(Uplift by Thomas Allen)
As we swing into summer, let’s remember what summer is all about. Or what it used to be about when we were young: Freedom! I recently declared a summer of freedom in my reading (and have decided to steal a phrase coined by Dark Orpheus here: wanderlust reading). I am happy to see that others are posting about their summer freedom as well:
And what says summer freedom better than reading under a shade tree with a tall cold glass of lemonade?
How about Free Books?!?!?!
Swing on over to Neth Space and check out this post for details on Waterstone’s giveaway of 1000 copies of Scott Lynch’s Lies of Locke Lamora. There is a July 5th deadline for entry on this one, so don’t delay.
Neth then goes one better and posts a list of several places featuring book giveaways. Check them all out.
SF Signal has posted a giveaway of Tobias Buckell’s latest book, Ragamuffin. Entry is easy, deadline is July 11th.
Stewart Sternberg over at Fantasy and Sci Fi Loving Blog posts this link for a giveaway for High Seas Cthulu. Entry deadline, noon, July 27th.
And last, but certainly not least, the gang at Estella’s Revenge is giving away a shiny new copy of the Neil Gaiman/Michael Reaves collaboration, Interworld. You have until July 31st for this one, details here.
And that of course makes a really nice transition into the news that the July issue of Estella’s Revenge is up for your perusal. The theme of this month’s issue is Young at Heart, a perfect summer theme. There are alot of great things in this issue to enjoy, including multiple author interviews, articles and columns related to children’s literature and many other subjects, several book reviews, including one of Interworld by yours truly, and many other fun and entertaining items. Skip on over and read it already!
This past Friday was a stellar day for the mailman as he brought all kinds of goodness to my front door, which my daughter prudently pulled in out of the rain and arranged nicely for me in my office, just awaiting my arrival home. Although completely unplanned, there seemed to be a bit of a bit of a theme going on. In addition to receiving the Gaiman/Reaves book Interworld for review (long story short: I was impatient and bought my own thus the review copy Andi and Heather sent gets is to be stored until someone wins it at the end of the month!), I received:
This is the special Subterranean Press editon of Gordon Dahlquist’s debut novel, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, with the Dave McKean cover. With a description like:
Across an unnamed city, an heiress, a killer, and a spy forge an unlikely alliance against a vicious conspiracy in a scrupulously realized Victorian world. Seething with danger, terror, eroticism, and romance, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is an exuberant return to the classic–and classically lurid–Penny Dreadfuls of the 19th century, where murders, seductions, airships, secret societies, alchemical science, and insididous rituals all play a part in this epic adventure.
How could I resist? I am 150 pages into this very wordy (and I mean that in the best possible way) 640 page novel and am entranced. I’ll give a full review when I am finished.
As of today, Gordon Dahlquist is the winner in my ‘Most Undecipherable Author Signature’ contest:
Speaking of Dave McKean art:
Awhile back Equianos made the comment that Dave McKean had designed the menus for a restaurant in her area. Being jealous and curious I jokingly asked her to steal one for me. Equianos did one better. She found the postcard collection that was made for this restaurant and sent me the entire set! Needless to say I am both touched and thrilled by her generosity. I loved going through these. Here are examples of but a few of the cards in the set:
Thank you so much, Equianos, that was such a sweet thing to do! I cannot adequately express how excited I was upon opening this. Thanks again!
I got a call from Jeff on Friday afternoon alerting me to the fact that our copies of the newly released Stardust hardcover had finally made it into the shop. I was not willing to wait another day and thus rushed right over there to snag my copy. Later in the weekend we compared notes about our impressions of the book. Jeff can go into more detail if he wants, but the general consensus is that we are disappointed with the book.
Impressions:
The Good–
*It has a fantastic cover, there is no denying that. The look, texture, etching, etc…it really is beautiful.
*The size is nice, not too bulky.
*The inner cover pages are wonderful.
The Bad–
*The pages are inexplicably wafer thin.
*The colors are less vibrant than I expected. Perhaps we are spoiled with the paper and color quality of the latest Absolute editions of DC books, but I was really suprised at how dull some of the pages looked.
*While the few pages showing sketches, etc are great, there aren’t nearly as many as I hoped there would be.
*There is no new commentary by either Gaiman or Vess about Stardust.
I certainly wouldn’t caution against getting this as it is nice to have a hardback version of the illustrated novel and it does have some very nice features. I would advise looking into going through a place like Amazon, however, as I do not feel it is worth the $39.99 asking price.
In this summer of freedom, let us recall that some of us are trying to free ourselves from old habits and poor nutrition.
How is everyone doing on the 10:4 Challenge? I had a rough month, challenge-wise, and found myself slipping into my old habits, especially in regards to pop consumption. I managed to lose 1 pound, so I am down 6 total for the challenge period thus far. Remember, this one is about creating new and better habits. I am getting right back to the more water–less pop routine! If you have yet to join in, please do so. You can modify this for the remaining months. The overall goal is for all of us to be healthier individuals.
We have got to prolong those years if we ever hope to whittle down our to-read stacks!
I hope that is enough to keep you busy on the eve of Independence Day (for us in the states, anyway!)
Tomorrow I hope to have up a review of Transformers, so I’ll take this time to wish everyone everywhere a safe and happy July 4th!!!
You’ve done a Friday Favorite on Thomas Allen, right? Very cool stuff there.
I can’t wait to read your Interworld thoughts! I got a sneak peak already, but I’m heading over to the full review at Estella’s right after this!
Glass Book of the Dream Eaters looks amazing! I debated that one for so long…didn’t get it though. I wanted it just for the McKean cover, but the story sounds great too. I may go see if they have some left. His signature looks like “Mr. Dft” lol…
Those postcards are great! Where’s the restaurant at? Man, you just never know where you’ll come across great art these days!
Stardust 🙁 How disappointing. I got so excited when I saw that you got your copy. I thought for sure they’d do something special here….it’s ashame they didn’t add more to this. $40 is a hefty price to pay…but of course, I’ll be buying it anyway. Probably will get it from amazon.
I slacked this month on the 10:4 challenge, but still managed to lose 2 pounds! I’ve mostly just been eating smaller portions. I’ve been trying to cut back on soft drinks as well and drink more water, though I haven’t been all that successful on that front :/
Ah, Transformers! Can’t wait! I promised Megan I’d wait til I get to Texas to go see it with her, so I have 2 weeks to wait before I can see it. Looking forward to your thoughts on it. I’m so excited about that one!
The restaurant is Cafe des Amis in Canterbury, England.
Yes, if you click on Thomas Allen’s name it goes to the Friday Favs post about him.
I think you’ll still like the Stardust book, Chris, it just wasn’t as great as I expected it to be.
So far Glass Books is really good. In reading positive and negative reviews I get the impression that this is a book like Jonathan Strange in that if you get caught up in the language of the book you’ll love it, if not, it may seem way too long. At this point I’m really caught up in it.
Thanks for letting us know about the giveaways. I’m always good for a freebie.
those mckean postcards are so cool! imagine going to a restaurant with menus designed by mckean! wow… 🙂
$40? So it’s a graphic novel of the book or just an illustrated version?
This is what Stardust was originally, Angela. It is an illustrated novel, meaning that the entire novel is there, but there are many, many pages with amazingly wonderful Charles Vess illustrations on them. Only after it came out in this format did they release it in regular novelized format.
Oooh – I didn’t know about that other contest – excellent. And thanks for the mention.
Always fun to find out what you are going to post about! I mean, Free books?? You are calling my name! The postcards are gorgeous! I haven’t seen that cover for the Dream Eaters book. I would have gotten it right away if I had!! But then again, all the books at Subterranean are gorgeous, but really expensive! I’m trying to stay FAR away from there!
Hee – I also got my Subterranean Press copy of Glass Books. Will be posting that and other book porn tomorrow, along with my thoughts on The Book Thief (dialup permitting – actually I’m doing ok with the dialup really, it’s the assembling of bookcases and the painting of walls that have prevented me posting so far!).
Look forward to your review!!
Love the McKean postcards! How lovely of Equianos. 🙂
Shame about the Stardust book, I’ll still be getting it although it would seem Amazon over here have emailed me to say that it won’t be in till September!!
Amazon has the Dream Eaters book at a fairly reasonable price, Stephanie. Subterranean Press does make nice books.
Will be glad to see you back to posting, Quix and look forward to your pix of books and of the results of all the work you’ve been doing.
I have my name in for a “free draw” at Pat’s for the Margaret Weis book. Not that I expect to win, but it would be nice since I have to order it real soon, to win it instead! lol
ya gotta be careful Carl.. those “pops” will get you every time!
I have beeen a little lax this week, nutrition-wise, also. My goal was eight glasses of water a day and to eat better. I think I’ve had more coffee than water this week. I did come up with a way to have better breakfasts on work days. Put Cream of Wheat in a plastic cup and drink it on my drive to work – although there were some people at work who made fun of me for that one. However, it worked!
Thanks for the tips for all the book giveaways! Always appreciated.
I find that if I make it a point to have water constantly surrounding me, I drink that, but if I don’t, I end up drinking other stuff (darn you coffee temptation). I don’t know if it would work for you, but you could try planting a huge water bottle at all your normal haunts.
Hi! I’m delurking to tell you I love reading your blog! Thanks for all the heads up on free stuff. I had read Stardust a couple of months ago, loved it. Do you think the movie is gonna be any good?
Those McKean menus are incredible! I so want to go to that resturant too JP!
As for the Stardust hardcover it’s nice but not $ 40 dollars nice maybe $ 25. You have to understand that I love this story and I really wanted some behind the scenes commentary from Gaiman and Vess and it just wasn’t there. I would recommend the $ 20 trade paperback edition to all those out there who haven’t read it yet. It has all the orignial illustrations and story for a great price.
Olga – So glad you delurked. I have high hopes for the Stardust movie. Early buzz is good and the trailer I’ve seen looked incredible.
Great idea Kim. I do notice that if I put 2 or 3 bottles of water in the work fridge at a time I am more likely to just grab one of those when thirsty as opposed to going down to the pop machine.
Olga, great to have you! I appreciate the lurking but hope you delurk more often!
I’m holding out hope that the Stardust movie will be a wonderful surprise. We’ll all know sooner than we think, August is not that far away!
Wow, so many of the books mentioned sound good. I wish I had more time (and energy) to read! I am right in the middle of the Odyssey now. I thought that would be a good summertime adventure and it is proving to be so. Who knows what else I will read this summer; I am getting lots of good ideas here thought. I did read Dune a few years ago, and I really liked it!
Opps, that was me.
Some of us have to wait until after the summer, for the movie Carl! Bah!
Sorry, Quix! 🙁
Ah well, hopefully it will be a treat worth waiting for!
Wow…the mailman certainly was good to you! Glad to hear it since you’re so generous in what you have him deliver to others!
Hope you had a happy 4th!
Totally unrelated. Have you heard about this? http://mygeeknewz.com/node/1087
I hadn’t, Loo, until this morning when I saw a very cool, very cryptic trailer for it before Transformers.
Carl, you are a never ending wealth of information, from fantastic pictures (love the swinging toy!) to book giveaways, to movie releases, to dieting, you have up to the minute information on it all. I’m amazed that you come visit my blog as in comparison to yours it is quite dull. However, thanks for stopping by faithfully, and even more thanks for the exciting news you constantly write about.
Your blog is very much about you, Bellezza, so how could it be dull?
I hadn’t heard of “The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters”, but I love the sound of it (and the cover too, of course)!