Losing my religion.

Yesterday I started my vacation on Vancouver Island by purchasing a hundred dollars worth of used books and felt a solid sense of satisfaction that I had done well in finding replacements for some of the more battered novels in my collection.  

Today we visited Munro’s Books in downtown Victoria. Munro's is an excellent independent bookstore, and offers a well-chosen selection of the best in current fantasy and science fiction. In spite of which, I left the store empty handed, enough of a departure from tradition that my wife commented on it with mild surprise. I just couldn't buy anything. After years of book shopping, it suddenly all seemed so unaffordably and unreasonably expensive - it broke me a little.

The problem has nothing to do with inventory as such.  Munro's science fiction section had some excellent options: N. K. Jemisin’s latest, The City We Became; the surprising paper publication of Martha Well's Murderbot Diaries novellas; the award-winning 2019 novel This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone; Andy Weir's third novel, Hail Mary, currently their top selling science fiction novel - which I confess to just having finished in bootleg ePub format rather than spending $38.99 CAD for a hardcover copy (or waiting until August 23rd for the release of the paperback version at $25.95, which hardly seems a savings).

All the shelves seemed to be just packed with expensive hardcovers and pricey trade paperbacks in lieu of cheaper mass market editions. I was particularly unimpressed by the impractical absurdity of a four inch thick collection of Ursula K. Leguin’s Earthsea series, an unwieldy sixty* dollar tome that would defy actual handheld readership.

I recently read somewhere that the end of the mass market paperback is upon us, and if that's the case, I'm sort of checked out as far as new book stores go.  I may well recover, there may be a gradual return to retail book purchasing, but for now, it would appear that for me new books have become the province of birthdays, Geekmas gift list postings and secret Santa suggestions - a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless. 

- Sid

* Actually $59.99, but I don't think that fools anyone anymore, does it?

Hunting for Books, Fit the Fourth and a Bit: Cancon.

As I mentioned in my post regarding Cavity's Curiosity Shop, when I finished shopping I was unable to immediately pay for my books, and as a result wandered around the store for a few minutes while I waited for the owners to finish their conversation. 

My brief tour resulted in the addition of a couple of graphic novels to my purchases: Jaka's Tale and We Stand On Guard. Strictly speaking, neither one is a graphic novel - they're both omnibus collections of previously published comic books.

We Stand On Guard, originally published as a six-issue mini-series by Image Comics* in 2015, is a grimly nihilistic tale of a future invasion of Canada by the United States. Whereas Steve Skroce, the artist on the series, is Canadian, story creator and writer Brian K. Vaughan** is American.  Vaughan, whose wife is Canadian, has explained in interviews that the concept for the story was partially prompted by "friendly arguments with my in-laws during Canadian Thanksgiving." 

The story paints a brutal picture of the US destroying Canada as a nation in order to gain control over its vast reserves of water, a future which seems far too plausible in the era of climate change and frequent drought conditions south of the border.

Jaka’s Tale…where to begin?
 
Okay.
 
In December of 1977, an artist named Dave Sim from Kitchener, Ontario decided to do an independent black and white Conan the Barbarian parody comic book featuring an aardvark named Cerebus.

As bizarre as that sounds for an elevator pitch, Cerebus was an unexpected and incredible success.  It was Sim’s plan to take his earth-pig protagonist through the course of their entire life over 300 issues of the comic, and end the series with his death in the final issue – an astonishing plan, given that there are lots of comics produced by the major publishers that only last a year or two before being cancelled.  

Amazingly, he succeeded – 6000 pages and 27 years later, Cerebus passed away in a final moment of barbarian anger, falling out of bed and breaking his neck.

The entire series has been collected*** in ten volumes, commonly known as "phone books", based on their size.  Jaka's Story is the fourth phonebook in the series, and is distinguished by the fact that Cerebus himself only makes a marginal appearance in the events of the story.

The character of Jaka the tavern dancer was originally introduced in Issue 6 of the original run - a thief drugs Cerebus with a love potion**** so that he will fall in love with Jaka, allowing her to then extract the secret location of a treasure trove from him.  Cerebus eventually recovers from the potion and abandons his pursuit of Jaka, but the story ends with a twist - Jaka announces her love for him after he leaves and says that she will wait forever if need be for him to remember his love for her. 

Jaka proceeded to become one of many recurring characters in the series, and was later revealed to be the niece of Lord Julius, ruler of the city-state of Palnu.  Issues 114 to 136 dealt almost entirely with Jaka’s life – a bold decision, given that Sim only had 300 issues planned for the comic.  

Whatever prompted this digression on Sim's part, Jaka's Story is an astonishing creation, combining a unique artistic style and brilliant storytelling to create an illustrated tour de force.  It's almost a novelistic experience - literally, given that the story contains extended prose passages from a book describing Jaka’s childhood - the Jaka's Story of the title. It's an anguished, uncomfortable tale of betrayal, anger and repression, and could easily stand on its own without any of the rest of the issues of Cerebus.

I was pleased to find We Stand On Guard, but I consider Jaka's Story to be a bit of a score at ten bucks.  I'm a bit tempted to buy the other nine volumes now, but I don't think they're still in print, and Amazon pricing for each seems to be in the $50-$70 range - I don't think I'm $600 worth of tempted. 

- Sid

*This is a weregeek moment waiting to happen. Image Comics was founded in 1992 by a group of comic book artists looking to take control over their own properties.  They're still around, in third place as comics publishers after the giants of DC and Marvel.

** Vaughan is probably best know for his 2002 comic book series Y: The Last Man - there's a television adaptation coming out in September.

*** Sim originally created six four-issue collections of the early Cerebus comics under the name Swords of Cerebus - I have the first five of those collections, no idea why I never bought the sixth one to finish the set.  Birthdays or Christmas, anyone?  I don't need the first print run or anything that would drive the price up.

**** Always keep an eye on your drink, kids.

Hunting for Books, Fit the Fourth: The Old Curiosity Shop

The hunt for replacement books has not gone well for the last year or so. Admittedly, there have been fewer opportunities for shopping, but the times that I have had a chance to search store shelves have not been fruitful, to the point where I’ve begun to wonder why I’m finding so few of the books that I’m looking for - I refuse to believe that my collection is THAT unique. Perhaps the real problem is the relative lack of quality in the printing process, as per the comment made by the counter person at Victoria's Bastion Books on the last day of 2019.

My one apparently successful foray into Pulp Fiction’s Point Grey store initially appeared to have gone well, but it turned out that I was using an old version of my shopping list, and almost all of my purchases were duplicates of texts that I’d already bought. (Dorothy, I'll be shipping those off to you shortly.)

At long last, buffered by double vaccination, Karli and I made a return to Victoria for a one-week vacation for the first week of August, accommodations courtesy of Karli's mother and stepfather, who were kind enough to let us use their oceanside condo while they were away.  As is often the case when we travel, I only had one personal request: to do some book shopping, in this case at the Cavity Curiosity Shop, the store that I hadn't been able to visit during our New Year's 2020 trip to the Island.

As their name suggests, and as the helpful counter person at Bastion Books commented when they suggested that I pay them a visit, Cavity is not a book store as such. It’s a collection of cultural ephemera: toys, stereo equipment, VHS tapes, DVDs, books, magazines, comic books, posters, t-shirts, buttons, patches, pins - curiosities, as it were.

My initial reaction to their inventory is mild disappointment - generally I like a bookstore to have at least half as many books as I do in their science fiction and fantasy section, and Cavity seems to barely have a quarter of my library.

However, as I’ve seen at other stores, quantity does not necessarily indicate quality, and Cavity’s single bookcase turns out to be a bit of a gold mine, albeit a slightly disorderly one. I’ve been trying to restrain my shopping to books on my actual list rather than books that I think will need replacing, but I’ve only catalogued to the end of L, and a few of the books on display are too good to pass up. (And my gamble paid off: I was particularly pleased to find the Ace publications of two Andre Norton novels that were in fabulous shape for 60 year old paperbacks*, and certainly in better shape than the battered editions that I currently own.

Normally when I shop for books while travelling, I’m constrained by the limitations of luggage weight, but we’ve come over by ferry in our car, so in theory I can buy as many books as I want, but after selecting sixteen I decide to cash out, in the interests of fiscal responsibility. 

However, the owners are deeply engaged in conversation with another couple standing at the till, and I’m reluctant to interrupt. (Context of the discussion suggests ownership - it’s a small shop and a loud conversation, so it’s not like I’m eavesdropping.). I wander about with my stack of shopping, and discover a couple of comic book collections that I decide to add to the pile, fiscal responsibility be damned, as they say.  Just for fun I also add a 2006 concert DVD of the Dresden Dolls, Amanda Palmer’s punk cabaret partnership with Brian Viglione - man does not live by bread alone, as the proverb says.

I finally take the initiative and apologetically interrupt. The visiting couple immediately leaves, and I once again apologize.  The male half of the partnership shrugs cheerfully and begins to total up my purchases.  

As he's doing math, I mention that I'd tried to visit them on New Year's Eve a couple of years back, but I'd missed them, and that I'm shopping for replacement books for my collection.  I add that I'm pleased with the results of my trip, and he thanks me and apologizes in turn for the lack of order in the shelving, apparently they’d taken their books to an off-site event and hadn’t had a chance to re-shelf them properly.

He takes a look at the total, and says, “Let’s say one hundred even.”  I haven’t spent that much time checking prices, but it certainly sounds reasonable, so I thank him and we finish up our business.

Overall, I have nothing but good things to say about my experience with Cavity, and I plan repeat visits as opportunity allows - after I update my shopping list with my latest purchases, I'd like to think that I've at least learned that lesson.

- Sid

* 1956 and 1963, respectively.