Here’s the third and final list of books I bought at Recycled Books in Denton for my own library. (Here’s Part One and Part Two). A few more will show up in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog. Again, I didn’t pay more than $40 for anything here, and most were less.
I had a family Christmas event at my aunt’s house in Dallas over the weekend, so I hit a few bookstores on my way up I-35, buying a smattering of things.
Then I went to Recycled Books in Denton and dropped $1,100. (This is not an uncommon occurrence.) This post just covers the things I found in their locked rare books section; the rest will be covered in posts over the next few days. (I’m running out of year!))
From Michael Swanwick comes the sad news that Rosemary Wolfe, Gene Wolfe’s wife of more than 50 years, has died.
I don’t have a lot to add to Michael’s write-up. I knew that she had been suffering for ill health for some time, and had been confined to 24-hour care for over a year.
My condolences to Gene and the rest of the Wolfe family on her passing.
Here’s a scanned picture of Gene and Rosemary on their wedding day from A Wolfe Family Album:
And here’s a picture of Gene and Rosemary (with Elizabeth Hand in-between) at the 2009 Readercon:
Another acquisition from my recent book-buying spree:
Vance, Jack. Gold and Iron. Underwood/Miller, 1982. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with a slight wrinkle at rear heel. Previously published in paperback as Slaves of the Klau. Hewett, A9e.
Another notable book from the golden age of the genre small press:
Moore, C.L. Judgment Night. Gnome Press, 1952. First edition hardback, a Near Fine+ copy with slight crimping at head and heel, mild foxing to inner gutters, and a few tiny spots of wear to bottom boards, in a Near Fine+ dust jacket with 1/4″ closed tear at heel, slight wrinkling at rear head, and a touch of edgewear. A truly superb, bright example of the dust jacket. Collection of five longer stories. Currey (1978), Page 377. Chalker/Owings (1991), page 199. Anatomy of Wonder 4, 3-130. Bought for $65 off eBay.
I knew that dealing books at Worldcon would eat up a lot of time, but I had no idea just how much time it would take me to not only get all the books back on the shelf, but to catch up on everything I set aside while getting ready for, then recovering from, Worldcon.
Which explains why I’m just now putting up the pictures I took there. Here are the handful of pictures I took at Worldcon that came out decent.
Clotheshorse that she is, the lovely and talented Gail Carriger kicks off our review with the first of three outfits I managed to photograph.
A second.
And a third.
And here’s the same outfit she insisted I snap with her own camera. “You’ve got to include the shoes!”
Stina Leicht, sitting next to me at the Rayguns Over Texas event at the San Antonio Library.
Scott Cupp and Josh Rountree at the same event. The other photos I took there came out crappy.
Bookseller and con chair Mike Walsh.
Lou Antonelli channels Flavor-Flav.
Howard Waldrop and Eileen Gunn, just before Howard went three rounds with a concrete step.
And here’s Howard just after that bout.
Andrew Porter, now free of the terrible burden of publishing a semi-prozine.
Pat Murphy, back again.
Ex-NASA employee Al Jackson.
Ex-Austinite Maureen McHugh.
Kim Stanley Robinson, back from whatever frozen locale he’s visiting this time. Possibly Iapetus.
Gardner Dozois at full rant.
Gardner Dozois at full rest. The two modes are deceptively similar.
In 2012, Pat Cadigan asked me to take down one of her pictures. So this year I made sure that this picture with Robert Silverberg was 100% flattering.
I think this is a very good picture of Dwight Brown.
Rich Simental, who spent much of the con in his room working on a completely different con.
Ben Yalow. Or possibly one of those hundreds of Ben Yalow impersonators you hear so much about.
Max Merriwell, in a very clever diusguise.
David Kyle, who I think has passed the late Forrest J. Ackerman for Most Worldcons Attended.
I’m sorry that I didn’t get pictures of Alastair Reynolds, David Brin, Jack McDevitt, Joe and Joy Haldeman, and Lois McMaster Bujold (among others I missed), who were all kind enough to come by the Lame Excuse Books booth.
Another important book for closing in on my complete Philip k. Dick in hardback collection:
Dick, Philip K. A Handful of Darkness. Rich & Cowan, 1955. First edition hardback, Currey binding A (blue boards lettered in silver) in a first state dust jacket (no mention of World of Chance), an Ex-Library copy with most of the usual flaws, including protected dust jacket flaps taped to boards (and inner cardboard sleeve additionally taped) and stamp for Eeeling Science Fiction Postal Library on inner cover; dust jacket is completely intact, the only flaws being “D11/2” written in white on bottom spine just above publisher, and slight dust staining to white rear cover; call it a VG/NF Ex-Lib copy. Levack, 21a. Currey (1978), page 157. Dick’s first short story collection and first hardback book.
(Click to embiggen; hairline crack on left is a scanner artifact.)
I picked up two more signed Ray Bradbury books off eBay:
Picked up another book for my collection:
Asimov, Isaac. Nemesis. Doubleday, 1989. First edition hardback, number 485 out of 500 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine slipcase, sans dust jacket, as issued.
This was a serendipitous find. I wasn’t looking for it (since I’m not generally a big fan of Asimov’s later work), but merely entered “signed limited edition” in Amazon’s books section just to see what I would find and this came up at $80. Given that it was originally issued at $125, and given that copies on Bookfinder start at $150, I thought it was a good price. Asimov isn’t actually a hard signature (especially compared to verified Philip K. Dick or Robert A. Heinlein signatures), but he has become fairly pricey one for his first editions.
Ever now and then you come across something interesting, but you wonder “What the hell do I say about this?”
I was looking for some scary gifs when I came across this. There are a few in the, but it seems to be mostly depressing black and white gifs for suicidal teenage girls.
Like this:
Or this:
Interestingly enough, more than half seem to be of stunningly beautiful actresses from popular culture. And, naturally, there’s a lot of Nine Inch Nails references.
And this is pretty striking:
Anyway, if you find yourself making or posting these gifs, maybe you should read this.
Consider this more an act of reportage than commentary…