Some more library additions, with no particular theme except books signed by the author.
Posts Tagged ‘Greg Bear’
Library Additions: A Random Collection of Signed Books
Monday, November 18th, 2013Worldcon 2011 Photos for Friday, August 19
Saturday, August 20th, 2011I would have had more, but my battery died early.
A CapClave image for Howard Waldrop.
Ditto. Just your standard chain-mail-clad dodo riding a Dachshund.
Gordon Van Gelder.
Larry Niven.
Nancy Kress, Jack Skillingstead, unknown.
Greg Bear and Jean Johnson.
Tags:Capclave, David Brin, Gordon Van Gelder, Greg Bear, Jack Skillingstead, Nancy Kress, photos, Reno, Science Fiction, Worldcon
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Library Additions: January 22, 2011—August 7, 2011
Sunday, August 7th, 2011The book-buying continues apace here at Stately Person Manor since the last roundup. Many were bought from a notable SF book dealer having a sale. And some weren’t even bought, as there’s a large number of unclaimed Nova Express proofs and ARCs that were integrated into my own library after I cleaned my office. All of these are Fine hardback first editions in Fine dust jackets, unless otherwise noted. Signed book are noted, except for recent titles where the entire run was signed (like several Subterranean Press books).
Books that I have available for sale through Lame Excuse Books are marked LEB (though some of those titles won’t appear on the stock page until after I send out my next book catalog, which will probably be late this month or early next; email me if you’d like to get on the mailing list to received it).
And if perchance you’re new to my mad bibliomania, the most comprehensive post on my library can be found here.
Now the books:
Previous posts on my book collection:
Most Significant Book Acquisitions in 2010
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011You may have noticed that I bought a lot of books last year. Since I’m getting ready to do another “this is what I bought recently” post, I thought I would do a recap of my most significant acquisitions in 2010. These may be significant for being important, valuable, cool, beautiful, hard to find, or some combination therefore. As usual, all of these are Fine/Fine copies unless otherwise listed. Ala George Locke’s Spectrum of Fantasy volumes, I’m listing where I got them and how much I paid, plus occasional notes on the books (with links if I’ve already described them before).
- Bear, Greg. Sleepside Story. Cheap Street, 1988. One of 52 signed and numbered, traycased “publisher’s edition” copies, a fine copy in tray case, sans dust jacket. For full details see here. Bought for $175 from a notable SF book dealer having a 50% off sale.
- Bradbury, Ray. Dark Carnival. Arkham House, 1946. First edition hardback, good only, with lettering on spine almost completely worn away, spine lean, general wear, and lacking the dust jacket. Bought from someone selling their late father’s collection (mostly, alas, book club editions) for $20.
- Brunner, John. Stand on Zanzibar. Doubleday, 1968. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with just the tiniest bit of wear. Replaces an ex-library copy. (I bought this online back in June for $199.99 and forgot to list it last time around.) Brunner’s undisputed masterpiece.
- Dick, Philip K. Eye in the Sky. Gregg Press, 1979. First hardback edition. Fine-, with a tiny bit of crimping at head, sans dust jacket, as issued. Bought from a notable SF dealer having 50% off sale. Replaced an Ex-library copy in my collection.
- Dick, Philip K. Vulcan’s Hammer. Gregg Press, 1979. First hardback edition. Fine, sans dust jacket, as issued. Replaced an Ex-library copy in my collection.
- Hill, Joe. Horns. PS Publishing, 2010. First UK and first limited edition hardback, one of 200 copies signed by both the author and artist Vincent Chong in traycase with three extra chapters not in the trade edition, extra art not in any other edition, etc. a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket and traycase. Notably thicker than the slipcased edition. Bought at a pre-publication dealer discount from the publisher.
- Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Chatto & Windus, 1932. VG- only, lacking the dust jacket. Bought for $35 from a notable SF book dealer having a 50% off sale. I don’t usually buy books without dust jackets, but the price was right for this space-filling copy of this famous dystopia.
- Lafferty, R. A. The Devil is Dead. Gregg Press, 1977. First hardback edition, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. Found at Recycled Books in Denton for $36. Replaces a more worn copy in my library. For a while this wasn’t too hard to find, but recently copies have become scarce. In fact, it seems like a lot of the rarer Lafferty books have gotten scarce as of late. Looks like years of just about every SF writer talking up Lafferty have finally paid off…
- Lovecraft, H.P. Collected Poems. Arkham House, 1963. VG/VG, with top inch of boards discolored and sun-fading to dj spine. Bought at auction for $75.
- Oliver, Chad. The Wolf is My Brother. Herbert Jenkins, 1968. First UK and first hardback edition, a Near Fine copy in a Good+ only dust jacket, missing an irregular 3/4″ x 1/2″ chip at head, and shallow chipping and edgewear. I didn’t even know there was a hardback until I chanced across this copy (though it is in Currey). No other copy online as of this writing. Bought for $50 during a Half Price Books coupon sale.
- Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Secker & Warburg, 1949. See here for full details. Arguably the most important novel of the 20th century. Bought from a notable SF book dealer for $500.
- Powers, Tim. Deliver Us From Evil. Charnel House, 2010. One of 100 signed, numbered copies in slipcase with accompanying manuscript page. See here for full details. Bought at a pre-publication dealer discount from the publisher.
- (Powers, Tim) Berlyne, John, editor. Powers: Secret Histories: A Bibliography. PS Publishing, 2009. One of 26 signed, lettered Deluxe copies in slipcase with two companion volumes, The Waters Deep, Deep, Deep and bound, photographic reproduction of the original hand-written manuscript for The Anubis Gates, not included with the trade or Slipcased editions. Slipcase and Anubis Gates volume very slightly bumped, otherwise Fine/Fine.
- Temple, William F. 88 Gray’s Inn Road. Sansato Press (AKA Ferret Fantasy), 2000. Roman-a-clef that features a thinly-disguised Arthur C. Clarke (who provides the introduction) as a character, with Clarke’s signature plate affixed to the FFE, reportedly one of only 50 such copies. Found at Recycled Books in Denton, priced the same as the non-signed edition (I paid $32 for it). Replaced a non-signed copy in my collection.
- Vance, Jack. Bird Isle/Take My Face. Underwood/Miller, 1988. One of 500 signed, numbered sets in slipcase. Found at Recycled Books in Denton for $160 for the set.
- Vance, Jack. The Dark Side of the Moon. Underwood/Miller, 1986. One of 200 signed/numbered copies. One of the rarest Underwood/Miller Vance books. (Are they being snapped up by Pink Floyd fans?) Found at Recycled Books in Denton for $160. Replaced a trade copy in my library.
- Wells, H. G. The World of William Clissold. Published by Ernest Benn (UK) 1926 in three volumes, one of 198 copies signed by Wells on the title page. For full details see here. Bought at the main Austin Half Price Books for $175, marked down from $350, during their coupon sale. Scott Cupp told me this copy formerly belonged to him, and that he obtained it at one of UT’s library sales.
H. G. Wells: The World of Williams Cissold, three volume set of the first edition, signed by Wells
The limitation page, with H. G. Wells' signature
- Zelazny, Roger. Bridge of Ashes. Gregg Press, 1979. (Replaces my Ex-Library copy.) Found at Recycled Books in Denton for $40.
- Zelazny, Roger. Hymn to the Sun: An Imitation. NA Publications, 1996. Poetry chapbook, a Near Fine- copy with some rubbing to price code on rear cover, spot on front cover, and black dot at heel. I missed this when it came out, and it’s been devilishly hard to find. Bought it off a dealer on Amazon, of all places, for abut $25. (99 times out of 100, Amazon is going to be higher than buying directly from a dealer on Bookfinder for collectible books.)
- Zelazny, Roger. Nine Princes in Amber. Doubleday, 1970. An Ex-Library copy, but cleaner than the Ex-Library copy previously in my collection. Reportedly Doubleday ordered their warehouse to pulp all Zelazny’s books the same day this came in from the printer, so only review copies, pre-orders, and library copies escaped the pulper, which is why non-Ex-Library copies are exceedingly rare. The first Amber novel, and one of Zelazny’s best. Found at Recycled Books in Denton for $160.
Recent Library Acquisitions: Greg Bear’s Sleepside Story
Monday, January 3rd, 2011I have a complete collection of Greg Bear’s first edition hardbacks (though I do still need to pick up a copy of the recently published Hull Zero Three). However, until recently I was missing two Bear books, one very easy to find (Foundation and Chaos, a copy of which I just picked up at one-quarter the publisher’s price), and the other one, the Cheap Street Sleepside Story, very expensive. However, I finally picked up a copy from a noted SF dealer having a 50% off sale (the same dealer I bought the first edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four from) for $175.
Here are some pictures. The open book and traycase are too large to fit on my scanner, and the visible weave of the cloth made it hard to get a good picture without getting moire patterns:
Full description:
Bear, Greg. Sleepside Story. Cheap Street, 1988. First edition hardback, one of 127 total copies, of which this is one of 52 copies signed by Bear and artist Judy King-Rieniets comprising the “Publisher’s Edition,” done in two-part red and black Japanese cloth, a fine copy in Japanese cloth tray case, without dust jacket, as issued.
For those unaware of the press, Cheap Street was the imprint of Nan and George O’Nale, founded in 1980, doing very small runs of beautiful, hand-bound books. (Jack Chalker noted that they were the only publishers that refused to provide information for The Science Fantasy Publishers, the massive book on SF small presses that he and Mark Ownings compiled, and described them as temperamental, secretive, and hostile, at least to him. Like many of Jack’s descriptions in The Science Fantasy Publishers, there are probably several grains of truth to that view which also need to be taken with several grains of salt…) The last science fiction book they did was Howard Waldrop’s Flying Saucer Rock and Roll (which I also have), though Howard tells me they did one non-SF book after that, a book of jokes related to the Forest Service (which George O’Nale had evidently worked for). Unfortunately, in 2003 the O’Nale’s committed double-suicide, leaving behind careful instructions as to where their bodies would be found and for the disposition of their estate.
I don’t have a complete Cheap Street set, though I do have a goodly number, and hope to pick up the rest when I can find them at attractive prices.
Edited to Add: This first issue of Andrew Porter’s fanzine Monadock reprints the Roanoke Times piece on the O’Nale suicide, the original of which no longer appears to be up on the Roanoke Times website.
Greg Bear: Project Gutenberg Screwed Up
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010You may remember this post on how a lot of science fiction was showing up in the public domain at Project Gutenberg (which was picked up by SF Signal, Io9, etc.).
Well, Greg Bear and Astrid Anderson Bear, his wife and daughter of Poul Anderson (whose works were among those put up by Project Gutenberg), are saying that Project Gutenberg screwed up:
After conducting legal research on the LEXIS database of legal cases, decisions, and precedents, we have demonstrated conclusively that PG was making incorrect determinations regarding public domain status in many, many works that originally appeared in magazine form. The Poul Anderson estate has been able to get one work, “The Escape”, that PG had firmly declared to be public domain, removed from their site. PG’s original reasoning was that since the magazine it appeared in had never actually filed for copyright, the work was unprotected. “The Escape”, printed in 1953, was the first half of Anderson’s well-known novel BRAINWAVE, which was published and properly copyrighted the following year.
However, even if ‘The Escape” had not been published as a novel, it would have remained under copyright protection until 1981 (28 years) and been eligible for copyright renewal. Authors of that era, and Anderson in particular, were very aware of the need to renew copyrights, and typically meticulously kept their copyright protections up to date. Copyright law for works created more recently is much easier: life plus 70 years. (Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, 1998).
(snip)
In general, Project Gutenberg is doing a tremendous service by making available texts that have truly long since fallen out of copyright, but they are clearly overstepping their original mandate. They are not merely exploiting orphan works, but practicing a wholesale kidnapping of works that are under copyright protection. Authors and estates need to aggressively take back what belongs to them.
I would imagine that Project Gutenberg may very well be hearing not only from the estates of Philip K. Dick and Leigh Brackett, but from lawyers for the still-very-much alive Frederik Pohl, Norman Spinrad and Jack Vance…
My Book-Hunting Trip to Archer City and Points East (and New Acquisitions Found There)
Sunday, January 24th, 2010Since I attended a family event in the Dallas Metroplex over the 1/15/10-1/17/10 weekend, I took the opportunity to do something I had long wanted to do: Visit Larry McMurtry’s Booked-Up book store (actually spread across four buildings) in Archer City.
The drive itself (a solid five hours) completely redefined my “ass end of nowhere” scale. It’s pretty far away from anything else, so only serious bibliophiles need apply.
As for the store itself, there’s a huge amount of stuff for a general book hunter to look for (especially in areas like pamphlets, foreign language books, Texana, literary criticism, and probably several others), but not a whole lot of SF/F/H. I found about $50 worth of stuff, most of it in the general fiction section.
Then I drove to Recycled Books in Denton, and bought $1,200+ worth of stuff (and that was after my dealer discount).
By contrast, I found very little of interest at the main Half Price Books just of 75 in Dallas; all they seemed to have were multiple copies of very common titles. (I did a lot better when they were in a smaller building just down the block, the one with the boat-shaped section in the middle of the store.) Maybe their non-fiction section is more worth browsing.
Below is the list of books I’m adding to my own library, including items from Recycled Books, Booked Up, and a three different Half Price Books. All of these are Fine/Fine first edition hardback copies, unless otherwise noted:
- Ash, Brian. Who’s Who in Science Fiction. Elm Tree, 1976.
- Beagle, Peter S. The Folk of the Air. Del Rey, 1986.
- Bear, Greg. Beyond Heaven’s River. Dell, 1980. PBO. VG+. Also have the hardback.
- Bear, Greg. Quantico. HarperCollins (UK), 2005.
- Blaylock, James P. The Rainy Season. Ace, 1999.
- Brunner, John. No Future in It. Gollancz, 1962.
- Cherry, C. J. Voyager in Night. DAW, 1984. (Book club and only hardback.)
- De Camp, L. Sprague. Solomon’s Stone. Avalon, 1957.
- Emshwiller, Carol. Joy in Our Cause. Harper & Row, 1974.
- Franzen, Charles. Cold Mountain. Fine/Fine save for name written inside. Pulitzer Prize winner that I’d been looking for for several years, and an example of why you look at 199 copies of an otherwise common book to see if each is a first edition, because that 200th copy just might be it…
- Jackson, Shirley. Come Along With Me. Viking, 1968. Fine in a Near Fine- dj with price sticker on inner flap and very shallow (less than 1/32″) chipping at head and heel.
- Koontz, Dean R. (as Leigh Nichols). Shadowfires. Avon, 1987. Book club and first hardback edition.
- Kornbluth, C. M. Christmas Eve. Michael Joseph, 1956.
- Lafferty, R. A. The Devil is Dead. Gregg Press, 1978. Replaces a more worn copy in my library.
- Le Guin, Ursula. Rocannon’s World. Garland Press, 1975. First hardback edition, Fine, sans dj, as issued.
- Lupoff, Pat & Dick. The Best of Xero. Tachyon Publications, 2004.
- Malzberg, Barry. In the Stone House. Arkham House, 2000.
- Moorcock, Michael. The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius. Alison & Busby, 1976.
- Moorcock, Michael. The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius. HAARP, 1987. (Contents differ from the above.)
- Morrow, James. The Wine of Violence. Holt, Reinhardt & Winston, 1984.
- Mundy, Talbot. The Purple Pirate. Gnome Press, 1959. (First Gnome Press edition.)
- Niven, Larry & Jerry Pournelle. Oath of Fealty. Phantasia Press, 1981. One of 750 signed, numbered copies, Fine/Fine in slipcase.
- Pratt, Fletcher. Well of the Unicorn. William Sloane, 1948. Fine/Near Fine dj, with review slip laid in.
- Sheckley, Robert. Journey Beyond Tomorrow. Gollancz, 1964. First hardback.
- Sheckley, Robert. Mindswap, Delacorte Press, 1966. Signed.
- Standish, David. Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth’s Surface. De Capo, 2006.
- Temple, WIlliam F. 88 Gray’s Inn Road. Sansato Press (AKA Ferret Fantasy), 2000. Roman-a-clef that features a thinly-disguised Arthur C. Clarke (who provides the introduction) as a character, with Clarke’s signature plate affixed to the FFE, reportedly one of only 50 such copies. Replaces the trade edition in my library.
- Wilhelm, Kate. Juniper Time. Harper & Row, 1979.
- Vance, Jack. Bird Isle/Take My Face. Underwood/Miller, 1988. One of 500 signed, numbered sets in slipcase.
- Vance, Jack. The Dark Side of the Moon. Underwood/Miller, 1986. One of 200 signed/numbered copies. Replaces a trade copy I’ll sell via my next Lame Excuse For a Book Catalog (in preparation).
- Vance, Jack. Trullion: Alastor 2262. Ballantine Books, 1973. (PBO)
- Waggoner, Diana. The Hills of Faraway A Guide to Fantasy. Atheneum, 1978.
- Williamson, Jack. Wonder’s Child: My Life in Science Fiction. Bluejay, 1984.
- Williamson, Jack (& E. C. Tubb). The Iron God (& Tomorrow). Gryphon Double Novel, 1999. TPO.
- Zelazny, Roger. Bridge of Ashes. Gregg Press, 1979. (Replaces my Ex-Library copy.)
- Zelazny, Roger. Nine Princes in Amber. Doubleday, 1970. An Ex-Library copy, but cleaner than the Ex-Library copy previously in my collection.
I also found a bunch more books that are going in this month’s Lame Excuse Books catalog.
So, if you’re going to be book shopping in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, by all means visit Recycled Books, which seems to be the best used bookstore in Texas. Visit Booked Up if you have the time to drive out that way, but the SF selection is fairly poor.