Archive for the ‘pics’ Category
Monday, June 17th, 2013
Books and related items, and no particular theme, other than interesting firsts I picked up. Been dawdling about getting this documented, and now I need to put it up so I can catalog a major acquisition of books I made Friday…
Bok, Hannes. Bok 1. Glenn Nigra, 1975. Portfolio with 12 loose Hannes Bok illustration sheets, portfolio folder Fine- with bumping to corners, all illustrations Fine. Uneven shading in pic is a scanner artifact, as the portfolio folder is actually slightly too large to fit on the scanner.
De Camp, L. Sprague, and Fletcher Pratt. The Carnelian Cube. Gnome Press, 1948. First edition hardback, a Very Good+ copy with bumping at head and heel and wear at heel and tips, and slight dust soiling at head, in a Very Good- dust jacket with 1/4″ loss at head, and slightly less loss at heel and tips, significant fading to red ink on spine (the cube is barely carnelian anymore), partial stamp on rear flap, top front (non-price) flap trimmed at very tip, and general wear. The first Gnome Press book. Chalker & Owings, page 197. Earl Terry Kemp, The Anthem Series*, page 191. Currey (1978), page 132.
Really only a placeholder copy, and I wouldn’t even have picked it up if it hadn’t been part of a lot with:
De Camp, L. Sprague, and Fletcher Pratt. Land of Unreason. Henry Holt and Company, 1942. First edition hardback, a Near Fine+ plus copy, with slight bumping at head and heel and slight dust soiling to page block at heel, in a Near Fine dust jacket with age darkening to rear cover. A very nice copy, and a splendid example of the Boris Artzybasheff dust jacket. Bought for $34 for this and the above (plus shipping and buyers premium) off Heritage Auctions.
McKillip, Patricia A. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. Atheneum, 1974. First edition hardback, a Near Fine copy with bend at head and heel in a Near Fine- dust jacket with crimping at head and heel, edgewear and a closed 1/4″ tear at top front cover. The very first winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Pringle, Modern Fantasy 100, #54. Bought for $26 off the Internet.
Swanwick, Michael. It Came Upon a Midnight. Dragonstairs Press, 2011. First edition chapbook original, #81 of 100 signed, numbered copies, a Fine- copy with one faint stray mark to front.
Swanwick, Michael. Midwinter Elves. Dragonstairs Press, 2012. First edition chapbook original, #15 of 100 signed, numbered copies, a Fine- copy with small stain on rear.
Vance, Jack. The Eyes of the Overworld. Gregg Press, 1977. First hardback edition, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. Sequel to The Dying earth featuring Cugel the Clever. Precedes the Underwood/Miller edition. Hewett, A26g. Currey (1978), page 498.
Wolfe, Gary K. American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s. The Library of America, 2012. First Edition hardback thus, being a two volume compilation of some of the best American SF novels of the 1950s: Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth’s The Space Merchants, Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human, Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow, Richard Matheson’s The Shrinking Man, Robert A. Heinlein’s Double Star, Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, James Blish’s A Case of Conscience, Algis Budrys’ Who?, and Fritz Leiber’s The Big Time, both volumes Fine in Fine dust jackets, new and unread, in a Fine slipcase. This is an example of book collecting madness, since I either have first editions of, or have already read, all the books here except Who?, but I thought this was a handsome set when it came out, and snapped this up when it showed up at Half Price Books.
*This is a newly published reference work on SF specialty publishers. I hope to finish a review of it Real Soon Now, and I’ll have copies for sale through Lame Excuse Books.
Tags: Books, Fantasy, First Edition, Fletcher Pratt, Gary K. Wolfe, Gnome Press, Hannes Bok, Jack Vance, L. Sprague de Camp, Michael Swanwick, Patricia A. McKillip, pics, Science Fiction
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Saturday, June 1st, 2013
Austin had a spectacular sunset tonight, and I happened to catch a picture of it behind the capitol.
Uncropped:
Cropped:
if I hadn’t been driving, and had something other than an old iPhone, I could have gotten even more spectacular shots…
Tags: Austin, pics, sunset
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Wednesday, May 29th, 2013
Jack Vance died Sunday, May 26, at the age of 96. Another towering giant of SF gone, and he was one of the best.
A few random images of some of the Jack Vance first editions in my library, just because:
Including an ultra-crappy cellphone pic of The Vance Integral Edition:
Tags: Books, Fantasy, Jack Vance, pics, Science Fiction
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Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013
I assume you’ve heard about the shape-shifting reptoids that, according to David Icke, rule our world.
What you may not have heard was that Icke was accused of antisemitism by the Canadian Jewish Congress, who allege that his reptoids are just thinly disguised Jews. Icke, for his part, asserts that no, when he says shape-shifting lizard people from outer space control the world, he means shape-shifting lizard people from outer space.
So recently I got the bimonthly Angie’s List newsletter. And guess what’s on the cover?
Now you could say that artist merely draws unusually pointy people, and that it’s just a coincidence that his door-to-door reptoid looks stereotypically Jewish.
Or you could say that he’s part of the conspiracy…
Tags: David Icke, pics, Reptoids, weird
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Tuesday, May 14th, 2013
You may remember that I’m collecting all the Hugo winners in first edition hardback. I finally picked up a limited edition of one of the ones I lacked.
Asimov, Isaac. Foundations Edge. Whispers Press, 1982. First limited edition (consensus seems to be that the Doubleday trade edition precedes by about a month), #282 of 1,000 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in quarter-bound leather over embossed cloth boards, top edge gilded in real gold, sans dust jacket, as issued. Hugo winner and Nebula Finalist. Chalker/Owings, p. 476. Bought off the Internet for $160.
By no means as good as the first three Foundation books. The trade edition is extremely common, but this signed edition isn’t. I’ll probably pick up the trade edition as well, but I’m waiting for a Fine/Fine copy to come along super-cheap…
Tags: Books, First Edition, Isaac Asimov, pics, Science Fiction
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Monday, May 13th, 2013
Three chapbooks, two (mostly) non-fiction, and one fiction round-robin to help complete my Joe R. Lansdale collection.
Michael Blaine, Dennis Etchison, James Kisner, Dean R. Koontz, Joe R. Lansdale, Richard Christian Matheson, Robert R. McCammon, William F. Nolan, Alan Rodgers, David B. Silva, J. N. Williamson and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. The Monitors of Providence. World Fantasy Convention, 1986. First edition chapbook original, one of 1000 copies given out at the 1986 World fantasy Convention in Providence, RI, a Fine copy.
Moorcock, Michael. Epic Pooh. British Fantasy Society, 1978. First edition chapbook, Fine- with tiny bit of creasing to bottom outer corner tip. Non-fiction.
(Smith, Clark Ashton) Sidney-Fryer, Donald. Clark Ashton Smith: The Sorcerer Departs. Tsathoggua Press, 1997. First edition chapbook, Fine-. A critical miscellany, plus one poem by Smith.
The coloration is actually even on the last two; the variation in the pics is a scanner artifact.
Tags: Books, chapbooks, Clark Ashton Smith, Dean R. Koontz, Fantasy, Horror, Joe R. Lansdale, Michael Moorcock, pics, Robert R. McCammon, William F. Nolan
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Monday, May 6th, 2013
I managed to pick up three different Cheap Street Press books from a couple of different sources over the last week:
Benford, Greg. At the Double Solstice. Cheap Street, 1986. First edition chapbook original, a Fine copy, in original mailing envelope. Chalker/Owings, page 108, which lists this copy (with publisher’s greetings on (unnumbered) page 23) as one of 60 copies thus, one of apparently four states.
Benford, Greg. Time’s Rub. Cheap Street, 1984. First edition chapbook original, a Fine copy, in original mailing envelope. Chalker/Owings, page 107, which lists this copy (with publisher’s greetings on (unnumbered) page 19) as one of 73 copies thus, one of apparently four states.
Leiber, Fritz. In the Beginning. Cheap Street, 1983. First edition hardback, #67 of 128 copies of the “Collectors’ Edition” signed by both Leiber and illustrator Alicia Austin (there were also 10 lettered collector’s copies, and 7 lettered and 32 number publisher’s copies), a Fine copy, in full cloth with title labels pasted on front and spine, sans dust jacket, as issued. Chalker/Ownings, pages 106-107.
Also laid into this copy is the four page prospectus for the book:
I already had two other Benford Cheap Street books (the hardback Of Space/Time and the River and the chapbook of We Could Do Worse), which means I’m still missing:
Benford, Greg. Centigrade 133 (Cheap Street, 1990)
Benford, Greg. Matter’s End (Cheap Street, 1991)
Leiber, Fritz. Ervool (Cheap Street, 1980)
Leiber, Fritz. Quicks Around the Zodiac: A Farce (Cheap Street, 1983)
Leiber, Fritz Riches and Power (with actually includes Ervool) (Cheap Street, 1982)
Plus several Cheap Street books by other authors.
Tags: Cheap Street, first editions, Fritz Leiber, Gregory Benford
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Tuesday, April 30th, 2013
I continue to close in on my complete Jack Vance hardback first edition collection.
Vance, Jack. To Live Forever. Ballantine books, 1956. First edition hardback, a Fine- copy in a Near Fine- dust jacket with slight spine fading and tiny (1/32″) chipping at head and heel. Signed by Vance. Currey (1978), page 500, A1 (dark blue) binding. Hewett, A4ab.
Very nice copy of this early Jack Vance novel, and a middling difficult Ballantine hardcover.
Tags: Books, first editions, Jack Vance, pics, Science Fiction
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Saturday, April 13th, 2013
See if you can figure out who is in this picture without looking at the image name.
And don’t click here to see why it’s topical.
Tags: Obituary, pic, TV
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