Normally, this is the time of month when I put together a post rounding up all the blogging I’ve done in the past few weeks. Since October was far from normal, I’m doing something a little different. At risk of coming off as a ‘How I spent my summer holiday’ essay, now is as good a time as any to recap just what I’ve been up to. After all, if I haven’t been blogging, there’s got to be a good reason for it. Right? So without further ado, here’s what I got up to in October.

New York, New York!

Yes, I am officially an international traveller now. Having never left the UK before, I spent almost the entire month visiting my girlfriend in the United States. Much to my (surprised) delight, I didn’t die. The only tricky bit of the trip itself was getting caught up in an understaffed customs and immigration queue, and having to spend the night in JFK airport. Not an experience I recommend, but worth it in the end.

New York State is a phenomenal place, especially in the autumn. the trees are awash with reds and oranges, and you can’t go more than a mile without tripping over a waterfall. Hiking trails and lakeside walks took up a lot of time, and I have to recommend Watkins Glen State Park and Letchworth State Park for anyone visiting the area. there’s enough trails to walk that I managed to not get too fat from all the holiday eating. No trip to the state would be complete without a visit to Niagara Falls, and since there’s a rather large Nikola Tesla statue up there, I’m claiming that as a valid spot for a science fiction pilgrimage.

One site of literary interest is Elmira, a small town filled with Mark Twain’s legacy. We paid a quick trip to the local museum which had far more quality that its quantity would suggest. It also sounded like a good place for Civil War buffs, though in that regard I’ll plead my ignorance.

Fair warning to the eager traveller, however. New York State has a lot of snakes. I only encountered grass snakes in the wild, but they were everywhere. Not just on the trails, but also right outside the front door!

Book Crawling

As you can expect, my immediate priority on any holiday is to track down some good bookshops. New York State has those in spades. Two book nerds crawling through the stores together is a recipe for a wonderful disaster, and sure enough I ended up hauling twenty books back across the Atlantic with me. And that was with me showing some restraint! Here are some of my favourite stores out West.

In Niagara Falls itself (which is apparently a town as well as a water feature) we have The Book Corner. Easily my favourite store in aesthetic, it was a great way to kick off the trip. Despite being located somewhat disconcertingly between a police station, a pharmacy, and a reputedly haunted theatre, and only having access through the rear of the shop, this place opens up inside. It’s three floors packed with books of all genres, including the traditional cupboard of science fiction and fantasy. Scattered around are musical instruments from drums to pianos that guests are encouraged to pick up and play. Oh yeah, and there’s a coffin on the wall too. And what did I find in the nerdy cupboard? Only a trio of H. Beam Piper novels I’ve been after for half my life. Absolutely incredible stuff.

heading into the city of Rochester on the coast of Lake Ontario, you’ll find a bunch more independent bookstores. Small World Books is a great place for properly vintage science fiction, with racks of yellow-spined DAW paperbacks, beaten-up Ace Doubles, and copies of old anthology magazines. I picked up some Poul Anderson here before heading out.

Also in Rochester is Book Ends, with another sizable stack of science fiction. Of particular note is the full bookcase of media tie-in fiction. I walked away with an armful of Star Trek (and could easily have bankrupted myself, such was the selection. If you’re a local looking for Warhammer fiction, you should definitely pay a visit, as it’s got the most impressive selection of used Black Library novels I’ve ever seen, including some really old stuff.

Rick’s Recycled Books caps off this section of the book haul in style. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside the shelves are positively groaning with used paperbacks. Hardly surprising when the books are stacked two deep and building up in piles on the floor. I could easily have spent a whole day searching through here, but we unfortunately had a dinner appointment. Nevertheless, I walked away having added a considerable amount of Ben Bova to my TBR. Finding these authors who never made much impact in the UK was the best bookish part of the trip.

On the way out of Rochester, we also paid a trip to a Barnes & Noble. While it’s an impressive store, I have to admit that I don’t fully understand how anyone affords to buy new books in the US. Even regular paperbacks are nearly half as expensive again as their British equivalents, and that’s just the price on the page. Unlike in the UK, US books have tax added to the price. Confusingly for a Brit like myself, tax in American shops isn’t added until checkout either, so you never really know how much you’re about to pay for that armful of paperbacks.

Back to cheaper books, we have the Friends of the Library Book Sale in Ithaca. Apparently one of the largest book sales in the US, I have no problem believing these claims. It’s a literal warehouse of used books, with prices that drop throughout the month. I loaded up on all sorts of odds and ends here, including some Isaac Asimov related works I only recently learned existed.

Mainly Books in Parma and Second Editions in Elmira were also very fun places to look around, even if I did ultimately walk home empty handed. Can’t day I’m too upset though. Any more books and fitting them all in my carry-on luggage would have been a bit tricky.

Reading? What Reading?

All of these adventures left me with little time to read. In fact, I only read five books in the whole month, a record low since I started tracking my reading. Mind you, it was nice to take a break from straining my eyes. I’ve already put up my review of A.E. van Vogt’s The World of Null-A, but I also read an anthology by the name of Science Fiction Masterpieces that, for once, lived up to it’s promise. The MYSTERY BOOK! to which I have alluded previously was Richard C. Meredith’s We All Died At Breakaway Station. A present for my girlfriend, but one that I naturally snuck in a read of first. I also borrowed her copy of Death In Winter, thus filling in a gap in my Star Trek reading. And finally, I pushed through jetlag to read Poul Anderson’s For Love and Glory. There’ll be reviews of all those in the next week or so, but for now I’ll just comment that while the number of books is lower than usual, I thoroughly enjoyed my reading this month.

I also managed to get a rare ARC review up. Thanks to a spot of miscommunication, I ended up with a digital version of Michael Mammay’s Generation Ship that took me multiple months to finish. Though enjoyable, I don’t rate it as highly as his previous works. You’ll have to read it for yourself to see if you agree with my thoughts.

Any Other Business?

Thanks to a very quick review of Strange New Worlds, I managed to keep up my track record of at least one post a week. Taking things a bit quieter for a month has definitely refreshed me, and I’ll be coming back in November with all manner of madcap schemes to bring science fiction to the masses. I hope you’ll join me.