Mark Rich's Blog

Steven H. Silver has posted his review, as I discovered earlier today. It is located here:

http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/rich....

I am extremely grateful that the review gives evidence that Silver actually read the book and began absorbing its content. His summation seems accurate, and his judgment is quite welcome: for he seems to understand that I was aiming for a new level of accuracy in historical writing, within science-fiction-literary historical writing -- and also that I was trying to do something larger than speak only of Cyril, however important (and he was extremely important) Cyril was.

I put a few spontaneous comments on the review at my blog, "Vines, Wines, and Lines" --

http://vines-wines-lines.blogspot.com/

-- and I'll like have more reflections. This is, on the face of it, just another review, but it is to my mind an important step forward.

Cheers ...

Heidi Lampietti has a new site going to help promote independent book publishers -- and the site, I've just learned, has run a review of my collection Across the Sky. Located here:

http://www.spectrumcircus.com/books/?...

Cheers ...

In the mail today arrived a copy of a review that aired January 30, 2010, on WFOS-FM -- how strange and how wonderful. And the program was "The Operaphile" -- which is even more strange and wonderful.

That day's program reviewed two McFarland books, with one being mine on Kornbluth -- the other being Frank Reno's Historic Figures of the Arthurian Era.

But it's a surprisingly fine review ... "A highly recommendable book that is an excellent read."

I may quote it at greater length in "Vines, Wines & Lines."

Cheers ...

Noted the other day that on-line reviewer Steven Silver is planning a review of the book. Have no idea, of course, how the review itself will be ...

One of these days a review may well start some controversy -- because the results of my research led to conclusions that are not going to sit quite square with some published, popular accounts of the 1950s.

I have also just posted about one of the books I recently finished, Rebecca Loncraine's biography of L. Frank Baum, in my "Vines, Wines and Lines" blog.,

Cheers ...

While I don't plan to post here every day, I may do so since I would rather only post a few paragraphs at a time. Right at the moment I am looking at the first print review of C.M. Kornbluth; and it occurs to me that since the publication has a February cover date it may have appeared at the same time as, or before, the French review.

This one is no more than a paragraph that appears in Reference & Research Book News, February, 2010, page two (which I know about thanks to Lori Tedder at McFarland & Company). It is but three lines long -- so hardly more than a notice.

What distinguishes it from an earlier on-line "review" of the book, of a paragraph's length, which was plainly not a review since its author, even within so small a space, made it clear he had not read the book, perhaps not even skimmed it?

The third sentence of this one is as follows: "Kornbluth was an unusual man of unusual habits and views, and Rich incorporates those traits into his biography of the humorous and cynical writer who continues to be regarded as one of the great science fiction authors."

That sentence, a fairly complex one, covers a lot of ground. It does so in a manner, moreover, that suggests at least some reading of the text. This News seems to have a particular format to be followed, for each title: and within that format this "news" includes review-type evaluation.

Cheers ...

Today, March 1, is the first day of official release for my biography of Cyril Kornbluth. Although I have written some notes in my blog "Vines, Wines and Lines" related to the book, my intent there is slightly different from documenting this particular book's progress. I decided Goodreads might be a good place to do this -- partly because one of the few early reviews of C.M. Kornbluth: The Life and Works of a Science Fiction Visionary appeared here. (For which I give my deep thanks.)

What I will do here in Goodreads is write an impromptu journal detailing what I understand or can perceive of the book's reception. Since my fiction books have gone largely unreviewed within science fiction, I am curious if this book's fate will be different. I personally feel this is an important biography. If none of the major magazines in the field treat it as such, however, the book's chances at having impact are greatly diminished.

By way of beginning, I should note that the first review of the book -- a thoughtful and positive one -- seems to have been written by Herve Hauck (my apologies for having no accent markings available) for his Guide Hervelen des Ouvrages de Reference des Science Fiction -- which I only discovered this last week. He posted his review on January 27.

I may post some corrections here: for I found a few minor errors after publication; and Bob Silverberg in his incredibly careful reading found a few others. And I no doubt will engage in miscellaneous notes on other matters, other books, other controversies ...

Cheers,
Mark Rich