Saturday, January 27, 2007

A Veritable Cornucopia of Content!

In anticipation of the new online store for Fantastic Planet Books going live soon (and on general blogging principles as well), one of my many projects on the "To Do" list is to start posting more on the FPBlog. Hopefully I can post some observations and ideas about SFF and the book world in general, but also short reviews of various books I've read and liked (or not).

Luckily, rather than rack my brain and pull these articles out of the aether, I have a large stack on my desk of basically ALL the staff picks and recommended book shelf talkers from my nearly 10 years at Elliott Bay. Not only will it give me the opportunity to showcase the books I've loved, but it will be a great opportunity to revisit my reading history and reminisce with old friends, as it were.

Hopefully all my LJ friends with a prediliction for SFF books (probably most of you!) will find this entertaining and enlightening. Who knows you may even discover a book you will want to read for yourself!

Friday, January 19, 2007

Amusing email exchange

So I was emailing back and forth last night with the company that is creating a website for the store that will include a searchable database and secure server to allow direct shopping at FantasticPlanetBooks. We were discussing design aesthetics and what we envisioned our store site looking like...

Steve,
Classic, Contemporary, and Elegant are loose definitions. We use your style answers to guide us when building a "feel" for a store. We will use graphics and colors to give a store an elegant, classic, or contemporary feel. For example, a room painted white with fine antique furniture would be considered elegant, but that same room painted green with bean bag chairs would be considered contemporary.
Sincerely,
Lance

Lance,
Based on that, I would say in our imagination that our Science Fiction and Fantasy bookstore would look similar to a bookstore out of Fritz Lang's Metropolis--a sort of Art Deco Futurist library that Captain Nemo would feel at home in, but Captain Picard would recognize and appreciate in the Holodeck.

If that's too geeky, let's just say Contemporary.
Steve

To which the poor guy merely responded:
We will do our best

I'm sure he's beating his forhead against the desk, wondering why the gods have saddled him with geeks like us...