Taxi! Taxi! In its recent post-mortem on...

Taxi! Taxi! In its recent post-mortem on the American Booksellers Assn. convention in Anaheim, Publishers Weekly reported highly favorable reviews of the Anaheim Convention Center, but Anaheim and environs were given a thumbs down by some disgruntled conventioneers. Whined one bookstore representative: “It’s a problem being in a cultural wasteland.”

Publishers Weekly tended to agree: “Surrounded by strips with a seemingly endless series of chain restaurants, gas stations, department stores and the like, the Convention Center seemed isolated. Adding to that feeling was the quite real problem of getting around. As Riki Levinson at Dutton put it, ‘You’re forced to stay inside and work” for lack of cabs. Maybe the cab situation will improve by the time the ABA returns to Anaheim in 1992.

Scary Tales: Maxine O’Callaghan’s “Dark Visions” (TOR), a chiller set in Orange County, is now in bookstores. It is the Mission Viejo writer’s fifth published novel. O’Callaghan, who is national treasurer and membership chairwoman of Horror Writers of America, recently returned from New York City and the organization’s first awards ceremony. Stephen King (“Misery”) and Robert McCammon (“Swan Song”) tied for superior achievement in the novel category, winning the group’s first Bram Stoker Award, named in honor of the author of “Dracula.”

Parker’s Latest: “Little Saigon,” T. Jefferson Parker’s new novel set in Orange County’s Little Saigon area, will receive an impressive 125,000 first printing by St. Martin’s Press and an equally impressive $125,000 advertising and promotional campaign. And unlike 1985 when Parker’s “Laguna Heat” was published by St. Martin’s, the Laguna Beach author will be sent on a 10-city promotional tour for “Little Saigon.” The novel has a September publication date but is expected to be in bookstores by late August. “Little Saigon” is one of only 84 fall titles highlighted at the ABA convention that are expected to have first printings of 100,000 copies or more, according to Publishers Weekly.