Among some of the books I picked up on a recent trip out west are four quite different books and four quite different authors. There were other books as well in this trip that I bought; some simply fit into a group where I’ll buy them and someday hope to read them, while others were mere curiosities. These four, however, were notable, at least when I found them.

Writers of the 21st Century Series: Jack Vance, edited by Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller (Taplinger, 1980). Many, many years ago I came across this book in a store in Austin somewhere, but I wasn’t able to buy it as it was then outside what I could afford. Years passed, and it remained in the back of my mind as a book that I wanted to find. Then, by complete chance, I found one in a used book store in Prescott Valley, Arizona. The books in this store were shelved in strange ways. I put back quite a few copies of books because they were in bad shape, and I gave up looking for some authors and titles as it meant going from shelf to shelf. One shelf had random books, including this title. This copy has a few dings and tears in the dust jacket, but otherwise is in great shape. It’s an early commentary on the fiction of Jack Vance, my favorite author, so I had to have it. Featuring entries by Norman Spinrad, Poul Anderson, and Robert Silverberg, among others, there’s much to like and also much to dislike about some of the comments in these essays. I first read Vance in 1985, which was five years after this book was published. I’m glad I didn’t read this book first, but rather fell in love with Vance’s fiction, old and new, rough and polished.

Pretty Monsters, Kelly Link (Viking, 2008). I thought I had all of Link’s books, save the one with cats and dogs in the title, so it was a bit of surprise when I came across this title. The dust jacket has a few scrapes, but otherwise it’s an almost pristine copy. Link’s a modern writer with imagination and flair, and I look forward to reading the stories collected here. For some unknown reason, I’d bought a second edition of one of her recent books, rather than hunting for the first edition. Why does this irk me? I’m not sure, but in this case, the edition of Pretty Monsters is a first edition.

The Life of Riley, Alexander C. Irvine (Subterranean Press, 2005). Not a title I expected to buy, but for $15 I thought it was a good deal. It’s a slim novel, and my 98th Sub Press book. I’m fairly certain that I read one of Irvine’s books many years ago, but for the life of me, I can’t remember which book. According to my database, I no longer own any of Irvine’s books, so maybe I gave it away. The text in the dust jacket makes this book look like an outdated early 21st Century dystopia. I’ll have to see if that’s the case, as it features a curious cover with someone (Riley?) on a bicycle racing towards the reader.

The Holy Terror, Wayne Allen Sallee (Mark V. Ziesing, 1992). I picked up the deluxe slipcased edition of this book, #10 of 250 copies, for slightly less than half the original cover price. I don’t know much about Sallee, and he seems to have gone quiet in the past few years, with his blogspot account suspended and no much news anywhere, despite a publishing career spanning 25 or more years.

I’ve got a long way to go if I want to collect all the Ziesing books. Even though this publisher only was active between 1982 and 1993 (or possibly longer, as there are conflicting sources when it comes to these dates), I only have 21 of the close to 40 titles published by Ziesing. Although I probably won’t end up with all the books published by Ziesing, there are some interesting titles in their bibliography, and maybe four or five that I really want to try to find. As reasonably priced small press publishers seems to be vanishing these days, replaced by high-end ones, and Subterranean Press for years having been one of the gold standards of the accessible small press. It’s sad that in a couple of years they, too, will be history.

For those collectors out there, seek ye the good ones. Soon, there will be none.