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Those Fortean Times Books

H

hokum6

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Apr 22, 2005
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Remember the books that used to be available a few years back that were collections of back issues? I bought several when they were on sale but stupidly never got the complete collection. Can someone tell me the missing names so I can fill in the gaps? I've got:

Diary of a Mad Planet
Seeing out the Seventies
Strange Attractors

Also, if anyone wants to sell theirs get in touch.
 
hokum6 said:
Diary of a Mad Planet
Seeing out the Seventies
Strange Attractors

Also, if anyone wants to sell theirs get in touch.
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Yesterday's News Tomorrow
Gateway to Mystery
Heavens Reprimands
If Pigs Could Fly
Fishy Yarns

Not a complete list but some more

Gordon
 
Not forgetting...

Memories of Hell
Bonfire of the Oddities
The Plumber from Lhasa

Still kicking myself for not having the money/brains to buy those up when they were out. Still, I was circa 14. Now about these CD ROMs..
 
The only Fortean book I have was given to me as a birthday present when I was 17 - but since I am at work and the book is at home, I can't recall the title! It was a collection of articles from the "Strange Days" section of the mag, and the book was published in 1991 - if anyone can recall its name before I get home from work and check the title for myself and post it here, I'd be happy!
 
47Forteans said:
The only Fortean book I have was given to me as a birthday present when I was 17 - but since I am at work and the book is at home, I can't recall the title! It was a collection of articles from the "Strange Days" section of the mag, and the book was published in 1991 - if anyone can recall its name before I get home from work and check the title for myself and post it here, I'd be happy!
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Found it! The book I have is "The World's Most Incredible Stories", published in 1991, with a foreword by Lyall Watson. Does anyone else have this book?
 
MsPix said:
Me, me, me as well!
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It was my first introduction to all things Fortean, and for six years my only thing Fortean until I quite by happy accident found the February 2001 issue, and have never looked back. And then I found the site and now All-Things-Are-Fortean!
 
There were also the much missed Fortean Studies books, which had more depth on specific subjects. Got all of those except the last one. I fear academic print, particularly goofy stuff, may be in its last throws. We shall not see their like again :cry:
 
Might be worth compiling a list of all FT-published books for reference... I've put ??? where I don't know the title. Any more? (I'll update this message)

Anthologies
1-15 Yesterday's News Tomorrow
16-25 Diary of a Mad Planet
26-30 Seeing out the Seventies
31-36 Gateways to Mystery
37-41 Heaven's Reprimands
42-46 If Pigs Could Fly
47-51 Fishy Yarns
52-56 Bonfire of the Oddities
57-62 Strange Attractors
63-67 The Plumber from Lhasa
68-72 Memories of Hell
73-77 A Mouthful of Mysteries
78-82 ??? }
83-87 ??? } no anthology?
88-92 ??? }
93-97 Snakes Alive!

Fortean Studies vols 1-7

John Brown/FT editions of Fort's works
Lo!
New Lands

Paperback series
Inept Crime
Strange Deaths
More Strange Deaths
Life's Losers
Weird Sex
Exploding Pigs
Bizarre Behaviour
Close Shaves
Medical Mayhem

FT Index (1997)

Larger format
Strange Days #1, #2
The World's Most Incredible Stories
Weird World 1996, 1999

Others
Book of the Millennium
Book of Unconventional Wisdom
Book of Dooms and Disasters
UFOs 1947-87
The Comedian Who Choked to Death on a Pie
Aliens Ate My Trousers (Hunt Emerson)
Fortean Times (audiobook)

Lost Lands and Sunken Cities - Nigel Pennick
Lake monster traditions: a cross-cultural analysis by Michel Meurger & Claude Gagnon

edit: there's already a similar list on Wikipedia with ISBNs etc.
 
ttaarraass said:
73-77 A Mouthful of Mysteries
78-82 ???
83-87 ???
88-92 ???
93-97 Snakes Alive!
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I'm not even sure if issues 78-92 were anthologised! I just dug out an old mag (FT111) in order to satisfy my curiosity and it shows (p44) A Mouthful of Mysteries and Snakes Alive as both available for sale, but with no reference to compilations of the intervening issues. A brief sampling of later issues doesn't make it any clearer either. Hadn't noticed this before...

PB
 
Inept Crime
Book of the Millennium
Book of Unconventional Wisdom

I think Bob Rickard still holds the publishing rights of (past) Fortean Studies - I know the title is still his.

Gordon
 
Reading earlier issues of FT reveals that there was once a 'Fortean Tomes' imprint, the titles of which I'd love to be available again for those of us who missed them first time around. I suspect that attempting to compile a list of all these books may prove to be a fool's errand... ;)
 
I've got the Fortean Tomes' "Lost Lands and Sunken Cities" by Nigel Pennick.
 
I see the FT index (97) is in there. What a delightfully cranky idea, a must have for the completist but who would give that the nod as a publishing idea today? Was there a later index?

That was when mags were run by fans, I kinda miss the Gestetner aesthetic. Which brings me to another quirk - does anyone else feel 60s and 70s muddy, large dot, Sunday tabloid images of polts and stuff are more chilling than digital colour photos? I only have to see a high contrast flash lit black and white shot of a flying pan to be transported back to a childhood of infinite scary possibilities.
 
Actually, Dennis Publishing, who currently publish Fortean Times (and Bizarre, and Viz) is still run independently by Felix Dennis, who was one of the editors of counterculture mag Oz back in the 60s - so FT is still about as independent as it can be, for a magazine of its circulation.
 
Fair nuff. It wasn't a diss of the publisher, just a dewy eyed yearn for the kitchen table underground of yore.
 
After the index book for issue 1 - 66 the idea continued in Fortean Studies with the last one being in FS 7 and it was an index up to 129 (although some of the later ones were only partial indexes).

Some of the Compilations of FT were Fortean Tomes others were JBP.

Gordon
 
gordonrutter said:
After the index book for issue 1 - 66 the idea continued in Fortean Studies...
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D'oh. I should know that as I have the books. Some articles warrant more space than FT can give them but are too slim for a book - though that never stops some books ;) FS was a good vehicle for those tweenies to see the light of day.
 
For those interested, the following are for sale in Courtyard Books (Glastonbury)

1-15 Yesterday's News Tomorrow
16-25 Diary of a Mad Planet
26-30 Seeing out the Seventies
31-36 Gateways to Mystery
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I'd guess the price is about £20 or so.
 
I've got Fortean Studies 1 for sale if you're interested - PM me if so.
 
A while back when they had the clearance sale on the FT books I bought several, thinking it'd be a perfect opportunity to fill the gaps in my collection. Unfortunately, as well as taking about a month to turn up, they also managed to screw up the order, so instead of the three or four I'd ordered I got about three copies of The Plumber From Lhasa.

Do you have any books left at all, or were they really the last batch?
 
I believe they were the last batch, as I phoned up the day after the sale began (I think?) and they said there were none left.

However, I've since managed to get the whole set by watching on ebay and Amazon.
 
FT books

ttaarraass said:
I believe they were the last batch, as I phoned up the day after the sale began (I think?) and they said there were none left.

However, I've since managed to get the whole set by watching on ebay and Amazon.
Click to expand...

Once again, apologies for the continuing confusion.

There was a major communication problem with last year's sale - a lot of the staff on the phone lines at Dovetail (the company who warehouse the subscription stock) hadn't been informed that there was a sale so didn't know of any discount prices - some didn't even know there was any FT stock there. (This saga is documented elsewhere on the Message Board.)

The problem is that storing anything in a warehouse is very costly and it was eating away the meagre profit that FT was contributing to the publisher, given that sales of books and back issues were no more than a trickle. Don't ask me to defend capitalism, because I can't, but the harsh reality is that to continue producing the magazine for a relatively wide readership requires some benefit to the publishing house.

So the scheme was to shift as much of the the existing stock as possible at knock-down prices and then ditch the rest (yes, I know, it's horrific but there was little option).

However (cutting to the chase) for unknown reasons not unconnected to the above-mentioned communication problems, that excess stock was not thrown away after last year's sale, so some books and back issues are (last I heard) still held at Dovetail. They have now been instructed again to ditch all that material, which should happen in the next few days. You might still be able to buy things from them, but you'll have to move fast.
 
Try this: 0844 815 0855

Further contact details can be found on their rather pretentious website, which promises a level of customer service somewhat at odds with the balls-up that was the Clearance Sale.

Good luck....

PB
 
Thanks. It'd be nice - and this may be crazy talk - if I could get the books I actually ordered, rather than three copies of one.

Does anyone want to buy The Plumber From Lhasa? I'm having a clearance sale!
 
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