This is the second volume from that Dark Harvest sell-off on eBay.
Asimov, Isaac (Martin H. Greenberg, editor). The Asimov Chronicles: Fifty Years of Isaac Asimov. Dark Harvest, 1989. First edition hardback, #317 of 500 numbered copies signed by Asimov and illustrators Ron and Val Lakey Lindahn, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with touches of edgewear at points and a Fine- slipcase with with one thin 2″ scratch to rear. Career retrospective collection. Supplements a trade edition. Chalker/Owings, page 121. Bought off eBay for $75.
Bradbury, Ray. That Son of Richard III: A Birth Announcement. Roy A. Squires, 1974. First edition chapbook original, #LXIII of 85 the signed “Autograph Edition,” a Fine- copy with just a trace of wear at tips, in a Near Fine+ original Autograph Edition publisher’s envelope with slight age darkening at edges and slight bumping at tips. Chalker/Owings, page 589. Bought for $50 (marked down from $80) on eBay.
Unnoted in Chalker/Owings is the fact that two of my three copies have a “PZ” glyph inscribed on the lower right side of the introduction page, just barely visible in the scan.
Edited to add: Mystery solved! I checked with fellow bookseller (and Old Earth Books publisher) Mike Walsh to see if he could solve the glyph mystery, and he directed me to bookseller Terrance McVicker of Bats Over Books, who had the answer:
The “PZ” you note in your query is actually “ZN,” printed on top of each other, if you turn it sideways. It stands for “Zerkall Nideggen.” Nideggen is a Japanese paper, but Zerkall was the German manufacturer. I think what Zerkall did was buy the pulp paper from Nideggen, then process it in their factory.
What your seeing is the Zerkall Nideggen watermark. The sheet before cutting, measured 24″ X 36″ and there was a watermark in the lower right-hand corner of the full sheet. Which meant that, when the sheet was cut to quarto size, only one out of eight pages would have the watermark. Printers usually try to get one watermarked page per book/booklet, but it doesn’t always work out that way.
Three more very cheap purchases from that storage locker sale:
Anderson, Poul. The Last Viking Book 3: The Sign of the Raven. Zebra Books, 1980. First edition paperback original (no other date or printing, as per ISFDB), a Near Fine- copy with one spine crease, one crease along front spine join, small bend to top front corner, and mild edgewear. Bought for 50¢.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Harper Perennial, 2006. Trade paperback reprint, a Very Good copy with writing to heel and general wear. Just a reading copy of a book I’ve long heard good things about. Lots of academic essays at the back I think I’ll feel free to skip. Bought for 50¢.
Frances Leonard and Ramona Cearley, editors. Conversations With Texas Writers. University of Texas Press, 2005. First edition trade paperback original (simultaneous with the hardback edition), a Near Fine copy with phantom crease to rear cover and slight wear to tips. Interviews with and essays on Texas writers, including Joe R. Lansdale, Bruce Sterling and Robert E. Howard. Bought for 50¢.
Three used books, two of which were bought extremely cheaply.
Asimov, Isaac. Foundation’s Edge. Doubleday, 1982. First edition hardback (“First Edition” stated and gutter code of M36 on page 365), a Very Good copy with bumping at head and heel, slight creasing to spine, a few tiny nicks to bottom boards, in a Very Good dust jacket with several tackhead-sized abrasion spots to bottom front panel, bumping at head and heel, and shallow loss of points. Hugo Award winner. Replaces a Book Club edition bought and read before I started collecting first editions, and supplements a copy of the Whispers Press signed/limited edition. Usually this would not qualify as a sufficiently attractive to pick up, but it was literally $1 at a garage sale from a storage unit.
King, Stephen. Storm of the Century. Book-of-the-Month Club, 1999. First hardback edition, being a trade paperback original, a Fine-/Fine- copy with slight bumping at head and heel and just a trace of wear at dj points. The BOMC is the first hardback, but I’m not sure there are any points to determine first vs. later printings. Collings, Horror Plum’d: An International Stephen King Bibliography and Guide, A64.b. Bought for $1.
Ruff, Matt. Lovecraft Country. Harper, 2016. First edition hardback, a Near Fine+ copy with bump at heel, sans dust jacket, as issued. Basis of the HBO TV series. Bought for $13.49 from Half Price Books.
This is one of the few Jack Vance titles I lacked.
Vance, John Holbrook. The Man in the Cage. Random House, 1960. First edition hardback, a Near Fine copy with slight bumping at head and heel and a few small, mild abrasions to topstain on pageblock, in a Very Good dust jacket with bumping and shallow loss at head and heel, with associated creasing at heel, 3″ scratch to rear panel, slight dust staining to white portions of dust jack, tiny, partial, thin abrasion line down middle of spine, spine possibly very slightly faded, small stamped “49” in a circle next to the (unclipped) price on front dust jacket flap, mild spotting to top and outer edge of rear flap, and mild foxing to blind side of dust jacket. Hewett, A10. Cunningham, 54.a. Levack/Underwood, Fantasms, 29.a. Currey, page 499. Bought from a customer who saw this on my Want List for $35.
Doyle, Arthur Conan (Mark W. Whitback, editor). A Little Orange Book of Odd Orchestrations Borderlands Books, 2024. First edition hardback, #463 of 500 copies signed by the editor, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. Fantastic stories, several of which are covered in Bleiler’s Supernatural Fiction, pages 159-161, and Bleiler’s Science Fiction: The Early Years, pages 203-209. Part of their “Past Masters of Horror and Fantasy” series, focusing on late 19th/early 20th century writers.
Swanwick, Michael. Brief Lives. Dragonstairs Press, 2024. First edition chapbook original, #7 of 50 signed and numbered copies, a Fine copy. Brief essays on writers who died young, including Octavia Butler. Bought from the publisher at the usual discount.
A signed Jack Williamson first I picked up (cheap) mainly due to the publisher.
Williamson, Jack. Dragon’s Island and Other Stories. Five Star, 2002. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in decorated boards and a Fine dust jacket, inscribed by Williamson: “To Dane,/Jack Williamson/Bubonicon/2003.” Note: The cover title is Dragon’s Island, while Dragon’s Island and Other Stories appears on the title, half title and copyright pages. Bought off eBay for $26.
Five Star is a subsidiary of educational publisher Gale. They started out doing romance and mystery hardbacks, but began doing significant amounts of science fiction in 2002, were active for several years, then started to trail off around 2009. According to Willie Siros, they were quite hard to deal with, as they wanted you to order at least 25 books at a time to get a reasonable discount. I have a signed Robert Silverberg omnibus first from them, plus a few others. I pick up signed Five Star firsts of important writers when I see them cheap, because I suspect they were geared for the library market, and that there aren’t as many signed Five Stars firsts as there are of firsts from other publishers for the authors.
The new trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s new film Megalopolis just dropped. I’ll let you take a look at it before commenting further.
Is it just me, or does that look like pretentious crap? Sumptuous pretension crap, but pretentious crap none the less.
Nor is the Wikipedia entry any more encouraging. “The film was a longtime passion project for Coppola, who wanted to make a film drawing parallels between the fall of Rome and the future of the United States by setting the events of the Catilinarian conspiracy in modern New York. ”
Snip.
“An accident destroys a decaying metropolis called New Rome. Cesar Catilina, an idealist architect with the power to control time, aims to rebuild it as a sustainable utopia, while corrupt Mayor Franklyn Cicero remains committed to a regressive status quo.”
Yeah, I think a Roman parallel and an architect who cans stop time is a conceit too far.
Also, I’m not exactly thrilled by the “Coppola is a genius and the critics were wrong!” intro. The Godfather was hailed by almost all at the time as a classic and won Best Picture. Apocalypse Now got somewhat more mixed reviews, but was an Oscar nominee (losing to Kramer vs. Kramer), and John Simon was notorious for hating just about everything. Bram Stoker’s Dracula? I don’t think anyone looks back on that as a classic of cinema, or even vampire cinema, though opinions about that seem to have improved a bit as well. I noticed Jack and Twixt didn’t get mentioned…
Update: Evidently, some of those critics quotes are made up.
Farmer, Philip Jose. Cache from Outer Space b/w The Celestial Blueprint. Ace Double, 1962. First edition paperback original (no statement of printing on copyright page and price of 40¢, as per Currey), a Very Good copy with 3/16″ abrasion at head, moderate spine creasing, wear at head and heel, and trace of wear at points, signed by Farmer. Ed Emshwiller. Currey, page 183. Brizzi, Reader’s Guide to Philip Jose Farmer, page 66. Bought off eBay for 99¢ plus shipping.
