I think it's supposed to get up into the low 90s today. The heat and humidity isn't quite the crushing weight it will be in July and August, but it's definitely revving up for it. Even when you drive around outside of town in April and it's in the 70s and everything is starting to bloom, the countryside still has that sharp-edged look to it, like it's waiting for the real summer.

Links: Library Thing. This is a site where you list your books, stare at other people's books, get recommendations. I love this site and can spend way too much time on it.

My library is here and my author page is here.


There's a new URL for the Cushing Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection at Texas A&M University. This site doesn't really give you any idea how many books and magazines they have. I've had two tours of the stacks, and it's hard to describe the effect it had on me. It was like I remembered the original sense of wonder I had when I first blundered into the SF/F section at the public library. They have every SF/F book you read as a kid. They have every book you read as a kid, and in the original edition that you read it in.

I have friend visiting and today we went up to the university and got a tour of the science fiction and fantasy collection at the Special Collections in Cushing Library. It was incredible. The last time I'd seen it was years ago, when I was a student, and it's huge now. Manuscripts and magazines and books and books and books. It's a great place to go to remember why you love SF/fantasy.

Beginning in 1923, the collection contains the very rare first issue of Weird Tales, dated March, 1923 in its virtually complete run of that important title. Weird Tales, curiously first published by Rural Publishing Corporation, was not strictly a science fiction or fantasy title. The collection also contains a virtually complete run of Amazing Stories begun in 1926 including the very rare April, 1926 first issue. Amazing Stories heralds the beginning of science fiction as a recognizable entity. Hugo Gernsback, named by some as the father of science fiction, actually performed the more motherly service by giving birth to Amazing Stories in 1926, Amazing Stories Quarterly in 1928, Air Wonder Stories, Wonder Stories Quarterly, and Wonder Stories (all from 1929). Wonder Stories is probably best remembered as Thrilling Wonder Stories. The collection has complete runs of these titles as well. The collection's complete run of Astounding Science Fiction/Analog serves as an anchor to the whole collection. Other titles give breadth and depth to the collection: Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories, Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror, Marvel Tales, Scoops (1934), Fanciful Tales of Time and Space (1936), Fantasy and Marvel Science Fiction (1938), Dynamic Science Stories, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Fantastic Adventures, Planet Stories, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Stories, Captain Future, Comet Stories, Fantastic Novels Magazine, Science Fiction Quarterly, and Super Science Stories give a sampling of the early titles available. The magazine collection has an international flavor, with such titles as New Worlds, Australian SF News, Ad Astra, Robot from Italy, Nueva Dimension (Spain), Utopia, Andromeda and SF Times (Germany), and Fiction and Galaxie (France).

Quantitative Capsule - approximately 10,000 periodical issues, some duplicated in microforms. Over 500 titles are represented in the collection, with most of the classic fiction titles held in complete runs.

They're doing an article about the importance of writers leaving their papers and manuscripts to library collections, with a checklist for authors of questions to ask when they do donate or sell their papers, so you can make sure the collection is going to preserve, index and process it, and that it'll end up listed online in places like TARO so people wanting to do research can locate it. They tried to purchase Andre Norton's papers and High Hallack library collection, but couldn't speak to her in person because she broke her hip right before they arrived, and they ended up only being able to get a few things. (The rest was broken up and sold for a tiny bit of what it was worth.) They did get her portrait, which she sent them as a donation before she died.