Posts Tagged ‘George O. Smith’
Saturday, June 16th, 2018
Before I sent out the latest Lame Excuse Books catalog, I picked up some Armchair Fiction books for stock, as well as some for my own library:
Moore, Ward, and Geoff St. Reynard. RX Jupiter Save Us and Beware, The Usurpers! Armchair Fiction, 2011. First edition trade paperback original (a POD production, like all Armchair Fiction books), a Fine copy, new and unread. Two short novels in one package, Ward Moore’s RX Jupiter Save Us, and Beware, The Usurpers! by Geoff St. Reynard (which the SF Encyclopedia says was a pseudonym for Robert Wilson Krepps). Mainly picked this up for the Ward Moore, which does not appear to have been reprinted since its appearance in Future Science Fiction in 1954.
Moore, Ward and George O. Smith. Transient and The World-Mover. Armchair Fiction, 2013. First edition trade paperback original (a POD production, like all Armchair Fiction books), a Fine copy, new and unread. Two short novels in one package. Ward Moore’s Transient has a cover blurb says “lost in a landscape of confusion and distorted reality” and features a unicorn rearing above a guy in a spacesuit. Smith had quite a nice career in the 40s and 50s, with books from Gnome Press, Prime Press, etc. Neither of these seems to have been reprinted since their original magazine appearances (1950 for the Smith, 1960 for the Moore).
Shaver, Richard S. The Shaver Mystery Book Five. Armchair Fiction, 2014. First edition trade paperback original (a POD production, like all Armchair Fiction books), a Fine copy, new and unread. Three reprinted Shaver Mystery stories and “Mr. Shaver’s Lemurian Alphabet.” Companion to the four earlier Armchair Fiction Shaver Mystery volumes.
Shaver, Richard S. The Shaver Mystery Book Six. Armchair Fiction, 2015. First edition trade paperback original (a POD production, like all Armchair Fiction books), a Fine copy, new and unread. Four more reprinted Shaver Mystery stories, including one, “The Land of Kui,” with footnotes by editor Raymond Palmer, plus an Introduction, a Forward from the original magazine appearance, and the non-fiction piece “The Key To Mantong,” an “ancient language” used in various Shaver Mystery stories. Shaver was almost as obsessed with philology as J.R.R. Tolkien, except without all that annoying in-depth scholarship and understanding…
Shaver, Richard S. The Shaver Mystery Book Seven. Armchair Fiction, 2016. First edition trade paperback original (a POD production, like all Armchair Fiction books), a Fine copy, new and unread. Four more reprinted Shaver Mystery stories and “The Dictionary of the Mantong Language.”
Silverberg, Robert. Masters of Science Fiction Vol. 11: Robert Silverberg: The Ace Years, Part One (Chalice of Death AKA Earth Shall Live Again! AKA Vengeance of the Space Armadas AKA Lest We Forget Thee Earth, Starhaven and Shadow on the Stars). Armchair Fiction, 2017. First edition trade paperback original (a POD production, like all Armchair Fiction books), a Fine copy, new and unread. Includes five Silverberg short novels original published as Ace doubles under pseudonyms (Chalice of Death (AKA Earth Shall Live Again! AKA Vengeance of the Space Armadas AKA Lest We Forget Thee Earth) as by Calvin M. Knox, Starhaven and Shadow on the Stars as by Ivar Jorgenson), plus two stories (“The Impossible Intelligence” and “Overlord of Colony 8”) compiled into one volume, with a lengthy new introduction by Silverberg. The two stories have never been reprinted since their initial magazine appearances.
Silverberg, Robert. Masters of Science Fiction Vol. 12: Robert Silverberg: The Ace Years, Part Two (The Planet Killers, The Plot Against Earth, One of Our Asteroids is Missing). Armchair Fiction, 2017. First edition trade paperback original (a POD production, like all Armchair Fiction books), a Fine copy, new and unread. Includes three short novels (The Planet Killers, The Plot Against Earth and One of Our Asteroids is Missing as by Calvin M. Knox), as well as a novelette (“Death’s Planet, which has never been reprinted in English since its magazine appearance) and the short story “The Assassin.”
Wellman, Manly Wade, and Stanton Coblentz. Warrior of Two Worlds and Enchantress of Lemuria. Armchair Fiction, 2017. First edition trade paperback original (a POD production, like all Armchair Fiction books), a Fine copy, new and unread. Two short novels in one package. Warrior of Two Worlds, in which a dead warrior is resurrected to defend his planet from invaders, is a Wellman novel that evidently hasn’t been reprinted since it’s original 1944 appearance, whereas Coblentz’s Enchantress of Lemuria had one reprint in a paperback anthology back in 1971. Wellman was an extremely good horror writer, and I’m trying to collect all his work. Coblentz was a prolific and well-regarded early-to-mid 20th science fiction writer whose work was published by Fantasy Press and FPCI, but seems to have fallen completely off the map except for people who collect mid-century small press works.
Wellman, Manly Wade, and Ralph Milne Farley and Al P. Nelson. West Point 3000 A.D. and Holy City of Mars. Armchair Fiction, 2016. First edition trade paperback original (a POD production, like all Armchair Fiction books), a Fine copy, new and unread. Another Armchair Fiction double. The Wellman appears to have one previous POD publication. Farley, like Coblentz, is pretty much forgotten these days. Nelson evidently only did this and one other collaboration with Farley.
I still have the Ward Moores and the Wellman/Coblentz volumes available for sale through Lame Excuse Books…
Tags:George O. Smith, Manly Wade Wellman, Ralph Milne Farley, Robert Silverberg, Shaver Mystery, Stanton Coblentz, Ward Moore
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Monday, December 30th, 2013
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.
(Koontz, Dean R.) Kotker, Joan G. Dean Koontz: A Critical Companion. Greenwood Press, 1996 (stated; probably more recent). Reprint hardback, Fine, sans dust jacket, as issued. Non-fiction.
Silverberg, Robert. Capricorn Games. Random House, 1976. Signed by Silverberg. Currey (1979), page 436.
Smith, George O. The Brain Machine. Garland Press, 1975. First hardback edition, Fine, sans dust jacket, as issued. Originally a paperback original under the title The Fourth “R”. Currey (1979), page 458. Garland, like Gregg Press, usually did interesting hardback reprints.
Smith, George O. Hellflower. Abelard Press, 1953. First hardback edition, a Fine copy in a Near Fine+ dust jacket with slight spine fade to red portions and tiny traces of wear, otherwise a complete, bright and attractive dust jacket. Currey (1979), page 458.
Swainston, Steph. The Modern World. Inscribed by the author: “S. Swainston/12.05.07/’All things from eternity are of like forms/And come round in a circle.’ — Marcus Aurelius”. With photograph of the author laid in. Bought for $24. I should really get around to reading The Year of Our War some day…
Swanwick, Michael. Moon Dogs. NESFA Press, 2000. First edition hardback, one of 175 signed slipcased copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Supplements an inscribed trade copy.
Taine, John. The Time Stream. Buffalo Book Company, 1946. First edition hardback, a Near Fine copy with foxing to inside covers and a few faint pinpoint spots on boards, in a VG- dust jacket with uneven loss to top edge, mostly 1/16″ but occasionally as much as 1/4″. According to Chalker/Owings (1991), page 78, only 500 copies were ever bound, and half of those were lost in a rainstorm. Currey (1979), page 29. Bleiler Checklist, 1978, page 191. Locke, Spectrum of Fantasy One, page 211. 333, page 63. An important early SF specialty book.
Vinge, Joan D. World’s End. Bluejay Books, 1984. First edition hardback, #127 of 750 signed numbered copies in slipcase, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. This copy has been additionally inscribed by Vinge: “”To Marcia Adams/-with all my best wishes-!/Joan D. Vinge/2005.” There was a PBS cooking show host and cook book author by that name who died in 2011; not sure if that’s who it’s inscribed to or not. I do wonder how many of these slipcased hardcovers Bluejay Books did. I have their slipcased edition of K. W. Jeter’s Dr. Adder, and I know they did a few others, but there does not appear to be a list online. I’ll write Jim Frenkel and ask…
Wells, H. G. (edited by Robert Philmus and David y. Hughes). Early Writings in Science and Science Fiction by H. G. Wells. University of California Press, 1975. Presumed first edition hardback (no additional printings listed), a Fine- copy with slight crimping at head and heel and trace of foxing to inside front covers, in a VG- dust jacket with a 1/2″ square chip missing from bottom front cover and a 3/8″ chunk tapering to a point over 3″ missing at top rear. Not in Currey. Reginald, 1975-1991, 36697. Dictionary of Literary Biography: Volume 178: British Fantasy and Science-Fiction Writers Before World War I, page 242. Not a great dust jacket, but it was only $8, and copies online are somewhat pricey…
Tags:Books, Dean R. Koontz, Fantasy, First Edition, George O. Smith, H. G. Wells, Horror, Joan D. Vinge, John Taine, Michael Swanwick, pics, Robert Silverberg, Science Fiction, signed, Steph Swainston
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