Ah, nostalgia. Such a great concept. In my case, as a haphazard book collector, it means acquiring books from the 1980s and 1990s that I missed out on back in the day. Thanks to the internet (far more than specialty SF bookstores, or even used book stores) there are always opportunities out there that exceed both my time and budget. Sometimes, however, it’s hard to resist certain books. In this case, three books published by Mark V. Ziesing Books.
The first, a collection of short stories by A. A. Attanasio. Beastmarks was published in 1984, and collects seven stories of varying length. Years ago I read a couple of Attanasio’s books – Hunting the Ghost Dancer and Wyvern. I’d seen the Ziesing edition of Beastmarks somewhere back in the day, but never since, at least not in any physical location. But, there are online dealers who carry copies of these books, and this was one of the first ones I selected.
Next, Brian Stableford’s The Hunger and Ecstacy of Vampires. Another Ziesing book, this one from 1996. Set in 1985, this books incorporates real life people, such as Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, and others. I’ve never any of Stableford’s books, nor do I know much about him, but this novel does hook the reader almost from the first page. Stableford passed away in 2024 at the age of 75, with a hundred novels to his name, as well as a vast output of short stories. Woe to the collector who aims to gather all of his work, as he also translated many books from French, and his short stories appeared in nearly two dozen collections! Locus Magazine has a wonderful obituary of Stableford.
Lastly, Ray Garton’s Trade Secrets, published in 1990. Of these three, Garton’s name is the most familiar to me. I read a couple of his horror stories/novels decades ago, but that’s a tiny fraction of his output. Garton also died in 2024, at the young age of 61, and with almost 70 books to his name. Trade Secrets, to me, reads like a Dean Koontz thriller. He’s probably best known for Live Girls!, but his short stories also are superb. A few of these are collected in Borderlands Press “little book” series, under the title, A Little Gray Book of Grim Tales.
All these books were published in both trade and limited editions. I bought the trade editions, as I wanted books that I could and would read. There’s maybe around 20 or so other Ziesing books that I lack, and around 20 or so that I have. So, I sit at the halfway point. Acquiring these three books has whetted my appetite for more, so we’ll see what happens. Mark. V. Ziesing Books is just one more small press that rose in the 1980s and faded into oblivion a couple fo decades later. Such a shame.
