Stuff I'll Be Looking At On My Vacation

(Left: Philip Jose Farmer's Venus On The Half- Shell and Others collection.)

One of my favorite science fiction writers, Philip Jose Farmer, has just gotten his 1975 sf spoof novel Venus On The Half-Shell republished, along with other humorous takeoffs in a new collection from Subterranean Press, the details of which can be found here . This is one of the items I'll be looking at during my vacation. (You have your way to relax, I have mine.) Yep, I'll be ordering a copy for the library.



Another book I'll be checking out, from Fatagraphics Press , is Blake Bell's Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko , which officially comes out later this month, but I managed to get my greedy little hands on a pre-publication copy. The book can be ordered here and the author, who has his own site on Ditko , is interviewed here . Mr. Ditko is perhaps best known as the co-creator of the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man .



Tim Lucas, the editor of Video Watchdog , spent thirty years researching the life and career of Italian horror director Mario Bava (1914-1980), and the magnificient result of his efforts can be found in his self-published Mario Bava: All The Colors Of The Dark , which I got for half price quite a while ago. The tome, which is over a thousand pages, also discusses Bava's various films, including the 1960 Gothic classic Black Sunday . Lucas's blog on the book can be found here . And here's the coming attractions trailer for Black Sunday . (Yep, we carry Bava's films! )



In 1975, to promote his then-latest solo album, No Other , former Byrds member Gene Clark (1944-1991), with his hastily-put together backing band, embarked on a grueling concert tour. Highlights from one of those shows can be found on the Silverado '75-Live and Unreleased CD, from Collector's Choice Music . Here's a clip of Clark performing one of the songs from his set.




Finally, I'm going to be checking out a DVD collection of four 1960s Hammer films, three of which star Christopher Lee , called Icons Of Adventure, put out by Sony. DVD Talk has a pretty good review of it posted.

These should keep me out of the pool halls for the next two weeks.

-Ed