This Just In....News from The Agony Column

07-03-03: 1 in a series of 89

Guin Saga # 1 Arrives in the US Guin Saga #1 features art direction by Chip Kidd. From Vertical-Inc -- the folks who brought you 'Ring' -- comes the first volume in what is purported to be an 89 book set. Vertical has an interesting strategy going here. I'll be talking more about this unique company in a column just as soon as I've finished the Macleod novel. This is the beginning of a fantasy epic about a leopard-masked warrior.

07-02-03: the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

More Children in Crime Why is that dog upside-down? The folks at Doubleday/Random House who brought you James Frey's 'A Million Little Pieces' are back with this extremely intriguing novel about a boy with Asperger's Syndrome who sets out to solve a small crime in his neighborhood. Long ago, I ordered a book for a friend of my wife about Asperger's Syndome from Amazon.com, and I still periodically get recommendations for other books about this condition. I love automation. I made the mistake of opening this book to page 1, and could hardly pull myself away. Haddon's evocation of Christoipher John Francis Boone is compelling and amazingly easy-to-read. Once I start it, look for a review the next day. 7/7/3 -- here's the review of 'the curious incident of the dog in the night-time'.

07-01-03: Now you too can have a casket coffee table!

CasketFurniture.com Brings Hoffa to You! If we could have pried open our old coffee table, what might we have found within? Readers might recall that last year I regaled them with tales of our coffee table with Jimmy Hoffa while rhapsodizing about editorial databases and my rather large genre descriptions. Well, courtesy Casketfurniture.com, you too can have your very own coffee table casket. The idea is to get some use out of your casket while your still alive. They have entertainment centers, clocks, phone booths and even beds. Who will be in your coffee table?

06-30-03: Captured by Aliens

Achenbach Looks Out There for Truth and Aliens Humor is essential when studying the flying saucer culture. Joel Achenbach's humorous 'Captured by Aliens' is finally going to get a trade paperback release next month, and it's about time. Yes, the constant drum of UFO sightings and alien abductions trumpeted by the various media to promote SF TV and movies has quieted down, but Achenbach brings a sense of humor to his study of believers and skeptics. Until they land the damn things on the White House Lawn -- probably not the best idea these days -- we can thank Achenbach and others like him, including CBD Bryan for their clever take on humanity and aliens. Of course, to readers, the humans always seem much weirder than the aliens.