something a bit different - here's some hefty tomes

So, I thought I'd write about something a bit different to gluing loads of monsters together for a change.
The Mrs will be well pleased. Not writing about Warhammer can only enhance my street cred.  Yes, I actually had some once, and everything.

I digress...

Back to the matter I wished to discourse on, I have come into possession of a fair few tomes in recent months, some of which were Christmas gifts, and others that I managed to pick up from charity shops, Ebay and the like.

This one is quite special to me, and is the book that is the deep seated root of my inevitable downward spiral into becoming a near total spazz-nerd.  I found this edition in a charity shop on Putney High Street a couple of weeks back.  It's a 1966 edition, and at the time it would've set you back 8s & 6d, according to the cover.  What's remarkable is that this is the very same edition that my dad gave to me a 7 year old way back in 1984.  So I was made up when I found this. Two quid. Victory to the Maher.  I'm particularly enamoured with the original concept sketch on the cover of the death of Smaug. 

Anyway, next up is a snap-shot of my 'To Read' pile:

Yep. This lot should keep me occupied on my journeys too and from work for the foreseeable.  

It's become a bit of an aim for me to try and read as many of the titles in the Fantasy Masterworks and Sci-Fi Master Works series of books.  I've read a couple before, namely Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep by Phillip K. Dick (uhhuhhuhhuh, he said 'dick'), which is way beyond good, just in case any of you haven't read it before.  If you don't like reading, a) don't panic, there's not many pages, and b) I suggest you kick your computer screen in so that you won't have to read my rantings and ravings any more.  I also read (after years of persuasion from my dad) Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur Clarke.  I thought the quality of writing was good, and he had some nice ideas and all, but the complete lack of conflict in the story kind of left me scratching my head a bit.A good enough read and all that, but it did not inspire me in the slightest to pick up any of the sequels.  I can well imagine it was way more thought provoking back in the day (1972) when it was originally published.  Anyways, reading those two, as I was saying, inspired me (in a very lazy way) to check out other stuff in the collections.  If you feel interested, here is a link to the wikipedia page for the Fantasy Master Works series of books, and another to the SF Master Works if you want to see a list of titles.  In the picture above you can see a couple of them, including Fevre Dream by George RR Martin, which is going to be the next thing I read, and The Book of the New Sun volumes 1 & 2.  People on the internet keep insisting I read these, so when I saw them for a couple of quid in a charity shop the other day, I thought I may as well grub them up. Word.

By this point in the post, it's likely people have stopped reading, and may not even care that much, but below is a picture of what I'm reading at the moment:

These are like a collaborative sequel to Raymond E. Feist's original Riftwar saga, which was set on the world of Midkemia (a typical Middle Earth rip-off), but very enjoyable nevertheless.  These ones here are set on the world of Kelewan, which is on the other side of the Rift.  It's almost like a feudal Japan type setting, only with sentient insects and all the animals have 6 legs.  And the sky, obviously, is green.  I'm currently on the 3rd book (yes, the one with the cheesy painting on the front that makes it look like a lady's book), and I have to say, this series is far superior to the original Riftwar trilogy.  if you for some mental reason want to find out more about these go to the Wikipedia page

If you made it to the end of this, I thank you for your patience and your indulgence.