SciFi & Fantasy

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For me science fiction is a way of thinking, a way of logic that bypasses a lot of nonsense. It allows people to look directly at important subjects.  - Gene Roddenberry, creator of "Star Trek"

Selected Titles:

Have Space Suit Will Travel Robert A Heinlein Gollancz 1st 1970 Clifford Russell (Kip to his friends) is a teenager who is obsessed by a desire to go to the moon. He enters a contest in which the first prize is a trip to the moon, and although he doesn't win. he gets a prize—a second-hand space suit. His home efforts to repair the suit result in travel much more startling than the mere trip to the moon that he expects to make. On the way Kip meets Peewee, a genius child of ten, who from then on shares his adventures and is, with him, involved in an inter-spatial cold war of mind-stretching dimensions. It is on a planet much older than earth that the story comes to an astonishing and serious — climax. Kip finds himself asked to take an agonizing responsibility for the human race of his time. As always. Robert Heinlein's story is carefully limited to the mathematico-physical possibilities of the real universe . . . but is as fantastic in concept as the universe itself. 8vo. Ex school lib, minor wear to dustwrapper at head + tail of spine + corners. Dustwrapper in library protective sleeve, otherwise VG in a VG+ wrapper. 454 gms £70.00

Hell's Cartographers - some personal histories of science fiction writers  Brian W Aldiss & Harry Harrison Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1st 1975 `We are an entirely new sort of popular writer, the poor man's highbrows. We wrote against the grain and were accepted against it. We wrote for kicks and ha'pence. We had faith in what we were doing; individualists though we were and are, it transpired that the faith virtually created a movement. A lot of people needed to re-dream our nightmares.' So says Brian Aldiss in his introduction to this remarkable and original volume. The new sort of writer is the science fiction writer, very much a figure of this century - the term `science fiction' itself was only invented in the late nineteen-twenties. Science fiction, or sf, has now become something of a cult. This book is about some of the men who helped create that cult, and who have an inner knowledge of its workings. All of them have remarkable success stories to tell, and tell them with zest. This is the first time that sf writers have been invited to write about themselves; they come up with six entertaining, eccentric, and enlightening stories, among which are scattered anecdotes about many other well-known writers. For instance, there is Alfred Bester, author of Tiger, Tiger, talking about a memorably terrible lunch with the remarkable John W. Campbell, Jnr., the leading magazine editor of his day. Bester comments about the meeting, `It reinforced my private opinion that a majority of the science fiction crowd, despite their brilliance, were missing their marbles. Perhaps that's the price that must be paid for brilliance The other authors appearing in this volume are Robert Silverberg; Frederik Pohl, currently President of the Science Fiction Writers of America; Damon Knight, and the co-editors, Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss. Harry Harrison is a great traveller as well as author and a master of the sf-adventure, such as Deathworld; his impressive novel about an over-populated New York, Make Room, Make Room, was filmed as M.G.M.'s Soylent Green. Brian Aldiss is one of Britain's best known science-fiction writers, while his straight novels, A Hand-Reared Boy and A Soldier Erect were best-sellers; he has also written the widely acclaimed history of the sf field, Billion Year Spree. 8vo. Very minor darkening to the base of the boards; very, very minor wear to the dustwrapper, otherwise VG++ in a VG++ wrapper. 472 gms £20.00

The Robots of Dawn  Isaac Asimov Doubleday 1st 1983 A puzzling case of "roboticide" takes interplanetary detective Elijah Baley from Earth to the planet Aurora—the self-styled World of the Dawn, where humans and robots coexist in seemingly perfect harmony. There, the most advanced robot iu the Universe —an awesomely human machine—has been murdered. Only one man on Aurora had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to commit the crime—and he has hired Baley to prove he didn't do it. And to make Baley's impossible mission even worse, he soon learns that not only his career but the fate of the Earth as well is riding on his investigation. For the murder of the humaniform robot is closely tied to a power struggle that will decide the ultimate question: Who will be the next pioneers to colonize the Universe—man or his machines? And the answer to that question could spell either doom or new hope for an overcrowded Earth. Armed only with his own instincts, his sometimes quirky logic, and the immutable Three Laws of Robotics, Baley sets out to solve the case. But can anything prepare a simple Earthman for the psychological complexities of a world where a beautiful woman could easily have fallen in love with an all-too-human robot? Fresh from his phenomenally successful bestseller Foundation's Edge. the master returns with a science fiction mystery that brings back the charmingly irascible hero, Elijah Baley, a character that Asimov fans will remember from his adventures in The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun. THE ROBOTS OF DAWN takes us on a mind-stretching journey that recalls, too, the Asimov classic I. Robot. 8vo. Wear, rubs + chips to dustwrapper, otherwise VG++ in a VG+ wrapper. 504 gms £12.00

Forrest J Ackerman's World of Science Fiction  Forrest J Ackerman Aurum Press 1st UK 1998 Forrest J Ackerman is known among science fiction aficionados as Mr. Sci-Fi. His contributions to the genre are innumerable. As an editor, he ran Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine for years. As an agent, he has represented dozens of authors, including a young Ray Bradbury, Ib Melchior, Catherine L. Moore, Curt Siodmak, and A. E. van Vogt. As an actor, he has appeared in more than 50 science fiction and horror films. As a fan and collector, he is peerless, and he opens his Hollywood Hills home/museum, the Ackermansion, to the public on weekends free of charge, where they delight in 70 years' worth of memorabilia: movie props and posters, rare books and magazines, and hundreds of paintings and photos. Forry coined the term "sci-fi" in the early '50s; was awarded the first of his six Hugo awards in 1953 (the year they were initiated); and has received two Golden Saturn awards from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. This volume is heavily illustrated with classic sci-fi book jackets; great, colorful images from long-out-ofprint magazines; and a comprehensive 20th-century photo collection of classic actors, creepy reptiles, and "gi-ants" that will thrill the sci-fi connoisseur. Large 4to. Minor bumps, otherwise Fine in a Fine wrapper.1165 gms £15.00

The Book of Ultimate Truths  Robert Rankin Doubleday 1st 1993 He had walked the Earth as Nostradamus, Uther Pendragon, Count Cagliostro and Rodrigo Borgia. He could open a tin of sardines with his teeth, strike a Swan Vestas or his chin, rope steers, drive a steam locomotive and hum all the works of Gilbert and Sullivan without becoming confused or breaking dowr in tears. He died, penniless, at a Hastings boarding house, in his ninetieth year. His name was Hugo Artemis Solon Saturnicus Reginald Arthur Rune. And he was never bored. Hailed as the `guru's guru', Rune penned more than eight million words of genius including his greatest work The Book of Ultimate Truths. But vital chapters of The Bool were suppressed, chapters which could have changed the whole course of human history. Now, seventeen-year-old Cornelius Murphy, together with his best friend Tuppe, sets out on an epic quest. Their mission - recover the missing chapters. Re-publish The Book of Ultimate Truths. And save the world. Naturally. 8vo. Fine in a Fine wrapper. 538 gms £15.00

Inside Star Trek - the real story Herbert F Solow & Robert H Justman Pocket Books 1st 1966 Before the actors were cast, before the U.S.S. Enterprise was designed, before the phenomenon exploded, there were three men who set about creating the Star Trek legend. Gene Roddenberry died in 1991. Herb Solow and Bob Justman now remain the only two people on the planet Earth who really know what happened in those early, heady days. In the beginning of 1964, Herbert F.Solow was hired to run television production for Lucille Ball's struggling Desilu Studios. In April of that year,+ a rumpled, soft-spoken ex-cop named Gene Roddenberry walked into Solow's office with an idea for a now science fiction television series called Star Trek. Immediately seeing the show's potential. Solow struck a script development deal with Roddenberry on the spot. Soon, Solow and Roddenberry brought Robert H. Justman on board as assistant director to work on what was to be the first of two Star Trek pilots and, later, to act as associate producer on the series. Together, the three men embarked on an incredible odyssey that would make television history. With Herb Solow running interference—both within the closed walls of the studio and between Desilu and NBC—and Bob Justman handling all phases of weekly production, Star Trek® endured its birth pangs. Finally, when Solow hired Roddenberry to produce the initial sixteen episodes ordered, the fledgling series began to assume a life of its own. INSIDE STAR TREK is a comprehensive look at the development and life of a television and cultural phenomenon. It is also a story no one else could tell. Between them, Solow and Justman had a hand in virtually every aspect of the development and production or Star Trek—from the battles with NBC and the internal conflicts with studio executives to the behind. the scenes decisions about actors and their characters. writers, scripts, directors, budgets, and the endless details of weekly television production. Since 1964, Solow, executive in charge of production for Star Trek, has been silent about the legends, distortions and misrepresentations that grew around the show he developed and sold to NBC, the pilots he developed with Gene Roddenberry, and which he carries in his memory as part of a distinguished career. Bob Justman, as associate producer and then coproducer of Star Trek (and subsequently supervising producer of Star Trek The Next Generation, among other series) has been a popular speaker at Star Trek conventions, known and loved by fans around the world. Together, in this book, the two men debunk many of the myths that have developed around Star Trek in the last thirty years as they create new ones based on facts. At last, here is the simple, fascinating and accurate account of a unique television series launched against astronomical odds—a television series that transported millions of viewers into another world and into an unprecedented, thirty-year, multimedia, multibillion-dollar cultural phenomenon. Fine+ in a Fine+ wrapper. 980 gms £15.00

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