Archive for the ‘Books’ Category
Monday, June 18th, 2018
I won a three-book lot of signed Philip K. Dick firsts from Swann Auctions in May, and after a small shipping delay, they finally arrived.
Dick, Philip K. In Milton Lumkey Territory. Dragon Press, 1985. First edition hardback, one of 50 copies bound in quarter-leather with Philip K. Dick’s signature (cut from a cancelled check) pasted to the front free endpaper, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. One of the Dick mainstream novels unpublished at the time of his death. Chalker/Owings (1991), page 132. Wintz/Hyde, Precious Artifacts, MS4.1. Supplements a copy of the simultaneous trade first hardback.
Dick, Philip K. Mary and the Giant. Ultramarine Press/Arbor House, 1987. First edition hardback, one of 125 copies bound in quarter-leather with Philip K. Dick’s signature (cut from a cancelled check) pasted to the front free endpaper, a Near Fine copy with 1/4″ of what appear to be sun-fading to the leather along spine and at top, sans dust jacket, as issued. Like all Ultramarine Press books, this is just the rebound Arbor House sheets with Dick’s signature added. Chalker/Owings (1991), page 611, calls for a limitation page, but I’m not seeing one. Wintz/Hyde, Precious Artifacts, MS5.1. Oddly enough, I never picked up the Arbor House first, so this supplements a UK first.
Dick, Philip K. Ubik: A Screenplay. Corroboee Press, 1985. First edition hardback, one of 50 copies bound in full leather with Dick’s signature mounted on the half title page, and signed by the introduction authors (Tim Powers and Paul Williams) and the artists (Val Lakey-Lindhan and Rob Lindhan, and Doug Rice), a Near Fine copy with apparent sun-fading to leather spine, sans dust jacket, as issued, in a Fine patterned cardboard slipcase. Chalker/Owings (1991), page 114. Wintz/Hyde, Precious Artifacts, SF34.2.
When the Dick “cancelled check limiteds” started appearing, there was widespread belief among collectors that they were extremely tacky, but damned if the things didn’t sell out almost instantly. Nowadays these typically retail in the $750-$1,250 range each. All three books bought for $880 at auction, including buyer’s fee and shipping.
Tags:Books, Dragon Press, Philip K. Dick, signed, small press publishers, Ultramarine Press
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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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Wednesday, June 13th, 2018
Two bought for $10, a third for roughly half price, and a fourth at the usual dealer discount, all Fine/Fine new first editions, except where noted. .
Barker, Clive. Tonight, Again. Subterranean Press, 2015. Erotic stories and poems. Bought for $10 from a Subterranean Press sale.
Egan, Greg. Phoresis. Subterranean Press, 2018.
Powers, Tim. The Drawing of the Dark. Subterranean Press, 2014. First edition thus, preceded by the Del Rey paperback original and the Hypatia hardback, both of which I already have. Bought for $10 from a Subterranean Press sale.
Sterling, Bruce. Gothic High-Tech. Subterranean Press, 2011. First edition hardback, #34 of 200 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Supplements the trade edition, which I already have.
Tags:Books, Bruce Sterling, Clive Barker, Fantasy, Greg Egan, Horror, Science Fiction, small press publishers, Subterranean Press, Tim Powers
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Wednesday, May 30th, 2018
Swanwick, Michael. The Proceedings of the American Martini Institute: Report of the American Martini Laboratory: The Evolution of the Martini. Dragonstairs Press, 2018. First edition chapbook original, one of 60 signed numbered copies, a Fine copy, new and unread. Like a title says: A history of the development of the Martini cocktail.
I’ll have a small number of these available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog, which should go out tomorrow…
Tags:Books, chapbooks, Dragonstairs Press, Michael Swanwick, Science Fiction, small press publishers
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Tuesday, May 29th, 2018
I heard about David Pringle’s ongoing Ballard/Moorcock chronology from him on Facebook, which lead me to tracking down these.
(Ballard, J.G.) McGrath, Rick, editor. The JG Ballard Book. The Terminal Press, 2013. First edition, first printing hardback (stated, though actually a POD book), a Fine copy in decorated boards, sans dust jacket, as issued. Oversized hardback (about the size and thickness of a high school yearbook) chock full of various Ballard tidbits, including an interview with David Pringle, additions to the Goddard bibliography, pictures of Ballard’s house, maps to the Shanghai of his youth, with many pages in color, etc.
(Ballard, J.G.) McGrath, Rick, editor. Deep Ends The JG Ballard Anthology 2014. The Terminal Press, 2014. First edition, first printing hardback (stated, though actually a POD book), a Fine copy in decorated boards, sans dust jacket, as issued. Oversized hardback chock full of various Ballard tidbits, including a previously unpublished Ballard work (“Crystal of the Sea”), a David Pringle interview with one of Ballard’s daughters, and a remembrance of another, plus sundry critical essays and (ahem) “Why I Want To Fuck Rupert Murdoch.”
(Ballard, J.G.) McGrath, Rick, editor. Deep Ends The JG Ballard Anthology 2015. The Terminal Press, 2015. First edition, first printing hardback (stated, though actually a POD book), a Fine copy in decorated boards, sans dust jacket, as issued. Oversized hardback full of even more Ballard tidbits, including the first part of David Pringle’s extensive Moorcock/Ballard chronology (indeed, hearing about that is what first made me track these volumes down), plus lots of critical essays, including one on Ballard, Dick and Baudrillard.
(Ballard, J.G.) McGrath, Rick, editor. Deep Ends The JG Ballard Anthology 2016. The Terminal Press, 2016. First edition, first printing hardback (stated, though actually a POD book), a Fine copy in decorated boards, sans dust jacket, as issued. Oversized hardback full of even more Ballard tidbits, including the second part of David Pringle’s extensive Moorcock/Ballard chronology, an English bookseller’s notes on selling Ballard, an interview conducted by Paul Di Filippo, etc.
Please note that copies of all four will be available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog, which should go out this week.
Tags:Books, David Pringle, J. G. Ballard, Michael Moorcock, Paul Di Filippo, reference works, Science Fiction, science fiction criticism, small press publishers
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Monday, May 28th, 2018
Here’s another book with a ridiculously small print run:
Webb, Don. Deep Dendo and Other Poems. Dunham’s Manor Press, 2018. First edition hardback, one of only 25 hardback copies, a Fine copy, new and unread. Don’s latest poetry collection.
Tags:Books, Don Webb, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, small press publishers
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Thursday, May 24th, 2018
Here’s a book I’ve been looking for at an affordable price for a long time.
Smith, Clark Ashton (edited by Steve Behrands, with Donald Sydney-Fryer and Rah Hoffman). Strange Shadows: The Uncollected Fiction and Essays of Clark Ashton Smith. Greenwood Press, 1989. First edition hardback, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. Fragments, lists, variants, etc. Clute and Grant, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, page 880. Reginald, Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, 1975—1991, 34170, page 909. Bought from a well-known online bookseller for $50.
Tags:Books, Clark Ashton Smith, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction
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Monday, May 21st, 2018
Had an order from NewCon Press in the UK come in.
First up: Novella Set Three: The Martian Quartet, set YY of 52 sets of four novella by four different authors, in a pictorial slipcase with a matching “YY” on it:
Brown, Eric. The Martian Simulacra. NewCon Press, 2018. First edition hardback, copy YY of 52 lettered copies, a fine copy in a fine dust jacket, new and unread.
Fenn, Jaine. The Martian Job. NewCon Press, 2017. First edition hardback, copy YY of 52 lettered copies, a fine copy in a fine dust jacket, new and unread.
McCormack, Una. The Greatest Story Ever Told. NewCon Press, 2018. First edition hardback, copy YY of 52 lettered copies, a fine copy in a fine dust jacket, new and unread.
Williams, Liz. Phosphorus: A Winterstrike Story. NewCon Press, 2018. First edition hardback, copy YY of 52 lettered copies, a fine copy in a fine dust jacket, new and unread.
Other books I picked up (all signed first edition hardbacks):
Constantine, Storm. Splinters of Truth. NewCon Press, 2016. First edition hardback, #57 of 100 signed, numbered copies, a fine copy in a fine dust jacket, new and unread.
Tem, Steve Rasnic. Twember. NewCon Press, 2013. First edition hardback, #89 of 125 signed, numbered copies, a fine copy in a fine dust jacket, new and unread.
Tuttle, Lisa. Twember. NewCon Press, 2012. First edition hardback, #104 of 125 signed, numbered copies, a fine copy in a fine dust jacket, new and unread.
Watson, Ian. The 1000 Year Reich. NewCon Press, 2016. First edition hardback, #22 of 100 signed, numbered copies, a fine copy in a fine dust jacket, new and unread.
Williams, Liz and Trevor Jones. Diary of a Witchcraft Shop 2. NewCon Press, 2012. First edition hardback, #79 of 100 signed, numbered copies, a fine copy in a fine dust jacket, new and unread. Non-fiction.
Note: I’ll have some of these available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog, currently in preparation.
Tags:Books, Eric Brown, Fantasy, Horror, Ian Watson, Limited Editions, Lisa Tuttle, Liz Williams, NewCon Press, Science Fiction, small press publishers, Steve Rasnic Tem, Storm Constantine
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Wednesday, May 16th, 2018
A non-fiction reference chapbook I hadn’t seen before I chanced across it:
(Howard, Robert E.) Warfield, Wayne (editor). The Ultimate Guide to Howardia 1925-1975. Hall Publications, 1976. First edition chapbook first edition (and perfect-bound, which is unusual for a chapbook of a mere 32 pages), a Fine copy. Early bibliography of Robert E. Howard, including much (then) unpublished work, but missing a few things (like the Herbert Jenkins A Gent From Bear Creek, which, to be fair, precious few Howard collectors had laid eyes on in 1975). Includes spot illustrations that range from “very solid” to “really not very good.” Currey, page 254. Bought of eBay for $15.
Tags:bibliography, Books, chapbooks, Fantasy, reference works, Robert E. Howard
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Tuesday, May 15th, 2018
Here’s an interesting item: Another short-run Michael Swanwick chapbook, but with a difference:
Swanwick, Michael. Blue Moon. Dragonstairs Press, 2018. First edition chapbook original, #18 of 69 printed copies, a Fine copy (there’s some slight phantom creasing to the cover, because the chapbook was mailed in a flat envelope, which meant the sewn bead on the outside pressed against the book in transit, and all copies seen so affected), new and unread. Bought for $10 direct from the publisher.
Here’s the description of the project: “Five ‘flash’ stories, all with a lunar setting. Published in an edition of 69, released for sale on the second “blue moon” of 2018. 67 copies available for sale (publisher’s and author’s copies withheld) on March 31, 2018, for 24 hours only. All copies not sold by midnight, March 31, 2018 will be burned.” In fact, all copies sold out in a matter of hours, so none were burned.
Since 69 is a pretty small print run for a Swanwick chapbook, I took the liberty of picking up additional copies, and will be offering them in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog, now in preparation…
Tags:Books, chapbooks, Dragonstairs Press, Fantasy, Limited Editions, Michael Swanwick, Science Fiction, signed
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