Read and be Merry
Following the lead of Copernicus and others who’ve posted itemised accounts of their Christmas booty haul, I thought I’d make mention of the bookish gifts kindly given to me by…er…myself o’er the festive season.
1) Foul Play: The Art and Artists of the Notorious 1950s E.C. Comics (Grant Geissman, 2005)
Not, perhaps, the definitive history of E.C. Comics some might be hoping for, but it does do pretty much exactly what it “says on the tin‿ – giving an entertaining (and gloriously illustrated) run through of E.C’s most significant creators. The sense of a happy and stimulating environment where creativity was allowed to run to riotous – subsequently unmatched – levels of horror and ‘depravity’ is palpable, as is the sad sense of “what might have been‿ had Frederic Wertham and the (industry-imposed) Comics Code Authority not intervened.
2) The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (eds. John Clute & Peter Nicholls, 1999)
An impeccably-researched piece of work that yields endless cross-referenced delights. I already had the 1979 first edition in my collection and it has become of my most thumbed volumes – pulling the reader down unknown and intriguing alleys with every page turned. Though the ‘new’ book is actually little more than an unaltered reprint of the 1993 edition it’s still the essential reference work on the area (though, of course, an updated 2007 edition would be most welcome). Like another of my much-loved reference books – The BFI Companion to Horror (now, sadly, out of print) – one of the Encyclopedia’s principle attractions is its emphasis on the thematic. Instead of merely being a listing of biographies, book/film histories etc., it grapples delightfully with grand Sci-Fi themes/staples like Time Paradoxes, Automation, Invasion and…er…Sex. A must have.
Given that my last post was partly concerned with the “Brill-ness of the Back to the Future movies, I thought I'd throw in a few snippets from the relevant entries in the Encyclopedia:
Back to the Future (1985)
…a disarming, calculated and intelligent comedy about Time Travel[…]One of the few sf blockbusters made by a director wholly comfortable with the conventions of Genre SF.
Back to the Future, Part II (1989)
…perhaps the most sophisticated Time-Travel film ever made; what was supposed by critics unfamiliar with the genre to be an incoherence of plot was in large part the perfectly well realised convolutions of a Time-Paradox tale.
Back to the Future, Part III (1989)
There is something pleasantly narcissistic and self-referential about the BTTF series embracing the past history of its own small-town Californian setting so passionately, like a communal version of wooing your own mother, the Freudian threat of the original film[…]The overall vision of the three films is of a static paradise poised dangerously above the dark abyss of uncertainty and change.
3) The Midwich Cuckoos (John Wyndham, 1957)
Not quite as enjoyable, perhaps, as Wyndham’s more famous Day of the Triffids, but a reasonably gripping and intelligent slice of ‘classic’ English Sci-Fi thus far (I’m about 100 pages in). The Wellsian parallels/similarities are a tad too glaring at times, lending the piece a curiously old-fashioned and mannered air (even for 1950s Britain). Having said that, it’s another example of what British Sci-Fi often does so effectively: grounding the fantastic in the banal, the 'provincial', and the everyday.
4) Great British Comics (Paul Gravett & Peter Stanbury, 2006)
Falling somewhere between a "Rough Guide" and a comprehensive work for enthusiasts, this (much-anticipated) title doesn’t quite deliver on its promise. Trying to cover the entire history of British Comics in a mere (heavily-illustrated) 192 pages was always going to be a challenge, and thus what we’re left with is a slightly unsatisfying taster. Despite such reservations it’s a very welcome companion to an often sorely-neglected area of British popular culture, and will (hopefully) inspire further, more-comprehensive, works in the future (possibly from the same, well-informed, authors).
Now back to my reading…
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January 7, 2007
2 responses to Read and be Merry
Both the Encylopedia of Science Fiction and the BFI horror book were tucked in the Large Books section of DCU library when I worked there. Many the tea break I spent chasing various ideas through the pages of both.
The Large Books section of any Library is always worth a look, as an aside. Ambition mixes with padding. For example, the two titles above were seperated by the catalog by a lavishly illustrated tome on New Kids on the Block.
As all the books in the library were chosen either by academics or the subject librarians, it does make me wonder slightly to what educational end the New Kids were intended to lead us.
“Large Books” can indeed run the gamut from sublime to ridiculous.
On the one hand you have essential tomes of reference that lead to various cross-referencing adventures.
On the other you have the kind of Time-Warner produced large format works more commonly found in specialised Bargain Bookshops (True Crime stuff, Mysteries of the Unexplained, Books about cars/tanks etc).
I’d imagine, though I haven’t seen it (and I may be doing it a disservice), that the New Kids book you mention falls into the latter category…