Last night my post included references to the sf magazine Planet Stories. If you want to take a look at some of those great gaudy covers, Bill Crider has posted a gallery of them on his most excellent website. http://billcrider.blogspot.com/
With horny vampires still in fashion I should mention an erotic vampire novel I usually read once a year because it's so sleek, dark, witty and truly erotic. I'm talking about Ray Garton's Live Girls. Its structure is so cunning it intimidates me. I just wish I could make a book cook the way Ray does. I'm pretty sure it's still in print from Leisure. If you've never read it, pick it up right away.
I didn't really pay much attenton to the Cassie Edwards plagiarism controversy until the NY Times piece this morning. Edwards, a bestselling romance writer, is alleged to have cribbed lines, sentences and more from works of fiction and non-fiction alike. The fiction I understand. The non-fiction I don't. One of her defenses is that she tried to credit sources but that she didn't for reasons I don't understand. I've tried to credit sources in my westerns on occasion and been told that they weren't approriate. The article insists that romance writers frequently credit sources. This makes me nervous, not cribbing the fiction but making sure that I sufficiently change factual material I learn on websites and in books. I rewrite everything but maybe not enough.
This Sunday's NY Times magazine has a long, fascinating article about the singer Shelby Lynne. I wasn't aware of her until a few years ago when one of her concerts was shown on (probably) Ovation. She started out in country but soon tired of the formulas. Except for a massive critical hit five years ago, she's had at best a ragged career. She's never really had a hit record. She's now teamed with producer Phil Ramone to record an album of Dusty Springfield covers. Entertainment Weekly has posted the Dionne Warwick-Springfield "Anyone Who Had a Heart" on line. I don't know what to call except a jazz interpretation. I like it a lot.
Thanks for the mention of Shelby Lynne's version of 'Anyone who had a heart' - it is terrific. One of the all-time great songs by my favourite songwriter (who often worked with Phil Ramone in the 60s.)
ReplyDeleteChecked the whole CD out on Amazon and terrific stuff. Especially "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me."
ReplyDeleteI must admit, her album title I AM SHELBY LYNNE always casts me back to a famous Wilson Tucker anecdote about meeting Lee Hoffman and Shelby Vick for the first time, at a convention where Lee was first revealed to many sf/fantasy fans to be a woman (at a time when active fans usually weren't, and she'd been mostly active as a fanzine editor/publisher), and Vick was wearing a t-shirt boldly emblazoned I AM SHELBY VICK.
ReplyDeleteNow I have to wonder how well ShelVy, as he sometimes signs himself, can cover "Son of a Preacher Man" or "The Look of Love."