I first bought Joe R. Lansdale’s collection, By Bizarre Hands, in its paperback edition way back in 1989 or 1990. My Avon Books paperback copy now shows, 35 years later, the inevitable signs of aging in the faded pages; when I read paperback books I am careful not to break the spine, so otherwise it’s in pristine condition.
Over the years I picked up other Lansdale books, some in paperback, but mostly in hardback when I could find them. I think I have a love/hate relationship with Lansdale’s writing. His plots and characters are interesting, his dialog is — to me at least — painful to read; all the characters speak in the same snide voice.
At current count I own 41 Lansdale books. This is but a fraction of his total output. Sometimes I find copies in bookstores that sell new books, sometimes in bookstores that sell used books; I do wish I could buy them all as new books, vs. stumbling upon them now and then. I guess I could look online, but I much prefer seeing the condition of the books before I buy them. In the 1990s I bought a few books at SF conventions. I met Lansdale once (or maybe more) at ArmadilloCons in Austin in the 1990s, and I think he signed a few of my books then. I stopped attending these conventions when I moved from Austin in 2001. When I check the guest list these days for ArmadilloCon, there are very few authors listed I care about, so I feel no urge to drive the two hours there to attend that convention. It’s not like back in the day when James P. Blaylock, Tim Powers, Bruce Sterling, Lewis Shiner, William Gibson, and a host of great writers attended that convention. These days I don’t even recognize the names.
In December, 2024, I came across the hardback edition of By Bizarre Hands, listed for $25. A seller discount to $20 prompted me to buy the book. Published by Mark V. Ziesing in 1989, apparently the same year as the Avon Books paperback edition, this book has the added bonus of being signed by Lansdale. It’s not the limited edition, but that’s never the deciding factor when I buy books. This is Lansdale’s first short story collection. It gathers together 16 stories, along with the author’s preface and an introduction by fellow Texas writer Lewis Shiner.
I don’t think I’ve read these stories since I first bought the book. I read a couple of them right off the bat once I received the hardcover edition, and I was, to put it mildly, a little shocked. How it it possible in 2024 to be shocked by stories first written 35 years ago, if not more? These stories are not for the faint of heart. Some of his later novels have toned down the violence, but the stories in By Bizarre Hands are raw, in your face, and sometimes quite disturbing.
The hardcover edition was published by Mark V. Ziesing. His imprint published books mostly in the late 1980s through the late 1990s, many of them classics in the genre. These include Tim Powers’s Anubis Gates, Richard Chizmar’s collection Cold Blood, Neal Barrett, Jr.’s The Hereafter Gang, Howard Waldrop’s Night of the Cooters, a Bruce Sterling collection, and many more.
One of the tragedies of the small press market of the 1990s is that so many great publishers simply faded away after a run of putting out great books. When I check my library, I see that own 16 Ziesing books. I’m sure there are many of the books published by Ziesing that I don’t own. In this case, it was pure happenstance that I found and bought the books online. I’ve bought a few other Ziesing books recently — a limited Waldrop book, a limited anthology from Dozois, some Lucius Shepard books, and a John Shirley novel. No doubt there are others that I don’t own. Maybe I should look for these, try to collect the entire Ziesings set. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll just see what happens. Such is the life of the “haphazard collector.”
