Robert Asprin: Thieves' World

    It's no secret I'm a huge fan of Thieves' World. Growing up, and especially in middle school, anything Robert Asprin was my kind of fantasy. Mix a little humor, with equal parts high fantasy, and add a splash of random nuttiness and you find yourself at one of the greatest fantasy book series collaborations of all time.

     For me it started back in the early 80's, and reading the back of this book in the library started a whole realm of free thinking and imagination brewing in my adolescent mind. Some of the authors I followed through the years, most really, originated in the storytelling in this very first book. Robert Asprin also caught my attention with other series, notably, MythAdventures and Phule's Company. Admittedly I did not read Phule's Company until I was an adult, but loved it all the same.

     Another few authors that have contributed a lot to the series, Jody Lynn Nye and Lynn Abbey, kept my interest in other series all through the 80's and early 90's. These are still common to find books, being available in a multitude of different omnibuses, comics, and reprints. A first edition first printing paperback sells for around $15 on ebay. The role playing game Sanctuary fetches around $50, and anything autographed by Asprin or Abbey can drive up the price a little bit, but the books are not in high demand at the moment. I've had a great deal of luck getting first editions on Amazon, ebay, and thrift stores around my area.

     Do yourself a favor, buy these books while they are cheap. They have a cult following for a reason, the world is immerse, the characters priceless and the stories you will remember forever.

*Note* I took all the pictures at my desk in my office. The autographed copy I have is the book cover only, given out at conventions during a book promotion tour for the original Thieves' World. Yes I used my broken iPhone, but i realized it still takes great close up photos!

I bought someone's collection.

     I typically cruise craigslist about twice a week for books. Almost always, I find nothing. I've only been lucky around five times on craigslist in six or so years, and it was someone advertising from a flea market or garage sale. As the title suggests, I did indeed buy someones small, 160+ book collection for $20.00.

     Kid moved out, dad tried to get in to some of the R. A. Salvatore books, and said they were a little too violent for his taste. He was asking $40, and said he had 142 books, and he happened to be only three block away from my house. I pulled a $20 from the ATM at 711, pulled up to his house five minutes later and offered half of what he was asking. He was very happy to take it, said they were taking up too much damned room in his garage. I took the boxes and put them in the car and started to drive away, when he called me. "Come back, I found another box and some loose ones." I turned around, and he left them in a pile in the middle of his driveway for me to take.

   

     Unfortunately my camera on my phone is really blurry lately, except for close up images, so I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I normally would. I did take the blurry one above, and one more..

     A book mark from a book store/cafe in North Carolina called Bogarts. Almost all of the hard covers had one of their multicolored book marks, and their stickers were on almost all of the books, which I had to take off. I guess I'm plugging a place I've never been, but their website is cool, and I wish we had a book cafe in SWFL. http://www.bogartsbookstore.com/

    This adds a significant amount of books to the book case in my office, that already contained 450ish books, so I will be buying another two bookcases in the coming months. I'll do a collection update after I get my phone fixed, I've picked up a few hundred more books since October of last year.

Happy New Year!

     I will say one thing: The best part of the new year, is that the old one is behind us, and what a year it was! I'll give you a quick update on what's been going on since October: Work. Heaps upon heaps of work and work related nonsense. I still love my job, and everything is going well. Often times I feel under appreciated, but I suppose that's pretty much any job you do, and I'm prone to those feelings no matter what. I never did find out what was going on with the web hosting. I paid for and bought the domain, moved everything over, paid the Blogger fee, and boom, it was magic and pretty easy actually. Firsteditionfantasy.com was doing it's thing, then poof, it's gone. Had to undo everything to get the blog back online. Google never responded to any of my help requests and emails, so here we are back at the old digs.

     What did I accomplish this year? (personal, blog, professional)

1) Blog is at an all time high on the visitor front.
2) I had lunch with the Mayor of the city I live in.
3) I joined several charity organizations.
4) My wife and I bought a dog, his name is Ollie.
5) Lost some weight.

     Professionally and personally, 2015 was by far the best year of my life. I've made new lasting friendships, and knocked out some long term goals past last year's ones.. namely, buying a house, and improving my living situation in general. Thankfully, some new book stores and thrift shops opened not too far from me, so it looks like fresh content is on it's way.

Cheers,
Major