21 February 2003

Bradbury, Ray Dinosaur Tales
(ibooks 0-7434-5897-4, $12, 144pp, tpb, February 2003, cover illustration William Stout, cover design Alex Jay)
• First edition: Bantam, June 1983.
• Collection of four stories and two poems about dinosuars -- billed as all of Bradbury's dinosaur stories, in one volume. Stories include the canonical "The Sound of Thunder" (time traveler steps on a butterfly and changes history) and "The Fog Horn" (basis for the 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms). Illustrations are by William Stout, Steranko, Gahan Wilson, Moebius, and others. The press release notes that a film version of A Sound of Thunder is currently in production, directed by Peter Hyams, starring Edward Burns and Ben Kingsley.
(Seen Thu 6 Feb 2003)
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Disch, Thomas M. On Wings of Song
(Carroll & Graf 0786711221, $12, 315pp, tpb, January 2003)
• First edition: St Martin's, August 1979.
• Literary sf novel with [symbolic] fantasy elements: a 21st-century dystopia concerning, among other things, out-of-body experiences, in the context of the story a young homosexual man growing up in near-future balkanized small-town USA. Named one of the 100-best SF novels by David Pringle in his Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (1985). This fan site has this page of cover images, synopses, and interview experts (conducted by John Shirley and Scott Edelman, among others). The Amazon page has reader reviews. The book was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, British SF, TABA, and Balrog awards, and won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1980.
(Seen Tue 11 Feb 2003)
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Kushner, Ellen Swordspoint
(UK: Bantam Spectra 0-553-58549-5, $6.99, 349pp, pb, February 2003)
• First edition: Unwin Hyman, February 1987.
• Fantasy novel, forerunner to 2002's The Fall of the Kings (written with Delia Sherman), one of the best-received fantasy novels of that year. This edition includes three previously uncollected stories in the same universe, including "The Death of the Duke" (1998). Kushner's website has this page about the book, with links to an excerpt on the Bantam site, and Kushner's new afterword. The book received the a Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame Award in 2000.
(Seen Tue 4 Feb 2003)
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Leiber, Fritz Swords and Deviltry
(Pocket/ibooks 0-7434-4558-9, $6.99, 217pp, pb, February 2003, cover art Steranko)
• First edition: Ace, 1970.
• Fantasy collection, the first, chronologically, of Leiber's classic sword & sorcery "Fafhrd and Gray Mouser" series, including stories describing how the two protagonists first met. Stories include 1970 novella "Ill Met in Lankhmar", winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1971; novella "The Snow Women" from the same year, also nominated for both awards but strategically withdrawn by the author in favor of the other story; 1962 novelette "The Unholy Grail"; and introductory "Induction". This extensive tribute site has this page about this book, with cover images from various editions. Ibooks plans to reissue future collections in this series.
(Seen Tue 11 Feb 2003)
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Silverberg, Robert The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964
(Tor 0-765-30536-4, $27.95, 14+560pp, hc, February 2003, jacket art Kenn Brown)
• First edition: Doubleday, 1970.
• Anthology of 26 classic SF stories, edited by Silverberg but determined by vote of SFWA members from stories publisher prior to the advent of the Nebula Awards in 1966 (for works published in 1965). A canonical anthology, full of stories any dedicated SF reader should have read -- or should read: Asimov's "Nightfall", Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God", Zelazny's "A Rose for Ecclesiastes", Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations", Heinlein's "The Road Must Roll", Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God", Cordwainer Smith's "Scanners Live in Vain", Bester's "Fondly Fahrenheit", Kornbluth's "The Little Black Bag", and many others. A worthy volume for republication in hardcover.
(Seen Tue 18 Feb 2003)
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Smith, Cordwainer Norstrilia
(ibooks 0-7434-5834-6, $12, x+276pp, tpb, March 2003, cover art Scott Grimando, cover design j. vita)
• First edition: Ballantine, February 1975.
• SF novel, the only full-length novel by one of the most distinctive and enigmatic writers in the genre; Smith was eventually revealed to be a pen-name for Paul M.A. Linebarger, the god-son of Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-Sen, among other roles. His earliest hit was novelette "Scanners Live in Vain" in 1950 -- reprinted in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, listed above -- and virtually all of his works comprised a uniform future history designated "The Instrumentality of Mankind". This one novel was originally published in paperback, in two parts, as The Planet Buyer (1964) and The Underpeople (1968), and serialized in magazines before that; this book is also available in hardcover from NESFA Press, which also publishes a complete volume of Smith's short fiction.
(Seen Fri 7 Feb 2003)
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