Roger Zelazny, This Immortal (a.k.a. ...And Call Me Conrad)1965 (collected 1966) / Audiobook / 174 pages / USA
**
The young writer starts as he means to go on with a dark future fable steeped in mythology. Competent, but pompous heroic fantasy has never really appealed to me.
Carl Sagan, The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective1973 / Ebook / 274 pages / USA
****
Sagan's pop science debut lacks some of the poetic oration of his later cosmic sermons, but it's still an inspiring and humbling collection of bite-sized astronomy, informed speculations, over-optimistic predictions and justified grievances.
Viz, Viz Comic: The Big Hard One – Best of Issues 1 to 12
***
I've been hearing that Viz used to be better and how I was missing out ever since school, so let's put that to the fucking test, shall we? These early issues are as hit and miss as I'm used to, and are mainly interesting as historical artefacts of Chris Donald's DIY record label tie-in outgrowing its niche local audience and breaking into the mainstream. Early adventures with Ted Dempster, Pathetic Sharks and the satirical social saga of Skinheed are a bit of a slog, but Biffa, Billy, Johnny, Roger and Sid are all there by the end, doing their joke.
David Mitchell, Ghostwritten
1999 / Audiobook / 436 pages / UK****
If I was reading the David Mitchell (Not That One) bibliography in the correct order, and not backtracking from the bestseller like some sort of mainstream pleb, you'd be spared the belittling comparison to a less majestic Cloud Atlas. But that was my main takeaway from this similarly themed anthology cunningly disguised as a novel, connecting disparate people, places and times with the ricketiest of bridges. Maybe he'll eventually have the attention span to write a novel that follows a single coherent narrative. That'd be a shame.
2005 / Audiobook / 136 pages / USA
***
Atypically in-depth for a flimsy 33⅓ book, this goes beyond the usual biographical context, studio anecdotes and equipment technicalities into the realm of scholarly speculation invited by Michael Stipe's cryptic mumbles. I don't know whether it was actually J. Niimi's master's thesis, but that's the vibe. I probably learned a lot, but nothing I'll take away.
