Well, all good vacations have to come to an end. I’m back at work now and supposed to be preparing some vacation classes for later this month. It’s a little hard to get motivated. There were some goodies waiting for me though. 50 Brodart dust jacket covers, 3 books and some provenance.
The provenance relates to The Dawning Light which I picked up late last year. Joe Wherle, Jr from whom I bought it sent me some scans of Gnome Press related paraphernalia which I’ll talk about in more detail when I get around to covering that particular book. Which might actually be a while because it’s the sequel to The Shrouded Planet, and I haven’t got that yet. Many thanks Joe, much appreciated.
Just on the point of provenance, I try to ask all of the people I get the books from if they can supply any. Anything. Everything has a history and I enjoy knowing and sharing the anecdotes or interesting snippets or whatever about these books. It gives them life and makes them real in a way that is different than the stories do. Maybe I’m a bit strange, but I think that these books are special. As artifacts – even if many aren’t particularly valuable in terms of money – they are rare, they are old and they deserve to have a character of their own. Perhaps only a select few are worthy of being called historic in terms of literature, but as a whole they do occupy a special place in the history of science fiction publishing.
The three that were waiting for me were Sands of Mars, The Vortex Blaster and Agent of Vega. I am very happy with Sands, but a little disappointed with the other two. Not in terms of actually having them, but in terms of what I offered. I think I offered a little too much for them, especially since subsequently what looked to be a nicer copy of Vortex went unbid on eBay. It’s all swings and roundabouts I suppose, I picked up what looks to be an absolutely Fine copy of Starman’s Quest a couple of days ago for only $22. Regardless, I will be very happy to see them in the library when I get home and I was happy to (virtually) meet Geoff who was very pleasant to deal with and a good guy. He sent me a copy of one of his CDs. He is a recording artist and you can check him out at his website here. Cheers Geoff.
Ric Binkley did the cover of Sands. Had to mention it.
The Great Gnome Press Science Fiction Odyssey 