The Great Gnome Press Science Fiction Odyssey

The first 25% took 6 months, it took a little over a year to bring it to 50%, and now achieving 75%, has taken one year and nine months. As I explained in the 25 – 50% review, the book split for the last half of this endeavor is 21/21 – I now have 65 of the 86 books required to reach my goal.  While bringing my collection to this point is gratifying from a purely statistical perspective, this has been the most unfulfilling period from the point of view of my commitment to reading and this blog.  In addition, I’ve been several hundred dollars distracted by Gene Wolfe and Brian Aldiss.

In the last progress report, I bemoaned the fact that my reading and contribution to this blog was poor.  This time around it has been poorer, and is a reflection of my lifestyle and general deportment over the past year or so.  But setting my personal situation and attitude aside, what about the books??  Let’s check out these 21 books.

You’ll notice an odd detail on these books.  Aside from the nasty reflections, they all have a kind of seam-line down the center of the spine.  This is the heat-shrink plastic casing I put on all my books now in addition to the standard Brodart dust jacket covers that I apply.  This extra layer of protection keeps the atmosphere (humidity, dust etc.) away from the books.  Vacuum-packing them would be nicer, but I don’t have access to that kind of equipment here.

If you were counting, there are actually 22 books here.  You will see the group includes the Gnome Junior jacketed version of Murray Leinster’s The Forgotten Planet.  As you may know, I picked up this title in the regular issue jacket some time ago.  This version is here because it’s a high profile addition to my GP collection.  But because I already have this title, I haven’t factored it’s $300 price tag into the ‘Most Expensive’, ‘Cheapest’ and ‘Average Price’ categories below.  You might say something like “Hey, what about the limited edition The Thirty-First of February.  You’re including that as a stand-alone title.”  Yes I am.  I consider that a completely different publication to the regular version.  It has several important binding differences and was specially created to stand apart from the other.  The Forgotten Planet here is a dust jacket variant only.
Another thing you may have picked up on is that The Menace from Earth has no dust jacket.  This is because the jacket is away at Craft Bookbinding Co. getting restored.

Best Condition:
Interplanetary Hunter by Arthur K. Barnes – a solid Near Fine if not Fine.  Pohl’s Drunkard’s Walk and The Bird of Time by Wallace West both come close.

Worst Condition:
The Carnelian Cube by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp – Poor.  Quite frankly, I don’t know why I bought it.

Most Expensive:
Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke – $235.

Cheapest:
The Bird of Time by Wallace West – $10.  A nice little bargain.

50 – 75% Average Price:
$54.  If we include aforementioned variant of The Forgotten Planet, then this average leaps to $65.  But we don’t, so it’s up from the $47 for the second quarter, but less than the $57 for the first.

Best & Worst Read:
Reading is an area where I hang my head in shame.  Of the books in this bracket, I have only read Mel Oliver and Space Rover on Mars.  Sure, I read The Thirty-First of February and The Forgotten Planet earlier as part of the previous sections, and did listen to both The Menace from Earth and Against the Fall of Night a long time ago in audio form, but of the titles we are really concerned about here I’ve actually read only the one.  However, Mel & Rover is a super read, classic quality YASF.

Surprise Package:
Surprises can be both positive and negative, right??  Is a negative surprise called a shock??  Anyways, Robert Heinlein’s The Menace from Earth fits that bill.  I commented on that in detail in this post here.

Best Moments:
Procuring Against the Fall of Night and the limited edition The Thirty-First of February at reasonable prices – $235 and $52 (wow) respectively.
Adding the Gnome Junior jacketed version of The Forgotten Planet to the bookshelf.
My first Conan title – Conan the Conqueror.  Getting a Conan title is a nice satisfactory tick off the list.

This entry was posted on July 1, 2012 at 12:24 pm and is filed under 75%, Progress Report with tags Gnome Press. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.