Search Results for: Terry Carr

Vintage Treasures: Invaders of Earth edited by Groff Conklin

Comments 2 comments

Invaders of Earth (Tempo, September 1962). Cover artist unknown Before his untimely death in 2016, Bud Webster was Black Gate‘s poetry editor and one of our finest columnists. He wrote a number of Who? columns on forgotten SF writers for our print issues, and thoughtful pieces on selling books at conventions for our website. In his paean to the science fiction anthologies of his youth, Anthopology 101: Reflections, Inspections and Dissections of SF Anthologies, Bud wrote fondly about the great…

Read More Read More

Science Fiction is a Small Community

Comments 10 comments

The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1953, edited by Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty (Frederick Fell, 1953). Cover art uncredited. Two weeks ago I bought a handsome copy of The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1953, edited by Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty, from a seller on eBay. As I carefully opened the package, I noticed the return address said “Stephen E. Fabian.” Huh. Like, Stephan Fabian, the artist? Naturally I did what any of you would have…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Nebula Award Stories 17 edited by Joe Haldeman

Comments 0 Comment

Nebula Award Stories 17 (Ace Books, 1985). Cover by Jeffrey Ridge I’ve covered a few noteworthy anthologies here in the last few weeks, including Isaac Asimov’s surprising Tin Stars, and Donald A. Wollheim’s excellent 1989 Annual World’s Best SF. It’s sharpened my appetite for good anthologies, and when I found Nebula Award Stories 17 in a small collection of vintage paperbacks I bought in eBay last month, I knew I’d found my next weekend read. The Nebula Awards anthologies have…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: The 1989 Annual World’s Best SF edited by Donald A. Wollheim with Arthur W. Saha

Comments 8 comments

The 1989 Annual World’s Best SF (DAW, 1989). Cover by Jim Burns Most SF readers are familiar with Gardner Dozois’ legendary Year’s Best Science Fiction series, which ran for three and a half decades from 1984 to 2018, and helped shape modern perceptions of short SF. But it was by no means the first Year’s Best in science fiction, and in the early days, wasn’t even my favorite. No, back in the 80s I preferred the annual anthologies by Terry…

Read More Read More

Life, Death, and Different Kinds of Men: Algis Budrys’ Rogue Moon

Comments 4 comments

Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys; First Edition: Fawcett Gold Medal, 1960. Cover art Richard Powers. (Click to enlarge) Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys Fawcett Gold Medal (176 pages, $0.35 paperback, 1960) Cover art Richard Powers Algis Budry’s 1960 novel Rogue Moon is an unusual book. It’s relatively short, even for SF novels of its era. It’s heavily character focused. And while it deals with a fascinating mystery concerning an alien artifact, on the Moon, it’s also about the bureaucracy behind…

Read More Read More

The Art of Author Branding: The Ace Robert Silverberg

Comments 32 comments

The Ace Robert Silverberg: skewed titles and unclutterd art. The Seed of Earth, The Silent Invaders, Recalled to Life, Next Stop the Stars, Collision Course and Stepsons of Terra. All from 1977. Covers by Don Punchatz If you cruised the bookstore and supermarket racks in the 70s and 80s for science fiction paperbacks, Robert Silverberg was everywhere. I mean, everywhere. It wasn’t just that he was enormously productive — that was certainly true. But his books remained in print, or were returned to…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Imaginary Lands edited by Robin McKinley

Comments 8 comments

Imaginary Lands (Ace Books, 1985). Cover by Thomas Canty By 1985 Robin McKinley was already a star. Her breakout novel The Blue Sword (1982) was a nominee for both the Mythopoeic Award and the Newbery Medal, and two years later The Hero and the Crown (1984) won the Newbery Medal, one of the most coveted accolades in children’s literature. If there was a hotter new writer in the field at the time, I can’t think of her. In 1982 Ace Books had…

Read More Read More

The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Amazons!, edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

Comments 4 comments

The World Fantasy Award was established in 1975 as part of the World Fantasy Convention. Seen as a fantasy version of the Hugo and the Nebula Awards (neither of which are strictly for science fiction), the nominees and winners are selected by a panel of judges, although currently, two positions on the ballot are opened up to nominations from members of the World Fantasy Convention. The Anthology/Collection Award was presented from 1977, when it was won by Kirby McCauley for…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: The Tomorrow’s Warfare Anthologies, edited by Joe Haldeman, Charles G. Waugh, and Martin Harry Greenberg

Comments 3 comments

Covers by Walter Velez One of the things I miss about modern publishing is mass market anthologies. There’s still loads of anthologies being published, of course — we’ve covered dozens in just the last few months — but most come from small presses, and all of them are in hardcover or trade paperback. Casual buyers just don’t buy short fiction these days. Certainly not in enough volume to make inexpensive paperback anthologies viable, anyway. Which is a shame, since there were a ton…

Read More Read More

The Boxed Set of the Year: American Science Fiction: Eight Classic Novels of the 1960s edited by Gary K. Wolfe

Comments 2 comments

Cover by Paul Lehr Gary K. Wolfe is one of my favorite Locus columnists. He also reviews science fiction for the Chicago Tribune and, with Jonathan Strahan, co-hosts the excellent Coode Street Podcast. But more and more these days I think of him as an editor. He edited the Philip Jose Farmer retrospective collection Up the Bright River (2011) and, even more significantly, American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s: A Library of America Boxed Set (2012), a massive 1,700-page,…

Read More Read More