Category: Literary Matters

A Long-Awaited Treasure

John Winkelman

This week brought in a couple of books which I have been looking forward to for months. Sunspot Jungle, the two-volume exclusive-to-Kickstarter hardcover set by Rosarium Publishing, arrived by mail yesterday, and they are stunning! I’ll get into the set in a moment, but first, here is the rundown of this week’s acquisitions.

On the left is the Winter 2018 issue of Rain Taxi, which I became aware of when their article about Lawrence Ferlinghetti appeared on LitHub last week. On the right is the latest book from Deep Vellum, Mephisto’s Waltz by Sergio Pitol.

So: Sunspot Jungle.

I first heard of this project when Bill Campbell, owner of Rosarium Publishing, announced the Kickstarter campaign back in the early part of 2018. I supported the pledge on the first day and the rest has been a year of eager anticipation.

I first heard of Rosarium when John Scalzi posted a photo of one of his weekly stacks of new books, and in that stack was a small collection of short stories called The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria.

That, of course, is one hell of a title.

And Rosarium is one hell of a publishing company.

In reading news, the past week was hectic, what with the polar vortex and associated schedule disruptions. I did make significant progress through Reckoning #1, and am a couple of chapters into T L Greylock’s The Blood-Tainted Winter.

In other literary news, I am back in the saddle at Caffeinated Press after a year-long hiatus/sabbatical, and am hard at work assembling the next issue of The 3288 Review.

Amazing how a schedule disruption, even one which ostensibly frees up a chunk of free time, seldom actually results in more usable free time.

The Books That Are Not ConFusion Books

John Winkelman

Lest the last few posts give the impression that I only purchase books at conventions, here are some others which arrived in the past week.

On the left is The Black God’s Drums by P. Djeli Clark, which has been on my radar for a couple of months now. Next to it is Katherine Arden‘s The Bear and the Nightingale, because Russian folklore. Also about a year ago I wrote most of a Baba Yaga story for an anthology call, and in the research for that story this book came up repeatedly.

The third is The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty, the sequel to her excellent The City of Brass which I read several months ago. Next to it is Friday Black, a collection of short stories by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah which came to my attention when LitHub posted the story “Zimmer Land“.

The bottom row includes reading material from various subscription. First is Night School by Zsófia Bán, then I Am God by Giacomo Sartori, and finally the latest issue of Poetry.

In reading, I finished Fix by Ferret Steinmetz (which Mr. Steinmetz signed at ConFusion 2019!) and am now bouncing between three of my ConFusion acquisitions: Reckoning #1, Death March by Phil Tucker, and The Blood-Tainted Winter by T L Greylock.

For this year I am keeping a list of the books I read, and I plan to write reviews (GoodReads, Amazon, etc.) both to boost the signal of those authors and to give me practice at writing reviews.

That’s all for now. The books continue to accumulate.

Books from ConFusion 2019, Round 2

John Winkelman

Okay, so I didn’t pick up these books at ConFusion, but I did talk to the authors and was thereby convinced that I should pick them up. Here they are, from top left:

T L Greylock – The Hills of Home
T L Greylock – Already Comes Darkness
Phil Tucker – Nightmare Keep
Phil Tucker – The Path of Flames
Nathan Lowell – Quarter Share
Mike Shel – Aching God
Michael J. Sullivan – Theft of Swords
Michael J. Sullivan – Age of Myth
Maurice Broaddus – Buffalo Soldier
D. Thourson Palmer – Ours is the Storm
David Anthony Durham – Acacia

Since I purchased these post- ConFusion 2019 I will bring them to ConFusion 2020 to be signed. Of course.

Books from ConFusion 2019, Round 1

John Winkelman

Yeah, it was a good weekend. Here are the books I picked up during the first signing session at ConFusion 2019. Also some I picked up while talking to various folks at the convention. From top left, and going through in order.

The Blood-Tainted Winter, by T L Greylock
Death March by Phil Tucker
The Field Trip by R.A. Andrade
Darkness by Erin Eveland
Reckoning, issue 1
Gate Crashers by Patrick Tomlinson
The Rite of Wands by Mackenzie Flohr
Justice in an Age of Metal and Men by Anthony W. Eichenlaub
Peace in an Age of Metal and Men by Anthony W. Eichenlaub
The Queen Underneath by Stacey Filak
Timehunt: Borrowed Time by Keith Hughes
The Quantum Magician by Derek Künsken
While the Black Stars Burn by Lucy A. Snyder
Garden of Eldritch Delights by Lucy A. Snyder
Ice Bar by Petra Kuppers
Power Tools in the Sacred Grove by Josef Matulich
Camp Arcanum by Josef Matulich

I would have picked up many more, but I was in a panel during the second book signing session. Fortunately I took many notes, so I was able to order the ones I missed. They will be in a separate blog post. Other than Reckoning and Gate Crashers, all of them were signed by the authors.

This Week’s Books, Part I: Small Stack

John Winkelman

This is the small stack of books from this week. The Big Stack consists of books I picked up at ConFusion 2019, which is a large enough collection that it warrants its own post.

The books on the ends, Life on Mars and Whereas, are poetry books I purchased on a whim while at Books and Mortar picking up AfroSF and Seven Surrenders. The Anna Karenina Fix arrived from Amazon while I was at ConFusion.

With this week’s exceptionally large haul, I am now over 1,500 books catalogued in LibraryThing. I have shelf space in my house for maybe 100 more books if they are the usual mix of thin and thick. That should be enough to get me through the rest of 2019. We shall see…

In reading news, I finished Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer while at ConFusion on Thursday night. Friday morning I had coffee with Miss Palmer and several other people, where she held forth on various Papal shenanigans from the mid-1400s. To cool my head I read about half of the poems in Life on Mars, which is an absolutely wonderful collection by our current national Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith. I am now a little more than halfway through Fix by Ferret Steinmetz, the sequel to Flex and The Flux. Thus far it is just as good as the first two. I expect to be finished by the end of the week and am enjoying every page of it.

 

Big Books for Cold Weekends

John Winkelman

The first full week of the year brings four new bound piles of printed pages to the library at Winkelman Abbey. On the left is Kolyma Stories by Varlam Shalamov. I heard of this one when The Paris Review published “Forty-Five Things I Learned in the Gulag“. Finally ordered it. Apparently this is the first of two volumes to be published (the second to be released this year). I will probably dive into it after I complete the current few books on my “currently reading” shelf.

The next one over is the December 2018 issue of Apex Magazine which, if I have my dates correct, is the last to be published in physical format. From now on the magazine will be digital only, which is fine, as it is well worth the cost of subscription in any format.

The last two are The Uploaded and Fix by the excellent Ferret Steinmetz. I hope to get them signed at ConFusion 2019 next weekend.

In reading news I am still working my way through Ada Palmer’s Too Like the Lightning. I’m in the home stretch and should be through by the time I leave for ConFusion.

Selah!

ConFusion 2019 Schedule

John Winkelman

Next week I head across the state to attend ConFusion 2019. This year I will be participating in three panels, all on Saturday, January 19. Here they are:

  • AI for Better or Worse – There’s no doubt that Artificial Intelligence will play some part in our future, but is it good, bad, or both? Panelists will discuss the future of AI, some of its uses, and some of its dangers.
    • Time: Saturday, 19 January, 2019 – 13:00
    • Room: Warren
    • Panelists: Anthony W. Eichenlaub (M), John Winkelman, Derek Kunsken
  • Let’s Talk Season 2: Computer Science! – A lighthearted talk on a hard science topics with smart and funny people. Let’s Talk: Computer Science will chuckle through the collapse of society as we know it. Come hear how silicon makes better decisions than carbon, protons as data, why you don’t need to be Slytherin to study Python, and what we are going to do with the leisure time we will have in 2025.
    • Time: Saturday, January 19, 2019 – 16:00
    • Room: Warren
    • Panelists: Daniel Dugan (M), John Winkelman, Anthony W. Eichenlaub
  • If you liked that, try this! – Our well-read panel will give you personalized book recommendations based on things you’ve read and loved.
    • Time: Saturday, January 19, 2019 – 18:00
    • Room: Dearborn
    • Panelists: Merrie Haskell (M), John Winkelman, Andrea Johnson, Karen Osborne, Sarah Hans

Between now and then I am spending my free moments gathering books I hope to have signed by other attendees, and getting everything around home squared away so I can focus on enjoying the experience. Hopefully one year I will be able to sign books of my own.

Reading at the Start of the Year

John Winkelman

An excellent start to a year of reading, despite the expression on Chateaureynaud’s face. A couple of weeks ago I subscribed to Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, a journal published by the excellent Small Beer Press. They surprised me by sending along a free copy of A Life On Paper, which I have added to my ever-growing to-read stack.

In reading news, I am still working my way through Ada Palmer’s Too Like the Lightning, which I might have done before the start of ConFusion 2019. It is an excellent book, but not one which can be read quickly. After that, I will tackle something lighter. Perhaps Crime and Punishment.

Reading at the End of the Year

John Winkelman

Here we are at the end of 2018, and here are the last additions to the library before we ring in the new year. On the left is the January 2019 issue of Poetry, and on the right is Decals by Oliverio Girondo, the latest from my subscription to the catalog of Open Letter Books.

The holidays have been hectic as always, but I have made good progress in Ada Palmer’s Too Like the Lightning. I hope to have it completed before ConFusion 2019, where Palmer will be the Guest of Honor.

And with that, Happy New Year!

Brief Reads for the Week

John Winkelman

Not a lot new this week for the library at Winkelman Abbey. Here we have the latest issues of Amazing Stories and Apex Magazine. I’m saving my money for the holidays and will probably burn a gift card or two to add to my collection of Russian literature, anarchist literature, and Russian anarchist literature.

Apex Book Company just announced that they will no longer be publishing the print version of their magazine, which makes me sad. It was a year-long experiment on Patreon to see if there was enough interest to keep such an endeavor afloat. According to editor Jason Sizemore, there were just barely enough subscribers to launch the print version for a year, and therefore they are going to return to only publishing electronic versions with possible annual “Best of” collections or the like. If you have not yet experienced Apex Magazine, or the books produced by Apex Book Company, I recommend you hie yourself to their online store post-haste.

In reading news, I completed Flex by Ferret Steinmetz, and immediately started the sequel The Flux, which thus far (two chapters in) is every bit as good as the first. Still about halfway through The Monster Baru Cormorant, and in the spare moments I am reading random entries in Salvage. The most recent was China Mieville’s long essay about social sadism, which is online at Salvage.zone. So it goes.