Time for another roundup of what additions I’ve made to my library of science fiction first editions. This is what I’ve picked up in the last six months. All are Fine/Fine hardback first editions unless otherwise noted.
Adams, Douglas. Mostly Harmless. Harmony Books, 1992. First U.S. edition, a Fine hardback in a Fine- dust jacket with a trace of haze rubbing along the spine join. Inscribed by Adams: “To Bev + Bill/Douglas Adams.” Bought for $7.99 at Half Price Books on University in Houston.
Aldiss, Brian. Summer 1773. The Bellevue Press, 1976. Postcard first edition, Fine.
Anderson, Poul. Fantasy. Tor/Pinnacle, 1981. Paperback original, Near Fine+ with faint spine crease.
Barnes, Steven. Assassin and Other Stories. ISFiC Press, 2010. Signed by Barnes.
Barrett, Neal, Jr. Other Seasons. Subterranean Press, 2012.
Bishop, Michael. White Power Poem. The Bellevue Press, 1977. Postcard first edition, Fine.
Blaylock, James P. The Shadow on the Doorstep. ISFiC Press, 2011.
Blaylock, James P. Zeuglodon (with Hans Clinker). Subterranean Press, 2012. One of 250 signed and numbered copies (with a signed and numbered chapbook).
Blaylock, James P. Zeuglodon. Subterranean Press, 2012. Trade edition.
Bradbury, Ray. Greentown/Tinseltown. Stanza Press, 2012. First edition hardback, Fine in decorated boards, sans dj, as issued. Miscellaneous collection of Bradbury material (stories, poems, essays, holographic material, etc.) about growing up on both a small town and (later) Los Angeles.
Bradbury, Ray. The Last Circus & The Electrocution. Lord John Press, 1980. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Signed by Bradbury. Two stories and an afterword, plus an introduction by William F. Nolan.
Carr, James and Archana Kumar. Hipster Hitler. Feral House, 2012. Advanced copy of trade paperback first edition. Cartoon collection.
Carroll, Jonathan. The Woman Who Married a Cloud. Subterranean Press, 2012. One of 350 signed, numbered, leatherbound copies.
Carroll, Jonathan. The Woman Who Married a Cloud. Subterranean Press, 2012. Trade edition.
Chambers, Robert W. The King In Yellow. F. Tennyson Neely (as part of their Neely’s Prismatic Library series), 1895. First edition, first printing of green cloth with brown lettering, with lizard design on cover and review of In the Quarter at rear. Full details here.
[Coen, Joel & Ethan] Luhr, William G. The Coen Brothers’ Fargo. Cambridge University Press, 2004. First edition hardback, Near Fine with remainder mark to head, sans dust jacket, as issued. Non-fiction.
Cowper, Richard. The Story of Pepita & Corindo (with The Young Student). Cheap Street, 1982. First edition chapbooks, both Fine copy in wraps, each #15 in a signed edition of 75 slipcased copies.
Crowley, John. Beasts. Doubleday, 1976. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Inscribed by Crowley: “June 1988 4th St/To Scott/John Crowley.” Supplements a copy inscribed by Crowley to me which has a weird spine defect.
Dann, Jack. Borges. The Bellevue Press, 1977. Postcard first edition, Fine.
Dann, Jack. Hallways. The Bellevue Press, 1974. Postcard first edition, Fine.
Datlow, Ellen and Terri Windling, editors. The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifteenth Annual Collection. St. Martin’s, 2002.
Datlow, Ellen, Kelly link and Gavin Grant, editors. The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Nineteenth Annual Collection. St. Martin’s, 2006.
Dick, Philip K. The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick, 1980-82 (Volume Six). Underwood Books, 2005. Nonfiction.
Disch, Tom. The West Coast. The Bellevue Press, 1977. Postcard first edition, Fine.
Dorman, Sonya. Pomegranate. The Bellevue Press, 1977. Postcard first edition, Fine.
Dozois, Gardner. The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection. St. Martins, 2012.
Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2002. First edition hardback, a Fine- copy with slight bumping at heel in a Near Fine dust jacket with a 1″ closed tear along bottom rear spine join. Pulitzer Prize winner.
Grant, Mira. When Will You Rise: Stories to End the World. Subterranean Press, 2012.
Hamilton, Peter F. Manhattan in Reverse Subterranean Press, 2012. First limited edition one of 250 signed, numbered copies.
(Heinlein, Robert A.) William H. Patterson & Andrew Thronton. The Martian Named Smith: Critical Perspectives on Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Nitrosyncratic Press, 2001. Trade paperback original. Picked up at the Heinlein Society party at the Chicago Worldcon for free.
(Howard, Robert E.) Herron, Don, editor. The Dark Barbarian: The Writings of Robert E. Howard: A Critical Anthology. Greenwood Press, 1984. First edition hardback, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued.
(King, Stephen) Beahm, George. Knowing Darkness: Artists Inspired by Stephen King. Centipede Press, 2009. First edition oversized hardback (slipcase is 15 3/4″ high by 11 1/2″ wide), a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, in fine, illustrated slipcase.
Kushner, Ellen. Swordspoint. Unwin Hyman, 1987. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Inscribed by the author: “To Scott/Best Wishes/Ellen Kushner.” Supplements my inscribed American first edition.
Lake, Jay. Escapement. Tor, 2008. Signed by Lake.
Lansdale, Joe R. All the Earth Thrown to the Sky. Delacorte Press, 2011. Signed by Lansdale.
Lansdale, Joe R. The Cases of Dana Roberts. Subterranean, 2011. First edition chapbook, Fine in wraps. Originally published to accompany the limited edition of Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2. This copy signed by and purchased from the author.
Lansdale, Joe R. Edge of Dark Water. Mulholland Books/Little Brown, 2012. Signed by Lansdale.
Lansdale, Joe R. Trapped in the Saturday Matinee. PS Publishing, 2012.
Lansdale, Joe R. with Karen Lansdale and Keith Lansdale. In Waders From Mars. Subterranean Press, 2012.
Le Guin, Ursula K. From Hsin Ch’i-chi 1140-1207. The Bellevue Press, 1977. Postcard first edition, Fine.
Le Guin, Ursula K. Travelling. The Bellevue Press, 1977. Postcard first edition, Fine.
Leicht, Stina. And Blue Skies From Pain. Night Shade Books, 2012. Trade paperback original, a Fine copy. Inscribed to me by the author after purchase.
Lichtenberg, Jacqueline. Unto Zeor, Forever. Doubleday, 1978. First edition hardback, a Fine-/Fine- copy with slight bumping at head and heel. Full page inscription by the author.
McAllister, Bruce. Humanity Prime. Ace, 1971. Paperback original, Fine- with name inside cover.
McDonald, Ian. The Twenty Five Mile High Club. Birmingham Science Fiction Group, 2002. First edition chapbook, #283 of 325 copies.
Moody, David. Trust. Infected Books, 2012. One of 500 signed, numbered hardback copies.
Lumley, Brian. No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories. Subterranean Press, 2012.
Moorcock, Michael. The Jade Man’s Eyes Unicorn Bookshop, 1973. First edition paperback original, a Fine copy, new and unread. An original Elric novella. An odd trim size, being wider than the standard mass market paperback. Currey (1978), p. 370.
Novik, Naomi. Tongues of Serpents. Del Rey, 2010.
Pohl, Frederik. Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2. Ballantine Books, 1953. First edition hardback, a VG copy with dust-staining along top page block edges and wear along bottom boards in a VG dust jacket with slight sun-fading to spine and dust staining to white rear cover.
Powers, Tim. Hide Me Among the Graves. Charnel House, 2012. First limited edition, one of 124 signed, numbered copies in mica-flecked boards, a Fine copy, sans dj, as issued. The usual oversized, elaborate Charnel House production, ordered pre-publication.
Reeves, Michael and John Pelan, editors. Shadows Over Baker Street. Del Rey, 2003.
Resnick, Mike. Stalking the Zombie. American Fantasy, 2012. One of 250 signed, numbered copies.
Resnick, Mike. Stalking the Zombie. American Fantasy, 2012. Trade edition.
Resnick, Mike, et. al. Win Some, Lose Some. ISFiC Press, 2012. First edition hardback, Fine-/Fine- with a bumped corner. Signed by Resnick and several other contributors.
Resnick, Mike and Joe Siclari, editor. Worldcon Guest of Honor Speeches. ISFiC Press, 2006. Non-fiction.
Reynolds, Alistair, and Liz Williams. Odyssey 2010 Souvenir Book. Contains original Reynolds/Williams novelette “Lune and the Red Empress”.
River, Uncle. Counting Tadpoles. PS Publishing, 2009. Fine in decorated boards, sans dj, as issued.
Silverberg, Robert. The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume Seven: We Are for the Dark 1987-90. Subterranean Press, 2012. Fine, sans dj, as issued.
Smith, Clark Ashton. The City of the Singing Flame. Timescape, 1981. Paperback original thus (though I believe all the stories appeared previously in various Arkham House collections), Near Fine+ with one 1/4″ stray brown mark to page edges.
Stross, Charles. The Apocalypse Codex. Ace, 2012. The fourth Laundry novel.
Sturgeon, Theodore. Case and the Dreamer: Volume XIII: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon. North Atlantic Books, 2010.
Tidhar, Lavie. Osama. PS Publishing, 2011. One of 100 signed, numbered copies.
Tidhar, Lavie. Osama. PS Publishing, 2011. Trade edition. Fine, sans dust jacket, as issued.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (edited by Christopher Tolkien) The History of Middle Earth Volume IV: The Shaping of Middle Earth. Houghton Mifflin, 1986. First American edition, Fine-/Fine.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (edited by Christopher Tolkien) The History of Middle Earth Volume VI: The Return of the Shadow: The History of the Lord of the Rings Part One. Houghton Mifflin, 1988.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (edited by Christopher Tolkien) The History of Middle Earth Volume VII: The Treason of Isengard: The History of the Lord of the Rings Part Two. Houghton Mifflin, 1989.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (edited by Christopher Tolkien) The History of Middle Earth Volume VIII: The War of the Ring: The History of the Lord of the Rings Part Three. Houghton Mifflin, 1990.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (edited by Christopher Tolkien) The History of Middle Earth Volume IX: Sauron Defeated: The History of the Lord of the Rings Part Four. Houghton Mifflin, 1992.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (edited by Christopher Tolkien) The History of Middle Earth Volume X: Morgoth’s Ring: The Later Simarillion Part One. Houghton Mifflin, 1993.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (edited by Christopher Tolkien) The History of Middle Earth Volume XI: The War of the Jewels: The Later Simarillion Part Two. Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (edited by Christopher Tolkien) The History of Middle Earth Volume XII: The People of Middle Earth. Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
Vance, Jack. The House on Lily Street. Underwood/Miller, 1979. First edition hardback, one of 450 copies, a Fine copy in a Fine- dustjacket with 1/2″ closed tear at head. Signed by Vance. Hewett A55.
Vance, Jack. Monsters in Orbit b/w The World Between and Other Stories. Ace Books, 1965. paperback original, Fine. Hewett A20a/A21a. Currey (1978), page 499.
Vance, Jack. The Seventeen Virgins & The Bagful of Dreams. Underwood/Miller, 1979. One of only 111 signed hardback copies, a Fine- copy with a tiny bump to bottom front boards in a Fine dust jacket. Hewett A58b and A59b.
Vinge, Joan D. There Are Songs. Science Fiction Poetry Association, 1980. First edition postcard.
Walton, Jo. Among Others. Tor, 2011. Signed by the author.
Wells, Martha. The Serpent Sea. Night Shade Books, 2012. Trade paperback original.
Westerfeld, Scott. Leviathan. Simon Pulse, 2009.
Willis, Connie. Blackout. Ballantine Books, 2010. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with a tiny bit of crimping at the top of the dust jacket.
Williams, Tad. A Stark and Womry Knight. Subterranean Press, 2012. One of 250 signed, numbered, leatherbound copies.
Williams, Tad. A Stark and Womry Knight. Subterranean Press, 2012. Trade edition.
Wolfe, Gene. Home Fires. PS Publishing, 2011. First limited and first UK edition, one of 300 hardback copies signed by Wolfe.
Wolfe, Gene. On Lyra III. Science Fiction Poetry Association, 1980. Postcard first edition, Fine.
Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn. Constellations. The Bellevue Press, 1977. Postcard first edition, Fine.
For your Sunday dose of Shoegaze, here’s Japan’s Lemon’s Chair covering My Bloody Valentine’s “What You Want.” I actually prefer it to the original, mainly because the tonalities are more pleasing to my ear.
This is evidently off a Japanese compilation of My Bloody Valentine covers called Yellow Loveless.
My story “Novel Properties of Certain Complex Alkaloids” will be appearing in the Rayguns Over Texas anthology edited by Rick Klaw that’s to be published for LonestarCon 3, the 2013 San Antonio Worldcon. It’s sort of a Greg Egan story by way of Timothy Leary and H. P. Lovecraft…
Power outage begets dead cable modem begets having to drive to the Time Warner building to get a replacement. So don’t expect much in the way of blogging today…
In his tomb in upthrust Lapland
Dead Kris Kringle lies dreaming
If you’re looking for a weird Christmas horror movie, you could do a lot worse than the Finnish movie Rare Exports. The son of a reindeer herder/butcher finds out that a team just over the border in Russia are drilling into a mountain they believe to be a tomb.
It quickly becomes apparent that the tomb is that of Santa Claus. And the real Santa Claus is not the jolly fellow of Coke commercials, but a fearsome punisher of the wicked that looks a lot more like Krampus:
What makes the film work is its cold, gritty, unsentimental realism. It really does look like it was filmed in a tiny village in Ass End of Nowhere, Finland. Save an unconvincing CGI helicopter at the end, and the strange coda that gives the film its name, I thought everything about the movie worked pretty well. Of recent Scandinavian horror films, I thought this worked better than Dead Snow, but not as good as Let the Right One In.
Worth viewing, and available on Netflix.
I was going to do a longer review, but I’m running out of Christmas.
Watching Hammer Film’s 1964 Evil of Frankenstein, several thoughts occurred to me:
You would think Baron von Frankenstein would be a little more circumspect about hiring a corpse-snatcher.
I wonder why Frankenstein needs two orange fountain drink machines in his lab.
“Hey, I’ll just go back to the castle they ran me out of ten years ago! I’m sure there’s no chance they will have looted all my expensive belongings!”
“Hey, my enemies are now the mayor and chief of police! I’m sure accusing them of theft couldn’t possibly backfire on me in any way.”
A mute, blind beggar women just happens to lead Frankenstein to his frozen monster. If she could speak, I’m sure she’d say her name was “Deus Ex Machine.”
Sure, a hypnotist is the obviously the first person you think of for reversing severe brain damage.
Somehow the mute, resurrected monster who’s never been spoken to understands every command given by the hypnotist. What a stroke of luck!
“There’s no way the monster could possibly misinterpret my vague command!”
“There’s no way they could possibly trace back the crime spree of a monster back to the castle he was created in!”
After the “incident,” I’m sure the Karlstaad police added “bottles of chloroform” to the list of things not to let people keep in jail.
Pretty much every major character in Evil of Frankenstein is an idiot. With the possible exception of the Burgermeister’s wife, who has a pretty sweet gig as bosomy eye-candy.
Important Safety Tip: Do not get Frankenstein’s monster drunk. Just not seeing a lot of upside to that brilliant decision.
Earlier this year, science fiction writer and North Carolina State University professor John Kessel declared that “I know the world does not care, but nobody could pay me enough money to go see The Hobbit. Well, maybe someone could, but nobody is going to.”
The Internet knows how to respond to such statements.
Soon a fundraiser for the SFWA Emergency Medical fund was launched, with various levels of funding support:
$250 — Prof. Kessel goes to see The Hobbit (the upcoming Peter Jackson version, in a movie theater before the end of the year, no cop-out home screenings of the Bass-Rankin animated classic)
$750 — Prof. Kessel will either before or after the film eat Denny’s The Hobbit-themed Ring Burger
$1000 — Prof. Kessel will dress as Gandalf when watching the film
$2500 — Prof. Kessel will dress as Galadriel when watching the film
And the result?
Well, feast your eyes:
The last picture is with John’s “Hobbit escort” Kate Maddalena, who took these pictures.
Click any picture to embiggen and more fully display all of John Kessel as Galadriel’s, um, glory.
If you’re impressed by this outstanding display of selflessness (or else you have a fetish for really tall, butch trannies), you too can donate to the SFWA Medical Fund.
