A friend is gradually culling the book collection of his mother, a literary academic, and I’ve been helping him seperate out books that might have some value from those that don’t. Here are three SF (or SF adjacent) critical works I saved for myself.
Normally I wouldn’t add reprints (or a book falling apart) to my reference library, but at “free” the price was certainly right…
Here’s a bibliography of a publisher I collect that I never picked up when it came out because I was already aware of every book in it because I was on the Ziesing mailing list for the last half of the period covered. But I do like having bibliographies, so I finally picked it up.
(Ziesing, Mark V.) Mark V. Ziesing Bibliography 1982-1993. Airtight Seels Allied Production (A.S.A.P.), 2003. First edition chapbook original, #43 of 200 numbered copies signed by “Introduction” author Lucius Shepard, “The Bus of Many Windows: A Digression on Mark V. Ziesing” author James P. Blaylock, illustrator Phil Parks, and Mark and Cynthia Ziesing, a Fine copy. Bought from the Mysterious Bookshop for $12.
I can tell you there are at least three notable errors/omissions.
First, it fails to note that there were far more than 1,600 trade editions of Joe R. Lansdale’s Cold in July and Savage Season. I’ve heard it rumored as many as 6,000 total (including the 500 copy limited edition) were printed, though I’m guessing 4,000 might be closer.
Second, it doesn’t mention that for some titles (including the Cold in July/Savage Season set, and Howard Waldrop’s Them Bones/A Dozen Tough Jobs sets) Ziesing ended up with extra slipcases and sold unsigned sets in them (as unsigned sets), I think upon request.
Third, it fails to mention the unpublished, first state dust jacket for Ray Garton’s Trade Secrets, the jacket copy for which was written by Andy Watson and which Mark Ziesing felt was too explicit. I lost an eBay bid for a copy with it, and my understanding is that about 10 copies escaped pulping.
Every now and then I come across something that’s not a book signed by an author I collect.
(Bradbury, Ray). Fahrenheit 451. Universal Studios, 2003. DVD of the 1966 Francois Truffaut film, let’s call it Fine, with only the seal at top slit, with sticker on front cover inscribed by Ray Bradbury: “Doug! 2006/Rosalie! XMAS Love! Ray B.” The auction listing said “Acquired at the estate sale of one of Bradbury’s best friends of 40 years.” Cursory investigation has not yielded who Doug and Rosalie might be, so further research is needed. Bought off eBay for $19.99.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, so it’s a dual-purpose purchase.
My signed(ish) hardback first of Fahrenheit 451 can be found here.
Writer John Crowley has died. He’s slightly difficult to talk about, in that I knew him (first from bumping into him at conventions and getting him to sign stuff, after which he friended me on Facebook), but not particularly well. I liked and collected his work, but he was a bit more hit and miss with me than the nigh-on-universal critical praise he received. I tried reading Little, Big around 18 or 19 and it didn’t click for me. (Despite which, I have the Gollancz first hardback edition of Little, Big, done in a ridiculously small print run of 300 copies, bought from Willie Siros’ personal collection and inscribed to him.) It was a slog getting through the first 120 pages of Engine Summer…but the last 40 pages are brilliant, and heartbreaking. Great Work of Time is a swell novella in which time a secret organization of time travelers trying to preserve the British Empire results in some rather radical changes up the line. I have all four volumes, but haven’t even tried reading his acclaimed Aegypt series yet.
I had just started reading Two Chapters in a Family Chronicle, one of four smallish books in The John Crowley Conway Miscellany set off Kickstarter (for which I still have signed copies available), when I heard news of his death.
He seemed like a nice guy, and a fine writer, and I enjoyed talking to him on the few occasions I got a chance to.
He will be missed.
After decades of failed attempts to film it, an adaptation of William Gibson’s Neuromancer is finally coming to Apple TV.
My first reaction to the trailer is: I don’t hate it. It hits a lot of the right notes. And Gibson is an executive producer on the show, so presumably it won’t drift too far from the book. (Then again, Gibson wrote the screenplay for Johnny Mnemonic, so he’s not exactly infallible…)
Maybe it was fate that delayed a media adaptation until there actually were wild AIs running around lose in cyberspace.
30 or even 20 years ago, this would have been big exciting news, but a lot of water has flowed under that bridge. People that were blown away by Neuromancer in college are entering Social Security eligibility. Many of the ideas of Cyberpunk have already been woven into the fabric of science fiction as a whole, and classic high tech/low life tropes have been around so long that they’re just another flavor of nostalgia now.
Not to mention a whole bunch of the younguns what never lived under Communism, or even the 1970s, claiming we already live in a Cyberpunk Dystopia.
Obviously I had to do the meme.
So it’s hard to say how it will land in January 2027.
I don’t have any streaming services, so I’ll have to wait for others to let me know if it’s any good.
I’m working on a complete Hal Clement collection, and this was one of the key titles I was missing.
Clement, Hal (pseudonym for Harry Clement Stubbs). Cycle of Fire. Ballantine Books, 1957. First edition hardback, an Ex-Library copy with all the usual flaws, including stamps on page block edged, inside covers and interior pages, tape ghosts, endpapers excised. etc., with wear along bottom boards, moderate crease to spine, and writing on lower spine, in a dust jacket with 1/4″ chips at head, sticker at heel, and severe sunfading to spine and an inch to free cover, completing fading the the title, and front label faded from orange to yellow, with a bit more wear at edges at points, otherwise intact; call it a Good/Very Good- Ex-Lib copy, signed by Clement (“Hal Clement” (Harry C. Stubbs)”). Hassley, Hal Clement, pages 33-37./ Currey, page 469. Pringle, Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, page 76. ought off a fellow Biblio dealer for $100, bargained down from considerably more. It’s been decades since I’ve seen a Fine/Fine copy offered for sale, and even Ex-Lib copies tend to list for several hundred dollars.
I knew Hal a little bit, having given him a ride back from an Armadillocon dinner decades ago. We talked about him flying B-24 Liberators in World War II.
Another addition to my library of signed Ray Bradbury firsts:
Bradbury, Ray. S is for Space. Doubleday, 1966. First edition hardback(“First edition” stated, as per Currey), a Near Fine- copy with a 1/4″ stripe of lightness across front, back and spine, probably from the binding process, a former owner’s name and address on front free endpaper, and slight wear at head, heel and points, in a Very Good- dust jacket with 1/4″ chips at head and heel, and smaller chips at points, silver dollar sized spot of light staining to rear cover with slight blind-side foxing, signed by Ray Bradbury. Currey, page 58. Pringle, Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, page 268. Bought off eBay for $200, bargained down from $250.
If you’re collecting every first edition of a popular, prolific writer’s books, chances are you may have to settle for a less-than-ideal copy of famous or (as in this case) hard-to-find titles.
Vance, Jack (as Alan Wade). Isle of Peril. Mystery House, 1957. First edition hardback, an Ex-Library copy with most of the usual flaws (pocket removal, old style dust jacket protector, etc.), otherwise a Good+ copy with wear to bottom boards, bumping at head and heel, black marks along top and bottom board edges due to an old-style dust jacket protector, a long, thin crease to spine, etc., in a Good only dust jacket with long (5″) now-closed tear across top third of dust jacket front, wrapping across spine and along to back panel, where it turns into a crease, held in place by the old style dust jacket protector, spine fading, and a wide variety of small lesser nicks, stains, etc.; a very well worn Ex-Library copy, but both book and jacket are essentially intact. Mystery novel. Hewett, A6.a. Cunningham, B.42. Currey, page 499. Stephenson-Payne/Benson, Jack Vance: A Fantastic Imagination (2nd revised Edition), B36. Hubin, page 408. Later republished as Bird Isle. In my experience, this is the hardest of Vance’s first edition novels to find. Bought off eBay for $32, and even in this condition, copies usually go for over $100.
I picked this up because I had the first two books in the War Dogs trilogy and I found this signed first for less than cover price.
Bear, Greg. Take back the Sky. Orbit, 2016. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket, signed by Bear. Third book in the War Dogs trilogy. Bought off a fellow Biblio dealer for $20.66 plus shipping
The final library addition from that Dozois auction buy.
Dozois, Gardner, editor. The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Collection. St. Martin’s Press, 2011. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine, Mylar-protected dust jacket, new and unread. One of the years St. Martin’s printed this on thin paper, so the volume is slimmer than usual even though it has the same number of pages as other Dozois volumes.
(Note: What look like whitish smudges near the top are scanner reflections from the Mylar dust jacket protector.)
Now the only Dozois Year’s Best volume I lack from my want list is Fifteenth.
If you’re looking for individual Dozois Year’s Best hardback first volumes, I’m going to have a whole bunch of pristine copies of carious years in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog, currently in progress.