Expansion into the Final Quarter…

Long time since a meaningful post.  Timely is an update on the Odyssey as over the past couple of days I’ve been successful on eBay.  Recalling the last state of play on this, I had received a superior copy of Minions of the Moon to that I already had, and a nice Plague Ship was on the way.  Well, Plague Ship arrived and a misdirected Gray Lensman (amongst a couple of other things which I’ll talk about presently..) landed with my parents in New Zealand.  Arriving here about a month ago was the middle third of Frederik Pohl’s and Jack Williamson’s Undersea Trilogy – Undersea Fleet.  Over the past week I’ve picked up Talbot Mundy’s Purple Pirate and another Williamson title in conjunction with James Gunn – Star Bridge.  Both these are on their way, and Doc Smith’s Gray Lensman will be in an aid package from the homeland due to be sent soon.

Taking these into account, there are only 16 titles left to acquire. ‘Only’ is slightly misleading as the balance of the catalog are all (with one or two exceptions..) perennial big ticket editions such as the 6 remaining Conan titles, the Foundation series, Simak’s City and… I, Robot.

Two in Two…

Two books came in over the past two days.  Yesterday came that chapbook Christmas Inn by Gene Wolfe and William Gray Beyer’s Minions of the Moon arrived today.  I’ll do a Close Up on that in a moment.  Scott (the chap from whom I purchased Minions) had several other GP titles available, all of which I already had but one – Plague Ship by Andrew North (a pseudonym of André Norton).  I grabbed that as well and it’s on it’s way.

Have a quick look at the chapbook.  It’s regular octavo size, but is only about 8mm thick – and that’s including the hardcovers!


As you can see, this is number 38/200 of those that weren’t given away to PS Publishing hardcover subscribers.

Regarding the other book, one of the attributes that Minions of the Moon most often exhibits is a sunned or faded spine on the dust jacket, and one that my original copy displays quite effectively.  The reason I bought this copy is because that there is NO fading at all to the jacket.  Compare the two here.

You can see which is the new non-faded one. The faded copy has the Brodart cover on and that further distorts things. In reality, the difference is much more pronounced than is shown here. Anyway, I’m very happy with the latest copy. The book is in a little better condition overall too.

The Forgotten Jacket……

This arrived today.  Anyone who knows Gnome Press knows what this is.  I am very proud to have it in my collection.  I’ll get a Close Up done in the next few days, but in the meantime:

Lost Continents, rediscovered…

Well… it seems the signed inscribed copy of de Camp’s Lost Continents that I bought in early January is indeed lost.  It left the US apparently, but it never turned up at my door.  It may appear sometime, but I’m not holding out much hope.  However.  I bought another signed inscribed copy yesterday.  Let’s hope it doesn’t disappear en route like the last.

Today, I was extremely pleased to get my first GP Conan book!!  Conan the Conqueror, from 1950 – first of the seven Conan titles published by Gnome Press.  Hurray!!

These two I expect to be here in about three weeks.  The problems with the lost Lost Continents has made me think a little more on insured, tracked shipping.  While I was very disappointed to not have received the book, it is the only book of the near-100 I have had posted to me over the past three years that hasn’t arrived.  I figure that the money I lost (about $100 including postage) on this non-arrival is much, much less than the money I would have spent insuring and tracking all books of a similar or greater value.  Of course, significantly valuable items of about, I dunno… $150 or more should be insured, but the vast majority of my books haven’t been worth that much.

Well, that’s how I rationalize it at least, so I’m not so broken up about it going AWOL.

Incidentally (assuming they both actually arrive), I’m now only 1 book away from the 75% mark in my GP collection.

Mel Oliver and Space Rover Online…

Seetee Ship arrived about a week ago.  No problems, looks as I expected it to, which is quite good value for what I paid.  After my recent disappointments, that makes me feel good.

To what the subject of this post is about, I found another GP title – William Morrison’s Mel Oliver and Space Rover on Mars – online.  Online in several places actually.  I added a link to the Scribd version on the Gnome Press Books Online for FREE page.  Get it while you still can as I’m not sure that it’s a title that should be in the public domain…  I downloaded a copy and converted it to a .mobi file to read on my iPhone via the Kindle for iPhone app.  This leads me to talk about the Kindle.  I have never liked reading digitally.  Whether its on the computer screen or on my iPhone, I just can’t seem to concentrate well and it gives me a headache.  I’d never been enthused about the Kindle or other eReaders for those reasons despite never even having seen, let alone tried to read anything on one.  I have heard people I know talk about, and of course I’ve read a lot online about how good the Kindle is and how it recreates the ‘real’ reading experience quite well.  So I thought I’d give it a go – I got Kindle app for my iPhone and gave it a whirl and see what people are talking about.  The iPhone is no Kindle obviously, the screen is like, really small for a start, so I wasn’t expecting a whole lot, but I was very surprised.  Despite the limitations of the iPhone as an eReader, I seemed to have no problems reading at all.  No headache, no loss of concentration, it was great.  I purchased a copy of Big by Lloyd Pye over on Smashwords (just to give Lloyd a plug, he does some great work trying to get the Starchild Skull resolved..) and the reading experience for the entire novel was a breeze!!  I can only imagine on a dedicated eReader, or something like the iPad, it would only be better – bigger screen, bigger words etc.  So for my current iPhone/Kindle endeavor, I’ve started to read Mel and Space Rover.  Actually, I just spent an hour this evening wandering around E-Mart (a big Korean supermarket/homeware chain) doing the groceries with the GF, her brother and his GF (I’m the trolley pusher, which suits me fine), reading the book.  No problems.

As Yet Unsee(tee)n…

Seetee Ship which was shipped 6 days ago arrived today at my girlfriend’s place.  I have my acquisitions sent there at present because I’m away at that English camp.  I’ll get to check it out on the weekend, when I’ll be finished with this job.  Then it’s three weeks off until I start back with the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education at the beginning of March.  I’m quite concerned about Lost Continents which was shipped on the 9th of January and hasn’t yet arrived.  Additionally, I purchased a case for my iPhone 4S which was shipped on the 3rd of January and that hasn’t arrived either.  But I’m not so much worried about that.

First in a Long Time…

Happy New Year people…

Well, I haven’t been able to get enthused about reading for a long time.  Still collecting though.  I’ve picked up a several new books since that last long time ago post.  L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt’s The Carnelian Cube, the Northwest of Earth collection from C.L. Moore, another collection, The Menace from Earth by Mr. Heinlein and currently a signed, inscribed non-fiction work Lost Continents from L. Sprague de Camp is on the way.  I also picked up a seemingly near-new jacket for The Porcelain Magician by Frank Owen.  I say ‘seemingly’ because the thing had a rather severe crease right down the center of the spine.  So severe in fact, that it promptly fell in two when extracting it from the shipping tube.  I was very disappointed, but thankfully the vendor was great and gave me a full refund.  I’m going to send it away to a restorer to get a quote on repairing it.  I haven’t had much luck with dust jackets lately as the jacket for The Menace from Earth has some ball-point pen writing on the front.  It was invisible in the auction image and the seller never mentioned it.  The markings are faint, but obvious to any cursory examination, and unmistakeable to a collector.  I think I’ll send that away for a restoration price too.  It’s a real shame as the book and the jacket are in very good condition otherwise.  Still, the restoration route could be interesting.

Also I’ve been expanding my Gene Wolfe collection.  I succumbed and picked up PS Publishing’s limited (100 copies) and slip-cased first edition of The Very Best of Gene Wolfe, as well as the similarly limited and slip-cased first edition (250 copies) of Kerosina’s Storeys from the Old Hotel.  In addition, I picked up The Shadow of the Torturer series from Innovation Comics, based on Gene Wolfe’s legendary books.  I never knew this existed until I ran into it on eBay.  Apparently it was supposed to run to 6 issues, but only made it to three.  I wish it ran to completion.  It’s quite good.

Also, I’ve been part of a book myself!!  When I was president of the Seoul Photo Club, back in 2009 we embarked on something called The Seoul Metro Project.  The fruits of which you can find on Magcloud.  It’s one photo from every stop in the Seoul subway system (over 400!) pulled together into a beautiful coffee table photo book in which I contributed a section on Line 3.  Many thanks must go to my good friend, Seoul Photo Club stalwart and one of the finest photographers I know, Flash Parker whose brainchild the whole thing was and who put the book together.  I recently wrote an article outlining the background to the project that will be published in next (February 2012) edition of Groove Korea magazine.

I’ll get some images of those offending jackets up before I send them away.  I don’t know when that might be, as I’m in an English language immersion camp in the countryside north of Seoul at present and my books are of course not with me.  I’ll have another three weeks out here but maybe I’ll have time in my fleeting weekend visits home to snap something.  We’ll see…

Wolfe at the Door…

GENE WOLFE
The Sorcerer’s House, 2010
Home Fires, 2011

It arrived today.  Another very attractive addition to my signed Gene Wolfe first edition collection.  I’m now feeling like I’m wanting to pick up the first tome in this series, 2009’s The Very Best of Gene Wolfe.  These are getting pricey… I dunno…. but they are SO beautifully presented as I mentioned in the look we had at The Sorcerer’s House. I might succumb.

Well, lets have a look at them.  These aren’t super-detailed examinations like the regular Close Ups, just a quick look.  First is The Sorcerer’s House.  Click on the pics for a bigger view.

Beautifully tray-cased, and you can see the signature page there signed by Gene Wolfe and the author of the introduction, Tim Powers.

If we crack it open and have a look we can see how nicely its presented.  Unfortunately, you can see some nasty reflections there on the lower left of the jacket.  This is because of the jacket protector I put on it a while ago.

Having a look at my copy of Home Fires, note the identical presentation, though the signature page containing Mr Wolfe’s and Alastair Reynolds’ scribbles isn’t of the same high quality as that of Sorcerer’s.  Incidentally, I’m on an Alastair Reynolds fix at present having listened to Chasm City, The Prefect, Revelation Space and Redemption Ark over the past couple of months, and currently on Absolution Gap.

Although I mentioned consistency before, they aren’t consistent in one respect. The ribbon used to draw the book from the case is anchored on the left here, yet fixed to the right in the previous book’s case.  Check it out.

No reflections here – the jacket protector went on subsequent to this photo session. Back to the consistency thing, in the case of Sorcerer’s (pun intended..), drawing on the ribbon raises the spine end to be grasped whereas in this case (again, pun intended..), the open edge is elevated to facilitate withdrawal.

I’m very happy small independent publishers like PS Publishing can give us attractive editions such as these.  They are gorgeous editions from my favorite author and grand additions to my library.

Interesting Things…

I picked up another copy of Address: Centauri by F.L. Wallace a couple of weeks ago and it arrived yesterday.

Some interesting things surround the circumstances of this.  I asked the seller, Tim, to send me a couple of images so I could see the condition of the book a bit better.  The condition seemed to be indeed better (but not much) than my copy, and I directed Tim to the Close Up so he could see for himself the comparison.  Tim, it so happened, had previously learned of Gnome Press through this website!!

Interesting.

In addition, the jacket is in slightly better cosmetic condition than my copy, the pages are less GP age-toned, and… the binding is different.  This surprised me.  F.L. Wallace has no listing in Currey and there is no binding info anywhere else I have seen.  My original copy has tan boards and this one from Tim has navy blue boards.  This is something for the Trivia section.

Interesting.

Anyway, many thanks for the book Tim.

I received an email from a gentleman who is apparently working on a show for the Discovery Science Channel entitled ‘Prophets of Science Fiction’.  He was wondering about obtaining the rights to use some GP cover art in the show.  It’s an interesting question as to who actually has them these days.  I don’t know of course, but suggested he contact Brian at Red Jacket Press and also try First Edition Library as a couple of their books were GP reproductions.  I imagine these two companies would have had to secure the right to use original GP cover art somehow for their reproductions, and they could probably advise him better than I.  He was particularly interested in Heinlein and Asimov.  I imagine any cover art would now belong to the artist or their estate.

We’ll see what becomes of this.  Interesting.

In other slightly interesting news, It hasn’t arrived yet, but I picked up Gene Wolfe’s latest book Home Fires in limited edition, tray-cased form.  From the same publisher and very similar to The Sorcerer’s House which I got a few months ago.  I followed that up by putting bids on a couple of Hugh Walters books, Destination Mars and Expedition Venus.  I have so badly wanted to get some of his YA books as I enjoyed them so much when I first started reading SF out of the old Napier Public Library.

Also have a bid on another book which fired my imagination and scared the hell out of me when I was about 8 or 9 years old.  I enjoyed reading it again and again way back then.  A 1st edition A Book of Ghosts and Goblins by Ruth Manning-Sanders.  I really hope I pick this up as well.  It’s one of those books that you think about often over the years.

Interesting.

New Arrival…

Pohl’s Drunkard’s Walk arrived today.  It’s in excellent condition, Near Fine in fact.  A surprising aspect of the book is the white pages.  I would have expected some at least mild browning, but the block looks almost new.  I wonder if a higher grade of paper was used here.