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THIS FORTRESS WORLD.
New York: Gnome Press, Inc., [1955]. Octavo, cloth backed boards. First edition, first binding. Religious dystopia. A space opera that pits its young protagonist against a repressive future religion. The author's first solo book, preceded by a collaboration with Jack Williamson.
ALTERNATE WORLDS: THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION.
Englewood Cliffs, N. J. Prentice-Hall, Inc., [1975]. Large octavo, cloth. First edition. Large oversize (coffee-table book) volume, profusely illustrated history of science fiction from the earliest days. "A readable and concise popular history..." - Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 8-62. Winner of a special Hugo Award in 1976.
DEADLIER THAN THE MALE.
New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, [1942]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Author's first book. Basis for the film noir Born to Kill (1947) directed by Robert Wise starring Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, Walter Slezak and Elisha Cook, Jr. "Born to Kill is a grim and complicated melodrama, which is nonetheless intriguing, for it is the first of a number of noir films directed by Robert Wise..." Silver and Ward (eds.): Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (3rd Edition).
THE END OF THE DREAMS: THREE SHORT NOVELS ABOUT SPACE, HAPPINESS, AND IMMORTALITY.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, [1975]. Octavo, boards. First edition. Collects "Space is a Lonely Place," "The Joy Ride" and "The Immortal," with 6-page introduction by Gunn. "THE END OF THE DREAMS begins where SOME DREAMS ARE NIGHTMARES left off. It tells how the dreams end, and if the stories continue after the last page is turned, why that's often the way with dreams. Dreams never really end; the dreamer just wakes up." - Gunn (introduction). "The Joy Ride," set on Venus, concerns a mechanized city run by an AI whose mission is to make the human colonists safe and happy.
THE END OF THE DREAMS: THREE SHORT NOVELS ABOUT SPACE, HAPPINESS, AND IMMORTALITY.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, [1975]. Octavo, boards. First edition. Collects "Space is a Lonely Place," "The Joy Ride" and "The Immortal," with 6-page introduction by Gunn. "THE END OF THE DREAMS begins where SOME DREAMS ARE NIGHTMARES left off. It tells how the dreams end, and if the stories continue after the last page is turned, why that's often the way with dreams. Dreams never really end; the dreamer just wakes up." - Gunn (introduction). "The Joy Ride," set on Venus, concerns a mechanized city run by an AI whose mission is to make the human colonists safe and happy.
THE JOY MAKERS ...
New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., [1984]. Small octavo, boards. First U.S. hardcover edition. Portrays a hedonistic yet hellish future that guarantees pleasure -- at a cost. THE JOY MAKERS "describes, in Gunn's dark, ponderous, cumulatively impressive manner, a society whose members are controlled by synthetic forms of release that corrode their sense of reality." - John Clute, SFE (online). In Earth's future, the "Hedonic" principle rules -- the greatest pleasure of the greatest number. But society grows stagnant , and it becomes apparent that pleasure is not after all the chief goal of humankind. Capably written SF in the American 1950s mode of social criticism (not as sharp as Pohl and Kornbluth though)." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 197. Part three of this fix-up novel is "Name Your Pleasure" (aka "The Joy Ride"), which concerns a mechanized city on Venus run by an AI whose mission is to make the human colonists safe and happy. Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 3-185. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 279.
KAMPUS.
Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, [1986]. Octavo, illustrations by Richard Powers, full leather, a.e.g. First hardcover edition. Introduction by Fred Pohl. Collector's notes laid in. Issued as part of the Easton Press "Masterpieces of Science Fiction" series. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 381.
THE MAGICIANS.
New York: Scribners, 1976. Octavo, Hardcover. First edition.