Recently Shelved
THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS.
New York: Ace Publishing Corporation, [1969]. Small octavo, printed wrappers. First edition. Ace 47800. Paperback original. Winner of the 1969 Nebula and 1970 Hugo awards. Part of the prestigious ACE "Science Fiction Special" series. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-643. Pringle, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels 60. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 319. Survey of Science Fiction Literature III, pp. 1171-77.
BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP ... Collected by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei.
Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House, 1943. Large octavo, cloth. First edition. The second omnibus collection of Lovecraft's tales and other material. The fourth book issued by Arkham House. 1217 copies printed (the earlier companion volume, THE OUTSIDER AND OTHERS [1939], had a larger print run). Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1041. Tymn (ed), Horror Literature 4-158. See Barron (ed), Horror Literature 3-132. Joshi I-A-17.
STATION ELEVEN.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014. Octavo, boards. First edition. Signed on the title page by Mandel. Post catastrophe novel in which most of humanity is wiped out by the flu. Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award. Filmed as an HBO ten part series.
ANCILLARY JUSTICE.
[New York]: Orbit, [2013]. Octavo, pictorial wrappers. First edition, first printing. Trade paperback original. The author's first book and first in the "Imperial Radch" series, a vast and complex interstellar adventure. This book is a multiple award winner; the 2014 Arthur C. Clarke Award, tied for the BSFA Award for best novel, both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novel and the Locus Award for best first novel.
[Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy]: THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM with THE DARK FOREST with DEATH'S END.
New York: Tor, [2014-2016]. Octavo, 3 volumes, boards. First editions in English. Volumes one and three translated by Ken Liu (no relation) and volume two by Joel Martinsen. All first published in China, 2007, 2008 and 2010. The first volume is the Hugo Award winner for best novel, 2015, the last volume won the Locus Award for best novel. SFE online comments, "...is a deeply inventive exercise in world-building, in which a secret Mao-era project to search for extraterrestrial intelligence (see SETI) makes disastrous First Contact with a totalitarian government orbiting Alpha Centauri. Hailing from a world that fluctuates wildly between periods of idyllic calm or furious Climate Change, and the ever-present prospect of total gravitational collapse, the Aliens immediately send an Invasion fleet on the 450-year journey to seize the Earth, preceded by speedier espionage AIs..."
THE GODS THEMSELVES.
Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1972. Octavo, cloth. First edition. "In the twenty-second century, Earth and men of a para-universe establish an ideal energy exchange. Through Earthmen's electron pump and the para-men's position pump, the energy needs of both worlds are satisfied without energy loss to either. A few probing skeptics, men and para-men, learn that in time the exchange will explode our Sun, but both scientific establishments ignore their alarm. The 'fathers' of the energy pumps, puffed with pride and selfishness, will not allow their reputation, doctrine, and achievement to be jeopardized ... The blind egotism and leaden conscience of his [Asimov's] scientific establishments offer no promise that a world ruled by scientists rather than politicians would be more free of it." - Berger, Science Fiction and the New Dark Age, p. 130. THE GODS THEMSELVES ... which was only the second genuine singleton of his career and which won both Hugo and Nebula awards, proved to be his finest single creation, a complex tale involving potentially catastrophic energy transfers between alternate universes and -- rarely for him -- intriguing alien beings (they are considerably more interesting than the humans in the cast)." - John Clute / Malcolm J. Edwards, SFE (online). Written with a verve and economy that are missing from Asimov's later novels." - Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-48. Winner of the 1972 Nebula award and 1973 Hugo award for best novel. Survey of Science Fiction Literature II, pp. 909-14.
RINGWORLD.
New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, [1977]. Octavo, cloth backed boards. First edition. Signed by Niven on the title page. "An exploration team consisting of an exotic mix of humans and aliens investigates a huge artifact occupying a planetary orbit around a sun." - Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-807. Hugo Award winner, 1971; Nebula Award winner, 1970. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-807.
DANDELION WINE.
Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1957. Octavo. cloth. First edition. Set in small town America in the summer of 1928, a time right before the Great Depression and WW II. "A bucolic evocation of Bradbury's youth through rose-colored glasses. Though not strictly fantastic, this poetic blend of nostalgia and ever-so-slightly macabre happenings defines the author's view of the past as a country of the bizarre and the wonderful, and is central to Bradbury's fantasy world." - Barron (ed), Fantasy Literature 4A-44. "The poignant quality of Bradbury's writing, the evocative elements that will capture others than his usual audience, combine to make this an unusual reading experience." Kirkus Review 1 March 1975 (from a new release). Pringle, Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels 19.
NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR.
Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Publisher's review slip laid in. A novel of the future when Earth is under the domination of the Proxmen during an interstellar war that involves drugs and travel through time and alternate continuums. "Against a standard space war background, the author spins a daft and delightful yarn about hallucinogenic drugs, robotic quasi-life, psychological regression and political chicanery. Hastily written, but all the rich Dickian obsessions are in full flow." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 261.
A HANDFUL OF DARKNESS.
London, Melbourne, Sydney... Rich and Cowan, [1955]. Octavo, boards. First edition, first binding (blue boards spine stamped in silver). The author's second book, first collection of short fiction, and first hardcover book. A collection of 15 stories.
TOO MANY MAGICIANS.
Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Publisher's review slip laid in. 1967 Hugo nominee. SF locked room mystery. "Sherlockianly brilliant." - Anatomy of Wonder (1981) 3-332. Adey, Locked Room Murders and Other Impossible Crimes (1991), 793.
MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM!
Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Publisher's review slip laid in. In New York in the year 1999, a city where 35 million people compete for water and space, a police detective seeks the killer of a racketeer. "A classic novel of overpopulation and pollution ... An archetypal example of 1960s alarmism." - Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-500. Source for the disappointing film "Soylent Green," directed by Richard Fleischer, starring Charlton Heston and co-starring Edward G. Robinson (in his last role). Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-500. Pringle, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels 50. Survey of Science Fiction Literature III, pp. 1312-16.
THE PEOPLE: NO DIFFERENT FLESH.
Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967. Octavo, cloth. First U.S. edition. Author's third book. Sequel to Pilgrimage: The Book of the People (1961). Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 3-93. Survey of Science Fiction Literature IV, pp. 1682-86.
STRANGE TALES OF MYSTERY AND TERROR. [7 issues, all published, bound volume].
New York: The Clayton Magazines, Inc., 1931 - 1933. Octavo, seven issues, covers by Hans W. Wessolowski, pictorial wrappers in three bound volumes, blue boards stamped in gold to spine. All seven issues of this scarce Clayton horror pulp in three bound volumes. Includes stories by Paul Ernst, Robert E. Howard, Edmond Hamilton, Jack Williamson, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Hugh B. Cave, Henry S. Whitehead, and others. "Regarded by many as the best of the weird magazines, superior even to WEIRD TALES." - Parnell and Ashley, Monthly Terrors, pp. 200-01. Tymn and Ashley (eds), Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 626-28.
TALES OF MAGIC AND MYSTERY. Numbers 1-5 [all published, bound volume].
Camden, NJ: Personal Arts Company, Publishers, 1927-1928. Octavo, five issues, pictorial wrappers bound in blue boards with gold stamping to spine. A bound volume of all five issues that were noted magician Joseph Dunningers copy, with his signed name and also inscribed and signed by editor/author Walter Gibson to Joe Dunninger. Gibson wrote several books about magic for Dunninger, they were lifelong friends. This is likely a presentation volume to Dunninger. Tales of Magic and Mystery was a short lived magazine which published stories and articles about magic and the occult, as well as some short fiction. The March, 1928 issue published the H. P. Lovecraft short story "Cool Air." Other authors of fiction include Frank Owen, Miriam Allen de Ford, Archie Binns, Robert Leslie Bellem and others. Gibson wrote most non-fiction material under his own name and also using the pseudonyms, Alfred Maurice and Bernard Perry.
THE NAKED SUN.
Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1957. Octavo, boards. First edition. The second novel featuring detective Elijah Bailey and his robot partner R. Daneel Olivaw by "the writer who virtually invented the science fiction mystery. In his novels THE CAVES OF STEEL (1954) and THE NAKED SUN (1957) and in the stories collected as ASIMOV'S MYSTERIES (1968), he masterfully bridged the gap between the two genres and proved that genuine detective fiction could be set in the future as well as in the present or past." - Pronzini and Muller, 1001 Midnights, p. 29. The human/robot detective team solve another murder, this one committed on Solaris, an Outer World with a robot-run economy, where the twenty thousand Solarians, thinly spread out over the surface of the planet, live in near total isolation from each other, and the presence or touch of another Solarian produces incapacitating physical repugnance. Bailey, from an underground Earth city, must overcome his fear of open spaces to solve the crime. "In its setting, it's a sort of inversion of THE CAVES OF STEEL, and it's equally cleverly plotted." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. [249]. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-42. Survey of Science Fiction Literature III, pp. 1476-9.
THE COMETEERS.
Reading, Pennsylvania: Fantasy Press, 1950. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Inscribed and signed by both Jack Williamson and artist Edd Cartier on the leaf following the half title to editor, researcher and long time fan Joseph Wrzos. Additionally artist Edd Cartier on the lower front flap of the jacket. Collects two short novels, "The Cometeers" (ASTOUNDING 1936) and "One Against the Legion" (ASTOUNDING 1939), that feature the same characters appearing in THE LEGION OF SPACE (1934; 1947). Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 2-134.
WHO GOES THERE?: SEVEN TALES OF SCIENCE FICTION.
Chicago: Shasta Publishers, 1951. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Classic collection of stories first published under Campbell's pseudonym, Don A. Stuart, in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION between 1934 and 1938. "These short stories are much better than the author's novel-length space operas, and constitute a fascinating body of work." - Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 2-13. The title story has been filmed twice, the first in 1951 as "The Thing From Another World," one of the classic Science Fiction films of the 1950s (with James Arness in the title role), and by John Carpenter in 1982 as "The Thing." See Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-211. See Survey of Science Fiction Literature IV, pp. 2003-07.
DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE. "The Land of Terror."
New York: Street & Smith Publications, Inc., 1933. Octavo, cover painting by Walter Baumhofer, pictorial wrappers. The second issue with the story "The Land of Terror." "Doc Savage was intended to be an adventure character, but under Lester Dent's imaginative manipulations he became something more - the first superhero and an inspiration for countless pulp, comic-book, and television characters." - Cook, Mystery, Detective and Espionage Magazines, pp. 521-527. "The enormously wealthy Doc Savage – headquartered in a fantasticated New York with his five sidekicks, who specialize in various crafts and sciences at the borderline of sf – devotes his life to combating criminal conspiracies, almost all masterminded by the kind of charismatic villain later given definitive form by Ian Fleming in the James Bond books. Doc Savage himself clearly influenced the creation of Superman." - SFE online. Tymm and Ashley, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 183-185.
DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE. "The Man of Bronze."
New York: Street & Smith Publications, Inc., 1933. Octavo, cover painting by Walter Baumhofer, pictorial wrappers. The first issue with the story "The Man of Bronze." "Doc Savage was intended to be an adventure character, but under Lester Dent's imaginative manipulations he became something more - the first superhero and an inspiration for countless pulp, comic-book, and television characters." - Cook, Mystery, Detective and Espionage Magazines, pp. 521-527. "The enormously wealthy Doc Savage – headquartered in a fantasticated New York with his five sidekicks, who specialize in various crafts and sciences at the borderline of sf – devotes his life to combating criminal conspiracies, almost all masterminded by the kind of charismatic villain later given definitive form by Ian Fleming in the James Bond books. Doc Savage himself clearly influenced the creation of Superman." - SFE online. Tymm and Ashley, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 183-185.
CRYPTONOMICON.
[Burton, MI]: Subterranean Press, 2012. Octavo, cloth. Limited edition. Of 526 numbered and lettered copies, this copy is marked "PC." "This complex and ambitious cyber-thriller, which begs comparison with Pynchon's GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, features half a dozen well-conceived plot lines. During World War II, the mathematical genius and cryptographer Lawrence Waterhouse, a friend of Alan Turing, is instrumental in breaking the Nazi's Enigma code. Some 60 years later, his grandson Randy, a computer hacker, is involved in setting up a small-scale, but high-tech data haven in Southeast Asia, only to find out that his project has attracted the attention of a number of powerful governments, multinational corporations, and secret organizations. Randy also discovers evidence of a secret conspiracy that may be centuries old." - Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-1075. Locus Award winner. Hugo Award nominee for best novel. A prelude to the author's "Baroque Cycle" of novels.
SNOW CRASH.
[Burton, MI]: Subterranean Press, 2008. Octavo, cloth. Limited edition. Of 526 numbered and lettered copies, this copy is marked "PC." "The pizza-delivery-man hero also leads another existence in the 'metaverse' (a term Stephenson coined), a virtual reality where he must use his hacker skills to fight a deadly new computer virus. Stephenson's first SF novel (he had previously written a couple of environmentalist thrillers), and something of a trendy cult book." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 332. "The action, and there's a lot of noisy action, is powered by a conspiracy involving a Secret History of the last 4000 years, the Tower of Babel, a cult predating the Babylonians, and much else ... Knowing and acerbic, a dazzling hyperkinetic dance down the mean streets of cyberspace and back up again into the sunlight." - Paul McAuley, Interzone. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-1077. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1986-2009.
NIGHT SHIFT.
Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1978. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. First edition. Inscribed and signed by King on the front free end paper, and dated by him in 1983. The author's fourth book and first collection of short fiction. More than half the contents (twelve of twenty stories) have become the basis for films; The Boogeyman, Children of the Corn, The Last Rung on the Ladder, The Lawnmower Man, Graveyard Shift, Sometimes They Come Back, The Mangler, Night Surf, Strawberry Spring, Trucks, I Know What You Need and The Woman in the Room. Children of the Corn and Sometimes They Come Back have spawned numerous film sequels. Barron (ed), Horror Literature 4-170. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature III, pp. 1116-20. Tymn (ed), Horror Literature 4-132.
THE FANTASY FAN: THE FAN'S OWN MAGAZINE.
Elizabeth, New Jersey: Charles D. Hornig, 1933-1935. Octavo, 18 issues, printed or self wrappers. The first important weird fiction fanzine, and one of the most desirable of the fanzines of the thirties. For two years it published news and fiction related to the genre. Stories first published in THE FANTASY FAN include H. P. Lovecraft's "The Other Gods" and "From Beyond," Clark Ashton Smith's "The Epiphany of Death," "The Ghoul," "The Kingdom of the Worm," and "The Primal City," as well as tales by Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, David H. Keller and others. THE FANTASY FAN was "an interesting mix of news, articles, stories, poems, and miscellany. Hornig however, made an error in initiating a column of controversy entitled 'The Boiling Point,' which quickly led to acrimonious letter exchanges between Lovecraft, Forrest J. Ackerman, Clark Ashton Smith, and numerous others; the column was terminated with the February 1934 issue. Perhaps Hornig's greatest accomplishment was the serialization of the revised version of Lovecraft's 'Supernatural Horror in Literature' (October 1933-February 1935). However, the serialization proceeded at such a slow pace that it had reached only the middle of Chapter VIII before the magazine folded. THE FANTASY FAN also saw the first publication of Lovecraft's stories. 'The Other Gods' (November 1933) and 'From Beyond' (June 1934) as well as reprints (from amateur papers) of 'Polaris' (February 1934) and 'Beyond the Wall of Sleep' (October 1934); it also published 'The Book' (October 1934), 'Pursuit' (October 1934), 'The Key' (January 1935), and 'Homecoming' (January 1935) from 'Fungi from Yuggoth.' Brief excerpts of Lovecraft's letters to Hornig appeared regularly in the magazine's letter column. The October 1934 issue was dedicated to Lovecraft. After the demise of THE FANTASY FAN, numerous attempts were made to revive or succeed it, but no magazine truly filled its place as a news organ, a forum for the expression of fan's views, and a venue for work by distinguished writers in the field" (Joshi and Schultz, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, pp. 90-91). "As a real help to the lover of weird and fantasy fiction Hornig's magazine reigned supreme in the field at that time ... Almost every weirdist of importance in fandom was at one time or another represented in its pages. And as a love-feast for such fans it has never again been equaled" (Moskowitz, The Immortal Storm, pp. 18-20). "... one of the legendary magazines of the 1930s ... an extremely consistent and reliable magazine ..." (Tymn and Ashley, eds., Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 822-23). According to Hornig (writing in 1988) "THE FANTASY FAN was printed by Conrad Ruppett of Jamaica, New York, hand set. Julius Schwartz and I helped him collate and staple each copy every month for eighteen months. Except for the second issue (500 copies), there were only 250 printed, and the paid circulation never reached over 50. What happened to the residue? Well, I found someone to buy up most of the unsold copies, and that was B. K. Gores of Austin, Texas. I never heard from him before or since, never knew him in fandom, and don't know whatever happened to him. Somewhere, there should be stacks of TFF, unless they're destroyed." Joshi I-B-ii-232. Pavlat and Evans, Fanzine Index (1965), p. 37.
THE STAND: THE COMPLETE AND UNCUT EDITION.
New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland: Doubleday, [1990]. Octavo, full leather. First printing of the enlarged edition. Limited to 1302 copies of which this is one of 1250 numbered copies signed by King and artist Berni Wrightson. This is copy #562. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-601. Barron (ed), Horror Literature 4-175. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, Additions. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature IV, pp. 1801-06. Tymn (ed), Horror Literature 4-135.