I got the Citadel Press PKD short-story collection "Paycheck" from my girlfriend. That would've been great, except that I have Citadels "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford" sitting on my sehelf, which is the exact same book, save for title, cover, and a lower price 12 years ago when it came out.
And she no longer had the recepit.
Nevertheless, the friendly, distracted people at the mega-Borders (or was it Barns & Noble? Does it make a difference?) told me to pick out something else and bring 'em both up to the counter.
After a half-hour of wandering about--irritated that the "graphic novel" section now consisted solely of "Sandman" complilations and "Ranma 1 1/2" volumes--I was sorely tempted by Stoss' hardcover of "Singularity Sky", but considering that I'd have to shell out another $10 for that, I "settled" for APSFa8M. And I got $1.06 (American!), to boot.
Bastard that I am, I read the whole damn thing yesterday, except for 0wnz0red, which I read twice on Salon, anyway.
:::sigh:::
And she no longer had the recepit.
Nevertheless, the friendly, distracted people at the mega-Borders (or was it Barns & Noble? Does it make a difference?) told me to pick out something else and bring 'em both up to the counter.
After a half-hour of wandering about--irritated that the "graphic novel" section now consisted solely of "Sandman" complilations and "Ranma 1 1/2" volumes--I was sorely tempted by Stoss' hardcover of "Singularity Sky", but considering that I'd have to shell out another $10 for that, I "settled" for APSFa8M. And I got $1.06 (American!), to boot.
Bastard that I am, I read the whole damn thing yesterday, except for 0wnz0red, which I read twice on Salon, anyway.
:::sigh:::
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Scranton
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Re: A Place so Foreign and 8 More
Mon, December 29, 2003 - 5:17 PMCrappy, trite, superficial question that I can't help asking: Which is your favourite in that volume?
I'll premptively answer the impending fire-back: the title story, "A Place So Foreign." I think the protagonist is easy to identify with, and the particular brand of isolation he experiences is well-developed.
You really should check _Singularity Sky_ out from the library or something though. It's terrific. -
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Re: A Place so Foreign and 8 More
Mon, December 29, 2003 - 6:25 PMNot bloody likely at a library in >this< state--library budgets got slashed by 50% starting Friday. Well, they got back some of that. Not much, though.
They're canning the bookmobile and 22 staffers in this county. Acquisitions are being cut back.
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Re: A Place so Foreign and 8 More
Thu, January 1, 2004 - 3:21 PMIt was only last week that I got around to reading the copy I picked up at the "release party" reading. Anyway...
APSF may have actually been my least favorite. It felt like it got its point out there right away, then just coasted along from there. I certainly wouldn't call it bad, but I think it was a lot less concise and thought-provoking than Cory's best stuff.
My favorite were 0wnz0red (which I'd also read on Salon) and The Branding of Billy Bailey. 0wnz0red, after all, was the piece that first got me paying attention to Cory's fiction. Branding grab me by the culture jamming sensibilities (a bit like balls, I guess) and twisted, but I'm a kinky postmodern bastard, so it worked out delightfully in the end.
My impression is that he's only now hitting his stride as a writer. His latest stuff seems relevant and poignant in a way that I don't think he was even looking for back when he wrote Craphound. P2P(?), which was published on Salon a few months back, is easily my favorite of them all.
Then again, I haven't dived into the Magic Kingdom yet... -
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Re: A Place so Foreign and 8 More
Fri, January 2, 2004 - 5:53 AMYou beat me to the Punch, Starchy! APSF dwindled away from its potential, I felt. All those books by Verne! eh. dwindle....
0wnz0red had razors in it. It kept its pace going, and went off in some good directions. Nice! Branding was great (and rang the great Canadian Adbuster bells in my head). The Superman and the Bugouts was sort of ..eh... the Adbusters bells were ringing again, and it felt like nothing so much as Canuckster Jim Munroie, circa "Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask", his first novel. Some great ideas, but the prose isn't tied together tight enough.
Craphound I liked a lot, too, as I identify with the characters. Sad to saw, I am one as well. My girlfriend hates me hitting the brakes for a yard sale, and refuses to get up early on the weekends to hit the flea markets. Ah, what she's missing! The one Saturday I did arouse her, I got a digital audiometer for a dollar, and 4 director's chairs (sans canvas) for $5. Three of them went to her, while I kept the one that looks like fake bamboo.
er, anyway.
D&OintMK should have been longer. Becuase I liked it.
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