1993 / Audiobook / 280 pages / USA
***
Zelazny's last completed work was this more coy precursor to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, told from the unfamiliar perspective of the familiars of familiar characters. Nice for Victorian lit and horror fans, but one of those pet projets that was probably more fun to write than to read.
Carl Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
****
We can't watch these lectures, but since Carl talks like he writes, there's not much difference between these transcripts and his other books, until you get to the Q&A at the end where he patiently responds to people who think they know better. This veers towards the Demon-Haunted World side of things, but still takes time out to contemplate the cosmos which is what I'm here for.
2006 / Ebook / 105 pages / USA
***
It took me about a decade after my first nonplussed listen to appreciate the connoisseur's Nirvana album, but it still wasn't quite my favourite. I was hoping that an insightful commentary might tip that, but instead got a methodical chronicle of studio dates, repetitive statements of intent and overblown near-controversy. Nevermind.
Harlan Ellison, The Voice from the Edge, Vol. 5: Shatterday & Other Stories
1966-2003 (collected 2011) / Audiobook / USA
***
The last of the curated audio archives, this feels more bent towards the horrific, but it turns out I've said that about most of them. A semi-autobiography, comedy and romance with a unicorn keep things varied.
Faves: 'Shatterday,' 'Basilisk,' 'Goodbye to All That.'
Worsties: 'In the Oligocenskie Gardens,' 'Shattered Like a Glass Goblin,' 'Susan.'
Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 4: The Tempest
***
The conclusion to this drawn-out, self-satisfied series was Alan Moore's retirement from comics (so he says), and it's a fitting finale as the pop-culture omnipastiche catches up to the comics of the writer's own upbringing and early career. Bitter and twisted to the end, he also takes the opportunity for some parting pot shots at the state of the industry and culture generally. He was the best.
