All of these books were bought at Half Price Books, and the majority of them came from the Karen Meshcke/Fred Duarte collection(s).
Other signed books I bought there will be available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
All of these books were bought at Half Price Books, and the majority of them came from the Karen Meshcke/Fred Duarte collection(s).
Other signed books I bought there will be available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
I’d been having a dry spell searching the local Half Price Books locations. I wasn’t find much terribly interesting in their stacks (a few signed paperbacks here and there), and I either had everything I wanted in their collectable shelves, or they were asking too much money for marginal works.
Saturday’s find made up for many, many years of dry spells, and is hands-down the best find I’ve ever made at Half Price Books:
Oliver, Chad. Shadows in the Sun. Ballantine Books, 1954. First edition hardback (Currey state A, tan cloth lettered in black, no priority), a Near Fine+ copy with slight bumping at head and heel and usual age-darkening to pages), in a Near Fine- dust jacket with a 1 1/2″ closed tear to rear dust jacket flap, slight spotting to top of white rear cover, and a few small rubs. Hall, Hal W., The Work of Chad Oliver: An Annotated Bibliography & Guide, A2. Currey (1979), page 397. Locke, Spectrum of Fantasy, page 169 (an ex-library copy; his description of the dust jacket matches (down to the H-91 code on the front flap), but his description of the book itself as “gray cloth in dark blue lettering” doesn’t match either this copy or the Currey B state (blue cloth lettered in black); Locke’s copy was possibly a library rebind or another binding variant). Barron, Anatomy of Wonder 4, 3-138. Bought for $3 from the Half Price Books in Cedar Park.
Since Google image search brings up no copies of the hardback dust jacket (only the paperback edition, which has a different cover, as they frequently did), I’ve done several scans of it.
Chad Oliver was the Grand Old Man of Austin science fiction writers. In addition to writing important works of anthropological SF in the 1950s, he was Dean of the University of Texas’ anthropology school for a while, and was an all-around swell guy. I knew him, but he was really more of a mentor to my mentors (Howard Waldrop, Bruce Sterling, Lewis Shiner, etc.), and had stopped going to the Turkey City Writer’s workshop by the time I started attending. He died in 1993.
Ballantine Books was one of the first mainstream publishers to move into science fiction in the 1950s. They published a prestigious SF line that came out in two formats: A paperback edition for readers, and a hardback edition, scarcely larger than the paperbacks, primarily for the library market. The paperbacks had print runs in the hundreds of thousands, while I’ve heard 600 as a typical print run for the hardbacks. Among the most desirable titles are Fahrenheit 451 (including the asbestos-bound state, which is insanely expensive), Childhood’s End (which I have an Ex-Library of), Hal Clement’s Cycle of Fire, and Green Odyssey, Philip Jose Farmer’s first published book. I’ve seen multiple copies of all those (even the asbestos Fahrenheit 451) offered up for sale or auction, but never Shadows in the Sun (Heritage offered up a jacketless copy a few years back). I don’t think seen a jacketed copy for sale or auction anywhere in the last 20 years.
Hell, as far as I can tell, Texas A&M’s Cushing library, to which Chad donated his books and papers, doesn’t even have a copy of the hardback listed among the donated material.
A conservative estimate of value is probably $2,000…
The book buying continues apace here at Stately Person Manor. I plan to have a comprehensive roundup of every damn thing I bought toward the end of the year (which is nigh), but here are a few particularly interesting, obscure, and/or lustworthy books I’ve picked up since Worldcon (a;; pics enbiggenable):
Blogging has been a bit light as of late because I was finishing up my taxes and then cleaning my house in advance of a party, the two of which have eaten up almost all my previously spare time.
I will be attending the World Horror Convention here in Austin next week. In fact, I’ll be moderating a panel:
Horror Without Stephen King
1:00 PM Saturday, April 30 – Phoenix Central
Jack Ketchum, Lawrence Person (M), Del Howison, William Nolan, Rocky Wood, Bev Vincent
Stephen King is the undisputed grandmaster of modern horror. But what if he had never lived, or went right to publishing literary fiction without ever writing a single scary story. What would the field look like today without the man from Maine? Would there even be a horror genre as we know it?
William F. Nolan has been writing since before I was born. He was also good friends with Chad Oliver, the late, great dean of Austin science fiction writers. I”m sure he has many an interesting story to tell.
I’ll also be part of the big group book signing at 7:30 PM on Saturday, though I’m sure I’ll get more signatures than I give…