Posts Tagged ‘Bluejay Books’

Library Additions: Unsigned Books Bought from Dreamheaven

Monday, May 4th, 2020

I was in Minneapolis in early March (right before everything went into lockdown), and I had a chance to drop by Dreamhaven Books and pick up a few things. Here are the unsigned books I bought.

  • Blish, James. Black Easter. Doubleday, 1968. An Ex-library copy I bought for $4 for the quite bright Near Fine+ dust jacket to marry to another copy.
  • Dick, Philip K. Mary and the Giant. Arbor House, 1987. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. For some reason I ended up with a copy of the UK first edition and the Ultramarine Press leather-bound-with-the-cancelled check edition, but never picked up the American trade edition (the true first) until now. Precious Artifacts, MS5.2. Bought for $20.
  • Dozois, Gardner. The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection. St. Martin’s, 2013. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Bought for cover price minus 20%. The remaining volumes I lack are 15, 23, 24, 27 and 28.
  • Martin, George R. R. Nightflyers. Bluejay Books, no date (but 1985). First edition uncorrected proof of the trade paperback original, a Near Fine+ copy with blue bunching along front spine (not uncommon among proofs), and a 1″ square dragon stamp in red at top right corner of half title page. Bought for I think $16.

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    Library Addition: Proof of George R. R. Martin’s Never-Published John W. Campbell Awards Volume 6

    Monday, July 20th, 2015

    Finally obtained a book I’ve been trying to get for over 20 years, ever since hearing about it while compiling Bruce Sterling’s bibliography for Nova Express in the early 1990s:

    Martin, George R. R. The John W. Campbell Awards Volume 6. Bluejay Books, 1986. Uncorrected proof, trade paperback format, of the never-published hardback first edition, a Very Good- copy, being well-read with creasing along front and back spine joins, bottom of front spine join starting to split, a few spots of staining (including one to the edge of side/bottom page block), and general wear, with note on front cover stating “To/Shelia/Williams/Isaac/Asimov” and a note on the table of contents saying the Orson Scott Card story listed was going to be replaced with another Card story. Never produced because Bluejay Books went out of business in 1986. Copy on the back covers states the book was to be produced in both hardback and trade paperback formats.

    The contents are as follows:

  • Page 1: “Preface” — George R. R. Martin
  • Page 9: “On John Campbell” — Jack Williamson
  • Page 17: “The Djinn Who Watches Over the Accursed” — Stephen R. Donaldson (Published in Word Tales, the book published for the 1985 World Fantasy Convention in Tucson.)
  • Page 41: “Angel Engines” — Bruce Sterling (Note: This story is present in the book, but is missing from the the (probably hastily typed) Table of Contents.) (Remains unpublished.)
  • Page 57: “The Necropolis at Fang Shang” — Bruce Sterling (Remains unpublished.)
  • Page 71: “Adrift Among the Ghosts” — Jack L. Chalker (Appeared as an original story in the Chalker collection Dance Band on the Titanic in 1988.)
  • Page 89: “The Red Hawk” — Elizabeth A. Lynn (Had previously appeared as a stand-alone Cheap Street chapbook in 1983.)
  • Page 123: “Unwyrm” — Orson Scott Card (Never published in this form, a novella that takes up half the book, but was evidently incorporated into Card’s 1987 novel Wyrms.)
  • Page 251: “The John W. Campbell Award Winners: 1973—1985” (No author listed, just a list of winners and nominees by year.)

    • Bought for $100 from an editor who was downsizing his library as part of moving.

    JWCA#6

    JWCA#6 Back Cover

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