Wednesday 21 November 2012

My 'Masterworks' Shelf


Bloody hell, who would have thought that this ‘Red Country’ review would be so hard to write? It’s a great book by the way; I just can’t seem to write about it. Oh well, maybe tomorrow…

In the meantime, have a look at my ‘Masterworks’ shelf, great isn’t it? :o)



I started mooching around second hand bookshops in an attempt to see how many of the old ‘Fantasy Masterworks’ books I could get hold of (like I need another excuse to go into a second hand bookshop…) and this soon became a mission to see how many of the ‘Sci-Fi Masterworks’ I could get hold of as well. Everything on the shelf is a ‘Masterwork’ although the edition may differ. I’d go mad trying to collect some of these titles in the ‘Masterwork’ format! I probably should have included the Del Rey ‘Elric’ books but they’re on a shelf all of their own.

My camera phone isn’t great so here are the titles (linked back to a review where there is one)…

‘The Anubis Gates’ - Tim Powers (couldn't get into this one the last time I tried it)
‘Viriconium’ – M. John Harrison
‘The Compleat Enchanter’ – L. Sprague De Camp & Fletcher Pratt
‘Gloriana’ – Michael Moorcock
‘Replay’ – Ken Grimwood
‘Air’ – Geoff Ryman
‘The Broken Sword’ – Poul Anderson (read this years ago but not for the blog)
‘Grendel’ – John Gardner
‘The Mark of the Beast’ – Rudyard Kipling
‘Non-Stop’ – Brian Aldiss
‘The Shrinking Man’ – Richard Matheson
‘Man Plus’ – Frederick Pohl
‘Flowers for Algernon’ – Daniel Keyes
‘The Fall of Hyperion’ – Dan Simmons
‘The Conan Chronicles (Vol 1) – Robert E. Howard
‘The Conan Chronicles (Vol 2) – Robert E. Howard (I reviewed ‘The Slithering Shadow’ but nothing else as yet)
‘I am Legend’ – Richard Matheson
‘The Dancers at the end of Time’ – Michael Moorcock
‘Floating Worlds’ – Cecilia Holland
‘Of Men and Monsters’ – William Tenn
‘Hyperion’ – Dan Simmons
‘The Difference Engine’ – William Gibson & Bruce Sterling
‘The Stars My Destination’ – Alfred Bester
‘Helliconia’ – Brian Aldiss
‘Hellstrom’s Hive’ – Frank Herbert
‘The Body Snatchers’ – Jack Finney
‘The Book of the New Sun’ – Gene Wolfe
'Lankhmar' - Fritz Leiber
‘The King of Elfland’s Daughter’ – Lord Dunsany

As you can see this is a real ‘shelf of shame’; filled up with good intentions but not a lot else. There’s still a few weeks until the end of the year and I want to cut this list of unread books down to size; are there any books (in particular) on the list that you would like to see reviewed here. HINT: Shorter books are more likely to be read… ;o)
Comments please!

4 comments:

Bob/Sally said...

Don't feel bad - I have a ton of those masterworks on my shelf as well, wrapped in the dust jacket of good intentions.

I'd start with ‘The Shrinking Man’ or 'I Am Legend' by Richard Matheson. I love his stuff, and he's a short, quick, Twilight Zone kind of reads.

I didn't care for ‘The Compleat Enchanter’ and as much as I want to read ‘Gloriana’, I find all Moorock's non-Eternal Champion stuff hard to get into.

‘Hyperion’ is probably the series I want to get into next.

Mark Lehto said...

Lankhmar stuff is (from a long ago memory) an easy read.

But I'd go with the book of the new sun because I have very fond memories of it. Selfish really - I can use your review to work out whether I want to re-read them!

Unknown said...

That's a hell of a lot of books! I'm keen to hear about The Difference Engine; steampunk precursors are good in my books :)

Jamie

Seamus said...

The hyperion cantos is probably my favourite series ever.