Posts Tagged ‘small press publishers’
Friday, December 28th, 2018
Here’s the “miscellaneous signed fiction” from that Camelot 60% off sale. (There should be one more Camelot roundup, of reference books, tomorrow.)
Bradbury, Ray. The Dragon. Footsteps Press, 1988. First edition chapbook, #187 of 300 signed, numbered copies, Fine. Has wrappers with a transparent red Mylar window. “But wait,” you cry, “didn’t you already pick up a copy of this chapbook?” Yes, but that one had a blue Mylar window! I told you book collectors were crazy…Bought for $20, marked down from $50.
Burgess, Tony. Pontypool Changes Everything. ChiZine Publications, 2010. First hardback edition and first edition thus, #27 of 150 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Novel that was the basis of the 2008 film Pontypool, which I very much enjoyed, as well as additional material not in the 1998 softcover first edition. Bought for $30, marked down from $75.
Bryant, Edward. A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned. Wormhole Books, 2001. First edition hardback, one of (according to Chalker/Ownings 2002) 52 hardback copies, signed by Bryant and numbered 143 (suggesting they just grabbed random chapbook copies to bind rather than a particular number range), a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. Chapbook of a story that originally appeared in Skipp & Spector’s The Book of the Dead. Bought for $30, marked down from $75. I was at the Armadillocon midnight reading where Ed read this story…
Card, Orson Scott. Hamlet’s Father. Subterranean Press, 2011. First edition hardback, #130 of 1000 signed, numbered copies. Stopped buying Card a while back, but the controversy over this made me want to pick it up just to piss people off. Bought for $14, marked down from $35.
Hughes, Rhys. Engelbrecht Again!. Dead Letter Press, 2008. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in decorated boards, sans dust jacket, as issued, with signature plate laid in. Since I’m one of the few people who actually owns (and has read) The Exploits of Engelbrecht, the short story collection about the titular dwarf surrealist boxer, obviously I had to pick this up. Bought for $20, marked down from $50.
Powers, Tim. Down and Out in Purgatory. Subterranean Press, 2016. First edition hardback, #192 of 300 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Bought for $24, marked down from $60.
Simmons, Dan. This Year’s Class Picture. Subterranean Press, 2016. First edition hardback, #144 of 250 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Originally appeared in Skipp & Spector’s Still Dead (I guess hardback reprints of stories from Skipp & Spector zombie anthologies is a minor theme for this post.) Bought for $20, marked down from $50.
Thomas, Ryan C. Salticidae. Thunderstorm Books, 2013. First edition hardback, #65 of 75 signed, numbered copies (out of 150 copies total), a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket, with a story not in the other edition. Oversized. Not familiar with the author, but I do collect giant spider novels. Bought for $30, marked down from $75.
Looking at the Burgress and Bryant scans, it may be time to get a new scanner…
Tags:Dan Simmons, Ed Bryant, Fantasy, Footsteps Press, Horror, Orson Scott Card, Pontypool, Ray Bradbury, Rhys Hughes, Ryan C. Thomas, Science Fiction, small press publishers, Subterranean Press, Thunderstorm Books, Tim Powers, Tony Burgess, Wormhole Books
Posted in Books, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction | No Comments »
Thursday, December 27th, 2018
I haven’t been buying Ray Garton for a while, but I found a few things in the Camelot sale worth picking up:
Garton, Ray. Crucifax Autumn. Dark Harvest, 1988. First edition hardback, #194 of 300 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket and Fine- slipcase with a couple of minor dings. The best of Garton’s early splatterpunk novels. Supplements a trade edition. Bought for $20, marked down from $50.
Garton, Ray. A Little Gray Book of Grim Tales. Borderlands Press, 2015. First edition hardback, #25 of 500 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in decorated boards, sans dust jacket, as issued. I rather like these little books. Bought for $20, marked down from $50.
Schow, David J. DJSturbia. Subterranean Press, 2016. First edition hardback, #137 of 750 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Short story collection interspersed with essays. Bought for $16 marked down from $40.
Schow, David J. Havoc Swims Jaded (with Water Music). Subterranean Press, 2006. First edition hardback, #60 of 150 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Supplements a trade edition. With Water Music, a 40-page chapbook about The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Both bought for $16 marked down from $40.
Schow, David J. Zombie Jam. Subterranean Press, 2005. First edition hardback, #436 of 750 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Compilation of Schow’s zombie fiction. Bought for $16 marked down from $40.
Tags:Borderlands Press, Dark Harvest, David J. Schow, Horror, Ray Garton, signed, small press publishers, splatterpunk, Subterranean Press
Posted in Books, Horror | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 26th, 2018
Back to cataloging those Camelot Books sale purchases:
Morrell, David. Black Evening. Cemetery Dance, 1999. First edition hardback, one of 1500 copies signed by Morrell, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Short story collection. Bought for $16, marked down from $40.
Morrell, David. Stars in My Eyes: My love Affair With Books, Movies and Music. Gauntlet Press, 2016. First edition hardback, #29 of 300 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Essays on Morell’s favorite books, movies and music, including essays on Richard Matheson, Dan Simmons and William Tenn, in addition to Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male, the inspiration for First Blood. Bought for $20, marked down from $50.
Morrell, David. Rambo: First Blood II. Borderlands Press/Gauntlet Press, 2016. First hardback edition, first signed/limited edition, and first edition thus, with material not in the Jove paperback novelization, #27 of 500 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. (The original First Blood is a very good action movie, but it’s a great novel.) Bought for $24, marked down from $60.
Straub, Peter. 5 Stories. Borderlands Press, 2007. First edition hardback, #328 of 350 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Bought for $24, marked down from $60.
Tags:Books, Borderlands Press, Cemetery Dance, David Morrell, Gauntlet Press, Horror, Limited Editions, Peter Straub, signed, small press publishers
Posted in Books, Horror, Science Fiction | No Comments »
Monday, December 24th, 2018
More from the Camelot Books sale. The trick here is that the title refers to both Richard Matheson and Richard Christian Matheson.
Matheson, Richard. Generations. Gauntlet Press, 2012. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Autobiographical novel. Bought for $9.98, marked down from $24.95.
Matheson, Richard. Matheson Uncollected Volume I. Gauntlet Press, 2008. First edition hardback, #105 of 500 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Bought for $30 marked down from $75.
Matheson, Richard. Matheson Uncollected Volume II. Gauntlet Press, 2010. First edition hardback, #129 of 500 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Bought for $30 marked down from $75.
Matheson, Richard. Other Kingdoms: Original Draft. Gauntlet Press, 2011. First edition hardback, #75 of 300 signed, numbered copies (though Matheson, ailing at the time, only initialed copies), a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Bought for $20 marked down from $50.
Matheson, Richard. Through Channels. Footsteps Press, 1990. First edition chapbook original, #53 of 550 copies, a Fine copy, signed by Matheson, with gray full-page illustration laid in.
Matheson, Richard Christian. The Ritual of Illusion. PS Publishing, 2013. First edition hardback, #205 of 250 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in decorated boards and a Fine dust jacket. Bought for $19.80 marked down from $49.50.
The Clark Ashton Smith stuff I’m putting up tomorrow…
Tags:Books, chapbooks, Gauntlet Press, Horror, PS Publishing, Richard Christian Matheson, Richard Matheson, small press publishers
Posted in Books, Horror | No Comments »
Saturday, December 22nd, 2018
Camelot Books had a “Stocking Stuffer Sale” where they offered 50% off if you bought $500 or more (pre-discount), and 60% off if you bought $2,000 or more. The challenge was that the books had to retail for $75 or less.
Naturally I rose to the challenge.
I ended up buying 41 books, some of which will show up in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog. This is the first of several posts documenting which books are going to into my own library. (I’ll take a break on Monday to document something else that came in.)
First up: Joe R. Lansdale. Note that I had most of these titles, but not these states of the title.
Lansdale, Joe R. A Fist Full of Stories (And Articles). Cemetery Dance, 1996. First edition hardback, 420 of 500 signed, limited copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket and a Fine slipcase. Supplements a trade copy and a traycased lettered copy. Bought for $26, marked down from $65.
Lansdale, Joe R. Coco Butternut. Subterranean Press, 2017. First edition hardback, 244 of 400 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Hap and Leonard novella. Supplements a trade copy. Bought for $18, marked down from $45.
Lansdale, Joe R. Honky Tonk Samurai. Gauntlet Press, 2017. First limited edition hardback, #60 of 500 signed, numbered copies. Supplements the Mulholland Books trade edition (which precedes). Bought for $24, marked down from $60.
Lansdale, Joe R, editor. The Horror Hall of Fame. Cemetery Dance, 2011. First edition hardback, one of 550 signed (by Lansdale) copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Bought for $26, marked down from $65.
Lansdale, Joe R., editor. The Horror Hall of Fame. Cemetery Dance, 2011. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Trade edition. Bought for $14, marked down from $35.
Lansdale, Joe R, editor. Retro Pulp Tales. Subterranean Press, 2006. First edition hardback, 129 of 250 numbered copies signed by all the contributors, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket and a Fine slipcase. Supplements a trade edition copy. Bought for $26, marked down from $65.
Finally, another Lansdale title came in during the same timeframe direct from the publisher:
Lansdale, Joe R, editor. Cosmic Interruptions. Short Scary Tales (SST) Publications, 2018. First edition hardback, #105 of 550 signed, numbered hardbacks, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. New short story collection from this UK publisher, weighing in at a hefty 528 pages. Also have copies for sale through Lame Excuse Books.
Tags:Books, Cemetery Dance, Hap & Leonard, Joe R. Lansdale, Short Scary Tales (SST) Publications, small press publishers, Subterranean Press
Posted in Books, Horror | No Comments »
Friday, December 21st, 2018
Two more signed Peter S. Beagle firsts from Tachyon:
Beagle, Peter S. The Last Unicorn: The Lost Journey. Tachyon, 2018. First edition hardback, #14 of 250 numbered copies signed by Beagle and illustrator Stephanie Law, a Fine copy in decorated boards, sans dust jacket, as issued. The first, unpublished version of The Last Unicorn.
Beagle, Peter S. and Patricia A. McKillip. The Karkadann Triangle. Tachyon, 2018. First edition chapbook original, a Fine copy, signed by Beagle. Two unicorn stories, one by each author.
I have copies of each available through Lame Excuse Books, if anyone is interested…
Tags:Books, chapbooks, Fantasy, Patricia A. McKillip, Peter S. Beagle, small press publishers, Tachyon
Posted in Books, Fantasy | No Comments »
Monday, October 22nd, 2018
I picked up a signed R.A. Lafferty chapbook, one of the Drumm chapbooks I already had, but in unsigned form:
Lafferty, R.A. It’s Down the Slippery Cellar Stairs. Chris Drumm, 1984. First edition chapbook original, #76 of 100 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy. Drumm Booklet No. 14. Non-fiction collection. Bought off eBay for $23.95. Obviously I should have bought all these signed Lafferty chapbooks from Drumm back when they were $5 each, but I wasn’t collecting him then…
Tags:Books, chapbooks, Chris Drumm Books, R. A. Lafferty, Science Fiction, signatures, small press publishers
Posted in Books, Science Fiction | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2018
I picked up two Centipede Press books, one off eBay and the other direct from the publisher:
Smith, Clark Ashton. In the Realms of Mystery and Wonder: Collected Prose Poems and Artwork of Clark Ashton Smith. Centipede Press, 2017. First edition hardback, #36 of 300 signed (by editor Scott Conners) and numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket and a Fine slipcase. This actually sold out before I could pick it up, but I ended up buying this copy off eBay for $110.06, which is less than half the $225 offering price.
Wilson, Richard (John Pelan, editor). Masters of Science Fiction: Richard Wilson. Centipede Press, 2018. First edition hardback, #350 of 500 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket, new and unread, still in shrinkwrap. A hefty 700 page short story collection from the Nebula-winning author of “Mother Goddess of the World.” Bought from the publisher at the usual dealer discount, and I’ll have a copy available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
Tags:Books, Centipede Press, Clark Ashton Smith, Horror, Richard Wilson, Science Fiction, small press publishers
Posted in Books, Horror, Science Fiction | No Comments »
Thursday, September 27th, 2018
Sometimes you overpay for something because you couldn’t afford it when it came out, or to get the whole set.
Both of these volumes were produced by the Vance Integral Edition project (VIE for short), and were produced separately from the 44 volume VIE set (which I also own). I thought the volumes too pricey for what you got when they were announced, but since I’m closing in on a complete Jack Vance hardback collection, and own a VIE, I paid a premium for each.
Vance, Jack. Coup de Grace and Other Stories. Vance Integral Edition, 2001. First edition hardback, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued, matching the appearance of the “Reader’s Edition” of the Vance Integral Edition. Short story collection done as a “preview” edition to generate interest in the VIE project. Offered at $75. Chalker & Owings (2002), page 946. Chalker & Owings list a print run of 1,000 copies, which seems too high given the relative scarcity of the title, though several were evidently distributed at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Bought off eBay for $102.50.
Vance, Jack. Strange She Hasn’t Written/Death of a Solitary Chess Player/The Man Who Walks Behind (AKA 14 bis). Vance Integral Edition, 2006. First edition hardback, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued, matching the appearance of the “Reader’s Edition” of the Vance Integral Edition. The original titles for three mystery novels originally published under the Ellery Queen pseudonym as (respectively) The Four Johns, A Room to Die In and The Madman Theory, with textual corrections based on evidence of Vance’s original manuscripts uncovered as part of the VIE text correction process. Evidently one of 400 copies printed. ISFDB gives an offering price of $63, [Edited to add: Though this issue of Cosmopolis says they were available to subscribers like myself for $45]. Bought off eBay for $122.50. Edited to add: This source says that there were only 100 copies of this volume printed, which accords much more with how rarely I’ve seen it offered…
Neither of these volumes comes to market nearly as often as the stated print runs would have you believe, so I was happy to snag these.
I lack but one other VIE volume, the “science fiction preview” volume containing The Languages of Pao and The Dragon Masters, which I’ll have to put on the want list even though I already have first edition hardbacks of both… (Update: Now I have that as well.)
Tags:Books, Jack Vance, Limited Editions, Mystery, Science Fiction, small press publishers, Vance Integral Edition
Posted in Books, Science Fiction | 1 Comment »
Sunday, September 23rd, 2018
Here’s a book I picked up more for the state and the publisher than the author. Dark Harvest was a very active small press from the early 1980s into the early 1990s. They published primarily horror and science fiction, and did very well with it, but managed to kill themselves off by branching out into mystery.
One of the things they did was do lettered states of some of their books in wooden slipcases, AKA “slipcrates.” I’ve always found them rather attractive, and keep an eye out for them when I see them at an affordable price.
Williamson, Chet. Dreamthrop. Dark Harvest, 1989. First edition hardback, Letter G of 26 signed, lettered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine wooden slipcase. Horror novel. Chalker/Owings (1991), page 121. Chalker/Owings (2002), page 1045. Bought off eBay for $49.
The only other Dark Harvest “slipcrate” edition I currently have is George R. R. Martin’s Portraits of His Children (acquired in one of my two big Zelazny purchases), though I do have a nearly complete trade edition run of the Dark Harvest books up to shortly before they started doing the mysteries.
Tags:Books, Chet Williamson, Dark Harvest, Horror, small press publishers
Posted in Books, Horror | 1 Comment »
