February 18, 2018
Considering the Remaining Appendix N Posts
Glancing at Appendix N I find only a handful of authors remaining. Only five are left for me to write web log posts about. A notable five: Jack Vance, Stanley Weinbaum, Manley Wade Wellman, Jack Williamson, and Roger Zelazny. I’ll be finishing strong.
I’ve read something from all of them. I won’t need to seek any of them out for the first time. In fact, with the exception of Manley Wade Wellman, I have at least one book on my shelves from each of them. And I’m pretty sure Wellman appears in one of the dog-eared, paperback anthologies sitting there just to my right as I write this. Still, I have an excuse to add a Silver John collection to my books.
Jack Vance, the titan, the big dog of Appendix N is in the batting circle. I’m having a wonderful time preparing. I hope no one is in any rush; reading Vance is an experience to savor. A college fiction-writing instructor whose class I took back in the day considered genre fiction — the sort of thing I was predisposed to write — as so much junk food. I should have handed him a volume of Vance, chosen at random, and said “Here’s fine dining, you snob.”
I might feel a bit melancholy when I’ve completed the list. I’ve enjoyed revisiting old favorites and filling in the odd gap. I suppose I’ll need a new project, something to anchor the usual potpourri of nonsense I write here. Any suggestions?
