Posts Tagged ‘Books’

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Library Addition: Signed Edition of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation’s Edge

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…

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Library Additions: Three Chapbooks

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.

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    Happy Birthday, Gene Wolfe!

    Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

    Gene turned 82 today. Hopefully he’ll be at the San Antonio Worldcon. I also look forward to reading his book The Land Across later this year.

    I also hope to have a bit more Gene Wolfe-related content later in the week.

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    Massive Science Fiction Piracy at BookOS.org

    Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

    Good news, everyone! There’s a new website called BookOS offering millions of free books to download!

    Bad news, everyone! It’s a pirate site that most likely hasn’t obtained any e-rights for any of the millions of copyrighted works they have available!

    Who are they pirating? Well, they have around a hundred works by Howard Waldrop that I know they haven’t bought e-rights for (because I asked him), and they have hundreds of works by:

  • Gail Carriger
  • Bil Crider
  • Paul Di Filippo
  • Harlan Ellison (good thing they picked someone whose never been known to sue anyone, eh?)
  • Neil Gaiman
  • Joe R. Lansdale
  • Elizabeth Moon
  • Michael Moorcock
  • Jerry Pournelle
  • Mike Resnick
  • Kristine Kathryn Rusch
  • Gene Wolfe
  • Outgoing SFWA President John Scalzi
  • Incoming SFWA President Steven Gould

    • And that’s just a random handful of writers I know that I checked on (plus Harlan Ellison, whom I’ve met, and who I know has some good lawyers). I’m sure there are hundreds of others.

    Perhaps the folks at SFWA might sit up and take notice. And if your work is being pirated, you might want to write support@bookos.org and ask them to pull it down.

    (Updated: Good news, everyone! Support@bookos.org wrote back to say the Waldrop has been removed, and now there’s a notice saying “Link deleted by legal owner.”)

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    Library Additions: Jack Vance’s To Live Forever

    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.

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    Library Additions: Signed True First of Lauren Beukes’ The Shining Girls

    Monday, April 29th, 2013

    From the “Distant Stations Heard From department, here’s something that might be hard to come by in the future:

    Buekes, Lauren. The Shining Girls. Umuzi (South Africa), 2013. First edition hardback, #224 of 1000 copies signed and numbered by the author, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket, new and unread. Precedes both UK and U.S. editions.

    A few notes:

  • The front and rear boards have one color decorations.
  • Full color photographic montage endpapers.
  • Copyright page states: “First edition, first printing 2013/9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1.”
  • No price on dust jacket (but it does have a UPC code at rear).
  • Dust jacket has 1″ foldover flaps at top and bottom.

    • I think this is the first South African book I have in SF library. Not sure how many of those thousand will make it up and over across the pond…

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    LANDBOAT!

    Wednesday, April 24th, 2013

    Or should I say, L.A.N.D.B.O.A.T. Imagine someone entering the Bulwer Lytton contest trying to win the Men’s Adventure category, but instead of a single sentence, you get an entire chapter.

    Grid sat backwards on the bike, slinging Lily onto the seat in front of him like a sack of hamburger meat. Brick grimaced. He knew she was a prime cut of USDA Choice Angus steak. He wanted to put her in his mouth and taste her juices. But the steak would have to be for desert, because the main course was revenge. And that meal was about to be served. Cold. Like a chef salad or some other cold entrée.

    It’s pretty much all like that. It comes from Blood & Tacos, a site that celebrates Men’s Adventure.

    (Hat tip: Karl Rehn.)

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    Prices Realized on SF Books in Heritage Auctions’ April 10 Offering

    Thursday, April 11th, 2013

    As a followup on my previous auction post, here are the prices realized on the items I highlighted in yesterday’s Heritage book auction. All prices include buyer’s premium:

  • Robert E. Howard’s original typewritten manuscript for the Conan story “A Witch Shall Be Born”, signed by Howard, went for $22,500.
  • A very nice first of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone went for a jaw-dropping $43,750.
  • A slightly tattered copy of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Outsider and Others went for $1,750.
  • A very nice copy of the Visionary publication of Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth went for $4,375.
  • Unbound signatures of the Recluse Press edition of The Shunned House went for $3,875.
  • 26 letters by H. G. Wells went for $8,125.
  • A signed first of Wells’ The War of the Worlds went for a staggering $35,000. I don’t think one of the 12 or so known copies of the Henry Holt (true 1st) edition of The Time Machine has gone for that.
  • A nice copy of Alfred Bester’s Tiger! Tiger! went for a mere $800, a comparative bargain, since I’ve seen copies sell in excess of $2,000.
  • A pretty good copy of Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light with a signature plate laid in went for $750.

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    Preview: SF First Editions in Heritage Auctions’ April 10th Offering

    Monday, April 8th, 2013

    Heritage Auctions has another signature book auction coming up on April 10, and there are several interesting SF/F/H first editions up for offer. Here’s a preview of a few:

  • Robert E. Howard’s original typewritten manuscript for the Conan story “A Witch Shall Be Born”, signed by Howard.
  • Yet another first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Heritage has auctioned off a number of these in the past, and they all seemed to go for over $20,000. This is a particularly nice copy.
  • A slightly tattered copy of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Outsider and Others.
  • Speaking of Lovecraft, there’s also a Visionary publication The Shadow Over Innsmouth. (Actually, there are two in this auction; that link goes to the nicer copy.)
  • Also from Lovecraft: Unbound signatures of the Recluse Press edition of The Shunned House. Making it even rarer is the fact that the copyright page remains uncanceled.
  • 26 letters by H. G. Wells.
  • Speaking of Wells, here’s a signed first of The War of the Worlds. (Related: The signed H. G. Wells book I own.)
  • A nice copy of Alfred Bester’s Tiger Tiger.
  • A nice copy of Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light, with a signature plate laid in.

    • Plus a few other miscellaneous SF items. However, the main strength of the auction overall is a number important scientific first editions, a signed first of ian Fleming’s Moonraker, etc.

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    Bookshelf Porn

    Wednesday, March 27th, 2013

    Panorama from the Benediktinerstift Admont Bibliotek and Museum in Austria.

    I could look at this for a long, long time…

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