What Books Have You Bought Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

5 Ballard novels

The Drowned World
The Drought
Crash
High-Rise
Cocaine Nights.

All have "extra features" haha.

Also found a picture book about Bowie's Elephant Man stage production!!

Have you read them before D-crat?

I've not read The Drought but the rest are brilliant. I'm sure High Rise was an influence on Paradise Towers.

[troggi]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

5 Ballard novels

The Drowned World
The Drought
Crash
High-Rise
Cocaine Nights.

All have "extra features" haha.

Also found a picture book about Bowie's Elephant Man stage production!!

My favourite band, Hawkwind, had a lead singer and song writer called Robert Calvert in the '70s who was very literary inspired. He was also bi-polar and schizophrenic and was kicked out of the band...no, get it right... the band ran away from him in Paris and he chased them with a Samurai sword and hand grenades!

Hawkwind's best work came from the Calvert era and some of the songs, inspired by books and films, written by him are absolute classics; "Steppenwolf" (not the band) from the novel by by Herman Hesse, "Reefer Madness" inspired by the anti-pot propaganda film, "Damnation Alley" inspired by the novel by Jack Vance and "High-Rise" inspired by Ballard.

If you've never heard of Hawkwind, Lemmy of Motorhead was their roadie and bassist and singer for a time, but think you'd like to hear some retro- trippy rock it is worth looking at the Calvert years as they were some of the most accessible of their works.

Robert, after "being left by Hawkwind" wrote some poetry and a couple of albums. His two first solo albums are mad and brilliant "Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters" about the number of deaths caused to German pilots by Lockheed "Starfighter" jets and "Lucky Leif and the Longships" about how America might have been if the Vikings had successfully settled in "Vinland".

If you're of an adventurous auditory nature give 'em a trial on "Spotify" or something similar!

Sorry about that, I know it should go elsewhere but it was the mention of "High-Rise" that got my gears grinding.

[troggi]

Originally Posted by troggi

Hawkwind's best work came from the Calvert era and some of the songs, inspired by books and films, written by him are absolute classics; "Steppenwolf" (not the band) from the novel by by Herman Hesse, "Reefer Madness" inspired by the anti-pot propaganda film, "Damnation Alley" inspired by the novel by Jack Vance and "High-Rise" inspired by Ballard.

I do apologise for this dismal error, I am supposed to know about a couple of things about this band...

"Damnation Alley" inspired by the novel by Jack Vance

Roger Zelazny wrote "Damnation Alley", the film of which stars Jan Michael Vincent and some spectacularly bad SFX, even for the time.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

@ Troggi - Did you ever collect the hardbacks from the sci-fi book club in the sixties to mid seventies?

You mentioning Vance and Zelazny made me think of them.

I have around a hundred of them and approximately forty have their original dust jackets.

This pic is from Ebay but you'll know the series i mean.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Demdike

Have you read them before D-crat?

I've not read The Drought but the rest are brilliant. I'm sure High Rise was an influence on Paradise Towers.

I've read Crash & High-Rise (best opening line ever) countless times Dem. TDW once before. They just sat on the shelves for a week!
Surrounded by philistines haha, so they went to a good home (MINE), don't have enough of his stuff really.....

[SCM]

Bought Judge Dredd Case Files 1 at Waterstones and asked the guy who served me if they could get Nemesis for me so hopefully getting Nemesis the Warlock in a couple of Weeks time.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by SCM

Bought Judge Dredd Case Files 1 at Waterstones and asked the guy who served me if they could get Nemesis for me so hopefully getting Nemesis the Warlock in a couple of Weeks time.

"Be pure...Be vigilant...BEHAVE!!"

[troggi]

from Demdike:
Troggi - Did you ever collect the hardbacks from the sci-fi book club in the sixties to mid seventies?

You mentioning Vance and Zelazny made me think of them.

I have around a hundred of them and approximately forty have their original dust jackets.

This pic is from Ebay but you'll know the series i mean.

No mate I used to get all my sci-fi and fantasy, and a lot of vinyl, at a little shop near Sheffield University called "Rare & Racy." It was one of those magic places that sold "the Goods". Whenever you walked in the same two beatniks wood say "hi," without smiling, over the top of some avant garde jazz spinning on a very expensive Rega turntable. They knew you didn't like the stuff they played but didn't give a toss! In the first room, where the guys serving hatch was, was all the stuff that students had sold them for a third of the cover price. They knew that the same students, or the following years students would turn up and by 'em again at two-thirds the cover price. The back room, where I headed first, was the paperbacks, every genre you could think of, I went straight for "Fantasy & Sci-Fi" from Piers Anthony to Roger Zelazny. Then it was back through to "the Vinyl Room," mostly Jazz and Blues but a whole wall of A-Z Rock.


That mono picture on the door was stamped on almost every vinyl inner sleeve I had. I passed the place, mid-evening, last year and it is still going although the frontage has been done up.

My pal, SCM stuck this up:

Bought Judge Dredd Case Files 1 at Waterstones and asked the guy who served me if they could get Nemesis for me so hopefully getting Nemesis the Warlock in a couple of Weeks time.

I think, and you might want to ask the 2000AD Archivist, Hawkmonger, about this, but I think that "Nemesis" appeared as 2000AD started to "grow up." As "Nemesis" got more adult in theme so did the rest of the comic until you reach the fine magazine we have now, a comic fit for grown-ups.

As Demoncrat says:

"Be pure...Be vigilant...BEHAVE!!"

[Andra Jai]

I recently bought a complete James Herbert collection off a member on another forum for £1 per book delivered (absolute bargain)

I last read these when in school and have never read anything he wrote after around 1990 so I am really looking forward to making my way through the full set
and its nice to have a complete collection all in one go.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by troggi

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][SIZE="3"]No mate I used to get all my sci-fi and fantasy, and a lot of vinyl, at a little shop near Sheffield University called "Rare & Racy." It was one of those magic places that sold "the Goods". Whenever you walked in the same two beatniks wood say "hi," without smiling, over the top of some avant garde jazz spinning on a very expensive Rega turntable. They knew you didn't like the stuff they played but didn't give a toss! In the first room, where the guys serving hatch was, was all the stuff that students had sold them for a third of the cover price. They knew that the same students, or the following years students would turn up and by 'em again at two-thirds the cover price. The back room, where I headed first, was the paperbacks, every genre you could think of, I went straight for "Fantasy & Sci-Fi" from Piers Anthony to Roger Zelazny. Then it was back through to "the Vinyl Room," mostly Jazz and Blues but a whole wall of A-Z Rock.

I never collected the hard backs when they came out as i wasn't born.

Its something i did a few years ago - trawling second hand book shops in Manchester and such like.