Anders Monsen

Lost worlds and ports of call

Page 2 of 81

Books added: Conan Doyle and de Lint

I can’t stop now.

Even though there are nine Borderlands Press little books that I don’t have, all of which are either insanely hard to find, or far beyond prices that I’m willing to pay, I continue to buy new books in their series. The latest book in their “Past Masters of Horror & Fantasy Series,” of which this is their first in “Series V,” is a collection of stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Entitled A Little Orange Book of Odd Orchestrations and limited to 500 copies, their choice of authors continue to surprise me.

I bought this copy from the publisher, who charges a premium for shipping the book in what’s basically a padded envelope mailer. C’est la vie. Still, I’d rather support the publisher, whenever possible, since that will help them to keep publishing books in this series.

My copy is numbered #17 of 500, and signed by the editor. With four more books in Series V before they either switch to a different theme, or decide to continue with “Past Masters” one wonders who is next on the list. Kipling, maybe? I expected Clark Ashton Smith (CAS), since they’ve published H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, but so far that hasn’t happened. Hello, BP, I’m willing to edit any Jack Vance or CAS collection…


Between 2003 and 2008, Subterranean Press published three books by the noted fantasy writer, Charles de Lint, collecting many of his early stories. These books, A Handful of Coppers, Quicksilver & Shadow, and Woods & Waters Wild, were a few of the many de Lint books published by Sub Press around that time. Until recently, I’d remained ignorant of these books (strange, given the fact that I was a huge de Lint fan since the early 1990s). Over the years, I’d picked up only a couple of de Lint’s Sub Press books: Triskell Tales (2000) and The Road to Lisdoonvarna (2001), probably because the price at the time was “right,” of I found them in person at a convention (at that time I didn’t really buy books online). More than two decades passed before I bought any other of de Lint’s Sub Press books.

All of de Lint’s Sub Press books went out of print fairly quickly. Checking their web-site after the fact resulted only in regret and envy. Recently, as I’ve started looking more at the secondary market to find some out of print books, I’ve become aware of the other Sub Press de Lint books, copies of which now are available to purchase from online resellers. In some cases, the prices are beyond the original cover price, and a choice must be made. In other cases, I “go for it” and hold my breath as I await the shipment to see if the books matches the online description.

I bought the first two “early stories” books last year (2023), inspired as I was while in the midst of re-reading some de Lint novels. For many years I bought any paperback or hardcover de Lint book I could find in local stores (when that was an option, before the internet and bad business decisions killed several physical stores), then I took a break from SF and fantasy books. In the past couple of years I’ve looked back at favorite authors and tried to find books that I missed. Hence, the search for some de Lint books. Then, a few days ago, tempted by a huge discount, I bought Woods & Waters Wild, the last of the three collections of early tales.

All three books in this series that I now own are signed by de Lint. They’re not “limited” in the sense that they are numbered or granted some special format. The “signed, lettered editions” were listed at $175, $200, and $200, respectively, as stated inside the covers of my books.

Who pays such a price, I thought? Is a number in a book worth far more than $20, or the then original cover price of $40? To someone, sure. To me? Not so much. I have no idea how many copies were published in these states. They do say “signed, limited edition” in the jacket flap, but there’s no indication as to the limitation number. It would have been nice to see something, maybe on the last page of the book, stating that it was limited to X number of copies, whether that was 1,000 or 2,000 or other.

There are still quite a few of de Lint’s Sub Press books that I don’t own. Some are less tempting than others. I’ve already acquired Eyes Like Leaves and Promises to Keep. Some of these books appear to be aimed at the juvenile market. If the right opportunity arises, maybe I’ll try to get more of his books. There’s a measure of regret in any current purchase actions, as I’m not benefitting either the author or publisher. Either you jump right away and buy what the publisher offers, or you look for a dealer who bought books at a discount who now sells them at a premium, or a prior buy offloading their copies. Sometimes you get lucky and the seller offers the book at a discount. Buy it then, reader, buy it then.

My only quibble is that the publisher wasn’t consistent in their font and format used for these three books. This is a pet peeve of mine: if a publisher knows they are planning a series of books by the same author, don’t freakin’ change the format, especially on the spines, of the books in that series! Even the font inside the books is different. You’d think that different artists, editors, typesetters were hired with each book, and every one of them said, “let’s do something different!”

Book added: Bradbury’s Whale Story

One of my major literary influences is Ray Bradbury. As far as I know, I’ve been reading Bradbury’s stories since my early teens. I recall stories from English textbooks in pre-high school in Zambia, tales in Reader’s Digest editions when visiting grandparents in Norway, to my first actual books by Bradbury when I’d moved to the US in the late 1980s. At first: paperbacks picked up in used book stores, either new ones issued by Bantam Spectra, or older, tattered editions. I don’t recall when I first read Fahrenheit 451, or when I watched the movie version from my birth year. Or when I read The Martian Chronicles, or The Illustrated Man, or Dandelion Wine, or the countless other books and stories he wrote. I known that I’ve rad some of them multiple times, and that I own 29 of his books—collections or novels.

I finally met Bradbury in person in 1996, at a book signing in Austin, Texas. He signed a recently reprinted hardcover edition of Fahrenheit 451 and a first edition of Quicker Than the Eye. I could not believe my luck.

To this day, a dozen years after his death, I still look for Bradbury books that I don’t own, and try to read these books right away. This includes the mysteries, such as A Graveyard for Lunatics and Lets all Kill Constance, as well as SF stories in various collections. He’s one of my top three authors in any genre, in terms of influence and importance.

This past weekend, Half Price Books was having a 20% off sale. Who needs an additional reason to visit a book store? Anyway, I visited a pair of stores in San Antonio. In one, I found a first edition of Kazuo Ishiguro’s fourth novel, The Unconsoled. In the other, I came away with a quartet of books. Prime among these was Bradbury’s Green Shadows, White Whale. To be honest, my jaw dropped when I saw that book. Back in 1992, when it first was published, I almost bought a copy. However, at that time I still hesitated to spend more than $20 for a book, even if it was by someone like Bradbury, and when I looked again in stores a few years later, it was gone. Not even a remaindered copy remained, if ever those existed. This time, I found a copy for $8, a bargain beyond measure.

Green Shadows, White Whale is a fictionalized account of Bradbury’s journey to Ireland in the early 1950s to write a screen adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel, Moby Dick, with director John Huston. Having recently visited Dublin, it struck a chord with me to find this novel. Dublin in 2024 isn’t really Ireland; it’s Disneyland with pubs. My apologies to the Irish, but I found Dublin over-crowed and full of tourists; yes, I was one of those tourists, so maybe part of the problem. Still, I looked back to a visit to Cork a couple of decades previously and found that city more genuinely Irish. Maybe I need to spend time in the countryside. Maybe no real place no longer genuinely exists: they’re all are aimed at tourists, all full of tourists.

I look forward to reading this Bradbury novel, to laugh and cry with him as he relates his experiences and fictionalized accounts of events. There will never be his like again.

Books added: Maupassant and Rasnic Tem

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.

Books added: A Handful of Eric Ambler novels

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.

Book added: The Asimov Chronicles

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.

A Pair of Parkruns

Although I’ve completed many running events/races in the past decade, I’d never heard of Parkruns until earlier this year (2024). Parkruns are running events (not really races) put on by volunteers in a variety of locations. These are usually held on Saturdays, and in parks (hence the name), and open to anyone (although they prefer that you register so that you can get official results). Started around twenty years ago in England, they proliferated in that country quickly.

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Meanwhile, in Texas, there are three Parkruns. The closest one to where I live is a three hour drive.

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The first time I heard of Parkruns was while watching some running videos on YouTube. One of these videos was about a professional runner’s first Parkrun, in Reading, UK. I’d been to Reading a couple of times, so that immediately piqued my interest. After watching the video, all of a sudden a series of Parkrun videos popped up as video selections (that’s YouTube for you: watch a few seconds of any video, and the next thing you know is that every third video listed is a variation of that theme). When an opportunity arose this summer where I’d be in England, and by coincidence, in Reading during a Saturday, I immediately thought, “What if I ran in that Parkrun?” Before my trip I registered online, which is a requirement, listing my home Parkrun as the one that was a three-hour drive away.

Friday, the day before the Parkrun. I walked the nearly two-mile path from my hotel to the start of the Reading Parkrun. The start takes place on a vast floodplain next to the River Thames. In the river kids swam and cavorted on paddle boards. People walked on the trail, and a vast number of geese occupied the greenspace that made up the starting area. Now that I knew the route to the start, I planned to jog there early the next day. The event begins at 9am. Unsure of what to expect, I started out from the hotel at 7:30. When I arrived at the starting area twenty minutes later, the vast field was empty. After a moment’s indecision, I decided to jog along what I thought would be the course.

At first, it was open grass, littered with goose crap. Then I found a narrow path trail, which after a while turned into a gravel trail. This trail ran next to the River Thames, with a side path or two branching off to the right. After a while I reached the Sonning locks. More than twenty years ago I had stayed at the Bull Inn, in Sonning (briefly famous for a one-time nearby resident actor now rich beyond belief), and on a morning run had approached the locks from the opposite direction. At the locks I turned around and jogged slowly back to the start. Once there, I saw some volunteers starting to assemble. The time was 8:30am, and a few other people started to show up. I remained at a distance, not sure of protocol. Another runner showed up, and we started chatting.

This other runner was originally from South Africa, and now resided in Reading. He told me that he was primarily a triathlete, and was planning to make this a training run. He talked me through the Parkrun process, and as the start time approached we walked over to the starting area. For first-timers there’s a brief orientation. Apparently there’s also a tradition to ask about “visitors” and where they’re from. I was hesitant to list my Texas origin, and when the assembled runners clapped as another person listed Glasgow as his home city, I decided to remain silent. He seemed excited to be the most distant visitor, and, as it was my first Parkrun, I didn’t want to stand out.

Everyone lined up for the start. My new friend had mentioned a goal of 28 minutes. I had no plan, and no idea of how I would run, as it was my first 5K in almost a year. Everyone lined up for the start. The wide line quickly funneled into the narrow trail. The course continued along the trail, then branched off to the right. It then looped twice, and returned to the start.

I hung back at the start, then slowly moved past some runners. After the first loop, I settled into a steady pace. I caught up with the former South African, then stayed slightly behind him as we started the second loop. With 1K to go, he realized I was there. I moved up next to him, and we chatted briefly as we covered the remaining distance. Unlike me, he had started fast and then slowed down. As we re-entered the grassy section toward the finish area, another runner drew alongside us. I encouraged him to keep going, and we finished one-two-three. Of the 239 runners I ended up in 75th place, with a time of 25 minutes and 46 seconds. This was several minutes off my 5K average, but I didn’t care. I was happy to finish my first Parkrun, and first real 5K in 10 years. I jogged the two miles back to the hotel feeling quite happy.

One week later, I found myself in Dublin, Ireland. I looked up Parkruns nearby, and found one almost the same distance away from the hotel as when I was in Reading. This was the Fairview Parkrun. Saturday morning I put on my (now stinky) running clothes and headed northeast through the streets of Dublin. A steady rain fell as I ran, and I wondered whether anyone would show up in the rain. I need not have worried, for as I reached the park the rain stopped. A trio of women in running clothes entered the park in front of me. I asked them if they knew the starting location. They asked the same of me, so I assumed we all were first timers—-visitors. In England the Parkruns start at 9am. In Dublin they all start at 9:30am. The trio of women decided this was too late for them, and turned around. Meanwhile, I found a volunteer putting out orange cones for the race course, and learned from her the location of the start. As I was early, I walked slowly to that area.

While waiting for the start, I chatted with another Norwegian. He was far younger, so I didn’t think I’d see him again (as expected, he finished nearly five minutes faster than me). There were fewer runners at the Fairview Parkrun than at Reading; many veteran runners apparently show up less than ten minutes before the starting time. The starting area was between two trees on a narrow path, so having fewer runners was a good thing. I wasn’t the most distant visitor; there was someone from Australia, and a couple from South Africa. The course entailed three loops though part of the park, with one slight incline, as well as a section on grass. Again, I had no plan, as was I just there for the experience.

We started off quickly, as the first section was slightly downhill. The rain hadn’t turned the grassy section into too slick of a surface, but I tried to keep to a slow and steady pace. To my shock, as we reached the first mile, I found my pace nearly 30 seconds faster than expected. The second mile proved slower, as I paid the price of the fast start. Each mile was slower than the last, which isn’t ideal if you want to try to have a negative split. On the last loop, my mind kept telling me stop, to walk, to quit, but I kept on running, gasping for air. In the end, I finished almost a minute faster than my Reading Parkrun, which I did not anticipate. I think the fact that most of it was on a paved path vs. grass and gravel made a difference. Also, I started faster in Fairview, perhaps due to the initial downhill portion. Although the end result was three minutes slower than my best 5K time, I didn’t consider this as a race. It was an event, an experience. After the race ended, I had slightly less than an hour to make it to an appointment that morning, so I immediately started to jog back to the hotel so that I could shower and change and get to that appointment.

Parkruns are great. I so wish there was one in my city, instead of the closest one being in Houston, almost a three hour drive away. I have no idea if I’ll ever make it back to another Parkrun. Instead, I guess that I need to enter some more 5K races, and pay the $40 or more for that privilege. To have the opportunity to show up on a Saturday and run a 5K with other runners is invaluable for any runner. It’s amazing that Parkuns are free, put on by volunteers, and actually provide results. Thanks again to all the volunteers in Reading and Fairview (and everywhere else). I so wish I could run those courses again, and wonder when I’ll ever be able to run Parkrun #3.

Book added: Zelazny’s Gone to Earth

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.

Books Added: Lansdale, Wilson, Knight

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.

Books Added: A Pair of “Best of” Collections

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.

Book Added: Red Side Story

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.

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