their choice as Miss S, and if all brothels were as well kept as her workplace, it would become difficult to argue against the legislation of them. That would be a good thing, I think. Austin also seems happy and secure in her choice, but then, there's quite a distance between phone sex for money and physical sex for money.

To be honest, I still feel inclined to call shenanigans on the book, but the feeling subsides more as I get further through it.

In Which We Discuss the Devil that is WHSmith

So, I'm back in Aberdeen.

I was very good about packing books into my hand luggage. I'm staying for five days, so I was quite restrained and brought some of my library books - The Bachman Books, 'Salem's Lot - I'm on a King kick at the moment - The Telling, and The United States of Europe. Oh, and a copy of Y Tywysog Bach and a Welsh dictionary. The Little Prince is a book I find very useful for languages, incidentally, as it's been translated into so many. I've bought copies in Latin and Spanish, for friends who are studying those.

So, yes I was quite restrained. Until I got to the WHSmith in the airport, and noticed that they had everything on 4 for 3.

I didn't intend to buy anything. I was just going to look.

I started in the biography section. I enjoy biographies - people are fascinating. However, I did turn my nose up at Cheryl Cole's. I don't believe she's had enough life to justify one really. In all honesty though, I must confess that I simply dislike her.

Anyway, then I picked up Confessions of a City Girl, the book of the column. In this case, the column in question is City Girl, from thelondonpaper. It's the memoirs of a female merchant banker. Since I really liked I Don't Know How She Does It, and Trixie Trader, I had a look at a few random pages. The writing style seemed like it would be absorbing and readable, so I picked it up.

Then I noticed Derren Brown's Tricks of the Mind next to it. Although I don't expect to find out any of his secrets, I do find the man quite watchable, and a skim of the pages looks like he'll be readable too. And I had to make up four, didn't I?

I went over to the chart's display then. Found Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, which, I gather from another quick page skim, discusses the science shown in the media, including a chapter on Gillian McKeith. It looked interesting, and I suspect it will be good for debates and bits of random trivia.

My final choice was Nick Hornby's latest effort, Juliet, Naked. I enjoyed his other books, and I'd been looking at it in the last WHSmith I passed ( there was one at the train station, one before security, and then another one after), so that was that.

...and then I picked up a magazine, too.

...and a copy of Confessions of a Working Girl in the third WHSmith.

Godammit.

Oh, I know I still had two reviews and a conclusion to write about the Lisa Jewell thing. I lost interest, and forgot what I was going to say.

In Which We Discuss Vince and Joy

I personally found Vince and Joy to be the most frustrating of Jewell's novels. In short - and this section is going to contain spoilers - two people meet, and are perfect for each other. Due to a series of ridiculous misunderstandings, they remain apart for the next twenty years or so, having relationships and even children with other people, while continually catching glimpses of one another, but never saying anything. And then, eventually, finally they get together.

One of my pet hates is stories where every one except the main characters knows what's going to happen. Supporting cast, audience, everyone. And then, the entire story is basically waiting for the heroes to stop being idiots.

This is the main reason why I dislike Jewell's more straightforward love stories, like this and Thirtynothing, and even, to an extent, Ralph's Party. It's not so much 'will they, won't they' as 'get on with it already'.