Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by nwhyte
This Mortal Mountain by Ann Crimmins, Roger Zelazny, David G. Grubbs, Christopher S. Kovacs
5.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2720440.html
Third of the definitive NESFA six-volume collection of Zelazny's short fiction, poetry and prose. Most of the stories were ones I already knew from collections published in or shortly after Zelazny's lifetime, the most striking exceptions being the texts of two children's books, Here There Be Dragons and Way Up High, whose original publication was delayed for years because of a dispute with underground artist, Vaughn Bodē, whose illustrations were part of the story (sadly not reproduced here). There are several extracts from Creatures of Light and Darkness, originally published separately but not really comprehensible outside the framework of the novel. There is also the original short version of Damnation Alley, which as you'd expect is punchier than the novel-length version, and the deleted Corwin/Dara sex scene from The Guns of Avalon, which I'm sorry to say is less exciting than it sounds.
The short fiction is leavened by noted to the stories (helpful), poetry (not actually all that good, and much of it recycled from the novels) and book-ended by some essays by Zelazny himself and by a third installment of Christopher Kovacs' literary biography. I was pleased to read an anecdote in this last from a panel which I attended at Boskone 2007; it made me feel personally integrated into the narrative.
Anyway, for those who don't know Zelazny's work at all, any of these volumes would be quite a decent introduction; for those of us who are fans, it's nice to have everything between one set of covers.
Third of the definitive NESFA six-volume collection of Zelazny's short fiction, poetry and prose. Most of the stories were ones I already knew from collections published in or shortly after Zelazny's lifetime, the most striking exceptions being the texts of two children's books, Here There Be Dragons and Way Up High, whose original publication was delayed for years because of a dispute with underground artist, Vaughn Bodē, whose illustrations were part of the story (sadly not reproduced here). There are several extracts from Creatures of Light and Darkness, originally published separately but not really comprehensible outside the framework of the novel. There is also the original short version of Damnation Alley, which as you'd expect is punchier than the novel-length version, and the deleted Corwin/Dara sex scene from The Guns of Avalon, which I'm sorry to say is less exciting than it sounds.
The short fiction is leavened by noted to the stories (helpful), poetry (not actually all that good, and much of it recycled from the novels) and book-ended by some essays by Zelazny himself and by a third installment of Christopher Kovacs' literary biography. I was pleased to read an anecdote in this last from a panel which I attended at Boskone 2007; it made me feel personally integrated into the narrative.
Anyway, for those who don't know Zelazny's work at all, any of these volumes would be quite a decent introduction; for those of us who are fans, it's nice to have everything between one set of covers.