Now that I’ve looked at all of the official Tor Doubles, plus the proto-version and the unpublished version, where to next if you like the double format. Obviously, there are the Ace Doubles, which ran from 1952 until 1978.  That series provides the reader with at least 261 additional volumes of science fiction, plus a similar number of westerns and numerous mystery novels. You can read Black Gate publisher John O’Neill’s thoughts about collecting and selling Ace Doubles in this article from 2017.

In 1979, Dell Books introduced the Binary Stars series, which ran for five volumes, although they were not published in the dos-a-dos format. Each volume included two original novella, along with introductions. They included works by Fritz Leiber, Gordon Eklund, F. Paul Wilson, Ron Goulart, Isidore Haiblum, Joan D. Vinge, Steven G. Spruill, Jack Vance, and George R.R. Martin.  Norman Spinrad’s Riding the Torch appeared in the first volume and was later reprinted in the Tor Double series, the only work to be printed in both.

 

More recently, Arc Manor published the Stellar Guild series, which paired an established author with a newer author. The newer author would write a sequel or companion story to the established author’s original work for the series. For instance, Wishing on a Star included the novella Best Wishes, by Jody Lynn Nye and the story Homecoming by Angelina Adams. The series included ten volumes published between 2011 and 2017. The established authors included Eric Flint, Kevin J. Anderson, Mercedes Lackey, Harry Turtledove, Robert Silverberg, Nancy Kress, Larry Niven, and Mike Resnick. The newer authors included Steven Savile, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Charles E. Gannon, Brad R. Torgerson, and Lezli Robyn, among others.

More recently, Saga Press began publishing Saga Doubles in July of this year. The volumes in this series are significantly longer than the earlier doubles, which generally published novellas. The three volumes published so far run from 352 pages to 416 pages. The first volume contains two horror novels by Stephen Graham Jones. The second contains two horror anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow. The most recent volume, containing the novel Apprehension, by Mark Robinette Kowal, and Red Star Hustle, by Sam J. Miller, was released in October and included a joint book tour by the two authors. As with the Ace and Tor Double series, the Saga Doubles are published dos-a-dos.

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Steven H Silver is a twenty-one-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference numerous times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.