Let Your Mind Off It's Leash...

Okay, so the Horror display didn't quite come off... but it might yet.

I got distracted by some of the rather wonderful SF & Fantasy coming in to the shop. Not the avergage Dungeons & Dragons/Lord Of The Rings type rips offs, nor the Star Wars/Star Trek Space Opera's either. I'm talking about the kind of writing with IDEAS. The kind of writing that doesn't forget the human element in SF/Fantasy...

I'm talking Harlan Ellison's SHATTERDAY - one of the most amazing collections of short stories that I;ve ever read, and which doesn't pull it's punches in confronting you with all your weakest least admirable qualities. A book that confronts you and tells you to grow the hell up. I honestly think it made me a better person.



I'm talking about J.G. Ballard - may he rest in peace - who until recently was by far one of the finest writers on the planet, and certainly that this country has ever produced.

I'm talking about Richard Matheson's THE SHRINKING MAN - made into a brilliant B-Movie by Jack Arnold, but the book is A+ writing. Man's place in the universe stuff, but as exciting and emotional as anything I think I've ever read. Certainly as good as his other classic I AM LEGEND (which no film adaptation has yet come close to getting right, unless you count Night Of The Living Dead, which enters the ball park).



I'm talking Michael Moorcock, one of the most prolific and richly entertaining minds in British SF/Fantasy...

I'm talking Ray Bradbury's THE HALLOWEEN TREE - which really is perfect for October (coming soon), and even though it's a children's book, really, it's a wonderful read.



Enough. I think you get the picture.

Don't just take your body for a Holiday this year... send you mind out somewhere special. Let your imagination off it's leash. Let it see the sights in far off lands, the like of which your eyes may never see.

A book is a dream that you hold in your hands...

Start dreaming.

Have An Adventure This Summer..

That's the theme in what was the Doctor Who window... old fashioned adventure. The kind of thing attatched to being read while you were on holiday, away from home, that somehow made it extra exciting.

Try some Leon Garfield: 'Devil In The Fog', or G.K. Chesterton's 'The Man Who Was Thursday' which I can't reccomend highly enough. Marcus Sedgwick's 'My Sword Hand Is Singing', Susan Cooper's 'The Dark Is Rising', Tony Hawk's 'Round Ireland With A Fridge' or H.G. Wells' 'First Men In The Moon' - all this celebrating of the Apollo Moon Landings and we Brits got there first. Turn of the century no less, in the name of Queen Victoria!

We're seeing some interesting old SF & Fantasy coming in at the moment, James Branch Cabal, Fritz Lieber, Theodore Sturgeon...

And a good few more contemporary classics - Betty Smith (A Tree Grows In Brooklyn), Graham Greene, F. Scott Fitzgerald etc.

Thought I might flag up our rather well stocked Horror section, to be found - fittingly - in the basement, with a display of covers from the late 70's and early 80's. The kind that used to dare you and scare you as a kid. The kind that promised so much you were almost afraid of what might lurk inside.

Or I might just do a display of Guy N. Smith, a pretty awful writer with wonderfully shoddy pulp titles like 'The Slime Beast' and 'Night Of The Crabs'. They've got covers to die for in many cases. They're trash, but they're well packaged trash - and just bad enough to be fun in the right frame of mind.

We'll see what I dig most of from the section... whatever puts the biggest grin onto my face will be the winner. Whichever way it goes, they'll be i the window soon. Why don't you stop and take a look...