Recently I ordered a pair of Centipede Press books. They were listed together, and as I’d considered buying one or the other at some point, I thought it was a good opportunity to get both. Synchronicity, I guess. In terms of pricing, one book was priced extremely low, so it might be an issue of the publisher clearing inventory. In some cases Centipede Press books fetch astronomical sums (mostly on the secondary market, but sometimes from the publisher, viz. the Dune books. Yowza!). In other cases (far fewer, I suspect), books don’t sell quickly enough, and so the price drops until inventory clears. In any case, peruse the Centipede Press web site and you’ll find almost all books published six months or more ago are out of print.
Rough Justice is a collection of stories by Steve Rasnic Tem. Tem is a noted horror writer, with ten novels and mote than twenty collections to his credit. I checked my collection and found only one book with his stories, the first Night Visions collection from Dark Harvest, published in 1984. Then again, my horror collection is somewhat slim, at least compared to SF, fantasy, and mystery books. Still, I was somewhat surprised that his book was currently priced as low as it was.
The other book is The Horrible and Others, by the French writer, Guy de Maupassant. As far as Maupassant goes, who lived from 1850 to 1893, I’m familiar only with the name, not the person or the fiction. Both books come in a signed and unsigned version (although the signatures in the Maupassant book are by the editor and illustrator, as Maupassant hasn’t yet risen from the dead to put pen to paper). I ended up getting the unsigned copies of both books; I own only a handful of Centipede Press books, mostly Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series, one book by Robert Silverberg, and finally Michael Shea’s monumental collection, The Autopsy and Others. (I did buy a couple of Bram Stoker books for my wife, who is a huge Stoker fan.) Aside from the Shea book, all others are unsigned. I’m content with that choice.
According to an online resource, “[Maupassant] wrote 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one volume of verse.” Supposedly he’s considered a father of the modern short story. I would think that honor falls to Edgar Allan Poe, who died one year before Maupassant was born. Perhaps Maupassant perfected the short story, but he’s by no means the father of the short story. It seems every critic who focuses on a particular writer forgets anyone prior to that writer. If anyone is the father of the short story, it’s Poe.
Both books have quite nice wrap-around dust jackets, as is par for the typical stunning production quality from Centipede Press. The Rasnic Tem book collects over 40 short stories (and some are quite short), spanning the years 1983 to 2020.
The Maupassant book contains an illuminating introduction by editor S.T. Joshi, over 30 stories, and a bibliography. Until I saw this book I wasn’t aware that Maupassant had written any “weird” tales, but there are supposedly some classics in that genre within this collection.
Anyone interested in weird fiction or classic fantasy fiction should check out Centipede Press. Some of the books are pricy, and some cater to different tastes, but these are books that are both a pleasure to read and a pleasure to own.
Recently I happened to be in England, and while in England, if one cares about books one must visit Waterstones. This is a chain of bookstores, present in most medium to large towns, and a delight to book nerds. Alas, not all Waterstones are alike. Some stores have separate sections for crime, or horror. Other store seem to absorb some crime and mystery book into their fiction section, and ignore horror altogether. In my foray into various Waterstones (Reading, Bath, London—-Islington and Hampstead), I came away not so much with books in my current focus of the crime/mystery genre, but a handful of books by Eric Ambler.
A few years ago my father sent me an Ambler novel, The Mask of Dimitrios. This was a spy novel (or thriller, depending on your genre definition), set in Europe in the 1930s. The 1930s is a favorite decade of mine, being between the two world wars. Since my father lives in England, the book was a Penguin Classics edition, with a striking cover of a blood-red harbor and river.
After reading it I immediately sought out other books by Ambler. However, in my local bookstores here in the middle-of-nowhere-USA I found only one book, Epitaph for a Spy. Online, there are a few other books. The US cover, to put it mildly, was horrible, but who cares about the cover? (Yes, for some reason, I do care about book covers…)
In England, in Reading’s Waterstones, I found three books, all by Penguin Classics and with striking covers. Also, in the shelf, were the two books that I already owned. At the time I didn’t remember that my Mask of Dimitrios copy was the same as the one in the store. Still, as I tend to resist buying books that I already own, I left them on the shelf. Then, a few days later in another Waterstones in Bath, three other titles. In other words, I returned home with six new Ambler books, and when I looked at the two that i already owned, I found that I had a nice little collection of seven Penguin Classic editions of Ambler’s novels, with just one outlier.
The covers by Penguin are brilliant, striking! Perusing Waterstones‘ shelves I found several other Penguin Classics editions by other authors, and the book nerd in me wanted to buy them all. I wanted to start a collection based on all their books. Crazy, I know, but just like their older orange editions, these newer editions with pale green spines beckon to collectors, to book nerds. “Buy me,” they said. “Read me, and care for me.” Alas, I had limited space in my suitcase, and only picked up a couple of other Penguin Classic books. This time, at least.
Some of the Ambler books include introductions, while some dive right into the story. What’s the better option? I’m not sure. The Mask of Dimitrios is supposedly a classic. The others? I don’t yet know if they fit that bill, but I know I look forward to reading them all, regardless of thrills or disappointments. I only wish the US publishers had the same panache in terms of design as Penguin.
So, if you happen to find yourself in England in a Waterstones, check out any of the Penguin Classic books. You’ll want to buy them, and you might just discover some great fiction, when fiction was great.
For a while, I thought this was a lost/cursed book that I would never add to my library. Earlier this year I was in Atlanta, where I hiked part of the Appalachian Trail and attended a work conference. On the way to the trail, I stopped by a used bookstore. The sole reason for the side trip to this bookstore? On their web site they had listed this book, published by Dark Harvest Press in 1989, for sale for $50. When I arrived there, and asked for the book, they were unable to find the copy. Someone apparently had already bought it, and they never removed the listing. I looked around the store, and although they had a few other interesting books, I walked away without purchasing anything, as my mind was on that book, and that book alone.
Since that failed opportunity I occasionally checked online sites, such as Abebooks and eBay, but prices for decent copies exceeded what I cared to pay, or the books looked in debatable shape. Then, in August, I found a copy listed at the starting bid of $24.99. I placed a bid for the book for $25, expecting someone to swoop in shortly before the end of the auction and outbid me, as has happened in the past. This time it didn’t happen. The auction ended with my bid as the highest one. However, for several days there was no announcement, just a “sold” notice on the listing page. I figured that the seller had been disappointed that there only was a single bid, and that one bid was just one cent above the initial listing. On the third day, a notice that I was the winning bid. I paid the amount listed, plus shipping, and sat back to wait to see what would happen.
After I paid the bid amount, plus the shipping charge, I heard nothing. Usually there’s an email that the item is about to ship, and then it had shipped. In this case: silence. Then, a week later, a notice that the book shipped. Another week passed, and the book arrived. It’s not perfect, not by a long shot. There’s a strange smell to it, the edges of the papers are dirty, and there’s a slight wobble to the book. But, the worst part is that the protective cover had been glued to the book. I only noticed this when I tried to remove the dust jacket, and heard the tear as the glue pulled off part of the book. This sound made me cringe, as it felt like the book was being destroyed. I do not understand people who ruin books like this: gluing the cover to the book, stamping or writing in books, gluing anything inside the book. For a brief moment I placed this book next to my other oversized Dark Harvest books. Then, worried the smell would infect those books, I moved it elsewhere. I guess for $25 in this day and age, you can’t expect perfection. So, a reading copy this will remain.
I already owned 31 other Dark Harvest books, though this is not a complete collection. Dark Harvest was a small press active from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. Initially they published mostly horror and SF books, a mix of novels, collections, and anthologies (including nine books in the series of anthologies under the name, “Night Visions”). The Night Visions books usually included two well-known writers, plus one new writer. Authors featured in this series include Stephen King, Clive Barker, George R. R. Martin, F. Paul Wilson, Dan Simmons, and others. Most of the books are in a regular size format, but they also published a novel and two major collections in an oversized format. The novel: Dan Simmons’ Carrion Comfort; the two collections: 50-year retrospectives on the works of Fritz Leiber and Isaac Asimov. Call it fantasy vs. science fiction. Many years ago I acquired the Fritz Leiber collection, shortly after it was published. A year ago I picked up Carrion Comfort, and only the Asimov collection remained from these oversized editions. Why the long gaps? Leiber is a favorite author of mine, and I’m fairly certain I bought this book at cover price. I already owned the Simmons book in paperback, and for years debated whether or not I really needed to spend the money for the Dark Harvest book, until I finally caved. And the Asimov? Well, perhaps I’m slowly becoming a completist, and feel the need or desire to have all the Dark Harvest books…
There are still still a few Dark Harvest books that I haven’t yet added to my collection: a Dean Koontz novel, collections of stories by David Brin, George R. R. Martin, John Varley, the third (and rarest) Night Visions anthology, and a handful others. It’s been a while since I read anything by Asimov, but now I have the opportunity to go discover (again) an overview of his work. Given the issues with this book—the glued cover—I likely will need to look for a better copy at some point.
The 27th book in Pulphouse Publishing’s Author’s Choice Monthly series, with stories by Roger Zelazny, took a while to find at an acceptable price. But now, I finally have all 29 books in the series. Of those 29, the vast majority that I own are in the trade paperback edition; only three in hardcover. The hardcovers were limited to 300 signed copies; some are numbered, some are not. In addition, there was a deluxe leather-bound edition, limited to 50 numbered and signed copies. The latter are for hardy souls with deep pockets.
For many years I owned just two of the books in this series. Then, in 2023 I started trying to find the other books in the series. Originally, I thought that I might acquire them all in time to review them, one book at a time, during the month of February, 2024. Since 2024 is a leap year there are 29 days in February, so I would have been able to match one day per book.
However, some books proved hard to locate at acceptable prices, especially the ones by Charles de Lint, William F. Wu, and Roger Zelazny. I thought that they’d all be relatively easy to find, but that wasn’t always the case. When I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get them all in time to read and write a review by February 1st, I halted that plan. Now that I have them all, it’s a question whether I continue my plan to read them in order (more or less, as I already ready the two that I previously owned), or just read them at random. It’s strange to think that since the last book in the series was published in 1992, so many of the authors have shuffled off their mortal coil. There is nothing crueler than time.
The Magic Wagon, Joe R. Lansdale, Subterranean Press 2001. Originally published by Doubleday as a hardcover in 1986, then as a mass-market paperback in 1988 at the same time as the UK edition appeared, this is one of Joe. R. Lansdale’s earliest novels. The novel was re-issued as a signed edition hardcover and trade paperback by Subterranean Press in 2001. Another limited edition (500 copies) was published by BookVoice Publishing in 2018. The original is hard to find and expensive. I read a lot of Westerns in my teen years, mostly Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour, and although this book might have been marketed as a Western, it’s only tangentially such.
The copy that I recently acquired was the signed edition from Subterranean Press. It’s a slim volume, just over 150 pages. I’ve read a fair amount of Lansdale’s books and stories, though I’m by no means a collector, since I don’t specifically look for his books, but buy them if I come across them in stores. It will be interesting to see his style from 1986, although I first came across his books in 1991, when I read Savage Season and Cold in July (the latter having been published a few years prior). [Note: Lansdale style has not changed much over the years; the same voice from The Magic Wagon tends to appear in most of his fiction.]
F. Paul Wilson, Panacea, 2016, Gauntlet Press. I already have the Tor edition of this book, but when an opportunity arose to pick up the signed limited edition for $10, I thought, “Why not?” This is one of 500 copies, and comes with an afterword by Thomas Monteleone. Not sure if I’ll be able to find the other two novels in the ICE trilogy at the same price,
F. Paul Wilson, The Compendium of F, Volume 3, Borderlands Press, 2021. Limited to 350 copies, of which this is number 122. I already have Wilson’s short three story collections: Soft and Others (1989), The Barrens and Others (1998), and Aftershock and Others (2009). In the last book, Wilson writes that this is his last original collection, as he was giving up short stories to focus solely on novels. So, after 2005, no more stories. Still, never say never…
Starting in 2021, Borderlands Press gathered all of Wilson’s short fiction into three limited and lettered edition volumes, each entitled The Compendium of F (a play on “F” as riff on the first initial in his byline and the fictional Compendium of Srem in his Repairman Jack novels). Copies occasionally pop up for sale on the used market, usually far beyond the original cover price. Recently, I lost out on two auctions for the third volume, as I have a hard ceiling when it comes to bidding on any book. Then, for around the same price as my bid ceiling, I bought a copy listed online elsewhere; I probably won’t have the same luck with the first and second volumes.
Volume 3 collects stories from 2000 onward, so the ones in Aftershock published prior to 2000 appear in an earlier volume. Did Wilson keep his word when he wrote in Aftershock that there would be no more stories? No, and for that fans of Wilson’s fiction are thankful. There are around dozen new stories in this book. I’m not sure why the third volume showed up for sale at far cheaper prices than the first two, with all these new stories. Maybe there are stories in the earlier volumes that weren’t collected in Soft and Others and The Barrens and Others? Regardless, I’m glad to have finally acquired a copy of this volume, so I can read Wilson’s most recent stories.
Damon Knight, editor, The Golden Road, Simon & Schuster, 1974. Another impulse purchase. Bought for $5 (plus shipping & tax), this anthology from a few decades ago collects 19 short stories from some of the major names in science fiction at that time. SF books in even semi-decent conditions from back then isn’t easy to find in my local used book stories, and as I like several of the writers in this anthology, for that price it was almost a no-brainer.
The book as such does have a few flaws: the spine leans slightly, there’s spotting on the pages, and an inch-long tear on the table of contents page. Looking back at the authors in the 19 stories collected in this book, 13 names are known to me, while six are unknowns. Four of the names that I know hark from a long time ago, while the rest are more recent. There are stories from Arthur Machen and Mark Twain, as well Larry Niven and Ursula K. Le Guin. At least one of those “unknown” writers was a big name in fantasy fiction around the same time as Machen and Twain, but is mostly forgotten today. All the stories fall under the rubric of fantasy, more so than science fiction. Probably not a collectible book, per se, but likely some great reading in those pages.
Subterranean Press for many years has published “best of” collections. These are massive books, 500, or 600 pages long, spanning the career of a specific author. As with most Subterranean Press books, they tend to sell out quickly.
Recently I picked up a pair of these collections, The Best of Gregory Benford and The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel.
Published in 2015, The Best of Gregory Benford collects 38 soties out his more than 200 published short fiction. I read several Benford books in the 1990s, but I don’t think I’ve read any of his short fiction. His novels embody the essence of “hard SF.” The titles of some of his novels are as inventive and powerful as the content, from Against Infinity, In the Ocean of Night,Across the Sea of Suns, and more. Once, again at some point in the 1990s, I had dinner with Benford and a bunch of others, and also was involved in the Prometheus Award ceremony where he presented an award. He signed some paperback and hardbacks that I owned at the time. He was gracious, witty, and personable. I look forward to reading these stories. This Subterranean Press edition was published in a trade and limited edition, and I picked up the trade edition from a local dealer, Lawrence Person, a few months ago.
In contrast to not having read Benford’s short fiction, I have read a handful of John Kessel short stories, all from a collection published by Arkham House in 1992, called Meeting in Infinity. I read those stories probably back when I bought that book in the early 1990s, so I remember nothing about them; my excuse is that I’ve read too many books since then.
Published in 2022 this collection, entitled, The Dark Ride, appears to only have been issued in a limited edition of 1,000 signed and numbered copies. I came across it in a local used book store. Shocked that anyone would sell a signed, numbered book, I picked it up at once. Although slightly longer than the Benford collection, Kessel’s book contains fewer stories—only 20.
Short story collections usually don’t sell many copies (something writers usually complain about in their introductions to their own collections). In that sense, they are ideally suited for small press publishers, who’ll run off a few copies at prices twice (or more) what you would pay for a regular hardcover by a traditional publisher like BAEN or Tor (although they do occasionally publish collections).
The starting price for most of these Sub Press editions is usually $40 or more. For the Benford book in 2015, the low end edition was $40. Meanwhile, in 2022, the signed edition from Kessel was only $45. And yet, these books tend to sell out right away, which means there are readers who want to buy short fiction between hard covers, not just in magazines. I’ve seen others listed for slightly less, or, in the case of signed limited editions, for a lot more, from Sub Press itself. On the secondary market, well, it’s whatever people thing it’s worth.
A look at Sub Press’s catalog reveals a situation that’s both good and bad. Michael Swanwick: out of print; Nancy Kress: out of print; Kage Baker: out of print; Gregory Benford: out of print; Lucius Shepard: out of print. The list goes on and on… If you’re looking for any of these books now, your only option is book dealers who snapped up copies to sell, with a slight (or more than slight) profit to themselves. Good luck out there. Find a collection from a writer you like, and you’ll see their career in highlights.
In 2009 Jasper Fforde published the novel Shades of Grey. Another novel around the same time, with a number in the title, led to some confusion. Fforde’s Shades of Grey, as stated in the Wikipedia entry, “takes place in Chromatacia, an alternative version of the United Kingdom wherein social class is determined by one’s ability to perceive colour.” (Note the British spelling.) Thus, it’s a vastly different type of novel from that fan-fiction novel with a number in the title. This led to some confusion when I mentioned to friends that I’d read a book with “shades of grey” in the title.
Red Side Story is the 2024 sequel to Shades of Grey. That’s quite a long time between sequels, but between those two books Fforde wrote a series of four novels in the young adult genre, as well as two adult novels set in a different world, Early Riser (2014) and The Constant Rabbit (2020). Fforde is perhaps best known for the Thursday Next series of books. He falls into the genre of “comic fiction,” perhaps, as his books are somewhat on the edge of reality and veering into an amusing side world.
I’ve been a steady fan of Fforde’s work, starting with the first Thursday Next novel, The Eyre Affair, way back in 2001. I liked Shades of Grey, couldn’t get into Early Riser, and, as far as The Constant Rabbit, well, I missed the latter entirely. The YA books are hard to find in the US, at least in my local book stores, so I only have the first one in that series, and it remains unread. Then, by chance a month or so ago I saw the title of Red Side Story online, and that it was released in 2024. There’s a local bookstore just over a mile from my house. I checked their website, saw it was in stock, and drove over there (it’s over 100 F during the day here in the Central Texas summer, so I didn’t think about walking over there and back). I found a small stack of the books, picked one and paid for it,
Two days later I’d finished reading the novel. It’s that good. In this novel we learn more about Chromatacia, a future England that’s become a sort of preserve, or basis for an experiment on a different species of humanity. They are controlled, observed, experimented on, and subjected to horrible acts, from targeted murder to wide-spread culling. The protagonist from Shades of Grey is back. He’s accused of murder, and his fate’s already been decided even before the trial. Yet he’s able to walk around freely and take on tasks for his community, at least before the trial. He, along with his love interest, discover dangerous things about their society. They survive their trial, and head to an event akin to a local Olympics, where they hope to learn more details about their recent discovery. Instead, they learn that they’ve uncovered something so dangerous that people are willing to destroy an entire village just to suppress their knowledge.
Fforde might be best known for his comic fiction, and there are some funny moments here. But, it’s mostly an even sort of novel, even a political one. There were quite a few surprises along the way, and a Truman Show type of control on the Chromatica population. Overall, a strong novel, and it makes me think I need to give Early Riser another chance, and see if I can find The Constant Rabbit, even though I already have a favorite book about rabbits.
Paperback, hardback, limited edition hardback, signed limited edition, signed and numbered, signed and lettered, leather, slipcased, specially bound, etc. First editions, first hardcover edition, first US or British edition. A book sometimes is published in different states, even by the same publisher. Other books may appear under different imprints; are those books then first editions? The variation in an edition might appear minor, or there will be extras depending on the rarity of the state. The price to the buyer will rise accordingly. And, should the book sell out, often the price will sky-rocket in the secondary market. The price also is dependent upon the author, the publisher, or both. Some books get only a hardcover and paperback edition. Some get only a paperback edition (yet some of those might re-surface in a small press hardcover edition, years later). Other books are published only in special editions, while some run the gamut from paperback to special edition. And some appear only as print on demand, or in electronic format, or audio format.
Many has been the time when I’ve wondered about the “special edition” format. Small press publishers will, more often than not, publish books in several different states. They’ll call them trade editions, limited editions, or numbered and lettered editions. They may change the format of the book, add signatures from authors, editors, illustrators, etc. The more “special” an edition, the higher the price. Some buyers will gravitate to the rarer editions, seeking a slipcased and lettered copy. Is this book any better than a trade edition from that same publisher? Does a number and signature mean than much? If you bought a trade hardcover edition, and then had the author sign it (or inscribe it), would be any different?
Recently I did a quick count, and around 10% of my collection of books contain the author’s signature. Only 4% of my books are “numbered” in the more special limited edition state. None are of the rarest of rare states, although there are a few with slipcases. On a few occasions I have brought books to conventions or author signings, where authors have signed paperbacks and hardbacks, sometimes inscribing the book to me, even though they don’t know me (although I did know one of two and that meant even more to me when they signed the books).
I do feel a certain frisson when I know that a book I own is limited to a certain number of copies. The smaller the limitation, the greater than feeling, perhaps. Probably the hardcore collectors feel that emotions to a greater degree.
And yet, at the same time, having a signed paperback or an inscribed book means just as much to me, since in the latter case it means that I met the author, maybe spoke to him or her. How does having a couple of Ray Bradbury signed books from an in-person event compare to a handful of Jack Vance signed books when I never met Vance? If I bought a signed Bradbury book now, given that he passed a few years ago, would it mean as much as those two signed books that he handed back to me in person? No, definitely not.
And, so, when I buy a book these days, the signature in place doesn’t really matter too much to me. Instead, when I buy a “rare” book, it’s the hardcover that I want, not the rarest variation of that hardcover. If I own the paperback, and a hardcover becomes available, I’ll pick the cheapest hardcover, even if that means the book costs more than $20 or $50. But, at the moment, never above $100. At some point, given our government’s propensity to push inflation as a norm, I know that barrier will at some point be crossed, and I will have to spend $100 for a book. A month ago I passed on a book I really, really wanted, just because it was listed at $149. That price point’s something that will be hard for me to accept, and maybe if that’s becomes the new norm I will need to re-think my approach to books, and stick to what I have, or lesser editions.
I whiffed on guessing the latest volume in Borderlands Press series of “Little Books.” After a grouping that included Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, I thought the next one would be collection from their contemporary, Clark Ashton Smith. Instead, the author was Edgar Allan Poe, who died in 1849, more than 40 years before Lovecraft was born.
Perhaps no other American writer is more famous than Poe, although one could argue cases for Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. These three are known primarily for one work each, while Poe is known for his vast body of work. Poe wrote stories that today would be considered horror, science fiction, and mystery. He wrote primarily short stories, along with some poems. Melville is known for his massive novel, Moby Dick, while Hawthorne is known for The Scarlet Letter (although he wrote a several other great books, and many significant short stories).
Many collections of Poe’s stories and poems exist. I own one called The Unabridged Edgar Allan Poe, which replaced a previous book that I believe was called Tales of Mystery and Imagination. The unabridged book supposedly contains ALL of Poe’s fiction and poetry, at least those that were published. Poe published many versions of his stories and poems; this book purports to contain the first version of each story. Does that matter? Perhaps not.
Regardless, Borderlands Press surprised me when they announce Poe would be the focus of a Little Book. I ordered my copy a week ago, and received it on May 31, 2024. This collection, entitles A Little Gold Book of Grotesqueries, was limited to 500 copies, signed by the editor. The “gold” in the title, by the way, has been used three times prior, for books by Neil Gaiman, David Morrell, and Lee Child.
How does this book, with its 155 pages, compare to the 1,178 pages of the Unabridged edition? Owner and publisher of Borderlands Press, Thomas Monteleone, edited the Poe collection. He penned a personal introduction, writing about how he first was introduced to Poe’s fiction at the age of 14. I, too, read Poe as a teenager, but probably more so in my early twenties while at college. This books collects a mix of stories and poems. It contains the famous poem, “The Raven,” although it leaves out perhaps the most famous short stories of them all, “The Cask of Amontillado.” Nonetheless, it’s a great collection of Poe’s short works.
As an aside, I do think the editor was lazy to reprint the “About the author” text word for word from the first paragraph in Wikipedia’s entry on Poe.
Here’s another F. Paul Wilson book that I picked up as part of my recent quest to find all Wilson books that I don’t own (I think that list is down to less than five at the moment, though I’m not counted books with Wilson contributions vs. his stuff alone, or limited edition versions of books that I already own).
The Christmas Thingy was originally published in 2000 as a hardcover be Cemetery Dance in a limited edition of 350 copies. It’s since been reprinted in trade paperback editions, but still remains as a somewhat obscure book. For a time. Wilson offered to sign books as a gift via the old Repairman Jack forum web site. I didn’t really pay much attention back then. Lately, I’ve been on a Wilson kick, and I found an opportunity to acquire a limited hardcover edition of this book.
Originally published in 2000, this edition was priced at $20, which seems low for a book limited to 350 copies. Ironically, I bought the book in 2024 for $20 from Half Price Books (HPB), which I thought was a bargain, as I’ve seen the book listed on eBay and Abebooks for over $75. HPB is a strange bookstore. It’s a chain, selling mostly used books at half price, although it does mark up collectible books, sometimes at reasonable markups, sometimes at insane prices. I recently bought Robert McCammon’s Baal, the Subterranean Press edition, from HPB for $50. The books must be listed by individual stores, as another copy of the same edition is listed for $150. I suppose it depends on the person listing the book, who then makes the decision on the price based on a certain knowledge, or maybe caprice. I’ve seen a Neil Gaiman book listed for $750, and someone actually bought it. I’ve also seen Jack Vance sets listed for $500 or more, and no doubt someone desperate enough will shell out that many dollars for those books.
When buying online, you wonder about the condition of the book. This copy of The Christmas Thingy, number 32 of 350 signed by Wilson and illustrator Alan M. Clark, arrived in great condition. The book was in a slipcase, with an inlaid slip from “Beckworth Auction” as lot number 535. This makes me wonder: why it ended up in an auction, who bought it and what did they pay for the book, and, lastly, why did it end up in Half Price Books? This particular book’s long twenty-four year trip finally ended up with me, which is a strange journey indeed. I wasn’t as lucky with the next addition…
Occasionally I’ve been lucky at HPB when shopping in the store. Many years ago I found the first edition of Dan Simmons’s book, Song of Kali, for only $5.95. Another time I found the 1984 horror anthology, Dark Forces, signed by a dozen contributors, including Stephen King, for $8.95. I’ve found a few Subterranean Press books at reasonable prices, and some I have place back on shelve after experiencing sticker shock. On other occasions I have skipped books that I regretted not picking up, or ended up with a copy of two in horrible condition, just to have a reading copy. You walk into a used bookstore with no idea of what you will find. Sometimes I walk out with an exciting book, sometimes with nothing at all. Still, while in the store, you can generally check the condition of a book.
Jack Vance is my all-time favorite writer, and I own (almost) all his books. I say almost as I don’t have any books from the Vance Integral Edition (VIE), which collects ALL his works, in the author’s preferred state and with his preferred titles. When the VIE was published I signed up for it, but when it came time to pay I didn’t think I could afford the entry price, so I dropped out. Now? Well, a price for anything VIE on the secondary marked is insane, if you can even find a complete set. Even single volumes fetch a premium (but so do the Underwood-Miller editions).
The Gray Prince appeared in hardback from Bobby-Merrill in 1974. For many years I owned only a copy of the DAW paperback edition, published in 1982. I’ve read the novel two or three times, and it really doesn’t stand out as a unique Vancian novel; rather, it follows a theme similar to several other novels: the idea that “ancient” races who see themselves as rightful owners/rulers are not so ancient after all, but others have preceded them. The cover is well done, however.
Recently, I saw an opportunity to get a hardcover version at a somewhat decent price, and so pulled the trigger on that purchase. I ordered this online from Half Price Books, the same day I ordered an F. Paul Wilson book (see below). The books arrived a week apart, so kudos to the store that shipped the Wilson book, vs. the store that shipped the Vance book. I really now only need a hardcover copy of Maske: Thaery (I do own a book club edition of this novel, but that’s not the same). Yet, I strongly wish that U-M had published editions of both books, back when they specialized in Vance’s works.
The cover of this edition is, to put it mildly, horribly generic. Still, it’s nice to replace a battered paperback copy with a broken spine. The story was originally published in Amazing Science Fiction magazine in two parts in 1974, under the title, The Domains of Koryphon. Maybe that title was restored in the VIE.
The book that I received was in poor condition: the spine was tilted and there was significant spotting on the edges of the paper. This 1974 copy did not hold up well. It’s signed by Vance, but, had I known about the condition I would not have bought it. It’s an issue with any online purchase. I’ve bought a few books online from Half Price Books, and this is the second one that’s been listed as fine, but was anything but fine.
I read F. Paul Wilson’s original hardcover edition of Nightworld, published by Dark Harvest press, back in 1992. This book was, at that time, the culmination of the Adversary Cycle. It was a sequel to Reborn and Reprisal, books also at that time published by Dark Harvest before their mass market paperback editions. Although a trilogy, there were connections to other novels, such as The Tomb, The Keep, and The Touch. Each of those three novels featured different protagonists, from Repairman Jack in The Tomb, to Glaeken in The Keep, and finally, Dr. Alan Bulmer in The Touch.
Nightworld brought them all together, for one final battle. Or so it seemed. Then, Wilson brought back Repairman Jack, starting with Legacies, and began a long series of novels featuring this fascinating anti-hero. Somehow he found a few stories in between the events of The Tomb and Nightworld. In all, he wrote around 21 novels, and so, in 2012 he released a revised and updated version of Nightworld.
Since 1992 I knew how the world ended, and so I never looked for this updated version of Nightworld. However, in the past few months I’ve picked up and read several FPW books that I previously didn’t have, and when I saw a hardcover edition of Nightworld available (“only one copy left”), I went ahead and bought it, and then read it over the span of three days.
Since the first edition of the book, many things have changed, and new characters have been introduced in FPW’s “Secret History of the World.” In the new edition of Nightworld, several of these characters show up, some briefly, and some for an extended visit. I tried, as I read this new edition, not to look up similar passages in the original. Much has been made of various “retcons” in other circumstances, for example the first Star Wars movie. Even J. R. R. Tolkien’s Hobbit was tinkered with by the author. Another books have “the author’s definitive text” stamped on them—there was an entire collection of books by Jack Vance created to bring out his definitive texts, the Vance Integral Edition. Is that so bad? Well, we all know that Han Solo shot first, despite what George Lucas does, but what about the written text? Sometimes authors see the hand of editors, and they want their own text “restored.”
In the case of Nightworld, it was more the case of FPW adding new stuff. In some cases, this did expand on the existing novel. In other cases, there were some disappointments. One major side character, the actuator from the secret society called the Septimus Order, one Ernst Drexler, died in a most trivial and disappointing way. The fate of major characters didn’t change much. Repairman Jack himself didn’t feel like a major character in this novel; it definitely was an ensemble novel. Still, for the most part Jack was there to worry about his mate, and not actually do stuff, aside from a simple errand. A page by page analysis would show more changes, but I chose in this instance to ignore my memory.
Wilson never wrote any novels set after the events of Nightworld. After all, what do you do when the world has ended, and then somehow was restarted? And now, in 2024, it appears that FPW will write no more novels, as a stroke has affected his writing. Some people who read the original edition, either as a Dark Harvest book or a paperback, may hesitate to read the expanded edition, or might have a preference for the original. After all, it took me over three decades between books, so maybe I counted myself among that group for a while. Still, I don’t feel that the newer edition was any lesser than the original. If anything, I liked the Repairman Jack novels, and somewhat wish there wasn’t an “end-of-the-world” novel like Nightworld to put a stop to them all. But, I didn’t see this version as something that ruined the earlier experience.
That being said, there are plenty of Repairman Jack novels to enjoy (or hate, if you don’t like what happen to certain characters in some of the novels) aside from Nightworld. It’s a shame we don’t know what happened to some of the characters Jack encountered (as easter eggs) in this updated version, but we can always imagine that they survived.
