austin_dern | Or maybe it was a magazine

So in an online conversation I got into a dispute with someone over my assertion that James Blish's books were unjustly obscure. He asked me what authors of Blish's vintage weren't obscure, if we go by availability of books in new-book-stores. I'm a bit hesitant, because I suspect I'm chatting with one of those people who believes the Market is All-Wise, All-Knowing, Infallible, and Perfectly Represented by the Actions of Corporations, but it did prompt me to count books available.

The authors were chosen by me based on remembering them as important names, who'd been dead since about 1990. The count is what I could find on the mass-market and the trade paperback shelves without intense digging; a novel, or a short-story collection, or a collection of short novels I counted as one, and I tried not to count multiple editions as different books. The bookstore was the Borders, on Orchard Road. Books are those same old papery things.

Alfred Bester: 5 books.
James Blish: 1 (Cities in Flight, justifiably four books, but sold as one for about 35 years now).
Philip K Dick: 24 (why is he so outrageously popular? Not saying he doesn't deserve it, but why?), plus Michael Bishop's Philp K Dick Is Dead, Alas, which under these circumstances must be regarded as irony.
Jack Finney: 1.
Fritz Leiber: 3.
Murray Leinster: 1 (I think this is one of those Baen short story editions were things are edited enough to irritate old fans, but not enough that new readers will think they're modern stories).
Erik Frank Russell: 0.
Clifford Simak: 1 (and it's Way Station -- I'd have bet on City).
Cordwainder Smith: 1 (Norstrilia, fair encapsulation of what he wrote).
EE Doc Smith: 1 (huh).
Olaf Stapledon: 2.

What it all means? Nothing much, except that everybody's better off than Erik Frank Russell fans. And the occasional person who tries to insist that more proof of science fiction's superiority over all other genres is that old classics stay in print while nobody remembers who wrote any best-selling ordinary fiction book from the 30s is quite wrong, but we all knew that before getting here. I don't know why I forgot to look up Richard Matheson.

Also I discovered they do have copies of Diana Wynne Jones's Tough Guide to Fantasy Land, as well as a new Get Fuzzy book and Complete Peanuts, 1955-56. Cool.

Trivia: Among the mental mathematical feats of Zerah Colburn, 1804-1840, was to determine that 2³²+1 is divisible by 641. Source: Yankee Science in the Making, Dirk J Struik.

Currently Reading: World History, 1815-1920, Eduard Fueter.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Also don't forget Bicentennial Man. I think there's be a modest halo effect, though I wouldn't have the info to quantify. Also... Asimov and Heinlein are rather huge names in science fiction overall. Dick, though.. I think if not for the movies would likely have the same range of works available as the rest. Still, you're right.. he has a halo effect that's quite out of scale with what other authors get.

Cordwainer Smith's book on the shelf was Norstrilia, right? It'd have to be that or Rediscovery of Man. The former I just introduced Drake to, and he seems to be most appreciative.

--Chiaroscuro

Yeah, it was Norstrilia the representative of Cordwainer Smith. Kinokuniya has, or at least often has, The Rediscovery of Man (though as it happens I've got all that through used books).

Also don't forget Bicentennial Man.

Please, may I? Please please please?

Still, you're right.. [Dick] has a halo effect that's quite out of scale with what other authors get.

Perhaps his estate is easier to deal with than either the Asimov or the Heinlein Estate? The Heinlein Estate is pretty determined to protect the best interests of its trust and as far as I can tell, they don't think nightmarishly awful films by hostile directors really serve the books well.

I think Bicentennial Man has a certain charm, although I'm not spending my money to buy it.

I'd sworn there was some other recent Asimov movie project, but IMDB seems to indicate I'm imagining things. I have a faint recollection of a supposed adaptation of The Caves of Steel which would move the time from the far-future to the present day, and the location from super-urban New York City to the jungles of a generic Central American country, and the plot from a locked-room murder mystery to hunting down killer robots, but that doesn't seem to have much documentary evidence unless it was ideas briefly considered and rejected for the I, Robot movie.

Rumors of how easy or hard the various author estates are to get along with I've missed, but I'm in a position where it's easier than ever to ignore movie-making news.

I also liked Bicentennial Man. The love plot felt odd, but yet, it was an enjoyable movie that retained a lot of the same themes of the book, adapted to more suitably fit C-3Pobin William's comedy. That said, I'm also not buying it, but I've bought perhaps 10 DVDs for myself yet.

--Chiaroscuro

Say what you will for the Asimov adaptations, at least the robots look good. There's very little to gripe about on that score.

Or maybe it was a magazine

Re: Since 1990?

Re: Since 1990?

Re: Since 1990?

Re: Since 1990?

Re: Since 1990?

Re: Since 1990?