For some reason I rediscovered my account at Worlds Without End and I find myself fiddling with the site for over an hour now. Even got a gravatar and for the first time in 7 years or so I downloaded a desktop background image!

Anyway. They have this nifty tool implemented called "booktrackr" and I really dig how I can just click on books and add them to my lists of books to read or which I have read. It's also a pretty neat source to finding new books ...

I will stop this recommendative rant and go back to that site ...

Here is the Kickstarter project I was most excited about backing in 2011: "The Robotic Edition of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".

It's such a simple idea and that's probably what makes it work so well. Just replace the "N-Word" (no, not "nincompoop", the other one) with "robot". There.

And then they are even going so far as to adapt the original illustrations to feature a robot.

It's one fine example of puting the focus on the underlying meaning and importance of a literary work. Diani and Devine have done just that, lifted the piece into a meta-realm, please excuse my pseudo-intellectual babbling for a moment.

Watch the trailer, visit the website, order your copy at amazon.

I can't wait to receive my copy. It should come in just before christmas.

http://dianianddevine.com/

Every once in a while, I manage to complete a project. And this one here is extremely important to me. It took me a few years. Collecting, researching, then photographing, photoshopping, layouting ... well: Here it is, in all it's glory:

This tri-lingual collection catalog presents 162 science-fiction books of the series "Goldmanns Weltraum Taschenbücher" ('60ies & '70ies), with covers designed by German illustrator Eyke Volkmer. It documents a very unique period in German science-fiction illustration that was almost forgotten.

The 116 page book includes a long interview conducted with the illustrator in his former studio in Munich and comes with a full bibliography. All text is printed in English, German and Spanish.

All covers are presented through photos taken of the actual books with all their wear and tear to document my collection. The covers in this catalog are pictured in less than the original size.

Want to see a video of me turning the pages in the real book?
Here:

Additional language files will be available for free.

All possible copyright holders have been informed.
The artwork is reproduced with kind permission by the artist.

This collection catalog is dedicated to Eyke Volkmer and Wilhelm Goldmann.

Thanks to:
Paolo Greco for the spanish translation.
Henk Tack for the dutch version (available for free as pdf).
Stefan Werner for helping me with the recording of the interview.

Another one from my collection that I submitted to #GoodShowSir, one of my favourite websites on any given day. (http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/2010/08/faith-of-tarot/)

Not much to say about this one, as I didn't really like it. I can't even remember half of it.

via houdinination.com

I really like books that challenge your sense of reality and normality, that make you think about different viewpoints. And obviously I like people with psi-powers and slime moulds from Ganymede.

"One of the most theologically probing of all of Dick's books" it says in the blurb. That may well be true.

I'm not so firm, theologically, but there sure are a lot of refences in the book, be it in the form of direct quotes or the "appearance" of people connected to the theme.

If you, as a reader, wanted to be on par with the author on this book, you would need to research 13 people and their life and works, including jazz musician Herbie Mann or the writings of St. Paul.

Some, like Malcom X or James Pike are obvious (wiki some of the names, if you like), but the similarity of the character "Harold Agee" to the real "James Agee", one of the most influential film critics in the America of the 1940ies, who was a close friend to the Episcopal priest Father "James Harold Flye" are less so.

They might even be coincidences.

Given Dick's attention to detail, I doubt it. And then there is "Herb Caen", who could be the influential columnist of the same name and one "Michael Harrinton", who may well be the real "Edward Michael Harrington", a socialist, writer and political activist, born in the same year as Dick and who attended the same university even ...

Yes, it was fun doing this little bit of research. It's enlightening. In some shape or form.

Further on in my quest to read all 162 "Weltraum Taschenbücher" (being disracted by the pile of books by Philip K. Dick and some by Buckminster Fuller ...).

Here is one by James Blish from 1957 dealing with humans colonizing the planets of our universe not by means of adapting the planets, but the people ...

I'm slowly starting to hate these covers created by Heidi North. What does this have to do with the story? Nothing. It's just one of those computer generated heads that she seems to like so much and grabbed from another designer.

Do I really have to buy all those books by Philip K. Dick again, just to have them with a nice design?

The book itself is probably the most weird and unconnected piece of writing I read by PKD. It seems pieced together ... hang on, it is! Published as "The Unteleported Man" as a part one and then there is a long and winding road for the extension material to travel until it was finally integrated ...

Not the best PKD, more like the worst I read so far.