Classic Reprints, February
Dick, Philip K. : The Man in the High Castle
(Mariner 978-0547572482, $13.95, 288pp, trade paperback, January 2012)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 24 Jan 2012
Classic alternate history novel set in 1962 San Francisco, 20 years after Germany and Japan won the war and divided the US between them.
• It won the Hugo Award in 1963 and has long been considered PKD’s most important novel. Wikipedia has this long entry about the book, complete with world map.
• This is another in a series of new editions of this author’s novels from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Mariner imprint, following eight titles released last Fall (see this listing). Two others released this month are The Crack in Space and The Penultimate Truth.
• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound
• (Directory Entry)
* du Maurier, Daphne : The Doll: The Lost Short Stories
(HarperCollins/Morrow 978-0-06-208034-9, $14.99, 229pp, trade paperback, December 2011)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 22 Nov 2011
Collection of 13 early stories by the author of Rebecca, to which the title story here is a precursor.
• The publisher’s site has this description with a preview function.
• A Cemetery Dance edition is still forthcoming.
• Stefan Dziemianowicz reviews the book in the February issue of Locus Magazine, noting that “The best story by far is ‘The Happy Valley’, a work whose comparative maturity suggests that it may have been the one written latest. … It might be going too far to say that this story alone is worth the price of the book, but Ann Willmore, who is credited with having alerted the du Maurier estate to these largely forgotten tales, is to be thanked for calling attention to at least one work that should become a staple of future anthologies of macabre fiction.”
• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound
• (Directory Entry)
Laumer, Keith, & Rosel George Brown : Earthblood & Other Stories
(Baen 978-1451638202, $7.99, 720pp, mass market paperback, February 2012)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 31 Jan 2012
Omnibus volume of a collaborative novel, Earthblood (1966), plus three stories by Laumer and six by Brown.
• The novel is far future SF about a human raised by aliens intent on finding the mythical planet – Earth – of his race’s birth.
• Baen’s site has this description. This edition is a reprint of Baen’s 2008 trade paperback edition.
• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound
• (Directory Entry)
L’Engle, Madeleine : A Wrinkle in Time
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux 978-0374386160, $24.99, 280pp, hardcover, January 2012)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 31 Jan 2012
50th anniversary edition of young adult SF/fantasy novel about a girl whose father, a government scientist, disappears via a ‘tesseract’ – a wrinkle in time.
• The publisher’s site has this description with an excerpt, video trailer, and reading guide.
• Wikipedia’s page for the book has a long summary and descriptions of characters.
• This edition has its own Facebook page.
• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound
• (Directory Entry)
Simmons, Dan : Phases of Gravity
(Subterranean 978-1596064164, $25, 312pp, hardcover, January 2012)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 31 Jan 2012
(First edition: Bantam Spectra, May 1989)
Mainstream novel with SF elements, the author’s third novel, about a former astronaut who discovers a path to understanding what is meaningful in his life.
• Subterranean’s site has this description and order page, though it indicates both the limited and trade editions are sold out.
• Amazon, which does have the book in stock, supplies an excerpt via its “Look Inside” function.
• Publishers Weekly gives this new edition a starred review: “Fans of Simmons’s science fiction might be surprised to find him writing a mainstream novel informed by spiritualism and a hint of magic, but the story is still as good as anything Simmons has delivered.”
• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound
• (Directory Entry)
+ Statten, Vargo : Creature from the Black Lagoon
(DreamHaven , $20, hardcover, February 2012, cover by Bob Eggleton)
First US edition of the novelization (by Vargo Statten writing as John Russell Fearn) of the 1954 film.
• This edition includes an introduction by David Schow and stills from the film.
• DreamHaven’s site has this description and order page. There are also hardcovere and limited hardcover editions.
• (Directory Entry)
Straub, Peter : Mrs. God
(Pegasus 978-1-60598-304-2, $23.95, 208pp, hardcover, February 2012)
• Nominal Publication Date: Wed 15 Feb 2012
(First edition: Donald M. Grant, December 1990)
Dark fantasy short novel about an English professor given a chance to study at an English estate where numerous literary legends were once guests.
• Wikipedia has a page for the first edition.
• The Publishers Weekly review says the book “may not be one of Straub’s most original or compelling works, but it does exemplify his supreme ability to transform a relatively pedestrian story line into one of nightmare-inducing terror through imagery, symbolism, and motif.”
• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound
• (Directory Entry)
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+ = first US edition
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