Some scores, and hiatus

What do you do when money’s tight, but all of a sudden that saved search for a rare and precious object comes through five years after you set it?

You bloody well make the purchase, that’s what. Electricity, water, and cable will all be around later, but that Holy Grail may not be. OK, electricity, water, and cable may not be precisely in your house after you failed to pay the bill, but they’ll be around–at your neighbors house, for example, or at the corner bar. And they’ll get back to your place eventually once you recover from the purchase.

Above is the cover of the Doc Savage novel, Asylum of Fear. About all I know about it is that it’s a work of fan fiction that was a freebie at a Doc Savage convention. It’s also the only published work of Doc Savage fiction I didn’t own. Until now!

These are four first edition Lawrence Block Matthew Scudder novels. I apologize for the flash reflection on A Ticket to the Boneyard but I’m not exactly a professional photographer.

I scored these babies for ten bucks a pop at the Austin Book and Paper Show a few months back. The seller was getting out of the fiction business in favor of nonfiction, so he was having a clearance sale. Lucky me!

At the same show, I acquired this baby for under twenty dollars.

Not in the greatest shape, but for under $20, I’m happy to provide it with a loving home. I was scared to take the dust jacket out of the wrapper to scan it because the whole thing is fragile, but it worked out alright and I managed to get the wrapper back cuddling around it and protecting it after the scan was done.

In other news, there’s likely to be a blogging hiatus here for two to three weeks. Nick is in the process of moving and I’ve got a convention to work on behalf of my association. Sometimes when I’ve said there’s going to be a hiatus, I ended up reading and writing about a whole lot of stuff, and that could well happen this time. But if it doesn’t, know that we’re not going anywhere and we’ve got some good stuff coming up. Thank you for always coming back.