Friday, March 16, 2007



I aten't dead

Just in Wellington for the day. While there, I was able to squeeze in a visit to the new Borders and acquire a copy of Charles Stross' The Atrocity Archive, which I have been seeking for some time.

Normal bloggage will resume when I've had a chance to find out what's been going on in the world.

6 comments:

What does it say about my life that I need a blogger from Palmerston North to tell me there's a new bookshop in my own damn city? Ughh!

Posted by Danyl : 3/17/2007 07:07:00 AM

That you don't get into town enough, and skim the advertorial-style stories in the Dom-Post?

It's actually quite good, at least as far as the SF collection goes. Not as highbrow as Dymocks, or as trash-focused as Whitcoulls, but the fact I was able to find The Atrocity Archive there where I hadn't found it anywhere else was good. I'll be back... sometime.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 3/17/2007 10:31:00 AM

I was impressed with the literature section - I found a copy of Turgenev's Sketches from a Hunter's Album which I had been looking for for yonks. However the history and politics sections didn't seem as good as Dymocks and Unity.

Posted by Anonymous : 3/17/2007 11:30:00 AM

"Not as highbrow as Dymocks"...

You are from Palmerston North, aren't you??

Posted by Anonymous : 3/17/2007 02:00:00 PM

123: I am talking about the SF section. I used to live in Wellington, and become intimitely familiar with the SF sections of its better bookshops; Dymocks was where I first encounted authors such as Ken MacLeod, China Mieville and Alastair Reynolds; they stocked Ted Chiang, Max Barry, and various other authors I associate with the highbrow end of the market (I'd add Michael Marshall Smith, but he was actualyl in Whitcoulls - in the "literature" section because they didn't want to admit it was SF).

Unity also does experimental SF, but it is literally a niche market for them, and they don't have the range. Wheras Whitcoulls does your basic everyday Macaffrey / Pratchett / fat fantasy / vampire porn.

(Bizzy Bee's import section is also good, but has too much Baen and military SF. OTOH they're good if you're looking for second-hand classics to round out your collection)

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 3/17/2007 03:11:00 PM

Two questions:

Does Borders have a good politics section?

Have you read The Baubles of Office: The New Zealand General Election of 2005? You should do as you are even noteworthy enough to be in the index!! It has a good chapter on blogging in the 2005 election campaign.

Posted by G7 : 3/18/2007 10:07:00 AM