Just a quick note to all the Jim Steinmeyer fans. He has two new
books out which you probably won't find in magic shops (because they
don't deal with magic...exactly).
The first book is titled:
CHARLES FORT The Man Who Invented the Supernatural
This is the biography of Charles Hoy Fort (1874-1939). He wrote a
series of books between 1919 and 1932 that dealt with what he termed
"the excluded". I would put these items somewhere between the "X-
Files and the Twilight Zone".
What he did was go through every issue of the various science magazine
and newspapers of going back 100+ years and clip out all of the
strange and weird stories. Then he put them into his various books
(the subject of Steinmeyer's 2nd book I'll discuss below).
This book however deals almost exclusively with Charles Fort's
biography. For most of his life he was a frustrated writer living in
the poor house. And unlike the women of today he actually found a
wife who would live under these conditions and encourage him to write
(god I wish I could find a woman like that).
The first half of the book is a quite depressing, poor old Charles
couldn't get a break to save his life. He was so fat that many people
said he was a dead ringer for Oliver Hardy (of Laurel & Hardy fame).
The book picks up and really gets interesting at a chapter titled "X
Exists". This can best be described as Charles Fort's Unified Field
Theory of the supernatural (how all these strange occurances are
connected).
My favorite Charles Fort theory, and this is something that has stuck
in my head since I first read his books as a teenager, is that "We are
property". Meaning that this entire earth is the property of someone
else. And guess who the custodians are? All the UFO reports since
biblical times fit the bill nicely. To me this idea alone was decades
ahead of its time.
This is a wonderful biography, and Jim Steinmeyer is one of my
favorite writers in magic. He's not a hack like most writers of magic
books (myself included), he's a professional writer and has put out
another great book.
Hardcover. $25.00 (less over at Amazon.com) One of the most
fantastic dustjackets I've ever seen. I'm going to run it through a
color copier for a poster in my office.
Jim Steinmeyer's second NEW book this month is titled:
THE BOOK OF THE DAMNED The Collected Works of Charles Fort
All I can say about this book is WOW! Steinmeyer has taken all four
of Charles Forts books and put them under one cover! This isn't the
first time a publisher has done this, but it's never had such
mesmerizing and beautiful covers! If you've ever seen those old
Amazing Stories and comic book magazine covers from the 1920s and 30s,
think of all of them on one cover! I'd love to see this cover made
into a large poster.
THE BOOK OF THE DAMNED was Charles Forts first book dealing with the
supernatural. This book not only contains an exact reprint of that
book, it also contains 3 more books in their entirety:
-THE BOOK OF THE DAMNED
-NEW LANDS
-LO!
-WILD TALENTS
This book is as big as a New York City telephone book, over 2 inches
thick! Every page is packed with fantastic (and supposedly true)
stories of the unexplained.
In order to keep me from having further explain the contents of this
book I ask you to check out the synopsis and reviews over on Amazon.com
Just type in "Steinmeyer, Jim" to bring up both of the books discussed
in this post.
THE BOOK OF THE DAMNED. Softcover. 1062 pages. And this edition has
something none of the other Fort works ever had, a 63 PAGE INDEX!
-Leary-
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