Under the Covers

I made an appearance on the Rish Outcast that is now available for all to download, listen to, and enjoy. It's a discussion about the process of making covers for publication. Rish and I have been frantically publishing away recently, which is a process that requires a cover image. Those can be daunting (especially for Rish) and we talk about it and how we've managed to make it work.

Make sure you go to the blog post HERE to see the images that go along with what we're talking about.

You can find the episode on the Rish Outcast feed or you can follow this link over to Rish's blog to see his post. You can download the show by right-clicking HERE. Or, possibly simplest of all, you can just click the play button below and give it a listen now.

ADF & BBBE Carnivore | So Close I Can Taste It | Journey to One-derland | Week 47 Roundup

I'm a hair's breadth from One-derland. This week I stuck with my plan and clamped down firmly on it. How did it work for me? Did I lose some more? Is One-derland within my grasp?

The Witcher Series

The Witcher is an interesting book series. It began as a bunch of short stories, and eventually blossomed into a five book series (a quintology? No, internet says pentology) that then ended and was followed up by a standalone novel that was set back in the midst of the short stories.

I was talking to Rish about that the other day, saying that Lara & the Witch could be that if he wanted it to. He's written a bunch of short stories in the world and at least one novel as well. Compile that shit together and you might have something just as impressive.

Well, I listened to the audiobooks of the whole Witcher series in late 2022 and early 2023, and I put the books on my list to acquire. I have recently managed to achieve that goal. So, here's that series. First is Blood of Elves.

Followed by The Time of Contempt:

Next is Baptism of Fire:

Then The Tower of Swallows:

And the last book in the Pentology is The Lady of the Lake:

Then, just yesterday, I acquired the last book, the prequel tale Season of Storms:

The art on all of these covers is really magnificent. It reminds me of when I was a child, and I got various Piers Anthony books and would sit and stare at the amazing things depicted on their covers. It was an easy sell to get me to read the stories within with art like that, and these Witcher books are no different.

The interiors are nothing special, just standard book stuff, but they look good together on my bookshelf.

Sadly, a quirk of my shelves leaves them split up on either side of the Lego Scout Walker.

As I add books and sometimes subtract them as well, though, things shift, so they might be reunited someday. Who knows?

Anyway, I recommend reading those books if you are in the least interested. They were a great series. The TV show was okay, but I didn't even watch past the first season. I'm mostly a fan of the books.

The Illustrated Editions of The Witcher

On Friday, I talked about my Dune book, and showed off its lovely features. I don't have many books like that. Most of them are used books that I got as cheap as possible. I do have a few, however, so I think I'll hightlight a couple more of them today.

Back in 2022, my nephew was sharing his Audible password with me, and allowing me to listen to all the books he had on his account. He had a job where he drove around all day every day, and so he had a great deal of time to listen to audiobooks if he wanted to. So, his collection was pretty vast. He decided to listen to the Witcher series, I suppose because the Netflix show had made them into household names, and I was happy to hear it. I had attempted to check out the first Witcher book on audio from the library, and the wait was something like six months, so if I actually wanted to listen to these books, this was a much more likely way to make it happen.

Well, I friggin' binged the hell out of those books. I loved them. I listened through them so fast that smoke was rising off my phone by the time I was done. It hadn't taken long for me to decide that I wanted to add them to my shelves...oh, that's how I usually do my book collecting, by the way. I listen to the audio from the library or Audible or wherever I can get my hands on it, and then if I like it enough, I put it on my list to acquire for the shelves.

This Christmas, I put the Witcher books on my list, and my daughter bought me one of them...not the first one, though. It was the most expensive one. She bought me the second one instead. It was a really nice fancy one as well. Here it is:

The Sword of Destiny, the Illustrated Edition. That second part is what made it so expensive. It wasn't just a book, it was a picture book. Not a complete picture book like, say, those Harry Potter editions are, but it had a lot of fancy stuff, like the Dune book I mentioned on Friday. The inner covers were printed with colorful designs.

That main blue color is used throughout the book, on every single page, which surely costs more to print, I assume.

The start of each story got a fancy title page.

And there were several images printed in those colors throughout the pages of the book as well.

I started saving up money to get the rest of the books, and before too long, I got book one, The Last Wish, Illustrated Edition.

This one was the perfect companion. As well it should be, since the second book was made to compliment this first one. It had all the same stuff, only done with a different accent color. Red for this one. The interior cover was the same.

The book was printed with the two colors.

And the illustrations were placed throughout.

They're great books. I'll have to go back and read them again and again over the years to make it all worth it. The stories were good enough, that in a few years, I could see myself doing just that.

I have also recently acquired the rest of the series, though those aren't fancy illustrated editions. I guess maybe I'll talk about them tomorrow.

Battalion of Ideas in Paperback and Hardcover

Yesterday, I started doing posts about my book collection. You should start a collection of these books, which are available in paperback and hardcover on Amazon.

The most recent of which to arrive on the shelves is A Battalion of Ideas: The Short Fiction Collection, Volume Two. The paperback and hardcover versions of that book just went live this week. I slaved away on them last week until I had it all done, then put them in Amazon's hands. They took a day or so, and then they were live. I'm pretty excited about it. This is the full front/spine/back cover of the book.

I made sure to have it match the first volume in the series as close as possible, but one thing that I added was the volume number up in the top of the spine. I liked it so much, that I redid the cover of Kingdom of Flies and Fireflies: The Short Fiction Collection, Volume One and added that little bit in.

Now, when people buy them, they'll match perfectly on their shelf. I love it...particularly because I'll have copies of them on my own shelf. Hey, I'm a book collector too, right? I can't skip my own books.

Anyway, if you're like me, and you like collecting books, feel free to head over to Amazon and grab a copy of my three short story collections that are now available. 

Kingdom of Flies and Fireflies: The Short Fiction Collection, Volume One

Battalion of Ideas: The Short Fiction Collection, Volume Two

Christmas Creatures: A Twisted Christmas Story Collection

I guess, since I showed the full cover of the other two, I'll throw the full cover of Christmas Creatures on here as well.

This week, I've been slaving away at getting Rish Outfield's new collection ready for paperback and hardcover publishing. So, pretty soon, you'll be able to start collecting books of his as well. I'm doing it for free, although I did request an author signed hardcover copy as my payment for the work of making the book exist. I mean, come on, I'm not going to let my shelves be devoid of Rish Outfield books. So, watch for Female Protagonist: A Short Story Collection to become available soon.

Also, I have my third installment in the short fiction collection coming soon. I've already decided what stories will be in it. I just gotta get some of the audio versions of those previous books finished before I move on. So, I guess, watch for that too.

The Inaugural Book Collector Post

Okay, as per my post a few days ago, I've decided to talk a little about the books I have on my shelf as well as the toys I have up there, especially considering that there are probably more book nerds who read my blog than toy nerds.

I figured I'd start with Dune since it's pretty topical these days.

I first read Dune back in the nineties, and was totally blown away by how complete the world felt, how imaginative and immersive it was. I wanted to get my own copy, for I had already begun collecting books even then. I had almost no money, however, so I made all my book purchases from used book stores or on the bargain shelves at Barnes & Noble. Dune wasn't making an appearance on either of those shelves in those days. I could buy the full price book or nothing, and my circumstances dictated that my choice would have to be nothing.

Here and there over the years, I've checked to see if there was a good edition that I could pick up, but I never bit. Just a few years ago, not long after the first Timothy Chalumet movie came out, I looked on Amazon, and they had a really fancy edition that was available for $25...well, if it were still the nineties, I would have had to walk away, but these days, I have to pay similar prices for action figures, so adjusted for inflation, it would have been $10 in the nineties.

I grabbed it, and when it came, I was really impressed. The book is beautiful. The cover is striking, and check out the color on the edges of the pages:

Neat, huh? Not only that, but there's a load of great art included in interesting ways. There's full color pictures on the inside covers of the front and back.

And even on the inside of the dust jacket. It's printed on both sides.

 The book itself has stuff indented into the cover, which is pretty rad.

I must not fear.

And there's a whole bunch of appendices at the end of the book to read.

I just finished listening to the book on audio today. It's only the second time I've read the book. I really ought to do it more often. At least once every ten years, eh? Anyway, those appendices weren't a part of the audio, so I think I'm going to read them now, and see just what they have in there for me.

It looks like you can still get your hands on this edition of Dune over on Amazon for just slightly less than what I paid, so if you've always wanted a beautiful copy of Dune and you can spare $25, head over and grab it while you still can. Maybe I ought to get one of those Amazon partner accounts or whatever they are, where they give you money if people follow your link over and buy something. Although, most of my books came from used book stores, so I probably won't talk Amazon on many more of these posts in the future. Oh well.

Oh, and for the record, the book Dune had nothing to do with the name of the podcast. Just a coincidence.

You Gotta Beleive

I had to get an oil change at Walmart for my wife's car the other day. Since I was stuck in the store for a while, I wandered around and looked at just about everything. One of the things that caught my eye was this shirt. I couldn't think of a shirt that was more apt for Big Anklevich. 

 It really reminded me of my old intro to the Anklecast where I used a bunch of motivational phrases in an attempt to inspire myself and possibly others. In case you can't see it (because the picture is pretty hard to read) it says, "Believe in yourself even if nobody else does."  That's pretty good. On top of that, it's a picture of Bigfoot, which makes it humorous.

My wife didn't get it. She asked me who the guy in the picture was. I was confused.

"Is it some kind of character that's well known?" she asked.

"It's Bigfoot," I said.

"Oh, I didn't realize that. I thought it was just some gorilla or something. That makes it a little more funny."

Yeah, it does make a big difference.