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:
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…
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.)
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:
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:
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.
Panorama from the Benediktinerstift Admont Bibliotek and Museum in Austria.
I could look at this for a long, long time…
My own bibliomania is well documented. But every now and then I stumble across instances of bibliomania in others. Some are completely orthogonal to my own, while others have some overlap.
One with a bit of overlap is Awful Books, the page of a collector who has a fair amount of science fiction, fantasy, and horror works. However, Mr. Awful (the owner’s name is not readily apparent on the website) seems to be interested far less in the writing content than the physical quality and presentation of limited and ultralimited editions, which he details and reviews with copious pictures.
And here’s his own collection of limited editions. Including not only comics and artbooks I would never contemplate buying, but even Danielle Steel limited editions (“I bought for a song on eBay [about $15.00 each]”).
And while I’m not a big fan of post-first edition limiteds, I must admit that Hill House lettered edition of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is off the charts. (“Yo dawg, we heard you like traycases, so we created a traycase to hold your traycase.”)
Another example of bibliomania a little more closely aligned to my own madness preferences is Mike Berro’s Vance Tracker. “This page is dedicated to tracking the location of every special edition of books by Jack Vance. Primarily limited editions, but also rare trade editions, uncorrected proofs, and manuscripts.”
I’ve corresponded with Mike for well over a decade on our shared bibliomania (for Vance and others), and he was one of the driving forces behind the Vance Integral Edition. The tracker is well worth looking at if your Vance bibliomania pegs at “fanatic.”
Another interesting library addition:
Ligotti, Thomas. The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein & Other Gothic Tales. Silver Salamander Press, 1994. First edition hardback, number 116 of 125 hardback copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket, with small black and white art plate laid in. Bought for $200, marked down from $400, from the Half Price Books on 183 with their 50% off coupon (I showed up when the door opened). Probably the rarest Ligotti hardback. (Evidently the hardback state of The Silver Scarab Press edition of Songs From a Dead Dreamer is spurious; proof yet again you can’t completely trust Chalker & Ownings.)
I was recently able to pick up two rare Jack Vance first editions, one of them one of his most difficulty hardbacks, the other a recent chapbook not even my hardcore Jack Vance collecting friends had heard of.
Not in any standard online reference sources. I found it via a Google image search for “Jack Vance chapbooks”. I can’t help thinking that this is going to drive some Jack Vance completists absolutely bonkers.
Background
In The Wizard of Oz (the movie), protagonist Dorothy wakes up at the end and finds out her entire trip to Oz was just a dream.
In Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Merricat, the first-person protagonist, believes she can work a sort of sympathetic magic through wards and charms to keep the world at bay. When these charms are breached by an interloper, the outside world (and disaster) come crashing in. Also, one character believes Merricat is a ghost and never interacts with her, and by the end of the novel, several characters in the village she and her sister Constance live in have come to believe they are a witches.
Problem
Is either of these novels a fantasy, neither, or both? Explain your answer.
This will make up 10% of your grade.
Joe R. Lansdale is one of the many authors I collect, who’s a damn fine writer in addition to being a friend and mentor. But for more than two decades, one of Joe’s rarest hardbacks continued to elude me.
Until now.
Lansdale, Joe R. (writing as Ray Slater). Texas Night Riders. Chivers Press/Curley Publishing, 1991. First hardback edition (preceded by the 1983 Leisure Books paperback original), an ex-library copy with minimal markings (a stamp on front free endpaper), otherwise VG in decorated boards with bumping along extremities, sans dust jacket, as issued. Part of the Large Print Atlantic Western line. Hankow, A Checklist of Joe R. Lansdale, A3b.
Pseudonymous western novel, and Joe’s third published book. My understanding is that the overwhelming majority of all large print editions are sold to the library market. Easily the rarest Lansdale hardback, and possibly the second rarest Lansdale book behind Molly’s Sexual Follies (which I also have).
Since this is so bibliographically rare, I thought I would scan the back cover, title page, and copyright page for fellow Lansdale bibliophiles and librarians.
