Science Fiction
THE HELLICONIA TRILOGY: HELLICONIA SPRING; HELLICONIA SUMMER; AND HELLICONIA WINTER.
London: Jonathan Cape, [1982-1985]. Octavo, three volumes, boards. First British editions. The first volume is signed by Aldiss on the title page. First two simultaneous, last preceded by the U.S. edition. The complete trilogy comprising HELLICONIA SPRING, HELLICONIA SUMMER, and HELLICONIA WINTER. A "massive attempt at world-creation: the evocation of an alien planet where 'winter' lasts many centuries. An epic narrative, impressively detailed. John W. Campbell award winner, 1983. The elaborate, brilliantly sustained sequels are HELLICONIA SUMMER (1983) and HELLICONIA WINTER (1985)." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 170. "Though science fiction often has this scope, it has never had this grandeur." - The Times Literary Supplement. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-11.
HOTHOUSE...
London: Faber and Faber, [1962]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Issued earlier in the U.S. in a shorter version as The Long Afternoon of Earth (1962). Novelization of five Hothouse stories that won the 1962 Hugo award for best short fiction published in 1961. Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 3-3. Pringle, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels 34.
AN ISLAND CALLED MOREAU ...
New York: Simon and Schuster, [1981]. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. First U.S. edition. "The crew of a downed space shuttle are washed up on a remote island where dreadful experiments are in progress. A retelling of H. G. Wells's classic THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU (1896), in late twentieth-century terms." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 245. Issued earlier in Britain as MOREAU'S OTHER ISLAND (1980).
THE MALACIA TAPESTRY.
New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London: Harper & Row, Publishers, [1977]. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. First U.S. edition. Anatomy of Wonder (1981) 3-9. Barron (ed), Fantasy Literature 4A-3. Pringle, Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels 59.
NEW ARRIVALS, OLD ENCOUNTERS: TWELVE STORIES.
New York, Cambridge, London, Hagerstown, Mexico City, Philadelphia, Sao Paulo, San Francisco, Sydney: Harper & Row, Publishers, [1978]. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. First U.S. edition. Includes "New Arrivals, Old Encounters," which depicts a eutopia, and "Three Ways," which depicts a dystopia. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, pp. 379-80; 384.
GALAXIES LIKE GRAINS OF SAND.
Boston: Gregg Press, 1977. Octavo, cloth. First hardcover edition, first printing. A collection of eight short stories with a significant amount of new material added to form a history from the near to the far future, issued earlier in the UK in a different format as THE CANOPY OF TIME (1959). Includes "All the World's Tears," a post-catastrophe authoritarian dystopia. Text offset from the 1960 Signet paperback edition. New introduction by Norman Spinrad. Anatomy of Wonder (2114) II-8. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 264.
HELLICONIA WINTER.
London: Jonathan Cape, [1985]. Octavo, boards. First edition. The final volume in the trilogy. A "massive attempt at world-creation: the evocation of an alien planet where 'winter' lasts many centuries. An epic narrative, impressively detailed. John W. Campbell award winner, 1983..." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 170. "Though science fiction often has this scope, it has never had this grandeur." - The Times Literary Supplement. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-11.
AN ISLAND CALLED MOREAU.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981. Octavo, Hardcover. First U.S. edition.
THE MOMENT OF THE ECLIPSE.
London: Faber and Faber:, [1970]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Collects fourteen stories. Includes "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long," basis for the 2001 Steven Spielberg film A.I. Artificial Intelligence. "Fourteen subtle tales, some comic, some sombre, all highly original. Some of these are late-60s New Wave SF at its best." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), pp. 242-243. Winner of a 1972 British Science Fiction Association Award. Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 4-3.
THE SALIVA TREE: AND OTHER STRANGE GROWTHS
London: Faber and Faber, [1966]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Ten stories including "The Saliva Tree," winner of the 1965 Nebula award for best novella. The "notable" title piece, "a centenary tribute to H. G. Wells, reworks ideas from several of that great writer's novels." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1999), p. [312]. "Excellent collection." - Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 3-5. One of the major story collections of the 1960s.
THE SALIVA TREE: AND OTHER STRANGE GROWTHS
London: Faber and Faber, [1966]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. With compliments slip from the publisher laid in. Ten stories including "The Saliva Tree," winner of the 1965 Nebula award for best novella. The "notable" title piece, "a centenary tribute to H. G. Wells, reworks ideas from several of that great writer's novels." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1999), p. [312]. "Excellent collection." - Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 3-5. One of the major story collections of the 1960s.
THE SALIVA TREE: AND OTHER STRANGE GROWTHS.
Boston: Gregg Press, 1981. Octavo, cloth. First U. S. edition. Offset from the 1966 Faber and Faber edition. Introduction by Peter Nichols. Ten stories including "The Saliva Tree," winner of the 1965 Nebula award for best novella. The "notable" title piece, "a centenary tribute to H. G. Wells, reworks ideas from several of that great writer's novels." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1999), p. [312]. "Excellent collection." - Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 3-5. One of the major story collections of the 1960s.
THE RETURN.
Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, [2000]. Octavo, frontispiece by Vincent Di Fate, full leather, a.e.g. Limited edition. One of an unknown number of copies signed by Aldrin and Barnes. A near future science fiction/political thriller, a murder on a space shuttle and a nuclear war in Asia.
EINSTEIN'S MONSTERS.
New York: Harmony Books, [1987]. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. First U.S. edition. Collects five fantasy and SF stories.
TIME'S ARROW OR THE NATURE OF THE OFFENSE.
London: Jonathan Cape, [1991]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. This novel by a well-known mainstream British novelist "is about a man who lives backwards in time from the present to World War II, thus experiencing the Nazi concentration camps as a benign event in which the dead are resurrected. As has been pointed out frequently, the central conceit of 'life-in-reverse' is an old one in SF, having been used by J. G. Ballard in his story 'Time of Passage' (1964), by Philip K. Dick in his novel COUNTER-CLOCK WORLD, etc. (Amis does in fact acknowledge a passage in Kurt Vonnegut's SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE as his inspiration.) Nevertheless, a daring and effective book." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 378. "Amis's novel of greatest SF interest ... TIME'S ARROW was, inevitably, received as a 'literary' text whose SF structure was embarrassing, a response itself embarrassing to contemporary readers; despite, or because of, its engagement with the engines of SF, the novel reads with all the clarity of the best century reportage." - John Clute.
THE X FILES: GROUND ZERO.
New York: HarperPrism, 1995. Octavo, Hardcover. First edition.
EARTHMAN'S BURDEN.
New York: Gnome Press, Inc., [1957]. Octavo, boards. First edition, first binding of light blue boards with spine panel lettered in dark blue. Collects six Hoka stories including "The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound," a Sherlockian pastiche.
EARTHMAN'S BURDEN.
New York: Gnome Press, Inc., [1957]. Octavo, cloth. First edition, second binding of gray cloth with spine panel lettered in red. Signed on the title page by both Dickson and Anderson. Collects six Hoka stories including "The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound," a Sherlockian pastiche. Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 3-9.
EARTHMAN'S BURDEN.
New York: Gnome Press, Inc., [1957]. Octavo, cloth. First edition, second binding of gray cloth with spine panel lettered in red. Collects six Hoka stories including "The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound," a Sherlockian pastiche. Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 3-9.
THE AVATAR.
New York: Published by Berkley Publishing Corporation Distributed by G. P. Putnam's Sons, [1978]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. "The hero escapes from a dull, bureaucratic Earth and searches the universe for the Others, an alien race which has evolved unimaginable powers. Strong on libertarian sentiment, this is a big, ambitious novel which does not quite come off." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 24. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-20.
THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS.
Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, [1989]. Octavo, frontispiece by Bob Eggleton, full leather, a.e.g. Limited edition. One of an unspecified number of copies signed by Anderson. Introduction by James Gunn. 1989 Nebula nominee. Part of the Easton Press signed first edition series. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-21.
BRAIN WAVE.
London: William Heinemann Ltd., [1955]. Octavo, boards. First edition. "BRAIN WAVE, perhaps his most famous single novel, remains very nearly his finest. Its premise is simple: for millions of years the part of the galaxy containing our solar system has been moving through a vast force field whose effect has been to inhibit "certain electromagnetic and electrochemical processes", and thus certain neuronic functions; it is a concept Vernor Vinge would exploit and expand in his A FIRE UPON THE DEEP (1992). When Earth escapes the inhibiting field, synapse-speed immediately increases, causing a rise in intelligence; after the book has traced various absorbing consequences of this transformation, a transfigured humanity reaches for the stars, leaving behind (it is a conclusion evocative of Clifford D Simak at his best) former mental defectives and bright animals to inherit the planet." - John Clute, SFE (online). Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-22.
BRAIN WAVE.
London: William Heinemann Ltd., [1955]. Octavo, boards. First edition. Signed and inscribed by Anderson on the title page. "BRAIN WAVE, perhaps his most famous single novel, remains very nearly his finest. Its premise is simple: for millions of years the part of the galaxy containing our solar system has been moving through a vast force field whose effect has been to inhibit "certain electromagnetic and electrochemical processes", and thus certain neuronic functions; it is a concept Vernor Vinge would exploit and expand in his A FIRE UPON THE DEEP (1992). When Earth escapes the inhibiting field, synapse-speed immediately increases, causing a rise in intelligence; after the book has traced various absorbing consequences of this transformation, a transfigured humanity reaches for the stars, leaving behind (it is a conclusion evocative of Clifford D Simak at his best) former mental defectives and bright animals to inherit the planet." - John Clute, SFE (online). Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-22.
THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN.
Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, Inc., 1973. Octavo, boards. First edition. Issued by the Science Fiction Book Club. First printing with no code on page 181. Jacket painting by Richard Corben.
THE ENEMY STARS.
Philadelphia and New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1959. Octavo, boards. First edition. "...this is Anderson at his tragic-heroic best, blending meticulous astrophysics with brooding romanticism." - Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 3-6. Nominated for a Hugo Award in 1959.