Tag: books

Of Books and Things

ITEM: There are 4 signed DEATH MASK editions left in stock.

ITEM: The current Castalia Library book is THE PROMETHEAN by Owen Stanley. It is designed to be a set with THE MISSIONARIES, both 1st and 2nd editions.

ITEM: The previous coupon will work with the JUNIOR CLASSICS 4-6 downloads when they go up on the site tomorrow. We’ll also email a download link to a zip file of all three to backers in order to maximize the hit rate.

ITEM: HYPERGAMOUSE will now run twice a week. We anticipate a hardcover edition next spring.

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It’s Going to be So Bad

How to demonstrate you don’t understand the work of JRR Tolkien in three words or less:

Season 1 has a $465 million budget. Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke stated in May 2021 that she was “pretty confident” that the show will draw the required viewership to make the money worth spent.

Back in 2017, when it was reported that Amazon had bought the rights to “The Lord of the Rings” — winning a bidding war against Netflix — the number reported with that sale was $250 million. That number alone made it the most expensive television series ever, but later, The Hollywood Reporter reported that the whole series would end up costing more than $1 billion, due to production expenses (casting, producers, visual effects, etc.). “The Lord of the Rings” film trilogy’s own Elijah Wood reacted to that particular figure during an interview, saying, “That’s crazy to me.” For context, the Peter Jackson trilogy grossed $2.92 billion worldwide. The combined budget for all three films was $281 million.

That $250 million rights deal for “The Lord of the Rings” also came with a five-season commitment for the series. A guaranteed five seasons should also guarantee at least one full story told from beginning to end, even though there’s always the possibility of more, depending on the series’ success. The deal also allowed for the potential of spin-off series, which could mean the potential for even more of Middle-earth outside just this adaptation. In November 2019, Deadline confirmed that Amazon had officially ordered a second season of the series and that it was already in the works. According to the report, the official early renewal means that there will be a shorter wait time between the first two seasons come release.

However, the series may not ever get out of the Second Age — which is, again, 3,441 years long, so it’s got a lot to work with — as, according to Tolkien scholar and “The Lord of the Rings” consultant Tom Shippey, the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien has refused to grant Amazon permission to film anything other than the Second Age, as to not alter the history of the more fleshed out Third Age. “But you can add new characters and ask a lot of questions…”

The tagline of the newly-released trailer? “Nothing is evil…in the beginning.”

When you already suspect – no, when you already KNOW – that the series is going to be a converged abomination wearing the title of the books as a skinsuit, you shouldn’t be surprised by anything the Hellmouth producers come up with.

And yet, to begin with a marketing tagline of “Nothing is evil…” is really going a bit far even for a collection of inverted anticreatives. No matter how it is subsequently modified after the ellipsis.

It’s going to be bad. It’s going to be so bad, it’s going to make THE WHEEL OF TIME and the last season of A GAME OF THRONES look good by comparision.

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Interview with Razorfist

Dark Herald interviews Razorfist for Bounding Into Comics about his new Dark Legion book, DEATH MASK as well as the decline and inevitable rise of pulp fiction:

DARK HERALD: Your Nightvale series appears to be strongly inspired by pulp era adventure stories. Pulp fiction was fairly common through the 1980s, but then interest started to taper off over the next twenty years. Why do you think that happened?

RAZÖRFIST: “Logistically speaking, what killed the pulps were the wood rationing and shortages of the mid-’40s.”

“The Shadow, the most popular of the ‘hero’ pulps for a long while, dropped to a shorter digest format and even cut Walter Gibson’s pay to keep the lights on. He would ultimately quit Street & Smith over it. Most pulp publishers were already dead after World War 2 and just didn’t realize it until the bills came due all at once over the next decade.

In the ’50s, those old yellow paperbacks (for a time, distributed via vending machine) seemed to replace Pulp as Television and Comics came to the fore. Ultimately, those got thicker and more pretentious until they became the ‘elevated’ gas station literature you see today”

“With thirty different titles ‘written’ by James Patterson, none of which he was ever even dimly aware of. They did sort of morph into the ‘genre fiction’ you’re alluding to throughout the ’80s. And in a weird way, they live on through Star Trek and Star Wars books, Battletech and so on.

These publishing houses are essentially printing pulp. It’s just a bit more bloated and seems to have aspirations to be more than it is. Sorry to say, it isn’t and never will be. Which is exactly the way I like it.”

DARK HERALD: I’ve recently run into a few other authors like you and Sky Hernstrom that have written new Robert Howard style high adventures. Do you think there is pulp revival underway? Also, who else do you know of who is working in contemporary Pulp?

RAZÖRFIST: “Yeah, I’ve read some of Sky’s stuff in Cirsova and enjoyed it. The first ‘New Pulp’ writer I was aware of was Barry Reese, who does a Shadow-esque vigilante series featuring characters like ‘The Peregrine’ and ‘Lazarus Grey’.”

“I think a Pulp Revival is inevitable. Whether it happens now or decades hence. Attention spans have fallen. Smart devices are tucked away in every pocket. Short fiction and bite-sized stories seem the way to go.

Yet, the ‘Phonebook Fantasy’ writers seem to have a minimum page count of 500 and fill the majority of it with worldbuilding bloat. And despite the name, it isn’t all that novel, either. None of them are doing anything terribly interesting to justify it.

Writing straightforward Fantasy is fine – I love it to death – It’s the pretense that it’s anything more that I can’t abide. And the smug superiority as they look down their nose at shorter, more plot-driven fiction.”

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DEATH MASK, Nightvale Book 2

I believed I promised you that we would have a book announcement of our own this weekend, and here it is.

KARA’ZIN

Empire of perfidy.

With Menuvia little more than a funeral pyre, Xerdes flees to the Traitor’s Kingdom of Nazgan. Where larceny is legal, honor is fatal, and it pays to keep a low profile.

For the deserts of Nazgan are not empty. A lethal legend now haunts the badlands, thirsty for sinful blood. A hooded horror none dare name.

Even as the masked wraith carves its way through the underworld of two separate countries, it has only ever uttered a single world.

“…Xerdes.”

Razorfist has written the second book in his Nightvale pulp fantasy series, which is being published by Dark Legion Books. He’s releasing a limited edition of 750 signed copies, of which only 340 are left after he announced DEATH MASK on his stream about eight hours ago, so don’t wait if you’re interested in a signed copy. Seriously, don’t wait. They will probably be gone before the Darkstream tonight.

Fortunately, you can also preorder both the regular hardcover and paperback editions until June 30.

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THE MISSIONARIES: A Review

If you’re not a Castalia Library subscriber and you’re contemplating the possibility of dipping your toe into deluxe book collecting, THE MISSIONARIES is an excellent place to start. There is a reason we chose it as the first book in the Castalia Library.

The Dark Herald discusses the Owen Stanley book on the Arkhaven blog:

The Missionaries takes place on Elephant Island. An Australian protectorate that Australia wants off the books. The Island is going to be Independent whether they like it or not. The Moroks who inhabit Elephant Island would have been surprised to hear that anyone besides them owned it in the first place.

“Roaring” Roger Fletcher is the Australian Royal Magistrate in name. And the local king in function. The native Morok peoples are convinced that he is the incarnation of their chief god Takime. He lives rough as he wishes and enjoys the Morok’s love and respect, as well as their roast pork and their svelte women. He carefully manages local disputes using trial by combat as a way to keep murder, rape, and cannibalism within acceptable limits.

The Moroks have their own culture and are rather fond of it.

Laripa was distinguished among the settlements of the Moroks by the presence the greatest orator Malek; the greatest sorcerer Macardit; and the greatest philosopher, Garang, a twisted, hairless little man with a squint. It was thus a kind of Florence or Paris, a cultural center where the aspiring young intellectual of the Moroks came to learn the secrets of their fathers, and, more hidden still, the dark revelations of the Before-Men who, led by Tikame himself, had roamed the mountains when Time itself was not.

The problem is that the UN has decided that they won’t be allowed to keep it. Fletcher’s opponent Doctor Prout, is a sociologist who has been given an ounce of power by a UN Special Commission. I can’t think of a more terrifying combination.

This story is skillfully constructed. The tone is consistent and builds steadily to a climax that I didn’t quite predict. That’s good because there’s nothing worse than an ending you saw coming all along.

There is an organic mixture of poetic description that paints a vivid and flourishing portrait of life on Elephant Island, that is ably counterbalanced by its larger-than-life characters. As well some lower-than-life characters. In my time I’ve known people like all of them. If you’ve lived a quiet life, allow me to assure you, these are all real people.

The work is consistently toned and beautifully written with prose that made me remember what a sweltering island jungle smelled like after an afternoon storm.

Years ago, the reporter Amanda Robb asked, prior to her interview of me, which Castalia House book she should read to best understand what made us different than all the other publishing houses. I told her to read THE MISSIONARIES. When we subsequently talked, I asked her what she thought of it. She said it was the most disturbing and most racist book she had ever read. She also said that she couldn’t put it down, that it kept making her laugh out loud, and now she hated herself for it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a sign of a novel that is not merely good, but great, with substantive commentary on the human condition.

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THE MISSIONARIES 2nd Edition

Castalia House is pleased to announce that the 2nd edition of THE MISSIONARIES is now available to order. A 400-unit print run of the Library 2nd edition and a 50-unit print run of the Libraria 2nd edition are now being produced; we will decide upon the cowhide and goatskin colors in the near future. So, if you did not manage to acquire a copy before the 1st editions were sold out, or if you are a completionist, this is an opportunity to add the 2nd edition of the first Library book to your collection.

Subscribers can utilize their discount codes as usual. If you are a subscriber and you do not have a code, please contact library-at-castaliahouse-dot-com.

Castalia Library 2nd Edition

Libraria Castalia 2nd Edition

We will be producing 2nd editions of other sold-out Library books, including MEDITATIONS and AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND later this year. The precise size of the print runs is yet to be determined.

UPDATE: If you’re the one who mentioned typos in the 1st edition in last night’s Darkstream, please email me the list of typos to which you were referring so we can fix them.

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Three Steps Forward

Some days, it feels like one step forward, two steps back. But today is a Three Steps Forward day, as all of the machines less the final two are arriving at the Bindery. We’ll put up some pictures on SG tomorrow, and I’ll try to show some on the Darkstream too.

Loading the truck in England.

It’s going to take a month or three before the Bindery is fully operational, as we need to make some modifications to the location in order to ensure everything is in line with the local codes, train everybody in, then assemble practice books until we meet our quality standards, but today marks the most significant step in the process since the subscribers made the whole thing possible by purchasing Bindery Editions of THE ILIAD and THE ODYSSEY.

As an added bonus, here are the designs for POLITICS and ETHICS covers. As you can see, they will make handsome companions for the recently sold-out RHETORIC, although I’m not entirely certain about the central figure for ETHICS, so it’s possible that cover may change somewhat. But the spines are settled and they are going to look spectacular on the shelves as a three-volume set.

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Interview with Susan Cooper

An illuminating 1999 interview with the author of THE DARK IS RISING series.

RT: The books comprise a series. Did you find that what you had written in the earlier books committed you to directions that you subsequently regretted, or wished you had more freedom to change?

SC: No. It was wonderful. It was like writing a symphony, in which each movement is different and yet they all link together. I wish my imagination would give me another shape like that because there are all kinds of satisfactions inside it. Things link together, an early book leads to something in a later book. When I wrote the first book, of course, I didn’t envision a series, but later, when I first had the idea of writing, not just the second book, but the whole sequence, I drew up a plan on a piece of paper. I had little notes written down: I had the four times of the year–focused upon the solstices, Beltane, and such festivals–I had places, and, very roughly, the characters who were in each book. I remember that under The Grey King there was a boy called Bran, but I didn’t know who he was. So that was the only thing that limited me.

There were things I had to remember from early books that had to be either resolved or referred to in later books. Once in a great while some particularly bright child will write me a letter saying, you never said what happened to . . . . But I didn’t find it restricting. No.

RT: Are there any particular details you would like to change, looking back in retrospect?

SC: I would like to have developed the three Drew children more fully in the first book. They develop as the series progresses, but they’re very corny kids’ book characters in Over Sea, Under Stone, it seems to me. I hadn’t gotten to know them.

RT: As the series progresses, Jane in particular grows more interesting, doesn’t she?

SC: Yes. Jane is someone I always wanted to write about again. Silver on the Tree suffered from being the last book where I was tying up all the ends. It has too much in it. My head was going off in all directions. Its structure is not terrific. There was even more in it, but I took some out. Of course when you’re dealing with the substance of myth, which is the fight between good and evil, I suppose, you have to provide the ultimate, terrific, enormous climax. It’s almost impossible.

I’m not promising anything, not yet, but I am optimistic that we may eventually be able to release a Castalia Library edition of the series. And if so, the bar will be a fairly high one to clear, as the Easton Press edition is arguably the most beautiful set that Easton has ever produced.

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Mailvox: Redesigns

After an email conversation with a Castalia Library subscriber who was disappointed with the fact that we are doing second editions, thereby theoretically reducing the value to collectors who would prefer the supply of Library books to be as limited as possible, it occurred to me that in addition to changing the color of the second editions, we could follow the lead of Franklin and Easton by changing the artwork on the covers and spines.

For example, Easton actually has five different editions of Plutarch’s Lives in addition to its Deluxe Limited Edition, which has a limited print run of 1,200 volumes. The editions, with one exception, feature different artwork.

While I would prefer to keep the artwork more or less the same from one edition to the next, thereby maintaining some degree of continuity for those who start collecting the books later, I can understand why some might prefer different covers. So, I thought it best to survey the people whose opinions matter most, which is to say the Library subscribers.

Also, I should point out that while we value the opinions of the collectors and we are pleased to have piqued their interest, they are not our primary market nor is serving their needs our primary objective. Castalia Library, first and foremost, is about the preservation of knowledge in a beautiful and timeless manner. Therefore, our motivations and our decisions may, at times, not be aligned with the preferences of those who are buying our books.

Regardless, let us know your opinion on SocioGalactic.

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Second Editions

Castalia Library is presently offering its subscribers first shot at THE BLACK SWAN by NN Taleb. We’re also planning to release second editions of the sold-out THE MISSIONARIES and MEDITATIONS, both of which will be very similar to the first editions, although they will be clearly denoted as second editions and will feature different color leathers in order to clearly distinguish the different editions.

Please drop a note on SG or to my email if you are interested in either second edition, as well as if you are interested in the Library or Libraria versions as we will offer second editions of both. We’re asking the subscribers now because we need to decide the size of the print runs for both second editions. We expect that these print runs will be smaller than the initial print runs, but it’s theoretically possible they will be larger, depending upon the demand.

Please note that we are not taking any orders for them yet; next month will be the soonest that we will do so.

While we’re on the subject of sold-out first editions, I should probably mention that RHETORIC is down to the last five copies in stock, for those who are interested in obtaining one before it sells out also sold out. However, we won’t contemplate a second edition of it until we see how ETHICS and POLITICS do.

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