Back in mid-2025 I bought the limited editions of the first two books in F. Paul Wilson’s early Jack series, Secret Histories and Secret Circles, both published by Gauntlet Press.
Though I already had the mass market editions from Tor (published between 2008 and 2011), having these signed books felt almost necessary, since they went with the many Gauntlet Press FPW books that I owned. The third Gauntlet Press book, Secret Vengeance, isn’t as easy to find as the others. Still, I was able to obtain a copy, and now have all but the last two novels that Wilson published, The Uprising and Lexie. Time will tell if I try to obtain those books; I already have the trade paperback editions, but if I do come across the GP books, maybe it will be too hard to resist.
I enjoyed all the three YA Repairman Jack books, despite Wilson shoehorning in some characters into young Jack’s life that appear in later stories. There’s a ton more of stories to mine in Jack’s life, which Wilson did with the three-volume “city” years. Alas, he’s no longer able to write fiction.
Still, when it comes to the Tor editions, I wish the marketing department had been more consistent. Maybe they thought the first book didn’t sell well, but with the second and third they drastically changed the design of the dust jacket, and they just don’t match.
Then again, Gauntlet tweaked their covers as wel. Strangely enough, they didn’t just change the font on the dust jacket, but also adding a color block on the spine the third book. They didn’t stop there. The first two books were numbered 1-500, while the third, Secret Vengeance, only ran to 475 copies. This might be why it was so hard to find at near-cover price. Only the publishers can explain why they have a different number of books published for the last of the trilogy. This means that 25 people trying to collect the entire set are simply out of luck. With Tor, they went in a different design direction after the first book, while Gauntlet changed the spine design and cover text placement on the third book. Go figure.
Rx Murder and Rx Mayhem are two books from F. Paul Wilson. Originally they were written under the pseudonym of Nina Abbott. The copies that I have are trade paperback editions published by Gordian Knot Books (an imprint of Crossroad Pass), and state on the cover “F. Paul Wilson writing as Nina Abbott.” The books were published in 2021 and 2022, respectively, and center around a young doctor in a small family medical practice near Baltimore.
Wilson originally wrote Rx Murder back in 2003, coming off a dark Repairman Jack novel. He trunked this book, deciding that it just didn’t work. Then, amidst the Covid-19 lockdown he returned to the book. He’d just retired from his medical practice, and found an angle that he thought now worked with the novel. A supernatural angle, ie. a ghost.
Rx Murder centers around Noreen Marconi, a 32-year old doctor fresh off her residency. She’s returned close to her home town outside Baltimore, and joined a practice with two senior partners. Then she’s visited by the ghost/spirit of her dead father. This happens after she’s forced to move back to her childhood home after a flooding in her condo. She ends up in the middle of a murder investigation when one of patients dies from a peanut allergy, and in the course of the investigation meets up with a former high school crush who’s now a local cop. Together they try to investigate the death of her patient, while she also gets roped into a quest from the ghost. Although the murder is dealt with in the first book, the mystery of the ghost lingers through the second book.
Rx Mayhem takes place immediately following the events of Rx Murder, but focuses more on the quest imposed on her by this ghost: find out what happened to her father’s best friend, who vanished one night, abandoning his wife and daughter. The sequel gets darker and darker, and all is not what it seems. Noreen, aka Norrie, also has to deal with one of the senior partners going to through a cancer diagnosis, the other partner’s penny-pinching ways, a weight-loss drug and it’s odd side-effects, and a stripper neighbor who keeps hinting that Norrie would make a great older stripper, plus more. At times it seems that Wilson is trying to include quite a few stories from his own medical practice, with one weird patient after another.
Overall, I’m not sure I bought the stories. The books are told from Noreen’s point of view. The involve a lot of medical practice material, likely pulled from Wilson’s own experience. There are several loose ends still dangling after the second book, almost as if Wilson planned a third novel. As both books are told from Norrie’s first person perspective, and it gets annoying at times.
In terms of cozy mysteries, or romantasies (a genre I saw advertised at a local chain bookstore this past weekend), maybe I’m not the target audience for these books. The clues are at times heavy-handed, the sexual tension between Norrie and her childhood friend-now cop simmers perhaps too long. The penny-pinching partner story fizzles out, and the ghost almost too easy to deal with. Maybe—I kept thinking as I read the books—these really aren’t Wilson’s genres either. He’s been great with darker books, and these were almost too whimsical. Anyway, as a huge fan of his fiction, I still think it’s a tough situation that he no longer is writing, due to his recent stroke. I know he has more ideas, but the type of stroke he’s dealing with makes writing next to impossible.
Have I now read all of FPW’s books? Aside from a pair of collaborations, I think so (and this doesn’t count the first two volumes of the Compendium of F, as I have those short stories in other collections).
The first F. Paul Wilson book that I read, An Enemy of the State, was an eye-opener when I read the paperback back in 1986. Now, almost 40 years later, it’s been a wild ride. My bookshelf if stacked with his books, including all the Repairman Jack Gauntlet editions (whoa there, I’m missing one Young Jack book in that format…). From SF to horror to thriller, mysteries, and other weird tales, it’s been a great experience to read his books (Yes, I even have the Weird Tales magazine special FPW edition). I remember many a night spent hidden in a room until past 2am just to finish a book, my wife thinking I was crazy for staying up late for that reason.
I also remember meeting Wilson and having him sign some books in person. We’ve disagreed on movies, corresponded via email at times, but I wish I’d made more of an effort to get to know him in person; it’s hard to talk to your heroes. So many of the literary heroes of mine that I used to know in person are now gone—it’s tough, it’s demoralizing, and almost none of them are left now. But, such is life, alas. I know he’ll never read this, but F. Paul Wilson – thank you for everything.
The Early RJ trilogy, consisting of Secret Histories, Secret Circles, and Secret Vengeance, were books I bought in the Tor hard cover editions a year or two after the last book in the series appeared—the books were published between 2008 and 2011. After some research, I see that I bought my copies some time in 2012. For some reason, after the first book in the series, Tor’s marketing department changed the cover designs for the next two books; while the latter two bear similar designs, these differ wildly from the first one.
I didn’t plan to buy the limited editions of these books. These were published by Gauntlet Press, which usually price their FPW books at $60. Then again, I’d recently bought the other RJ trilogy covering his first years in New York in their limited editions, even though I had the Tor books, and the same for the ICE-trilogy (how irony, given the current ICE acronym as a government agency).
Still, when I came across the first in the series listed online for far less then $60, I pulled the trigger and bought it. My copy of Gauntlet Press’s edition of Secret Histories is signed and numbered as #9 of the 500 limited copies. This book came with a slipcase, which I thought was only meant for the lettered editions.
A few months later, I saw a copy of the second book, Secret Circles, listed for around the same price, and went ahead and bought it as well. This copy is numbered 202 of 500 copies, but didn’t come with a slipcase. At least Gauntlet Press didn’t go all wonky again and change the numbers in the editions, as they’ve done with other series—good luck collecting all books if they are in editions of 500, 450, some random number, vis-a-vis the “City” trilogy, or even the Nocturnia trilogy.
The covers in the Gauntlet editions are far better than the Tor editions, that’s for sure. The spines are almost identical in design, thought the covers use different fonts and placements of the subtitles and Wilson’s name. “Arg!” I said when I saw this. Can we have some consistency in design?
Now, if I can just find the last book at a reasonable price, it will complete the set. Then I’ll have to find a way to buy FPW’s last two novels, as Gauntlet released the first of these just recently, and will release the second shortly. It’s madness, I know. I’ve already read them, as I bought the trade editions, which I thought would be the only editions. So it goes.
Tom Monteleone and F. Paul Wilson are both noted horror/sf/suspense writers. Between 2013 and 2018 they co-wrote a Young Adult trilogy under the aegis of Nocturnia. These books take place in an alternate reality inhabited by “monsters”—vampires, werewolves, trolls, zombies, and more. In Nocturnia, humans are rare, treated as slaves or food. Into this place are transported two young humans, who get sucked up in an inter-dimensional tornado while looking for their missing older brother. In Nocturnia they meet various monsters (some good and some some decidedly bad), along with other humans, including Amelia Earhart and Ambrose Bierce, both of whom also were transported there from Humania, as our earth is known. Will the siblings make it back to “the real world?” Will they get eaten or killed by the various monsters? You need to read all three books to learn their fate.
I bought the first book some time last year, as part of my ongoing effort to collect of all F. Paul Wilson’s books. This year I went ahead and picked up the second and third books. All three were published as a joint effort by Borderlands Press and Gauntlet Press. The three hardcovers that I have are all signed/limited editions; prices are not listed in the books, but I think I paid a fair price for each one.
Strangely, the three books have different print runs: The first volume was published in 350 copies, the second 300, and the third 500. While my copy of the first volume is #138 of 350, the second and third are both #69 of those respective numbers. Also, while the covers of the second and third books look similar, they diverge wildly from the cover of the first book. Granted, the cover of the first book was somewhat bizarre, almost as if a child had drawn something for a school project. The second and third covers appear somewhat more professional. Family Secrets, the second book in the series, list a final proofreading credit, but this person missed the copyright page, which mentions the first book in the series, Definitely Not Kansas; this was fixed in the third book, The Secret Ones, as it mentions itself (not the only time Borderlands Press has failed in proofreading something, and in one place the writers use “there” instead of “their” which is almost unforgivable). Per a comment in the third book, chapbook was published, called Secret Ingredient. So far I’ve not seen this chapbook listed anywhere. Is it real? I don’t know.
These books are intended as young adult novels, so the protagonists are young kids. To move the plot along, there are side characters who vary in age and act as foils, mentors, antagonists, love interests, etc. Both the first and second books end on cliffhangers, but that’s not unknown for YA series. At times I think I see which writer is at work, but then again, I’ve read a ton of F. Paul Wilson books, and almost nothing by Monteleone, so I have no sense of the latter’s writing voice or style. I do wonder, in this parallel universe, how all the characters speak English, and how the Nocturnians know certain terms than are unique to American culture, and there only are two scientists in the entire culture in this universe that’s almost a parallel version of our own. But, I guess in cases like this one must suspend all disbelief.
Many years ago F. Paul Wilson wrote five novellas in the Sims “saga.” These novellas were published by Cemetery Dance between 2000 to 2010,. In between those dates, they were released as a novel by Tor Books in 2003. While the former novellas were limited, the novel from Tor was a mass market publication.
Why it took Cemetery Dance seven years after the novel was published to round out the five volumes remains a mystery to me. Each novella from Cemetery Dance was limited to 750 numbered copies, and signed by Wilson. As a Wilson fan, currently looking to fill in missing gaps of books published over the past few years, I never felt compelled to seek out these novellas, as I already had the collected set of novellas gathered in the book from Tor (inscribed to me by Wilson at the World Fantasy Convention in Austin, TX, in 2006, I think). However, when I found them listed this year from various sellers at prices well below the original listed price of $35 per book, I thought, “Why not?”
As I write this in 2024, I vaguely remember the plot of Sims, the novel. I know that I read it back then, and voted for it when it was nominated for the Prometheus Award. Over 20 years had passed since I last thought about this story. When I picked up the five individual novellas this year, I re-read them in that format. I was surprised at how little I remembered, yet also at some of the details that remained stuck in my memory.
The first book, La Causa, sets the stage. The world of Sims, much like the five-book world of the LaNague Federation, is independent of Wilson’s Secret History saga. Here, genetically enhanced chimpanzees are cheap labor (more like slaves; not to dissimilar from the clones in Dydeetown World), even acting as caddies on golf courses (or worse, as we’ll see). A young lawyer, Patrick Sullivan, gets asked by some of the sims to represent them to form a labor union, and takes the case. This puts him in opposition to SimGen, the company that created and owns the sims. Their attempts to intimidate him only makes him dig in his heels harder, and he ends up embracing their cause. Meanwhile, another character, Romy Cadman, works for the government investigating research risks, while at the same time moonlights for a shadowy person trying to bring down SimGen. Her handler in this group goes by Zero, wears a mask to hide his features, and seems to have insider knowledge into the plans and workings of SimGen. At once we have multiple, yet intersecting, conflicts with many potentials.
The second installment, The Portero Method, brings Sullivan closer together with Romy. Portero is the security head of SimGen, but also seems to be working for another group, one that occupies the shadows. The Portero method is harsh, brutal, and throws a major wrench in Sullivan’s unionizing attempts. It also drives into the same group as Romy and Zero, now even more determined to bring down SimGen.
The third, Meerm, introduces a new character, and a new element to the story, one that will bring everything to a crashing climax. Meerm is another sim, on the run from a low-budget gene-lab, yet one with the potential to bring down SimGen, and the race is on to find this sim. Three groups are trying to find her: Portero’s two employers, as well as Zero’s cell.
The fourth, Zero, focuses on the person behind the mask. As the prime mover against SimGen, Zero has hired both Patrick Sullivan and Romy Cadman, hiding behind a mask the entire time. We learn of his ties to SimGen, giving him inside information. The hunt for Meerm ratchets up, with multiple groups trying to find this pregnant sim.
The fifth and final entry, Thy Brother’s Keeper, ties it all together. Everything erupts when we learn of Zero’s identity, and the ending is both heroic and tragic. Meerm’s baby seals the fate of SimGen, although the true origin of the sims remains a secret the public will never know. Lives are shattered, and it’s not just a happy ending for everyone. Wilson truly keeps everyone on their toes.
With this stack of books in hand, signed and numbered, each limited to 750 copies, I wonder if owning them is any different from owning the Tor edition of Sims? My Tor edition of Sims is inscribed to me by Wilson, and although all the five novellas are signed, does this equate to talking to Wilson, handing him a book and getting it returned as inscribed? On one level, it doesn’t. And yet, the Tor book was printed in thousands of copies, while the Cemetery Dance books had a much lower print run. They also contain illustrations that the Tor book edition did not. I sometimes struggle between the idea of a collector and a fan. I’m a fan of FPW, but as a collector, I’m more random and haphazard in my actions. Yet, for some weird reason, owning these five books gives me a thrill that the Tor Books edition never gave me. Why is that? Is that some innate human behavior, or just a focused aspect of some obsessive compulsive disorder?
The Upwelling, Book I of The Hidden (2024). Written a few years before Wilson’s recent stroke, this is the first in a two book series, but just published this year. Given that he vowed to not write any Repairman Jack books after Nightworld (although he filled in a few earlier gaps with a pair of trilogies), this series might be seen as Wilson’s attempt to break away from Repairman Jack, yet still remain within his Secret History world. (Double Dose and Double Threat also fall into that category). It’s likely also Wilson’s last work of fiction. (That’s a sad sentence to write….)
Initially published as a trade paperback under the imprint of Crossroad Press Publishing (whatever that means), it now looks like Gauntlet Press will publish the book in a limited hardcover edition. Per their website, only the 26 lettered editions will bear Wilson’s signature, which is to be expected given his recent stroke.
I don’t think I was aware of either of these books until recently this year, when I saw some online review. In this novel, our protagonist, Chan Liao awakens to find a missing chunk of his memory. Along with three friends he spends a weekend at Atlantic City. In the span of a few hours the entire Atlantic City area was essentially vaporized, and he has no recollection of the events. Over 25,000 people died, and he has no idea where he was or what happened. One of those three friends, Danielle “Danni” Boudreau, an FBI agent, is in the same situation—no memory of what happened. This is an intriguing premise. Wilson quickly moves the location to the familiar New Jersey Pine Barrens. In the course of events he introduces a group of people with strangely enhanced abilities: two dead people refuse to burn, others claim to be thousands of years old. Chan and Boudreau trace events and actors to a mountain in upstate New York. Hints of the Ally and the Otherness, well-known players from the Repairman Jack series, make themselves known, along with a new entity, name the Squatter. Events come to a head, which lead into the sequel.
Lexie, Book II of The Hidden (2024). Picking up right after the events of The Hidden, Lexie brings various humans related to the Ally and the Otherness to the fore. These are well-known to Repairman Jack readers: the Septimus Order, and (perhaps less so) the Yeniçeri. Lexie also introduces “the Troika” three individuals who are aware of the Secret History: the two main players behind the scenes, and certain people linked to another of Wilson’s novels, Signalz (but, strangely, not Jack himself).
The namesake of the second book is an enhanced (super-intelligent?) seven year old, the offspring of a Squatter-enhanced and a normal human. This person, Lexie, can walk between parallel worlds, as well as possessing other powers. She’s highly intelligent, and conversely has zero emotions and empathy (think Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory). Along with Chao and Danni, she is needed to try to save the world, at least this one, given the multi-verse aspect of these novels. Although Jack is alluded to at one point as “the Defender” (or is that Glaeken?), we’re never sure if this is the same world as Repairman Jack, given the multi-verse aspect of the books.
I admit that I read the books quickly, as happens to be the case when I read FPW books. I have a few quibbles here and there with choices and actions, but overall I enjoyed the two books. There are many unanswered questions at the end. Perhqps, if FPW wasn’t burdened by his stroke, he might have rewritten certain scenes, or worked in a third book. The ending just seems unsatisfactory. Chan harbors a great love for Boudreau, and while she considers him a friend, she’s stated multiple times her lesbian leanings. This situation just never seemed like it reached a resolution, though Liao had other options given to him. Wilson also cheats multiple times by writing Liao as a “Bruce Lee” look-alike, which gives him zero character as an individual. Perhaps I’m just annoyed that the events appear to be part of his Secret History and yet avoid all mention of Repairman Jack. I guess that’s just my feelings at play.
I’m still working on my “collect all F. Paul Wilson books” effort. The endgame approaches, with just a handful remaining.
First of the final books is Ephemerata, The Odds and Ends of a Writing Life (2024). At some point, Wilson started collecting his “non-fiction” and selling it to interested readers as an eBook. The first “edition” was published in March, 2017. The benefit of eBooks, as Wilson stated, was that as he added more material, he could push out an update. As if by magic, the readers would just need to refresh or update something, and suddenly have more material on their devices. In 2024 he released this collection in print. That’s a benefit to me, as I don’t (and won’t) read eBooks. On the other hand, it’s unfortunate, as the stroke he suffered a couple of years ago has robbed readers and fans of Wilson’s fiction and non-fiction in any future stories.
Weighing in at nearly 600 pages, the hardcopy publication of Ephemerata appears to be a “print-on-demand” book. Wilson split his non-fiction into the following sections: Forewords, Intros, and Afterwords; Appreciations; Memoirs; Puffery; The Byte Columns; Fictions; Reviews; and Opinion (here I use semi-colons between each section, as the first section has commas, so otherwise would appear to be three different sections). Rounding out the book, there’s a timeline of the Secret History, and a bibliography. It’s not the “ridiculously detailed bibliography,” which appeared in the third volume of The Compendium of F, but more a listing of books.
With almost 600 pages of material, one could spend hours trying to read each item. In my case, I jumped back and forth, sampling a bit here, then going elsewhere for something entirely different. Prepended to each item is a snippet of text that establishes the context of the piece in question. As a huge F. Paul Wilson fan since back in 1986, this is a book I will long enjoy. As a print-on-demand book, it’s not a “collector’s item,” but rather an insight into a writer’s life, going back all the way to the beginning. Any fan of Wilson would enjoy this book, I think. Then again, maybe most of his fans just want to read the fiction. In my case, there’s far more out there than just the fiction. Maybe I just want to know what makes a writer a writer. To read only a brief diary of his writing life was worth the price of admission. Wilson is dedicated to his craft. Even with a full-time job as a doctor whose saw scores of patients daily, he kept writing. That’s both impressive and humbling.
For several years I only owned the first novel in F. Paul Wilson’s ICE trilogy, Panacea, in the TOR mass market hardcover edition. Then, earlier this year I bought the other two books in the series, The God Gene, and, The Void Protocol, also in the TOR hardcover editions. A few months later, I found copies of the first and second book in the series in the limited edition states from small press publisher, Gauntlet Press, both of them online for reasonable prices. However, the third book, The Void Protocol, eluded me at the time.
Then, a couple of months after I bought The God Gene, a Gauntlet Press edition of The Void Protocol appeared online for $15. Bidding drove up the price to $39 (plus taxes and shipping…ugh), and I ended up with a copy. Published by Gauntlet Press and limited to 500 signed and numbered copies (plus some lettered copies), this edition now joins its brethren on my bookshelves. My copy is #35, whereas my copy of The God Gene is the lettered edition “M,” and Panacea is #70. Not that I’ve ever cared about getting the same exact numbers (or letters).
The compulsion to acquire the Gauntlet Press editions is a strange one. I own all the Repairman Jack novels in Gauntlet Press editions. I bought these books for cover prices the moment they were announced, months before the TOR books came out, starting with Conspiracies, back in 1999. I was a fan of the Repairman Jack books, and getting numbered & signed copies of back then was something new to me. While I owned some signed books, or books that I managed to get signed in person, the idea of numbered copies was something I discovered through an FPW forum (now fairly quiet or defunct). Once you have a few of such books in a series, like Repairman Jack, you almost want to collect them all.
Meanwhile, The ICE trilogy, as well as two other FPW trilogies, were books that I initially bought as mass market hardcovers. Thus, I was somewhat reluctant to shell out more money for the Gauntlet Price books, though once I learned of their existence I wanted them. Now, I have a set of two of those three trilogies. Does this make me want the third and last one? Yes, but still I hesitate. Maybe I’ll find copies online at my prices, maybe not. I currently have 25 of the FPW Gauntlet Press books. I only lack three solo GP books, plus two that were published in collaboration with Borderlands Press.
A Little Yellow Book of Carcosa and Kings, by Robert W. Chambers was published in 2022 by Borderlands Press. Limited to 500 copies, it quickly went out of print. I found a copy online recently for a decent price vs. the usual “twice the going rate or far higher” prices usually listed for out of print books.
This book is numbered and signed by editor Lisa Morton, as Chambers died quite a few years ago. I’ve read a couple of Chambers’ short stories in paperback collection that contains more of his stories than the Borderlands Press book. Those stories weren’t as gripping as some other writers from the same time period, but apparently he has a strong core of fans. It contains the four stories related to the King in Yellow: “The Repairer of Reputations,” “The Mask,” “In the Court of the Dragon,” and “The Yellow Sign.”
A Little Yellow Book of Perilous Tales, by Sax Rohmer (2024). This latest entry in Borderlands Press’ little books series is edited by one of my favorite writers, F. Paul Wilson. Wilson’s written his own imitations/pastiches of Rohmer’s Yellow Peril tales. So, what better writer to bring out a new collection of Rohmer than someone familiar with Rohmer’s work, someone who lacks all fear in the publishing world? Also limited to 500 copies, and signed by Wilson, it’s the fourth “yellow” books in this series. (In both this case, and for Chambers, the “yellow” in the title certainly applies).
I’ve never read anything by Rohmer, but I’m familiar with the name. Born Arthur Henry Ward, Rohmer was a English novelist whose first published story appeared in 1903. Rohmer died in 1959, succumbing (ironically) to Asian flu. Noted for his “Fu Manchu” tales, Rohmer’s work first arose in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion. This makes sense, given the “yellow peril” nature of his tales.
Perilous Tales collects four stories, three of which feature another Rohmer character, Madame de Medici. Wilson’s made his own spin on this character in his Repairman Jack novels, plus a couple of short stories. “The Zayat Kiss,” a non-Medici tale, features an early appearance of Fu Manchu. There’s a great introduction by Wilson, which covers his interest in and literary relationship to Rohmer. He also wrote brief prefaces to each story. Such small details are highly valued, at least by me.
As far as the series of Little Books from BP goes, I now only lack seven books. All of those seven are in the hard-to-find or damned-expensive variety. All of those seven are long out of print, so finding them at “acceptable” prices will be a matter of luck. It will be interesting to see where this series goes, as there are many possibilities, both in terms of the past and the present.
Over the years, Gauntlet Press has published many of F. Paul Wilson’s books, often (but not always!) limited to 500 copies, and usually priced at $60 (or higher, if lettered vs. simply numbered and signed). I own the complete set of the main “Repairman Jack” novels from Gauntlet, but at some point I drew the line with the two trilogies of “Young Jack” and “Jack’s Early Years.” The first trilogy was centered around Jack as a teenager living on the edge of the Jersey Pine Barrens. The second trilogy picked up a few years later, as Jack arrived in New York as a college dropout, and before he picked up the “Repairman Jack” monicker.
However, as a result of recent impulsive actions and approachable prices, I now have all three books in one the Gauntlet Press “early years” trilogy, Cold City, Dark City, and Fear City (published between 2012 and 2014). All three are signed books, and fit in nicely with my other Gauntlet Press books. For some strange reason the second book in the trilogy is limited to 400 copies, while books one and three are limited to 500 copies!
Another trilogy, under the monicker “ICE,” includes the novels, Panacea, The God Gene, and The Void Protocol. When I first heard of these books, I went the Tor hardcover route. Then, I found a copy of Panacea online for a bargain price. When I recently stumbled across the Gauntlet Press edition of The God Gene, I submitted a bid and ended up the winner. This copy is marked “M” as part of a lettered edition, vs. the typical numbered editions that I’ve owned of the Gauntlet Press books. Now that I have two of the three books in Gauntlet editions, the third volume beckons.
I also bought, at what I consider a reasonable rate, the first book in a(nother) trilogy, one that was a collaboration between FPW and Tom Monteleone, published by Borderlands Press. The trilogy is called the Nocturnia Chronicles, aimed at the young adult market. The first book in this series is called Definitely Not Kansas (published in 2013).
The title seems to be a play on a line from the famous movie, The Wizard of Oz (“Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” if I remember it correctly). The books were published as a collaboration between two small press publishers, Borderlands Press and Gauntlet Press, with the hardcover edition limited to 350 copies, and signed by both authors (paperback editions also were published). The signature sheet is slightly smaller than the book, which is a bit of a head scratcher. The book contains an afterword section by Wilson and Monteleone where they describe how they conceived of the series (FPW’s comments also appear in the third volume of his short story compilation, The Compendium of F). The next two books in this series—Family Secrets and The Silent Ones—now are on my radar.
Lastly, Double Threat and Double Dose were a pair of linked books published by Gauntlet in partnership with Borderlands, in 2022 and 2024. I recently won an online auction for the Gauntlet/BP editions., and read both books over the course of a weekend. They fit into Wilson’s “Secret History” world. While most of the Secret History books take place on the East Coast, these two books take place in the Southern California desert. They’re also a riff on one of his earlier books, Healer, switching the gender of the main character, and placing her in the present vs. somewhere in space in a future history. There are some loose ends in the book that probably never will get resolved, but on the whole they were an enjoyable read. Aside from the link to Healer, there’s also a link to his novella, Wardenclyffe, the ICE trilogy, and maybe some other Easter eggs that I didn’t catch.
As an aside, I have some quibbles with the design team at Gauntlet Press, as well as Borderlands Press. First, there is no consistency with the “City” books in the covers. Neither the spine nor the front cover use a consistent font, with Cold City on the spine in massive bold white text, and Dark City and Fear City in smaller text but one in all caps and the other in title case. When all three books are side by side, aside from the word “city” in the title, they look like they’re published by different companies. Second, why publish two books limited to 500 copies, and one limited to 400? This makes absolutely no sense, but then Gauntlet was never consistent with the Repairman Jack novels. Although most are limited to 500 copies, four are limited to 475 copies, one to 450, and one just to 375. Maybe there are no more than 375 completist collectors…
The same criticism of design consistency could be said for the Nocturnia books; although I only have the first one, I have seen images of the second and third books. If a publisher knows they’re going to have a trilogy on their hands, maybe keep the design somewhat consistent? This isn’t just an issue with these books. The Tor hardcovers of the teenager Repairman Jack started out one way, then completely changed. Maybe that was a marketing move; the person in charge of the first book left, or someone decided they weren’t moving fast enough. In the case of small press publishers, unlike someone like Tor Books, you’re likely not seeing your book in the local Barnes & Noble, so please make it a point to come up with a plan for all the books in that series.
At least Double Dose and Double Threat are somewhat consistent in design, although whoever printed the cover of the first one, clearly didn’t measure the book, as the red border of the spine bleeds at least a quarter of an inch onto the front cover. As far the font used for Wilson’s name on the books, the designer should be ashamed, as certainly they had far better fonts to pick from than a Courier wannabe? Also, the lettered edition of Double Threat apparently merits a bonus “afterword,” which is frustrating. Then again, maybe that was the incentive to shell out more money for that edition.
