Upcoming Reviews Like CD’s Night Shift & RW Book Case NEWS is building up to a storm of great things happening all at once over at The Forgotten Fiction.
First-off, the growth of the Eager Readers community that is now engaging actively on TFF’s website, Facebook, and Twitter pages has been so much fun to see and be a part of and is truly encouraging and inspiring.
Here’s to you, folks! Cheers!
I still want more though, so let me know what you think of the reviews and creations from the TFF lab.
Let me know what are your most anticipated books you would like to see reviewed: you can email read [at] thefogottenfiction.com.
Stephen King’s Night Shift By Cemetery Dance Is A Stunner!
There is a long list of upcoming title to review and myself and all of the writers on board are extremely pleased and busy, as we keep expanding on our in-depth looks at works of fiction.
Upcoming titles up for review by TFF:
The Lord Of The Rings First Single Issue Deluxe Edition 1969 – George, Allen & Unwin
Stardust By Neil Gaiman – Lyra’s Books Numbered Edition
Later By Stephen King – Numbered Edition By Hard Case Crime
A Scanner Darkly By Philip K. Dick – Suntup Editions Numbered and Artist Editions
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – Suntup Editions Numbered and Artist Editions
More Books by Michael Crichton – requests are open, folks!
The End Of Eternity By Isaac Asimov (and pictures of a rare first edition)
The Time Machine By H.G. Wells – Suntup Edition’s Numbered
Killer Come Back To Me the unpublished Ray Bradbury book celebrating Bradbury’s 100th birthday by Hard Case Crime
Please let us know in emails, or on the social networks what title you really want us to review; there are so many great works to be examined and so many fine editions to be held in hand and perused.
The Forgotten Fiction magazine is a part of Rune Works Productions and a new RW Rare Book Case is being shown here for the first time!
The Lord Of The Rings ACE Edition Rare Book Case
Ace published the first Paperback Editions of LOTR and in so doing created a ton of buzz – good and bad – that led to the historic American first pb edition of LOTR, which was unauthorized, becoming enormously popular in a short time.
Because the Ace paperbacks were affordable and being talked about all over the world, it propelled the successful book by Professor J.R.R. Tolkien to astronomical heights, making the book immensely popular in a short time.
Ace published in America because of a copyright loophole that Tolkien’s publisher’s fought vehemently and publicly.
What was also messed up is that the Professor was not initially paid royalties for sales and it was not until later that they would pay Tolkien his royalties, after which he even admitted to preferring the ‘bootleg’ edition’s artwork better because, unlike the first official paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings, Ace’s actually had artwork that was reflective of the story.
And so loving the books, and wanting to preserve this history I made myself a case by hand using woodworking and archival practices to ensure the historic volumes are displayed safely and in style!
It takes many weeks for a case to fully cure safely and so this project has been a long and arduous one that is finally come to fruition.
Fret not, though, there are a few more that some Eager Readers have requested that are going to be introduced over the next weeks.
The next up on the anvil for Rune Works Rare Book Cases include:
The Stand case – one for UK and one for US 1st printings – BIG news coming later this week on this!
“Gunslinger” Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction case
A I of I creation customized for an issue of Astounding Fiction from 1953
Startling Mystery 1967 and 1969 Case
Fight Club case, with a strip of cartoon film?
A Scanner Darkly case for the first edition of Philip K. Dick’s classic
Revival Us First Edition for signed copies
End Of Watch Us First Edition for signed copies
If It Bleeds Us First Edition for signed copies
The End Of Eternity Isaac Asimov case
And even a non-book case for a rare Star Wars Lego piece!
Check out the post on the Facebook page here for news on upcoming contests (we have to do one close to once a month at least, right?!).
Here is a picture from John of his winning price in the first ever TFF contest the Slinger limited edition sign-pen holder is featured with his copy of the book!
I include one pen holder for anyone I give a case to, and I am extending the pen holder limitation to XX out of XCIX, making numbers up to 99 for sale ($25-ish if someone wants one).
Amaranthine Books incredulous limited Dracula by Bram Stoker is truly dark, richly lavish, and bloodily grim in all the right ways.
Dracula is one of the first ever books to be considered a novel, one of the foundational chilling books of horror, and birthed an entire vampire genre of fiction.
Dracula is legend.
And having read the book many times, having studied the book at university and owning a few copies already, I was skeptical of spending a few hundred dollars on the “Transylvania” limited edition of 666 numbered copies from Amaranthine Books.
It looked very interesting and the word that first comes to mind, still, is lavish.
This book is bound and draped in red velvet-like cloth.
I love books and so this seemed really cool, as it seemed to frame the dark visage of the Count on the cover as Jonathan Harker first sees Dracula in his castle.
But I was not sold; it was not until I saw the art and read into the thought-process behind the binding and every facet of the myriad designs put in the book that I fell in love and had to have it.
Here is the story synopsis, and the book review continues below:
Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. It introduced the character of Count Dracula and established many conventions of subsequent vampire fantasy.[1] The novel tells the story of Dracula’s attempt to move from Transylvania to England so that he may find new blood and spread the undead curse, and of the battle between Dracula and a small group of people led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.
Dracula has been assigned to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, gothic fiction, and invasion literature. The novel has spawned numerous theatrical, film, and television interpretations.
Original Title: Dracula
Author: Bram Stoker
Hardcover, 418 pages
Published By Archibald Constable and Company (UK) on Publication date 26, May 1897 and then later by Amaranthine Books
The following TFF Book Review Of Amaranthine Books’ Dracula By Bram Stoker contains contains mild Spoilers*****.
Bram Stoker’s classic is a combination of letters of multiple characters and the audio recordings of Dr. Seward in his asylum, an epistolary, and it remains intensely suspenseful, eerie, and flat out creepy from the very onset.
This experience is what Amaranthine Books wanted to bring to their fine press publication of their two limited editions, Dracula – Transylvania Edition (limited to 666 copies and some are still for sale!), and Dracula – Scholomance Edition (limited to 50 copies).
Meeting the Count and going through the tale, not just as a reader, but as a participant is how Amaranthine went about constructing their gorgeous editions.
The pages are all black-edged and UV-protected, the imagery and even the count on the cover glow in the dark. There are 666 pages in this edition. 666!
As Harker find himself entering Transylvania and the weird surrounds him, an unsettling ominous feeling, so too does the reader embark with that same pit in their stomach for the start of their trek.
The terrifying ordeal of wolves chasing the carriage is followed up by the dreary castle and then the lush, well-spoken older gentlemen, Count Dracula, himself, who is genteel and off-putting in the subtlest of ways.
He had eerily adopted an English accent, despite learning the language through reading about it, and his regal demeanor reveals a love for a lavish lifestyle in many ways, yet in many ways he is off – including the extra-long canines Harker catches glimpses of.
Dracula had been a plague in Eastern Europe for time out of mind and so he set his sights on the innumerable citizens of England in the 19th Century. There he could be a king, stay young, and torment the people there if only the Harker and his brilliant fiance Mina had not been so close that she could put together what had happened to her beloved and how they must get together, with the famous Dr. Van Helsing, to destroy the Count once and for all.
The tale is truly one of a kind and so sensational, even to this day.
Reading the version Amaranthine put together makes for an all-time superb reading experience for this rare book.
And so both editions of the Amaranthine Books’ Dracula have a red velvety cloth binding that is so very satisfying and fun to hold in the hand.
The book is heavy! And it is lush, yet the older, stern glance of the Count looks out from the cover.
I wish I had gotten one of the Scholomance Editions, because the book came in a coffin-like wooden box containing real Transylvanian soil from Bran Castle in Romania.
And what is more: the creators of the book actually wrote the title on the limitation page in their own blood!
That is incredibly macabre.
Having to settle for my copy it still is encompassed in a coffin-like slipcase and comes with a stake to ward off the count, a hidden message within the case, and also was limited to a prominent number: 666 copies.
Every facet, from the bat-black endpapers, to the vivid artwork that perfectly befits the story and is innovative and new and yet classic at the same time, adds up to a truly fantastic volume from the fine press befitting of one of the world’s greatest works of literature.
P.S. The next book from Amaranthine Books, Alice, is also out-of-this-world amazing, as it features more fine press innovations in binding construction and overall design aesthetic.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and what Alice Found There is presented in one book that is reversible for each novel along with a truly adept cover finely sewn into such an entrance to the world as you could ever hope to behold. Myriad fibers make up a trippy visual enigma tunneling you with Alice to Wonderland.
I have a numbered edition of this famous set of novellas, the Alice – Jabberwock Edition (limited to only 260 copies) on pre-order and I will certainly review it once it has been released and 60 days have passed.
