by Jeremy Lassen
Welcome to the October edition of my DVD column. This month, there will be a ton of really bad horror movies released on DVD. I mean . . . just a lot of bad movies. Because . . . well, it’s October. And sadly, it's not a terribly good year for horror releases. I’m going to skip most of the trash, but one piece of trash is notable, because it is the first Dark Castle production to go straight to home video (which is a bad thing) and it features Jeffrey Combs (which is a good thing). "Return to the House on Haunted Hill". This movie has none of the cast of the “original remake.” It’s a different director. And as I said, it is direct-to-video. But it has Jeffrey Combs eating the scenery, so if you’re a Jeffery Combs fan, pick it up. Otherwise . . . well, let's move on.
"Twilight Zone, the Movie" is finally being released on DVD. This was actually a pretty decent anthology film from 1983, wherein some of the best episodes from the original series were re-written. You could watch this, or you could watch the original episodes. It's your call, but I’ve got a soft spot for this movie. I saw it in the theater, and it scared the crap out of me when I was a wee lad.
October 01, 2007
September Bestsellers
Hardcovers
1. Making Money by Terry Pratchett
2. Hilldiggers by Neal Asher
3. Promises to Keep by Charles de Lint
4. Little (Grrrl) Lost by Charles de Lint
5. The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
6. World War Z by Max Brooks
7. 1634: The Bavarian Crisis by Eric Flint and Virginia DeMarce
8. Many Bloody Returns: Tales of Birthdays with Bite edited by Charlaine Harris
9. The Nail and the Oracle by Theodore Sturgeon
10. Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis tie with
Spook Country by William Gibson
Mass Market Paperbacks
1. The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy
2. Princes of the Golden Cage by Nathalie Mallet
3. The Clan Corporate by Charles Stross
4. A Meeting at Corvalis by S.M. Stirling
5. Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik
6. Undertow by Elizabeth Bear
7. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
8. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman tie with
A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
9. Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
10. Hounding the Moon by P.R. Frost
Trade Paperbacks
1. Butcher Bird by Richard Kadrey
2. Grey by Jon Armstrong
3. Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson
4. The Dog Said Bow-Wow by Michael Swanwick tie with
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
5. Nova Swing by M. John Harrison
1. Making Money by Terry Pratchett
2. Hilldiggers by Neal Asher
3. Promises to Keep by Charles de Lint
4. Little (Grrrl) Lost by Charles de Lint
5. The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
6. World War Z by Max Brooks
7. 1634: The Bavarian Crisis by Eric Flint and Virginia DeMarce
8. Many Bloody Returns: Tales of Birthdays with Bite edited by Charlaine Harris
9. The Nail and the Oracle by Theodore Sturgeon
10. Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis tie with
Spook Country by William Gibson
Mass Market Paperbacks
1. The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy
2. Princes of the Golden Cage by Nathalie Mallet
3. The Clan Corporate by Charles Stross
4. A Meeting at Corvalis by S.M. Stirling
5. Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik
6. Undertow by Elizabeth Bear
7. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
8. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman tie with
A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
9. Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
10. Hounding the Moon by P.R. Frost
Trade Paperbacks
1. Butcher Bird by Richard Kadrey
2. Grey by Jon Armstrong
3. Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson
4. The Dog Said Bow-Wow by Michael Swanwick tie with
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
5. Nova Swing by M. John Harrison
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Twelfth - The Real Story
For the last eleven months, we've been doing a special feature each month about what Borderlands is and how it got that way. This is the last of the regular features, but we'll be doing a special, final "Origin" next month highlighting customers' stories.
by Alan Beatts
For reasons only dimly understood even now and too complex to get into here, I decided at 17 that I was best suited to some type of work that involved carrying a gun and dealing with violence. Many people might have been worried about such a choice for reasons of their safety or health but at the time I was pretty firmly convinced that I wouldn't live to see 30. I considered the military (too structured and they would make me cut my hair, which has been long for most of my life), the intelligence field (they wanted too much college and I was really sick of going to school), and several other, less respectable, options. In the end I decided to go to college and study what was called either Administration of Justice (community college) or Criminology (UC and Cal State). Through a bunch of twists and turns, I ended up doing what I planned and working all over while doing all kind of jobs -- jobs that ranged from interesting to deadly boring, safe to madly dangerous, useful to utterly pointless. I learned a great deal, met some wonderful people, and I don't regret it for an instant.
And then I hit a wall.
As I was getting better and better at what I did and taking on more and more responsibilities, an essential conflict between my job and my personality become worse and worse. I've always been a bit unconventional and politically liberal -- though my "liberalism" was only on about half the issues, on the other half I've always been "conservative" (i.e. if they want, I'd like my friends to be able to take their concealed handgun to their same-sex wedding) -- but I was in a field that is conservative to an astonishing degree. The two things didn't mix well. A case in point - I went to ridiculous lengths to conceal my real name from my drug-running, motorcycle riding, club-hopping lover of the time because I was (rightly) worried that it could make problems with my security clearance if anyone found out (by the way, my nickname from back then still sticks, to the confusion of many). Living a double life like that is a strain, even for someone who had done their share of undercover work.
And then there was the job stress. I was carrying two pagers, from two different companies, because it was so critical that I be reachable 24 hours a day. At one point, I worked for over a month without a day off. I've always been able to work pretty hard but that was too much. I was falling apart physically and emotionally.
So I quit. Completely. And radically simplified my life.
A few months later the sum total of my possessions (that weren't in long term storage) fit into one mid-sized duffle bag and two motorcycle saddle bags. I was sleeping in a different place pretty much every night and I never slept the same place three nights in a row. I didn't have a job, a mailing address, or a home. Hell, my life was so simple that I only had _one_ key. I spent most of my time in San Francisco. During the days I'd read in cafes, hang out wherever I'd spent the last night, or, if I was tired, I'd go to Golden Gate Park and take a nap. At night, I'd be at some nightclub either dancing or seeing a band. I picked up odd jobs, mostly as a roustabout in clubs. After a while I started working as a DJ and later did some nightclub promoting. Back then I drank a _lot_ and there were plenty of mornings when I'd wake up not knowing exactly where I was or how I got there. That I didn't die in a motorcycle crash can only be marked up to a long run of very good luck (near the end I did crash, but I got away easy with just a few torn muscles in my back, a DUI charge, and a busted-up motorcycle).
At the time, I knew exactly what was wrong with me -- I didn't have any idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life; there was nothing that I was striving for or even trying to accomplish (other than getting enough money to keep me in food, booze and smokes).
In retrospect I've come to believe that along with that, I also was experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It seems very strange and self-indulgent to be saying that. After all, I wasn't in a war and, though there was plenty of stress in my previous career, nothing happened to me that was a fraction as bad as what is happening daily in Iraq. But, in a large part as a result of talking with a friend who was in Vietnam and who suffered a pretty severe case of PTSD, over the past two years I've started to think that, despite there being (as it seems to me) no good reason for it, that was part of what I was experiencing back then. (As a side note, it is interesting that my friend will tell anyone who asks that _nothing_ terribly bad happened to him either.) Whether it is reasonable or justified, I see now that I had all the symptoms associated with PTSD.
Regardless of the details, my state of mind and lifestyle was not one that would have been survivable in the long term. Thankfully I got tired of the nightclub business about the same time that an old employee of mine got in touch because he was opening a motorcycle repair shop. He was a good mechanic but he knew that he wasn't well suited to run the office and customer service side of a business. So he asked me to take over that part. As he put it, "I saw how you used to deal with people when you carried a gun. If you could put up with them, you'll be able to put up with customers. And the best part is . . . no one dies if you make a mistake." For two years I managed the shop and discovered that I really loved running a small business and helping customers. But, I also discovered that I worked harder than the owner and started to resent it. Also, all the same problems were still bugging me. I didn't feel like I was doing anything with my life and I was very depressed most of the time. In fact, the depression was getting progressively worse as relations between me and the owner of the shop were going downhill.
Finally I decided that, if I was going to keep on walking around, I had to do something that I cared about. Opening my own business seemed one of the best choices -- though heading out to Prague and DJ-ing was also a strong contender. At the very least, if I owned my own business I'd have somewhere to sleep every night (after three years, homelessness was wearing on me and it didn't help with the depression). So I thought about it for a long time and decided that there was room in SF for a used bookstore that specialized in science fiction, fantasy and horror. I figured that I could run it by myself, stock it initially with my own books, and make ends meet (significantly aided by my rent-free, motorcycle-riding, Top Ramen-eating lifestyle).
Well, it didn't quite work out that way but it came close. The space was bigger than I had planned (with equally higher rent), I didn't have enough books to fill it so I bought quite a few from another bookseller who had too many, and it was very quickly obvious that I wouldn't be able to make it work with only used books so I added selected new books as well. But over all it worked out well. The space was great. My landlord never asked if I was living there and I didn't tell him.
For those of you who remember the old store at 534 Laguna Street, it was a warren of small rooms -- three total. But what most people never saw were the other three rooms. One was my office by day and at night the couch folded out, the back room concealed a relatively complete kitchen, and there was a full bath in the final room (I still miss the tub there -- it was a huge claw foot and had probably been installed when the building was built in the 19th century). I had blinds in the front windows and at the end of the day I'd close them. Well-meaning customers would always point out that I should leave them open so people could see the window displays when the shop was closed. I just used to smile and think how window shoppers would react to see me wandering around the shop in my bathrobe!
Everything went well for three years. Business grew steadily and after a year or so I was able to hire Jeremy Lassen to help out around the shop. That was a huge relief. From the day that I opened until I hired Jeremy I had worked six days a week, every week except for a few extra days off around Christmas (but it evened out -- the month before Christmas I stayed open seven days a week. I'd been working 28 days straight by the time the holiday rolled around).
Then three things happened all at the same time - my lease ran out, the dot-com boom got going, and I found out what a bastard my landlord was. See, I had a second option on my lease for another three years at the same rent. In December I told my landlord that I wanted to take the option. He said fine and I forgot about it. Then the lease ran out in April and he raised the rent. I mentioned the option and he pointed out that the lease said that I had to ask for it in writing and I had to do so before the first lease ran out. I told him that I'd talked to him about it in December. He shrugged.
I wanted to kill him. Instead I panicked and told all my friends that I was looking for a new space. And shortly thereafter my mom, bless her, found an ad for the business that was selling-out in our current location at 866 Valencia.
The saga of moving the store has been discussed elsewhere and I'll not repeat it here. One epilogue that bears mentioning though -- my old landlord did very well during the dot-com boom. At his height he owned over 20 buildings in San Francisco. But . . . so far as I've been able to find out, when the crash hit he lost everything.
I should feel bad for him but I don't.
One catch about the new location was that it really wasn't very well set up as a place to live. But I'm nothing if not flexible and (on good days) imaginative. Nowadays people sometimes comment on what a nice stock room we have. It used to be a bit more than that. In the back room at Borderlands is a closet. If you move the brooms and ladder you might notice the shower head, the fiberglass walls and the drain in the floor . . . the loft where we now store boxes of used books is almost the exact dimensions of a queen size bed . . . and a bookstore doesn't really need a two-compartment sink in the back room . . . I think you get the picture. It's been a long time since I've lived at the shop but if, years ago, you ever saw a grey shape flitting around in the back of the store late at night -- it wasn't a ghost.
I had never figured out a good way to install a toilet in the back room.
It's about time to end this tell-all account. It's ten years later and I'm not the person who opened Borderlands. I'm hardly ever depressed now and when I am, there's a reason and it passes very quickly. I don't have nightmares anymore and my drinking is very reasonable (hell, I don't have _time_ for hangovers). I wouldn't say that book-selling and Borderlands saved my life -- how could I know that? But I know that I'm happier than I've ever been in my life and I'm very, very proud of what I've been able to build with the kindness and support of my friends (Jet, Bill, Valorie, Jhene, Rain, Hannah, AC, Molly, Tia, Jeremy, Liza, Jason, Loren, Claud, Mikael, Scott, Amanda, Thorn, Cary, Lisa, Heather, Francis, Maddy, Scott, and Ben), my family (Joe, Alexandra, Darran, Steven, Jim, James, Devany and most of all, Valerie and Jude, the two pillars that hold up my world), and you -- my customers. Thank you all.
by Alan Beatts
For reasons only dimly understood even now and too complex to get into here, I decided at 17 that I was best suited to some type of work that involved carrying a gun and dealing with violence. Many people might have been worried about such a choice for reasons of their safety or health but at the time I was pretty firmly convinced that I wouldn't live to see 30. I considered the military (too structured and they would make me cut my hair, which has been long for most of my life), the intelligence field (they wanted too much college and I was really sick of going to school), and several other, less respectable, options. In the end I decided to go to college and study what was called either Administration of Justice (community college) or Criminology (UC and Cal State). Through a bunch of twists and turns, I ended up doing what I planned and working all over while doing all kind of jobs -- jobs that ranged from interesting to deadly boring, safe to madly dangerous, useful to utterly pointless. I learned a great deal, met some wonderful people, and I don't regret it for an instant.
And then I hit a wall.
As I was getting better and better at what I did and taking on more and more responsibilities, an essential conflict between my job and my personality become worse and worse. I've always been a bit unconventional and politically liberal -- though my "liberalism" was only on about half the issues, on the other half I've always been "conservative" (i.e. if they want, I'd like my friends to be able to take their concealed handgun to their same-sex wedding) -- but I was in a field that is conservative to an astonishing degree. The two things didn't mix well. A case in point - I went to ridiculous lengths to conceal my real name from my drug-running, motorcycle riding, club-hopping lover of the time because I was (rightly) worried that it could make problems with my security clearance if anyone found out (by the way, my nickname from back then still sticks, to the confusion of many). Living a double life like that is a strain, even for someone who had done their share of undercover work.
And then there was the job stress. I was carrying two pagers, from two different companies, because it was so critical that I be reachable 24 hours a day. At one point, I worked for over a month without a day off. I've always been able to work pretty hard but that was too much. I was falling apart physically and emotionally.
So I quit. Completely. And radically simplified my life.
A few months later the sum total of my possessions (that weren't in long term storage) fit into one mid-sized duffle bag and two motorcycle saddle bags. I was sleeping in a different place pretty much every night and I never slept the same place three nights in a row. I didn't have a job, a mailing address, or a home. Hell, my life was so simple that I only had _one_ key. I spent most of my time in San Francisco. During the days I'd read in cafes, hang out wherever I'd spent the last night, or, if I was tired, I'd go to Golden Gate Park and take a nap. At night, I'd be at some nightclub either dancing or seeing a band. I picked up odd jobs, mostly as a roustabout in clubs. After a while I started working as a DJ and later did some nightclub promoting. Back then I drank a _lot_ and there were plenty of mornings when I'd wake up not knowing exactly where I was or how I got there. That I didn't die in a motorcycle crash can only be marked up to a long run of very good luck (near the end I did crash, but I got away easy with just a few torn muscles in my back, a DUI charge, and a busted-up motorcycle).
At the time, I knew exactly what was wrong with me -- I didn't have any idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life; there was nothing that I was striving for or even trying to accomplish (other than getting enough money to keep me in food, booze and smokes).
In retrospect I've come to believe that along with that, I also was experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It seems very strange and self-indulgent to be saying that. After all, I wasn't in a war and, though there was plenty of stress in my previous career, nothing happened to me that was a fraction as bad as what is happening daily in Iraq. But, in a large part as a result of talking with a friend who was in Vietnam and who suffered a pretty severe case of PTSD, over the past two years I've started to think that, despite there being (as it seems to me) no good reason for it, that was part of what I was experiencing back then. (As a side note, it is interesting that my friend will tell anyone who asks that _nothing_ terribly bad happened to him either.) Whether it is reasonable or justified, I see now that I had all the symptoms associated with PTSD.
Regardless of the details, my state of mind and lifestyle was not one that would have been survivable in the long term. Thankfully I got tired of the nightclub business about the same time that an old employee of mine got in touch because he was opening a motorcycle repair shop. He was a good mechanic but he knew that he wasn't well suited to run the office and customer service side of a business. So he asked me to take over that part. As he put it, "I saw how you used to deal with people when you carried a gun. If you could put up with them, you'll be able to put up with customers. And the best part is . . . no one dies if you make a mistake." For two years I managed the shop and discovered that I really loved running a small business and helping customers. But, I also discovered that I worked harder than the owner and started to resent it. Also, all the same problems were still bugging me. I didn't feel like I was doing anything with my life and I was very depressed most of the time. In fact, the depression was getting progressively worse as relations between me and the owner of the shop were going downhill.
Finally I decided that, if I was going to keep on walking around, I had to do something that I cared about. Opening my own business seemed one of the best choices -- though heading out to Prague and DJ-ing was also a strong contender. At the very least, if I owned my own business I'd have somewhere to sleep every night (after three years, homelessness was wearing on me and it didn't help with the depression). So I thought about it for a long time and decided that there was room in SF for a used bookstore that specialized in science fiction, fantasy and horror. I figured that I could run it by myself, stock it initially with my own books, and make ends meet (significantly aided by my rent-free, motorcycle-riding, Top Ramen-eating lifestyle).
Well, it didn't quite work out that way but it came close. The space was bigger than I had planned (with equally higher rent), I didn't have enough books to fill it so I bought quite a few from another bookseller who had too many, and it was very quickly obvious that I wouldn't be able to make it work with only used books so I added selected new books as well. But over all it worked out well. The space was great. My landlord never asked if I was living there and I didn't tell him.
For those of you who remember the old store at 534 Laguna Street, it was a warren of small rooms -- three total. But what most people never saw were the other three rooms. One was my office by day and at night the couch folded out, the back room concealed a relatively complete kitchen, and there was a full bath in the final room (I still miss the tub there -- it was a huge claw foot and had probably been installed when the building was built in the 19th century). I had blinds in the front windows and at the end of the day I'd close them. Well-meaning customers would always point out that I should leave them open so people could see the window displays when the shop was closed. I just used to smile and think how window shoppers would react to see me wandering around the shop in my bathrobe!
Everything went well for three years. Business grew steadily and after a year or so I was able to hire Jeremy Lassen to help out around the shop. That was a huge relief. From the day that I opened until I hired Jeremy I had worked six days a week, every week except for a few extra days off around Christmas (but it evened out -- the month before Christmas I stayed open seven days a week. I'd been working 28 days straight by the time the holiday rolled around).
Then three things happened all at the same time - my lease ran out, the dot-com boom got going, and I found out what a bastard my landlord was. See, I had a second option on my lease for another three years at the same rent. In December I told my landlord that I wanted to take the option. He said fine and I forgot about it. Then the lease ran out in April and he raised the rent. I mentioned the option and he pointed out that the lease said that I had to ask for it in writing and I had to do so before the first lease ran out. I told him that I'd talked to him about it in December. He shrugged.
I wanted to kill him. Instead I panicked and told all my friends that I was looking for a new space. And shortly thereafter my mom, bless her, found an ad for the business that was selling-out in our current location at 866 Valencia.
The saga of moving the store has been discussed elsewhere and I'll not repeat it here. One epilogue that bears mentioning though -- my old landlord did very well during the dot-com boom. At his height he owned over 20 buildings in San Francisco. But . . . so far as I've been able to find out, when the crash hit he lost everything.
I should feel bad for him but I don't.
One catch about the new location was that it really wasn't very well set up as a place to live. But I'm nothing if not flexible and (on good days) imaginative. Nowadays people sometimes comment on what a nice stock room we have. It used to be a bit more than that. In the back room at Borderlands is a closet. If you move the brooms and ladder you might notice the shower head, the fiberglass walls and the drain in the floor . . . the loft where we now store boxes of used books is almost the exact dimensions of a queen size bed . . . and a bookstore doesn't really need a two-compartment sink in the back room . . . I think you get the picture. It's been a long time since I've lived at the shop but if, years ago, you ever saw a grey shape flitting around in the back of the store late at night -- it wasn't a ghost.
I had never figured out a good way to install a toilet in the back room.
It's about time to end this tell-all account. It's ten years later and I'm not the person who opened Borderlands. I'm hardly ever depressed now and when I am, there's a reason and it passes very quickly. I don't have nightmares anymore and my drinking is very reasonable (hell, I don't have _time_ for hangovers). I wouldn't say that book-selling and Borderlands saved my life -- how could I know that? But I know that I'm happier than I've ever been in my life and I'm very, very proud of what I've been able to build with the kindness and support of my friends (Jet, Bill, Valorie, Jhene, Rain, Hannah, AC, Molly, Tia, Jeremy, Liza, Jason, Loren, Claud, Mikael, Scott, Amanda, Thorn, Cary, Lisa, Heather, Francis, Maddy, Scott, and Ben), my family (Joe, Alexandra, Darran, Steven, Jim, James, Devany and most of all, Valerie and Jude, the two pillars that hold up my world), and you -- my customers. Thank you all.
September 01, 2007
Notes from a DVD Geek
by Jeremy Lassen
Hello everyone. I recently got back from the San Diego Comicon, where I saw all kinds of crazy stuff, including amputee booth models, and way too much CosPlay to contemplate. Because of this recent over-exposure to all things anime, I feel compelled to tell you about some anime that has made its way to the Borderlands DVD shelves.
First up is "Burst Angel". This just-released genre-bender mixes sci-fi, action, comedy, and a touch of spaghetti Western into an over-the-top girls-with-guns confection. The first two volumes/8 episodes of this one are on DVD now.
Another strange anime series that has been getting talked up is the noir/sf series “The Big O”; (no, the title is not referring to what you think its referring to). It’s about a futuristic city with 40’s retro styling, whose entire population has lost their memories. The city is ruled by the police force, and there are giant robots that kind of sit around and don’t really do much. The title refers to said giant robots. Think of this as a weird mix of "Dark City" and "Batman The Animated Series," without Batman. It’s interesting stuff that was apparently shown on the Cartoon Network. But who has time for cable? There are now two giant 4-dvd sets available, each containing a 13-episode season. This is exactly the kind of weird mix of styles and genres that anime does really well.
Hello everyone. I recently got back from the San Diego Comicon, where I saw all kinds of crazy stuff, including amputee booth models, and way too much CosPlay to contemplate. Because of this recent over-exposure to all things anime, I feel compelled to tell you about some anime that has made its way to the Borderlands DVD shelves.
First up is "Burst Angel". This just-released genre-bender mixes sci-fi, action, comedy, and a touch of spaghetti Western into an over-the-top girls-with-guns confection. The first two volumes/8 episodes of this one are on DVD now.
Another strange anime series that has been getting talked up is the noir/sf series “The Big O”; (no, the title is not referring to what you think its referring to). It’s about a futuristic city with 40’s retro styling, whose entire population has lost their memories. The city is ruled by the police force, and there are giant robots that kind of sit around and don’t really do much. The title refers to said giant robots. Think of this as a weird mix of "Dark City" and "Batman The Animated Series," without Batman. It’s interesting stuff that was apparently shown on the Cartoon Network. But who has time for cable? There are now two giant 4-dvd sets available, each containing a 13-episode season. This is exactly the kind of weird mix of styles and genres that anime does really well.
August Bestsellers
Hardcovers
1. Spook Country by William Gibson
2. Sandworms of Dune by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert
3. Hilldiggers by Neal Asher
4. Thirteen by Richard Morgan
5. Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
6. Coyote Road: Trickster Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
7. Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis
8. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
9. The Devil You Know by Mike Carey
10. Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
Mass Market Paperbacks
1. Plague Year by Jeff Carlson
2. Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner
3. Undertow by Elizabeth Bear
4. Sea of Suns by Karl Schroeder
5. Thin Air by Rachel Caine
6. Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
7. Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
8. In Fury Born by David Weber
9. Polity Agent by Neal Asher
10. The Machine's Child by Kage Baker tie with
Clan Corporate by Charles Stross
Trade Paperbacks
1. Butcher Bird by Richard Kadrey
2. The Very Bloody Marys by M. Christian
3. Grey by Jon Armstrong
4. Poltergeist by Kat Richardson
5. The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks tie with
Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson
1. Spook Country by William Gibson
2. Sandworms of Dune by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert
3. Hilldiggers by Neal Asher
4. Thirteen by Richard Morgan
5. Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
6. Coyote Road: Trickster Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
7. Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis
8. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
9. The Devil You Know by Mike Carey
10. Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
Mass Market Paperbacks
1. Plague Year by Jeff Carlson
2. Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner
3. Undertow by Elizabeth Bear
4. Sea of Suns by Karl Schroeder
5. Thin Air by Rachel Caine
6. Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
7. Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
8. In Fury Born by David Weber
9. Polity Agent by Neal Asher
10. The Machine's Child by Kage Baker tie with
Clan Corporate by Charles Stross
Trade Paperbacks
1. Butcher Bird by Richard Kadrey
2. The Very Bloody Marys by M. Christian
3. Grey by Jon Armstrong
4. Poltergeist by Kat Richardson
5. The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks tie with
Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Eleventh - Moving Books
For the next two months we'll be doing a special feature each month in honor of Borderlands' upcoming 10th Anniversary (November 3rd, 2007). We'll share some stories about what Borderlands is and how it got that way.
by Alan Beatts
Anyone who collects books or who is an avid reader knows what a pain moving books can be. But to really appreciate how bad it can get you have to work at a bookstore (or, gods help you, own one). As I write this, Borderlands has a total of 18,937 books in the store. When we moved here from our old location, we only had about half that number. All of which had to be boxed up in alphabetical order and moved over to the current location. We were clever (at least a little bit) and found boxes that were exactly the right size to fit three long rows of mass-market paperbacks (those are the small paperbacks) stacked one deep. At least that meant that the books would stay in order as they were moved. Then it was just a matter of packing them up. And packing them up. And packing them up.
I was busy working on getting the new location into shape and most of the rest of the staff were either working their other jobs or helping me at the new location, so Claud Reich packed almost all the paperbacks by himself. When I left the bookstore that morning, there was a pile of broken down boxes in the middle of the store about five feet high. By the time I got back there in the evening, there were three or four piles of boxes in stacks higher than Claud's head (and he's not a short guy -- taller than my six feet, in fact). When you think of regular moving boxes, that doesn't seem very high, but remember, these boxes were only 4" high. That is a lot of boxes. And then there were all the boxes of hardcovers and trade paperbacks.
by Alan Beatts
Anyone who collects books or who is an avid reader knows what a pain moving books can be. But to really appreciate how bad it can get you have to work at a bookstore (or, gods help you, own one). As I write this, Borderlands has a total of 18,937 books in the store. When we moved here from our old location, we only had about half that number. All of which had to be boxed up in alphabetical order and moved over to the current location. We were clever (at least a little bit) and found boxes that were exactly the right size to fit three long rows of mass-market paperbacks (those are the small paperbacks) stacked one deep. At least that meant that the books would stay in order as they were moved. Then it was just a matter of packing them up. And packing them up. And packing them up.
I was busy working on getting the new location into shape and most of the rest of the staff were either working their other jobs or helping me at the new location, so Claud Reich packed almost all the paperbacks by himself. When I left the bookstore that morning, there was a pile of broken down boxes in the middle of the store about five feet high. By the time I got back there in the evening, there were three or four piles of boxes in stacks higher than Claud's head (and he's not a short guy -- taller than my six feet, in fact). When you think of regular moving boxes, that doesn't seem very high, but remember, these boxes were only 4" high. That is a lot of boxes. And then there were all the boxes of hardcovers and trade paperbacks.
Recent Reading
by Alan Beatts
It has been a good summer for my reading, so this month I thought I'd talk a little about books that I've read recently that really impressed me. It's a truism that booksellers are either reading something old or something that hasn't come out yet. I think it's because we're either working on our stacks (and we all have piles of books to read) of brand news stuff or we're "finally getting to that", fill in the blank, "that I've been meaning to read for months". Whatever the reason, booksellers are almost always either behind our customers' reading or ahead of them.
Having said that, the first book I'm going to mention is an exception to that rule. HILLDIGGERS by Neal Asher arrived at the store very recently and I grabbed it. I've been a fan of Asher's since 1998 or so when I read THE ENGINEER, his first collection of short work that was published by Tanjen (a now sadly defunct UK small press). I was crazy about that book and bought up the entire supply of copies available in the US. And I promptly sold every single one at the then-cover price of around $15. Now I wish I'd saved some copies since they're hard as hell to find and go for at least $100 now.
Fast-forward to 2007 when Asher has more than a half-dozen novels out, is a pretty big deal in the UK and working towards that in the US. His Polity universe, in which most (if not all, the jury is still out on whether COWL is a Polity novel or not) of his novels and many of his short stories are set, is perhaps the must interesting and fully-imagined future history since Niven's Known Space and Banks' Culture. HILLDIGGERS is his most recent work and in some ways I liked it better than the last two (POLITY AGENT and THE VOYAGE OF THE SABLE KEECH). Not that the last two were poor examples of his work but they both are followups to other novels (BRASS MAN and THE SKINNER, respectively). HILLDIGGERS, however, introduces a completely new cast of characters and is set on the outskirts of the Polity (the Line, as it's called). It's a solid piece of writing that demonstrates Asher's increasing skill at starting the reader at the beginning of the action and then filling in the back-story bit by bit throughout the course of the novel. If you haven't tried Asher yet, HILLDIGGERS is a good place to start (though I still think that THE SKINNER is his best work to date).
Next I'm going to jump way forward and tease you a little. John Meaney may be familiar to some of you from his Nulapeiron Sequence (PARADOX, CONTEXT, and RESOLUTION). His newest novel, BONE SONG, is a departure from his other work and I think it's his best yet. It's a noir-ish detective novel set in a world very different from ours where something like magic (or more accurately, Necromancy) takes the place of much of our technology. Neither science fiction nor fantasy, BONE SONG is the book that I've been waiting years to find. Combining the aesthetic of Hammett or Robert Parker with a setting reminiscent of China Mieville's New Crobuzon, it's a remarkable entry into the canon of supernatural investigation. Here's the catch: although the UK edition is out already I strongly suggest that you wait to read the US edition. There were a few editorial and textural changes to the US edition that make it a stronger novel. The bad news -- the US edition won't be out 'til February of next year. So, you'll just have to wait. Don't worry though, we'll mention it in this newsletter when we get copies.
Finally, I'll jump back in time and mention that I finally got around to reading Glasshouse by Charles Stross. I know, I know it's been out forever but the paperback just caught my eye. If there's anyone out there who hasn't gotten to it yet either -- buy it. I heard mixed reviews right when it came out (which was part of the reason I waited on it) but I thought it was great. Some of the riffs he's playing have been around for a while (interstellar teleportation, artificial societies, and human/meta-human/trans-human relations) but he does his usual (and remarkable) job of extrapolating and integrating ideas so that they are a seemingly rock-solid basis for the story, instead of being the centerpiece. And the story is a lovely paranoid thriller where the no-one-is-what-they-seem element is enhanced by technology that allows effectively instant body switching and even multiple instances of the same personality in duplicate bodies. The damn thing hooked me completely and cost me sleep, not to mention several hours at work!
That's about all for this month. Have a lovely fall.
It has been a good summer for my reading, so this month I thought I'd talk a little about books that I've read recently that really impressed me. It's a truism that booksellers are either reading something old or something that hasn't come out yet. I think it's because we're either working on our stacks (and we all have piles of books to read) of brand news stuff or we're "finally getting to that", fill in the blank, "that I've been meaning to read for months". Whatever the reason, booksellers are almost always either behind our customers' reading or ahead of them.
Having said that, the first book I'm going to mention is an exception to that rule. HILLDIGGERS by Neal Asher arrived at the store very recently and I grabbed it. I've been a fan of Asher's since 1998 or so when I read THE ENGINEER, his first collection of short work that was published by Tanjen (a now sadly defunct UK small press). I was crazy about that book and bought up the entire supply of copies available in the US. And I promptly sold every single one at the then-cover price of around $15. Now I wish I'd saved some copies since they're hard as hell to find and go for at least $100 now.
Fast-forward to 2007 when Asher has more than a half-dozen novels out, is a pretty big deal in the UK and working towards that in the US. His Polity universe, in which most (if not all, the jury is still out on whether COWL is a Polity novel or not) of his novels and many of his short stories are set, is perhaps the must interesting and fully-imagined future history since Niven's Known Space and Banks' Culture. HILLDIGGERS is his most recent work and in some ways I liked it better than the last two (POLITY AGENT and THE VOYAGE OF THE SABLE KEECH). Not that the last two were poor examples of his work but they both are followups to other novels (BRASS MAN and THE SKINNER, respectively). HILLDIGGERS, however, introduces a completely new cast of characters and is set on the outskirts of the Polity (the Line, as it's called). It's a solid piece of writing that demonstrates Asher's increasing skill at starting the reader at the beginning of the action and then filling in the back-story bit by bit throughout the course of the novel. If you haven't tried Asher yet, HILLDIGGERS is a good place to start (though I still think that THE SKINNER is his best work to date).
Next I'm going to jump way forward and tease you a little. John Meaney may be familiar to some of you from his Nulapeiron Sequence (PARADOX, CONTEXT, and RESOLUTION). His newest novel, BONE SONG, is a departure from his other work and I think it's his best yet. It's a noir-ish detective novel set in a world very different from ours where something like magic (or more accurately, Necromancy) takes the place of much of our technology. Neither science fiction nor fantasy, BONE SONG is the book that I've been waiting years to find. Combining the aesthetic of Hammett or Robert Parker with a setting reminiscent of China Mieville's New Crobuzon, it's a remarkable entry into the canon of supernatural investigation. Here's the catch: although the UK edition is out already I strongly suggest that you wait to read the US edition. There were a few editorial and textural changes to the US edition that make it a stronger novel. The bad news -- the US edition won't be out 'til February of next year. So, you'll just have to wait. Don't worry though, we'll mention it in this newsletter when we get copies.
Finally, I'll jump back in time and mention that I finally got around to reading Glasshouse by Charles Stross. I know, I know it's been out forever but the paperback just caught my eye. If there's anyone out there who hasn't gotten to it yet either -- buy it. I heard mixed reviews right when it came out (which was part of the reason I waited on it) but I thought it was great. Some of the riffs he's playing have been around for a while (interstellar teleportation, artificial societies, and human/meta-human/trans-human relations) but he does his usual (and remarkable) job of extrapolating and integrating ideas so that they are a seemingly rock-solid basis for the story, instead of being the centerpiece. And the story is a lovely paranoid thriller where the no-one-is-what-they-seem element is enhanced by technology that allows effectively instant body switching and even multiple instances of the same personality in duplicate bodies. The damn thing hooked me completely and cost me sleep, not to mention several hours at work!
That's about all for this month. Have a lovely fall.
August 01, 2007
Notes from a DVD Geek
by Jeremy Lassen
This month I’m psyched. There’s a truly awesome movie arriving on DVD and chances are most of you were unable to catch it in the theaters. Now’s your chance to rectify this horrible mistake: run out and watch "The Host". For those of you who came out to the Variety Screening Room this spring to watch "The Host," you know it’s a truly fabulous giant monster movie that transcends the genre. Great effects, gripping characterizations, and superb performances by the entire cast. This Korean-made extravaganza comes to the US with a 2 disk special edition that should not be missed.
Speaking of splendidly over the top films we’ve shown at the Variety Screening Room, I’ll bet some of you remember our screening of the long-out-of-print "Flash Gordon" movie, featuring music by Queen, and the greatest performance of Max Von Sydow’s career, as Ming the Merciless. The new “Savior of the Universe” DVD release features a restored anamorphic disk (for those non-techno-dorks, this means it looks better on your widescreen TV, if you’ve got one of those) and 5.1 surround sound, so as to better hear Brian May’s guitar and Freddy Mercury’s vocals. Get it!
This month I’m psyched. There’s a truly awesome movie arriving on DVD and chances are most of you were unable to catch it in the theaters. Now’s your chance to rectify this horrible mistake: run out and watch "The Host". For those of you who came out to the Variety Screening Room this spring to watch "The Host," you know it’s a truly fabulous giant monster movie that transcends the genre. Great effects, gripping characterizations, and superb performances by the entire cast. This Korean-made extravaganza comes to the US with a 2 disk special edition that should not be missed.
Speaking of splendidly over the top films we’ve shown at the Variety Screening Room, I’ll bet some of you remember our screening of the long-out-of-print "Flash Gordon" movie, featuring music by Queen, and the greatest performance of Max Von Sydow’s career, as Ming the Merciless. The new “Savior of the Universe” DVD release features a restored anamorphic disk (for those non-techno-dorks, this means it looks better on your widescreen TV, if you’ve got one of those) and 5.1 surround sound, so as to better hear Brian May’s guitar and Freddy Mercury’s vocals. Get it!
July Bestsellers
Hardcovers
1) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
2) Sons of Heaven by Kage Baker
3) Territory by Emma Bull
4) Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
5) Thirteen by Richard Morgan
6) The Gospel of the Knife by Will Shetterly
7) Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey
8) The Devil You Know by Mike Carey
9) Fortress in Shadow: A Chronicle of the Dread Empire by Glen Cook
10) Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis
Paperbacks
1) Glasshouse by Charles Stross
2) Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey
3) The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
4) Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
5) The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner
6) Year's Best SF 12 edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
7) Fugitives of Chaos by John C. Wright
8) Blue Moon by Scott Westerfeld
9) Plague Year by Jeff Carlson
10) Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Trade Paperbacks
1) Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson
2) Butcher Bird by Richard Kadrey
3) The Year's Best Science Fcition vol. 24 edited by Gardner Dozois
4) Whisky and Water by Elizabeth Bear
5) Snake Agent by Liz Williams
1) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
2) Sons of Heaven by Kage Baker
3) Territory by Emma Bull
4) Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
5) Thirteen by Richard Morgan
6) The Gospel of the Knife by Will Shetterly
7) Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey
8) The Devil You Know by Mike Carey
9) Fortress in Shadow: A Chronicle of the Dread Empire by Glen Cook
10) Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis
Paperbacks
1) Glasshouse by Charles Stross
2) Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey
3) The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
4) Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
5) The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner
6) Year's Best SF 12 edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
7) Fugitives of Chaos by John C. Wright
8) Blue Moon by Scott Westerfeld
9) Plague Year by Jeff Carlson
10) Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Trade Paperbacks
1) Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson
2) Butcher Bird by Richard Kadrey
3) The Year's Best Science Fcition vol. 24 edited by Gardner Dozois
4) Whisky and Water by Elizabeth Bear
5) Snake Agent by Liz Williams
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Tenth - Second-Hand Things
For the next three months we'll be doing a special feature each month in honor of Borderlands' upcoming 10th Anniversary (November 3rd, 2007). We'll share some stories about what Borderlands is and how it got that way.
by Alan Beatts
Much of the furniture and equipment at Borderlands has a curious and checkered past. Almost everything in the store that wasn't purpose-built by me (often with the very patient help of staff and friends) was either A) bought used, B) a hand-me-down, C) a gift or D) scrounged in some other fashion. Here's a little list of some of the notable and interesting items -
The glass cases behind the counter were bought from the science department at the College of San Mateo where they were used as microscope cases 'till I got a hold of them. The cabinets on the back counter came from the same place where they were used for chemical storage (and my, weren't they fun to clean!). The display case at the front counter displayed cigars and fine liquor in a shop in Noe Valley. The laser printer at the counter came from the motorcycle shop I used to manage -- applause to Hewlett Packard since it's eleven years old and still going strong.
The two (large, stuffed) cockroach puppets that decorate the cash register came from Community Thrift courtesy of long-time store volunteer Mikael. They are Saints Gulik, messengers of the Discordian goddess Eris, of whom several prominent store employees are adherents. If that last sentence looked like gibberish to you, read THE PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA, conveniently for sale at Borderlands, or click here: <http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/saint_gulik.html>
The light colored bookshelves near the front door were hand-me-downs from my brother when he and his family moved to Japan. The tall one came from his office and the two shorter ones were my niece and nephew's first real bookshelves. I bought the display case in front of the office window from my friend Kelleigh, who was the owner of the Ebb-Tide cafe. She bought it used herself but it never worked in her shop (it was meant to be a pastry case).
Most of the rugs throughout the store have been in my family for generations (my parents and my maternal grandparents were all very fond of Oriental rugs). I remember crawling around on them as a child and tracing the patterns with my finger. The blue rug in the office was a gift from a longtime customer, Guy Johnson. The couch at the rear of the shop (and its larger mate in the back room) were bought via a classified ad in the SF Weekly three days before the store opened in Hayes Valley. I was in a panic because I concluded that there weren't enough places to sit, so I rushed out and bought those couches. I think I spent $75 on the both of them. I still remember the expression on my mother's face when I brought them to the store, where she was helping shelve books. I said, "Look! I got 'em for 75 bucks."
And she said, "Really . . . ." while her expression said, "Holy Christ! What the hell were you thinking?"
I have to admit that they are the least attractive pieces of furniture in the shop but they've grown on me over the past ten years. The cats, like several generations of unknown cats before them, occasionally use them as scratching posts. The chairs at the back of the shop, as well as the sideboard (and the oak file cabinets in the office) all came from Cottrell's Moving and Storage. Now closed, Cottrell's was on Valencia near Duboce and it was _the_ place to get decent furniture for cheap. If people didn't pay their storage bill for too long, their furniture ended up for sale. Based on the age of some of the furniture, Cottrell's had been in the storage business for a long, long time.
In the office, my desk is an old WWII vintage receptionist's desk that my mother bought used and then gave to me when I was in high school. Jude's desk was the one good desk that was left here by the owner of Captain Jacks when I bought him out, prior to moving to the current location.
All the computers and associated bits were either hand-me-downs from my brother, Joe (it's nice to have a computer programer in the family) or were bought used from various sources, notably the nice folks at PowerMax <http://www.powermax.com> or my friend and computer consultant par excellence, Bill Melcher.
by Alan Beatts
Much of the furniture and equipment at Borderlands has a curious and checkered past. Almost everything in the store that wasn't purpose-built by me (often with the very patient help of staff and friends) was either A) bought used, B) a hand-me-down, C) a gift or D) scrounged in some other fashion. Here's a little list of some of the notable and interesting items -
The glass cases behind the counter were bought from the science department at the College of San Mateo where they were used as microscope cases 'till I got a hold of them. The cabinets on the back counter came from the same place where they were used for chemical storage (and my, weren't they fun to clean!). The display case at the front counter displayed cigars and fine liquor in a shop in Noe Valley. The laser printer at the counter came from the motorcycle shop I used to manage -- applause to Hewlett Packard since it's eleven years old and still going strong.
The two (large, stuffed) cockroach puppets that decorate the cash register came from Community Thrift courtesy of long-time store volunteer Mikael. They are Saints Gulik, messengers of the Discordian goddess Eris, of whom several prominent store employees are adherents. If that last sentence looked like gibberish to you, read THE PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA, conveniently for sale at Borderlands, or click here: <http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/saint_gulik.html>
The light colored bookshelves near the front door were hand-me-downs from my brother when he and his family moved to Japan. The tall one came from his office and the two shorter ones were my niece and nephew's first real bookshelves. I bought the display case in front of the office window from my friend Kelleigh, who was the owner of the Ebb-Tide cafe. She bought it used herself but it never worked in her shop (it was meant to be a pastry case).
Most of the rugs throughout the store have been in my family for generations (my parents and my maternal grandparents were all very fond of Oriental rugs). I remember crawling around on them as a child and tracing the patterns with my finger. The blue rug in the office was a gift from a longtime customer, Guy Johnson. The couch at the rear of the shop (and its larger mate in the back room) were bought via a classified ad in the SF Weekly three days before the store opened in Hayes Valley. I was in a panic because I concluded that there weren't enough places to sit, so I rushed out and bought those couches. I think I spent $75 on the both of them. I still remember the expression on my mother's face when I brought them to the store, where she was helping shelve books. I said, "Look! I got 'em for 75 bucks."
And she said, "Really . . . ." while her expression said, "Holy Christ! What the hell were you thinking?"
I have to admit that they are the least attractive pieces of furniture in the shop but they've grown on me over the past ten years. The cats, like several generations of unknown cats before them, occasionally use them as scratching posts. The chairs at the back of the shop, as well as the sideboard (and the oak file cabinets in the office) all came from Cottrell's Moving and Storage. Now closed, Cottrell's was on Valencia near Duboce and it was _the_ place to get decent furniture for cheap. If people didn't pay their storage bill for too long, their furniture ended up for sale. Based on the age of some of the furniture, Cottrell's had been in the storage business for a long, long time.
In the office, my desk is an old WWII vintage receptionist's desk that my mother bought used and then gave to me when I was in high school. Jude's desk was the one good desk that was left here by the owner of Captain Jacks when I bought him out, prior to moving to the current location.
All the computers and associated bits were either hand-me-downs from my brother, Joe (it's nice to have a computer programer in the family) or were bought used from various sources, notably the nice folks at PowerMax <http://www.powermax.com> or my friend and computer consultant par excellence, Bill Melcher.
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