Thursday 9 April 2020

Alrightreads: Shadows

Roger Zelazny, Jack of Shadows

1971 / Audiobook / 207 pages / USA

**

A nice science-fantasy scenario thrown away on a slapdash story.


Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are

1993 / Audiobook / 528 pages / USA

***

The last of Carl Sagan's books I got around to, as suspected this doesn't have his usual romantic zeal, which might mean he didn't actually write very much of it, or that he should have left the biology to people who get as excited by it as he did about the cosmos.


Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind (La sombra del viento)

2001 / Audiobook / 575 pages / Spain

**

I'm always down for a book about books, it's just a shame it's the type of books I'm not interested in.


Eliot Wilder, DJ Shadow's Endtroducing...

2005 / Ebook / 100 pages / USA

**

Actually writing a book proved too much for this music journo, so he turned on a dictaphone and let the artist tell his life story, which finally gets around to the album in question towards the end. No doubt this was a more inspiring route for other creators than a comprehensive catalogue of elusive samples, but it didn't really help me to see the art in plunderphonics.


Tim Lebbon, Alien: Out of the Shadows

2014 / Audiobook / 352 pages / UK

***

I knew better, but curiosity got the better of me, and there was a chance these interquels would explore new possibilities rather than just doing Alien again again again. Not this time.