Happy Holidays

New Arrivals Ray Bradbury

As I have mentioned before the number of used book 

stores here has declined. However yesterday on a 

trip to the Italian Market for coffee and a pastry

with a friend, we stopped at Cabin Fever Books.

My friend found a juvenile for me by an author I had 

not read. The cover is unattributed.

I love Zelazny especially during his pre-Amber phase before he 

went trumps on his seemingly never ending pattern of milking

the saga of Oberon and his innumerable offspring, and here 

is one I have not read.

cover by Carl Lundgren

And of course I had been looking for The Years of the City

with the Paul Lehr cover.

But the zinger was a 1974 copy of The Martian Chronicles with

slipcase, published by The Heritage Press with illustrations by,

the greatest of Ray Bradbury's illustrators, Joseph Mugnaini.

 I am a big Bradbury fan. In Bradbury An Illustrated Life

(a wonderful book in it's own right), Jerry Weist notes that 

upon seeing Mugnaini's paintings for the first time Bradbury 

phoned the artist and the men became life long friends.

Wow. these geek me out.

John Glenn Born: July 18, 1921, Cambridge, Ohio, United States Died: December 8, 2016.

New Arrivals

Yesterday I managed to sneak in a visit to Fair's Fair books 
while my wife and a friend shopped for some Mid Century Items 
down the street. Yippee!!

You never know what a used book store will yield. 
This trip the gems were a number of Paul Lehr covers.

A great Paul Lehr with a full scale figure, cool.



Beyond Tomorrow cover uncredited.

I knew I wanted this Brunner the second I saw the cover 
on the web. It was nice to find it without paying

 ABE pricing. The artist's name is under the right toe 
(your right) it is hard to make out,  

ISFDB states it "Appears to be PDRICK".

This copy of Venus Equilateral has a nice Jack Gaughan cover. 
I am not a huge fan of his work but I like the old school

ship and space station. This edition was printed in 1967 

but the stories appeared in Astounding starting in

1942 so the cover fits.

Peter Jones, I have a sentimental attachment to his work.

I also like the Weird Tales connection to early SF  and the 

contents looked fun. 

A Word about Weird essay, Robert Bloch

Preface, Mike Ashley

Skulls in the Stars, Robert Howard

The Three Marked Pennies, Mary Elizabeth Counselman

He That Hath Wings, Edmond Hamilton

The Distortion Out of Space, Francis Flagg

The Utmost Abomination, Clark Ashton Smith and Lin Carter

Eternal Rediffusion, Eric Frank Russell and Leslie J. Johnson

The Drucker, Ray Bardbury

The Black Kiss, Henry Kuttner and Robert Bloch

The Survivor, HPL and August Derleth 

David Kyle 1919-2016

I just learned that David Kyle passed away in Sept 2016. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction notes that he was a member of First Fandom and a writer, publisher, and illustrator. He was, with Martin Greenberg, a founder of Gnome Press perhaps the greatest of all the SF small presses. It also has some of the coolest book covers. He was the author of three authorized adventures in E.E. "Doc" Smith Lensmen series each devoted to one of the non-human Second Stage Lensman. Some 20 years ago I received a number of books on SF film and illustration from a friend. It was two books by Kyle that I consider largely responsible for my interest in the history of SF and its appearance in pulp magazines. They also help convert me from a reader of SF to someone who actively collected a wide range of SF titles and authors.

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/kyle_david_a

http://www.locusmag.com/News/2016/09/david-a-kyle-1919-2016/

Ideas & Dreams: cover based on Amazing Stories 

cover (May 1944) by Malcolm Smith

Science Fiction: cover based on Thrilling Wonder Stories 

cover (Oct. 1936) by Howard V. Brown

Left: Back cover by Frank R. Paul appeared in  

Amazing Stories (Dec. 1941) Serenis, Water City of Callisto

Right: Back cover by Frank R. Paul appeared in  

Amazing Stories (April 1942) A city in the 21st Century

To  see more of Paul's Wonderful images please see the link 
below to the great blog Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased.

https://yellowedandcreased.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/adventures-in-art-frank-r-paul-2-alien-visions/#jp-carousel-4304

The Second Stage Lensmen Books, Bantam, 1980-1983

The cover artist for two out of three is Bob Larkin

Some Gnome Press Titles

Children of the Atom, cover by Frank Kelley Frease (1953)

City, cover by Frank Kelley Frease (1952)

Cosmic Engineers, cover by Edd Cartier (1950)

Iceworld, cover by Ric Binkley (1953)