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threemonkeysA couple of mysteries...
My internet broadband scheme has a capped data volume. If I exceed it, my access drops down to dialup speeds for the rest of the month. Luckily my ISP provides a status page that lets me see how much I have used. Yesterday it told me I was at 85% of the cap. Today it told me that I was at 70%. It made a backward jump like that last month too. Very strange.
I still feel a hankering for modern fantasy and I don't know why. It pushed me to order a couple of Tim Powers' titles today. It also made me read the third of Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch trilogy. This one, not surprisingly is called The Twilight Watch. It isn't really a trilogy though. Each volume actually has three stories within it. All in the same setting of course with the same characters but each is a distinct piece in its own right. (does that make it a nonology?) I think this is quite to the advantage of the overall series - a series that by the end I have to say I really enjoyed despite a rocky start. Each story is a tight piece without the bloat often associated with with large fantasy trilogies. Why is such a structure so unusual?
Actually a third mystery*. Why can't the local booksellers get Tim Powers books on their shelves. (Actually, I know the answer, but it is as much a puzzle as the question)
(*I'd make a joke about the mystery of not being able to count, but![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lobelet owns the rights to that one.)
My internet broadband scheme has a capped data volume. If I exceed it, my access drops down to dialup speeds for the rest of the month. Luckily my ISP provides a status page that lets me see how much I have used. Yesterday it told me I was at 85% of the cap. Today it told me that I was at 70%. It made a backward jump like that last month too. Very strange.
I still feel a hankering for modern fantasy and I don't know why. It pushed me to order a couple of Tim Powers' titles today. It also made me read the third of Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch trilogy. This one, not surprisingly is called The Twilight Watch. It isn't really a trilogy though. Each volume actually has three stories within it. All in the same setting of course with the same characters but each is a distinct piece in its own right. (does that make it a nonology?) I think this is quite to the advantage of the overall series - a series that by the end I have to say I really enjoyed despite a rocky start. Each story is a tight piece without the bloat often associated with with large fantasy trilogies. Why is such a structure so unusual?
Actually a third mystery*. Why can't the local booksellers get Tim Powers books on their shelves. (Actually, I know the answer, but it is as much a puzzle as the question)
(*I'd make a joke about the mystery of not being able to count, but
lobelet owns the rights to that one.)![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-07-27 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-27 06:18 am (UTC)The stores are able to go through their own broker channels to get around the local distributors but they can't get Powers' books at a decent price. It is much cheaper for the likes of me to get them from Amazon directly, so is isn't worth it for the shops.
The buyer for the local Dymocks is a big Powers fan and he has tried quite hard to get them for the shelves. He occasionally succeeds but mostly he has to give up and just buys copies for himself from Amazon.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-27 08:33 am (UTC)One, two, lots...
I remain ambivalent about Tim Powers.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-27 10:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-28 08:42 pm (UTC)He is there in the "must buy" canon.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-28 08:50 pm (UTC)Three Days to Never