Search Results for: "the best of"

Future Treasures: The Best of Jerry Pournelle edited by John F. Carr

Comments 4 comments

Jerry Pournelle was the author of the Falkenberg’s Legion series, including one of my favorite military SF novels, West of Honor (1976), as well as Janissaries, and dozens of other novels. He’s perhaps best remembered for his bestselling collaborations with Larry Niven, including The Mote in God’s Eye (1974), Lucifer’s Hammer (1977), and Footfall (1985), which contains a barely-disguised Robert A. Heinlein as a character. He died in 2017. Pournelle was a controversial figure in SF. He was one of the…

Read More Read More

Space Empires, Ruined Civilizations, and Lovable Aliens: The Best of Eric Frank Russell

Comments 3 comments

Cover by H. R. Van Dongen The Best of Eric Frank Russell (1978) was the eighteenth installment in Lester Del Rey’s Classic Science Fiction Series. Alan Dean Foster (1946–) provides the introduction, his first and only introduction for the series. H. R. Van Dongen (1920–2010) does his seventh cover (far surpassing Dean Ellis’s five). Since Eric Frank Russell (1905–1978) was unavailable at the time this volume was compiled, no Afterword is included. Alan Dean Foster relates in the introduction that during…

Read More Read More

Dinosaurs, Mermaids, and Haunted Lumber: The Best of L. Sprague De Camp

Comments 12 comments

The Best of L. Sprague de Camp (Science Fiction Book Club edition, 1978. Cover by Richard Corben) The Best of L. Sprague De Camp (1978) was the fifteenth installment in Lester Del Rey’s Classic Science Fiction Series. Poul Anderson (1926–2001) gives the introduction. Darrel Sweet (1934–2011) does his second cover of the series, the first being The Best of Cordwainer Smith. L. Sprague De Camp (1907–2000), still living at the time, wrote the afterword. I’m a fairly late-comer to science fiction….

Read More Read More

Davey Jones, Alien Spores, and Riding on a Comet: The Best of Raymond Z. Gallun

Comments 4 comments

The Best of Raymond Z. Gallun (1978) was the seventeenth installment in Lester Del Rey’s Classic Science Fiction Series. J. J. Pierce returns to give the introduction to this volume. H. R. Van Dongen (1920–2010) does his fifth cover of the series (tying with Dean Ellis at this point). Raymond Z. Gallun (1911–1994), still living at the time, did the Afterword. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database reports that Gallun (rhymes with “balloon,” not pronounced “gallon”) wrote five novels, including The…

Read More Read More

Germ Warfare, Sentient Planets, and Dark Age Alchemy: The Best of Murray Leinster

Comments 4 comments

The Best of Murray Leinster (1978) was the fourteenth installment in Lester Del Rey’s Classic Science Fiction Series. J. J. Pierce returns to give the introduction to this volume. H. R. Van Dongen (1920–2010) returns to do his fourth cover of the series, having done the cover for the seventh volume in honor of John W. Campbell, the tenth volume in honor of Fredric Brown, and the eleventh in honor of Jack Williamson. Since Leinster was already passed away in…

Read More Read More

From the Pen of a Great Pulpster: The Best of Robert Bloch

Comments 6 comments

The Best of Robert Bloch (Del Rey, 1977). Cover by Paul Alexander The Best of Robert Bloch (1977) was the thirteenth installment in Lester Del Rey’s Classic Science Fiction Series. Lester Del Rey himself gives the introduction to this volume. Paul Alexander (1937–) does his first cover for the series, a very lively one based upon Bloch’s folktale “That Hell-bound Train.” The afterword was by Robert Bloch (1917–1994) himself. When John O’Neill began first doing posts on some of these…

Read More Read More

The Best of HFQ Volume III Now Funding on Kickstarter

Comments 7 comments

Adrian Simmons, one of the editorial masterminds at Heroic Fantasy Quarterly (HFQ) alerted me that they’ve just launched a crowdfunding campaign for the third volume of The Best of HFQ. The first two books were very warmly received by Black Gate readers, and this one looks like it could be the best yet. Here’s Adrian with all the deets. HFQ has been bringing great S&S and adventure fiction to the world for ten years, and we have distilled our best…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: The Best of R. A. Lafferty, edited by Jonathan Strahan

Comments 2 comments

At last! At last! The Best of R. A. Lafferty is available here in the United States. Back in October of last year, uber-editor Jonathan Strahan made the following terse announcement on his Facebook page, alongside a tantalizing cover reveal. The Best of R.A. Lafferty will be published by Gollancz in March 2019. The book features 22 classic Lafferty stories along with an introduction by Neil Gaiman and forewords by some of the most important writers and editors working in…

Read More Read More

Gods, Robots, and Man: The Best of Lester del Rey

Comments 8 comments

Lester del Rey was born in Minnesota in 1915 and died in 1993. One of his boldest fictions was claiming that his full name was Ramón Felipe San Juan Mario Silvio Enrico Smith Heathcourt-Brace Sierra y Alvarez-del Rey y de los Verdes, when it was actually Leonard Knapp. However, it was his other fictions, beginning in 1938 for Astounding, and his work as an editor, a reviewer, and in a literary agency, which resulted in his being made a Grand…

Read More Read More