Radio Times Official Collector's Edition - Star Trek 30 Years
Telemedia Publications 1st 1996
4to pb 168pp, foldout map of Star Trek universe laid in, both F+ 495 gms
(Order reference 13550).

Ackerman, Forrest J: Forrest J Ackerman's World of Science Fiction
Aurum Press 1st UK 1998
minor bmps o/w F/F 1165 gms
(Order reference 814).

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.

Aldiss, Brian W & Harrison, Harry: Hell's Cartographers - some personal histories of science fiction writers
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1st 1975
v min darkening to base of bds, v v min wr to d/w o/w VG++/VG++ 472 gms
(Order reference 2407).

`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.

Asimov, Isaac: Foundation's Edge
Granada rep 1983 v v min stns to btm of bds, min crsing + wr + sm tr + min waterstaining to inside of d/w o/w VG+/VG+ 680 gms
(Order reference 2256).

Asimov, Isaac: The Robots of Dawn
Doubleday 1st 1983
wr, rbs + chps to d/w o/w VG++/VG+ 504 gms
(Order reference 2383).

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.

“Here is the visual magic of the spectacular new movie The Dark Crystal, in which Jim Henson and Frank Oz of Muppet fame, and their associates, collaborate with the celebrated illustrator Brian Froud (Faeries and The Land of Froud), to create a fantastic ancient civilization – bringing life its people, geography, laws, language and mythology.

With over 200 pictures by Brian Froud (most in full colour) and its story of Tolkien-like fascination, this book is both a lavish introduction to the world of The Dark Crystal and a work of fantasy and artistry that stands completely on its own.

By means of dramatic illustration and imaginative text, Brian Froud and Professor J J Llewellyn have created – through the “writings” of the wise and ancient woman Aughra – the complex and absorbing world of the film so perfectly that it could almost have existed.”

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.