Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Books in the Mail

One of my favorite surprises is an unexpected book in the mail. This week I was lucky enough to get two such surprises. One was Queen of K'n-yan, by Asamatsu Ken; the other book was Degrees of Fear and Others, by C. J. Henderson.

I must admit, the books were anticipated, just not expected (there is some fun with semantics). I had the pleasure of reading Queen of K'n-yan before it was published. In fact, I've been waiting for it's publication to post a review. For now, let me state that it is a delightful and horrifyingly Lovecraftian novel. After my previous post, I confess that I did endorse the book, as did Brian Lumley, so I'll just quote the words from the back cover:

"Asamatsu Ken's Queen of K'n-yan is a fascinating story, and as Darrell Schweitzer states in his Introduction, it is indeed a fine Cthulhu Mythos novel..." -- Brian Lumley

"Original, dark, graceful and chilling. Asamatsu Ken understands the genre, and delivers a compelling novel." -- William Jones

If you read the "blurb's," then you'll also know that there is a great Introduction by Darrell. If you enjoy Mythos fiction, this is a novel to read.

As for Degrees of Fear and Others, this is a collection of C. J., and story commentaries (short paragraphs before the story). The stories are fun to read without the commentaries. Certainly read the book. It has Lovecraftian tales, and other tales of horror.

The surprise with this book was the cover change. My website has one of the early versions, and as it turns out, it was swapped. I like this cover very much. I had to scan it, as I couldn't find an image online. Well, if I had more time, I'm certain I could have found one.

Both of these books are delights and elegant. Take a peek at them.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

As I am a book reviewer who is woefully behind with his review stack, I no longer enjoy receiving unexpected books in the mail! ;-)

Not that you need it now, but there's a cover image for CJ's book over at Dark Regions:

http://darkregions.com/

Would you believe the book is available at Target's website? It appeared in a Google search. I never would have thought to look to Target for a small press spec fic anthology!

-Jeff

William Jones said...

Jeff - Thanks for the cover! Last time I was at DR, they had a different one. So why would I look there again? :)

I can understand the "lack" of thrill for a reviewer when new books arrive.

As for Target, it simply mirrors Amazon. They are an "affiliate." They don't carry the small presses in the stores, but if it's on Amazon, it is on Target (or are they a Books-a-Million affiliate?) Hard to keep track. Borders owns Amazon, but Borders started a new online store. Yet, Borders.com does pull quite a few listings form Amazon.

Charles Gramlich said...

I recognize that name from NIght voices, Night Journeys, a collection of Japanese Cthulhu stories that I read recently.

Anonymous said...

When I first saw "Degrees of Fear" was coming out, I thought to myself, "Darn, that would have been a great title for Tales out of Misk. U."

MK