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By Richard, August 30, 2009 12:08 pm

Conan fans rejoice, we just acquired a large collection of Robert E. Howard’s books.  While primarily paperbacks, there is just about every Howard book ever publish from the Conan series to many of his lesser known titles like Black Vulmea’s Vengeance and Almuric.  There are also a number of related titles like the Red Sonja series, Marvel Coc digest 3 vol. set, Frank Frazetta art books and even a few titles in Norwegian for the die-hard fan.  Below is a tiny sample of the nearly 150 books that came in the collection.

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By Richard, August 27, 2009 5:18 pm

The last day of Anticipation saw the Convention enter into a bit of a wind-down mode with a reduced schedule of events & sessions and an early afternoon wrap-up for the Dealer’s Room.

The bad news I had to kick my day off with was that the one session I wanted to see, No User Servicable Parts Inside with Cory Doctorow on the panel, was either moved or cancelled from it’s 9am start.  The good news, as I was grumbling away to myself back at our booth, was that Cory Doctorow (obviously not at the session either) came into the Dealer’s Room early to do the rounds and sign anything that booksellers may have.  While I had nothing for him to sign, much to my chagrin, I did get the opportunity to meet him and chat for a moment about book cover art and Basilisk Books, the last Ottawa bookstore (now closed) to be solely dedicated to Sci-fi/Fantasy.  Very cool!

While the convention program itself was winding down, the Dealer’s Room was quite busy with those who had items mentally tagged coming back to make their final purchases, others looking to spend their remaining cash on some last minute treats and of course those looking to grab a bargain before heading back home.  The day ended up being far more lucrative than either of us expected with both Andrew and I having a steady number of sales and a couple big ones intermixed to really finish things off on a good note.  With the influx of unexpected funds, I got to loosen the pursestrings a bit and do some buying myself.  I manage to nab a 1st edition copy of John Wyndham’s 3rd book Jizzle, with jacket, in very good shape at an excellent price.  A couple other booksellers decided to discount their stock to lighten the returning load a bit enabling me to snap up a number of great hardcovers and signed books at very attractive prices, including an early signed Guy Gavriel Kay first. 

The booth beside us, ChiZine Publications, had a number of great books they’d recently published, of which a couple I had to grab.  What really caught my attention at their table though was a display of Loonie Dreadfuls, an awesome modern Canuck play on the great penny dreadfuls from days of yore.  So, of course I bought up a copy of each (with one more hopefully coming in the mail) and will certainly keep a eye on their website for other forthcoming dreadfuls. Will also try and do a seperate post on them in the near future once I’ve read them all.  And of course not to forget my two princesses back home, I pick up a beautiful hand-made set of earrings for France from SuperChick Creations and a cute little hand sculpted and painted dragon for Emma from the talented folks at Creatures from El.

Again a big thanks to Andrew and his crew who were an absolute pleasure to work with and hopefully we will team-up again at future conventions and shows.  It was an excellent experience for both myself and the bookshop with 5 days filled of interesting panels, wonderful conversation, plenty of sales and promotion for the store, and of course the opportunity to meet and hob-knob with some amazing authors.  Who could ask for more!

And just in case you thought that all was relatively calm at the Con, here are a couple pics of folks who decided to get into the full spirit of the Con and tour the tradeshow floor in full costume (these are the PG rated costumes ).

  

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By Richard, August 25, 2009 9:54 am

After a late night, perhaps starting off Sunday morning with a session on Putting Philosophy in SF wasn’t the best option for a fuzzy brain, but by the time the coffee kicked in and the panel led by James Morrow warmed up, the session turned out to be quite interesting despite getting a touch heavy at times.

 The second session that John and I teamed up to go see was Writing for a Livingheadlined by George R.R. Martin.  The panel discussed the number of trials and tribulations they’ve had throughout their career and how they’ve managed to keep their careers going.  Howard Tayler (Creator of Schlock Mercenary) gave a great personal history of the choices he’s made throughout his career and how heavily influenced they were by his desire to maximize time with his family.  George R.R. Martin recounted his rise in the sci-fi world until his most ambitious novel The Armegeddon Rag, while a great novel, was  ”a total commercial disaster” that sent his career spinning.   After a couple of subsequent books finding no support he found his way to Hollywood and wrote TV scripts for The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beastfor much of the 80’s, only to make a comeback in the 90’s with his Song of Ice and Fire series and as editor of the Wildcards series.  Catherynne Valente also gave a wonderful perspective on how she has used a number of different avenues to keep her writing career afloat during years she hasn’t sold a novel.   Two interesting approaches she has taken are to post stories online one chapter at a time and have readers ”pay what you think it’s worth” via PayPal, and her subscription based Omikuji Project in which she sends a short story (only available to subscribers), artwork and other ephemera to the subscription list with one lucky member receiving a unique gift each month.   The panels varied backgrounds, perspectives and means of keeping their writing careers alive and thriving was very interesting and entertaining to take in.  John was pleased to have had the opportunity to meet George R.R. Martin afterwards.

The afternoon saw the dealers room stirred into a frenzy as Neil Gaiman and his entourage whisked in to do some unplanned signings for dealers and fans that were in the room.  Unfortunately the closest we got to Neil was a quick exchange with one of his attachés who said, “Neil is coming around to the dealers to sign stuff, get anything you have for him to sign ready!”, followed 10 minutes later by “Neil has run out of time, sorry, he won’t be by.”  So all I’ve got is this photo of him signing someone else’s book    Fortunately, Andrew’s son Harry got to meet him at Monday’s scheduled signing and got his copy of The Graveyard Bookinscribed with a very cool graveyard scene doodle by Gaiman.

As an added bonus, later in the day David Kyle(co-founder of the Gnome Press, publisher of the first hardcover editions of Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, Conan series, and other greats like Clarke, Heinlein and Simak) came by the booth to browse and enjoy Andrew’s collection of Gnome Press books which, as Kyle put it, were ”in the best condition I’ve seen in years”.  This is about as big a compliment as one can receive coming from the man who published them over 50 years ago and has been part of the Sci-fi/Fantasy scene for over 70 years (the man just celebrated his 90th birthday!).   David Kyle was a pleasure to meet and I snapped a great shot of him and Andrew discussing the famous map of Cimmeria (designed by Kyle) that graced the endpapers of the original Gnome Press Conan’s and subsequently included in many Conan publications.

That evening I decided to go see the Hugo Awards and was fortunate enough to line up early (alongside Sci-fi scholar Amy Sturgis who was wonderful to chat with) and found a decent seat for the show.  The Hugos were more entertaining than many award shows with the crowd in full support of the winners and the acceptance speeches short and well spoken.  Gaiman won the big prize for The Graveyard Book and the rest of the winners have been posted here.

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By Richard, August 23, 2009 11:03 am

We just received copies of the 3 inaugural books from Cameron Anstee’s Apt.9 Press which were launched just last week.  The chapbooks contain wonderful work by three very talented poets and were printed in a limited edition of 50.  The sharply designed and handbound covers also make a very distinctive impression when reading.  Congrats to Cameron on the successful launch of his small press and best of luck with your new venture!

The chapbooks can be found in our shop for $10.00 each or from the Apt.9 Press site here.

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By Richard, August 22, 2009 10:53 am

A friend of mine and fellow sci-fi/fantasy enthusiast, John Price, made it down for the weekend to check out the Con and hit a few sessions with me.  The first one we went to was What Makes a Good Story? with Bill Willingham, Robert Silverberg and Nancy Kress among others on the panel.  The room was packed with budding writers to take in what turned out to be a the rather jocular panel’s take on what makes a good story.  The focus at one point drifted to discussing at what point in their respective careers they’d received advice or had a revelation in their writing that enabled them to take it to a new level.  The best anecdote was Robert Silverberg’s moment when, after years of literally putting a piece of paper in the typewriter and banging out a story from start to finish then selling it off for publication, meet Cyril Kornbluth who passed on the sage advise that a second draft would actually make his stories better.  Lo and behold they did!

Afterwards, John and I had the opportunity to talk with Bill Willingham in the hallway for a bit and get a couple pictures taken.  While the chat mainly revolved around his Fables series, one neat little piece of info that came to light was that early in is career, Willingham got his start doing illustrations for Dungeons & Dragons materials.  Artwork which quickly denounced as crap and would rather not talk about

John & Bill

Me & Bill

The second session we caught was The Importance of Anthologizing which Robert Sawyer moderated and Ellen Datlow, Kathryn Cramer, Candas Jane Dorsey and John Robert Colombo (editor of the first ever Canadian sci-fi anthology Other Canadas) as participants.  The panel discussed the role of anthologies in the genre and how they personally go about the process of envisioning, selling the concept and then pulling together an anthology for publishing.  There was also a great discussion on the cornerstone of Canadian anthologies, the Tesseracts series and how it was envisioned and set in motion by Judith Merril.

Back in the Dealers Room things had slowed down a bit from the torrid pace they were at on Friday, but we still did quite well selling a good number of books over the course of the day.  Our biggest client of the day was 3 time Hugo winning editor David Hartwell (who was a guest of honour and had his famous necktie collection on display in the adjacent room).  He was a pleasure to talk with and knew the book business through and through.  In fact, it turns out he owns a secondhand bookstore himself in Westport, NY!

To cap the day off, I took in the Masquerade competition in which over two dozen amateur and professional costumers dressed up to show off their designs and act out various short skits.  The show was a blast with a number of amazing costumes and hilarous skits amusing the crowd for a solid couple of hours.  Julie Czerneda and Sébastien Mineau were the Masters of Ceremony and played off each other quite well to create a light a humorous atmosphere.  There are some great photos of the Masquerade entrants in Flickr albums here and here.

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By Richard, August 20, 2009 3:36 pm

Not sure if this monstrous poem of grafted Twitter posts should be described as creative, crafty or just plain creepy.  

“The Longest Poem in the World” is composed by aggregating real-time public twitter updates and selecting those that rhyme. It is constantly growing at ~4000 verses/day.

Then again, finding amongst the clutter the odd couplet like the examples below can be quite amusing.

Forgive and forget, but keep a list of names just in case.
cant wait to get drunk tomorrow and punch you in the face

 or

An hour left of work. Three day weekend and a bach party. Yay!
I refuse to let this pagan upset me and ruin my day!

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By Richard, August 19, 2009 5:26 pm

I started the Friday off by catching a great session on writing across genres and the troubles it can often entail.  The panel (which included James Patrick Kelly and Michael Swanwick) was full of great anecdotes of times they tried tocross or merge genres only to raise debate among their publishers as to whether or not the story is publishable considering potential issues around promotion, cover art, section placement and the worry of alienating the authors fans/followers with an out of genre title.  All of these considerations usually add up to one conclusion, bad economics for the publisher and a story often rejected.  The panel also discussed the fear many writers have of being pigeon-holed into one genre and henceforth only able to get recognition and published in that genre.  One panelist made the excellent point that Michael Chabon won a Pulitzer before going on to win a Hugo.  If he had won the Hugo first, chances are he would have been labelled a sci-fi writer and have not even been considered for the Pulitzer.

Over the course of the day back in the dealers room, we had probably our busiest afternoon of the Con with swarms of people coming through and thankfully buying lots of books (always a good thing!).  By the end of the day, I had already put out the majority of the back-up stock I had brought to fill the gaps.  One excellent contact that we made was getting to meet the head of The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy, a special collection of over 68,000 items housed at the Toronto Public Library.  We ended up chatting with her for a while and got a good understanding of the collection and what they are often looking to purchase.

 

The second session I was able to take in was called The New Media and was by far the most dynamic panel I saw at the Worldcon. However, with panelists like Melissa Auf der Maur, Neil Gaiman, Ellen Kushner, Tobias Buckell, Steven R. Boyett, and Cory Doctorow, how could it go wrong! 

(Thanks to Amy for getting such a great shot)

The discussion mainly revolved around the impact of new media forms on storytelling and its effect on artists and their work.  I thought that Melissa Auf Der Maur brought an incredible amount of insight to the discussion and balanced the perspectives of the authors.  Gaiman and Doctorow had a playful back and forth when discussing how they write and edit their stories (Gaiman with the traditional pen & paper vs. Doctorow’s digital wizardry).  The most amazing part of the session was how the panel, which at times appeared to have almost diametrically opposed personalities and styles, came to a general consensus on the value and opportunity of using the variety of media avenues available to tell their story.  The one message that resonated the most with me was Melissa’s description of how, despite already using music, video, and graphic art to tell her stories, she is still seeking the perfect media form to share a beautiful dream/vision she once had years ago and sees many artists chasing media forms that will tell the story as closely as possible to how they’ve envisioned it.  Two other excellent blogposts on the session can be found here and here.

I finished the day off by attending the Prometheus Awards, an award given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society to the best libertarian science fiction novel.   Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother was the winner this year and Doctorow gave an excellent acceptance speech.  He also found himself one gold coin richer   

Still waiting for him to post it on Boing Boing!

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By Richard, August 17, 2009 11:45 am

Apartment613 (the best site for what’s happening in Ottawa), is holding a Fall Fiction Contest.  Even better, yours truly will be on the panel of judges for the contest along with Angela Putz from CBC Radio and Barbara Clubb, Ottawa’s Head Librarian.

The contest is looking for entries of original fiction of 1000 words or less with no restriction on topic (but a local Ottawa hook is encouraged) with a deadline of September 25th for submissions.   The Winner will receive plenty of kudos, pats on the back, and other forms of esteemed acclaimation (a free subscription to the Walrus is also included).

So what are you waiting for, start sending your entries to editors@apt613.ca with Fall Fiction Contest in the subject line.

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By Richard, August 16, 2009 1:11 pm

A little overdue, but after a well deserved rest (at least I think so), here goes our recount of the Bytown Bookshop’s five days in Montreal for Anticipation – The 67th World Sci-fi Convention.

First and foremost I have to give my thanks to Andrew Cornell of Cornell Booksellers (with whom we shared a booth) for handling all of the registration and logistics for the Con and to his family for helping out at the booth throughout the show and for trucking my books there and back.  Andrew’s account of the show can be read on the Cornell Bookseller Blog.

I have to admit, it was probably the smoothest set up I’ve ever done for a show with everything arriving with perfect timing and four sets of hands furiously shelving material early Thursday morning.  Here is a quick shot of our proudly displayed wares before the floor opened.  We had an excellent spot and the great benefit of being one of the only secondhand booksellers in the room.

The show kicked off at a good pace with a number of convention goers cruising through as well as a number of authors including George RR Martin, Robert Sawyer and P.C. Hodgell (who was kind enough to stop by my booth and chat for a minute while signing our copy of Dark of the Moon).   The boxes of Ace doubles and vintage Sci-fi digests sold like hotcakes withmany people coming fully prepared with printed want lists to fill in their various collections.  A few of our higher end pieces, notably our 1st edition of Ender’s Game and fine press books, drew attention.  And of course, Andrew’s collection of Arkham House books and classic firsts always draws an avid crowd.

One caveat, unfortunately my camera was on the wrong setting (unbeknownst to me), so pictures will therefore be scarce or nabbed from elsewhere on the net (with credit given where due of course).

The one session I was able to take in on the Thursday was The History of Tor which had the man himself, Tom Doherty, on the panel witha number of top editors in the field including 2009 Hugo winner David Hartwell.  It was an excellent overview of the publisher with a number of great anecdotes about the early years as the company moulded itself  into the successful imprint it is today.  The number one lesson for aspiring publishers and editors in the crowd was to love your job completely and build a culture around that passion.  Tor has posted two clips of the panel’s discussion on their website for your viewing pleasure.

Back on the Dealer’s floor I spent most of the afternoon chatting with collectors, authors and other literary enthusiasts while selling the odd handful of books here and there.  To top the day off, we sold our signed copy of Asimov’s I Robot within the first couple of hours which put a big smile on my face.

Between setting up the booth, getting my feet wet at the Con and running the booth until 7pm, I was admittedly pooped from the long day and decided to skip the evening sessions to retire early and conserve energy for the days ahead.

Day 2 of Anticipation to come shortly.

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By Richard, August 15, 2009 9:42 am

Ink Oink Art has just released an anthology of speculative fiction entitled Escape Clause which features stories from 3 Ottawa writers.  Will have to see about getting my hands on a copy!

They are also accepting submissions for stories under 5,000 words, so you budding speculative writers may want to send off a story or two.