dogpoet

How about something a teensy bit less camp?

I was looking to see if I could find a live clip of Pentangle doing the Cherry Tree Carol and found this version instead:

And now I'm rereading Cryptonomicon to see if Root's backstory adds anything much to the original tale...

I'd have thought you'd be a Pogues man, John?

(I apologise for the Saville: I just did a search and didn't vet the video first.)

This one should be safe, though, and it never seems to get mentioned as a Christmas song...

Is that a punk era Chaz on the right?

Hope everybody has a good one.

Let Roy Wood sing for you the song of his people...

Just bumping this thread with some news that might be of interest to Jason: looking at Amazon, Rebellion have finally got around to releasing a Finn collection, even if it looks like this is just the Liam Sharp episodes and doesn't include the Paul Staples series.

Tom Tomorrow stil bringin' the awesome:

I'm not sure that Kanye isn't just using his mental illness as an excuse to act out with impunity, though. Anybody who spends as much time as he does bragging that he's not taking any meds because they make him less awesome has relinquished any right to sympathy, imo.

No argument about the other tit, mind: you seen that after spending a load of time ranting about how Twitter's management were too busy being right on to take any action against people using it as a platform for sexual abuse he's fired all but one of the staff who were in place to try to fix that that as part of his staff purge?

On 11/18/2022 at 4:58 PM, Bran the Blessed said:

Mind you, I would have to pay for copies of my first edition, and use some sort of freight transfer service or a third party to even get any copy of my book, at all.

Perhaps you could get Dan to send you a copy if you're still in touch with him? Paypal him the cost of the book and and another ten dollars for postage if B&N won't ship to the Czech Republic...

Taken a break from the Stephenson to read a Kim Newman, and zipped straight through it one go last night.

Anno Dracula 1999: Daikaiju is a lot more fun than A Thousand Monsters, which it directly sequels. (Both apparently take place after the Anno Dracula comic, which isn't the straight adaptation of the first novel I'd thought it was.) This one does more recent anime and manga than the prior novel, has a ninja vampire schoolgirl as one of the main protagonists, trots out a version of Richard Jeperson whose remained a mover and shaker on the Diogenes Club's staff rather than being forcibly retired in the late '70s and sitting around sulking for over three decades and even works in a 

There's tips of the hat to Gerry Anderson as well, with a (Japanese and Australian) Earth Defence Group who sound more like they should be run by Commander Straker than the vampire who heads it and an orbital world saving team who seem to be a mash up of International Rescue and Spectrum.

Great fun.

It would have indeed, but mercifully I was spared that particularly comedy.

I'm a bit embarrassed that it's taken me a couple of years to notice this slice of awesome:

It's worth checking it's actually available if somebody else tries to buy a copy, isn't it?

Lovely tribute from Moore there, and all I can add to that is:

Oh fuck. We've lost another of the giants.

Having ordered a copy of the second edition, it seems to be part of Amazon's PTO set up, so it may not have gone back to the printers at Telos at all. I'm cynical enough to wonder whether keeping an ebook available means that it's still technically in print, even if they don't have to bother publishing any more print runs, so the rights won't revert to the author the second they run out of copies.

Of course, a real cynic would wonder why the hell they didn't print off enough copies in the first run to pay off the advance: it was hardly Martin Amis type money, put it that way...

60's no age to go.

I wonder how long he's known this was biding its time? he's been doing a hell of a lot of work over the last decade or so, so maybe he's been filling the kitty for his family after he's gone or something.

They pay royalties after the advance is paid off.

The fact that the book has now been in print for sixteen years and there's still eight quid left of the advance to pay off should show how well it's selling...

Finally started in on Neal Stephenson's Baroque cycle. I'm about halfway through Quicksilver, and I'm rather enjoying it. Might owe Christian an apology for saying these are historical SF not fantasy when him and Red were bigging these up, though: if it's the same Enoch Root lurking behind the scenes in this as in Cryptonomicon, he's well over four centuries old by the modern day bits of that one, so maybe he has managed to get some of that alchemical stuff the natural philosophers in this book are constantly dismissing as nonsense working for life extension type purposes, which makes this a fantasy not SF. My bad guys, wherever you've got to.

6 hours ago, JasonT said:

What's going on? Are they involving you in the publication of your own book?

Of course they're not: first thing I heard about this was somebody putting the original (shit) cover on Good Show Sir and including a link to the current Telos listing for the version with a new cover.

It might or might not amuse you, Jason, but they've quoted your review from Goodreads (along with Gary McMahon's) on the back cover of the new edition...

Still working my way through the vast amount of 360 games before getting into anything next gen.

I quite enjoyed Sleeping Dogs as a game, but collecting the last few assets and collectibles after finishing it is a bit of a pain: there's one shirt I can't find anywhere, and one bit of bling I have found that costs more than a car, so I need to either do three van robberies or have a good bit of luck at the cockfights to pay for it.

(Still less annoying than trying to get more 90% completion for the last two GTAs, mind...)

I'm not sure that'd turn quite as divisive as a composite Glasgow football team comprised of Celtic and Rangers members, but there may well be a reason it was only tried out the once thirty years ago...

Here's a thing: it looks like Telos have reprinted Pretty Young Things in a new edition with less godawful cover

The first I heard about this was somebody telling me about it online last night, so I've sent them a query on the assumption that they didn't receive the change of address letter I sent them back in 2013...