Softcover. Monterey Park, O.S.P. Publishing, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 104 pages. Paperback. Illustrated with 8 pages of film stills. Small wrinkle/tear on front cover window. Otherwise clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. New Milford CT, Roaring Brook Press, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Illustrated in color by Schwartz. This amusing picture book features Darlene, a relatively svelte hippo, and a cast of other dressed animals in three connected stories. With stars in her eyes, Darlene signs up for theater class and lands a role as "the Flood" in Noah's ark. On opening night she enters, entangles her feet in her long gown, and missing her target, flings a basin of water onto the critic in the first row. His review? "?a drenching, yet refreshing experience. Miss Darlene's performance was especially exciting." Two more plays follow, a science fiction drama in which Darlene flubs her lines, and Sleeping Beauty, which finds the hippo falling asleep onstage. The critic raves "A STAR IS BORN," and the story ends with Darlene's contented smile. Brightened with delicate washes, the fine, clean ink drawings create a series of charming, often droll scenes.
Softcover. Canberra, ANU Press/Australian National University, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 334 pages. Sorcery and witchcraft practices and beliefs are pervasive across Melanesia. They are in part created by, and give rise to, a wide variety of poor social and developmental outcomes. These include uneven economic development, low public health, lack of social cohesion, crime, fear and insecurity. A further very visible problem is the attacks on men and women who are accused of being practitioners of witchcraft or sorcery, which can lead to serious bodily harm, banishment and sometimes death. Today, many communities, individuals, church organisations and policymakers in Melanesia and internationally are exploring ways to overcome the negative social outcomes associated with witchcraft and sorcery practices and beliefs. This book brings together a collection of chapters written by a diverse range of authors, both Melanesian and non-Melanesian, providing crucial insights both into how these practices and beliefs are playing out in contemporary Melanesia, and also the types of interventions that are being trialled or debated to address the problems associated with them. Some light marking to several pages.
Hardcover. NY, Doubleday & Company, reprint, 1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, price-clipped dust jacket with fading to spine. 408 pages with b&w illustrations. Classic work by the famed science fiction author and engineer, providing a fascinating account of pyramids, aqueducts, catapults, fortifications, ships, and technology from the ancient world to the Renaissance. No First Edition indicated on copyright page so assumed early reprint.
Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics Books, 1st, 2025, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards. 424 pages, color throughout. After becoming a professional comics artist in 1948 at the age of 17, by 21 Al Williamson was well-regarded enough as a Western and science-fiction illustrator to be recruited for the EC Comics staff roster - the absolute peak of the field in the 1950s, and a team rarely challenged since. After the Comics Code forced EC to reduce their business, Williamson found himself at the door of Atlas Comics, the largest employer of freelancers in the field.From 1955-60, Williamson would draw 99 stories for Atlas (both solo and with help by "Fleagle Gang" studio cohorts Angelo Torres and Roy Krenkel, plus Gray Morrow and Ralph Mayo) in mostly western and fantasy genres, with a smattering of war, romance and "jungle girl adventure". He flourished on Westerns, freely and loosely rendered four-page morality plays, many scripted economically by Stan Lee. With his extensive oeuvre subsequently based mostly in newspaper strips (including Flash Gordon, Secret Agent Corrigan, and the syndicated Star Wars, at George Lucas' own request), or working largely as an inker, his Atlas stories collectively are the largest single body of work Williamson would ever do as a primary creator for one company. Fantagraphics is proud to present this Al Williamson Artist Edition to finally showcase this distinct period of his remarkable career. Clean, bright copy. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.
Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics Books, 1st, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardccover, pictorial boards, 290 pages in color. In the late 1940s, the first half of the Venus series from Marvel Comics predecessors Timely and Atlas Comics was published as a lighthearted romance comic about the goddess Venus taking a job on Earth at a beauty magazine. Never a company to miss a trend, Atlas began introducing more science fiction elements in the 1950s, and eventually turned Venus' dating adventures into a straight-out horror anthology. Collected here, 70 years later and for the first time ever, is that swift-changing second half of the 19-issue run. Future Marvel stars Bill Everett (seven issues) and Werner Roth (three issues) take Venus to heights of four-color weirdness and pre-Code horror ghastliness. Everett in particular is given free rein and seizes the opportunity: writing, drawing, and lettering twenty ghoulish and goofy masterpieces, including classics like "Hangman's House," "The Day Venus Vanished," "The House of Terror," "The Sealed Spectors," Tidal Wave of Terror," and the phantasmagorical "Cartoonist's Calamity!" These stories showcase the brilliant draftsmanship and storytelling of Everett, one of the giants of the 1940s and '50's comic book industry. His slick, fluid line rendered at Timely/Atlas, from his seminal god-child Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, to the atomic age Marvel Boy, is some of the finest pre-Code horror this side of E.C.'s Graham Ingels. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. Barre MA, The Imprint Society, Ltd. Ed., 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue and beige cloth covered boards with gilt vignette of telescope on cover and gilt titled spine. 80 pages, wood engravings by Michael McCurdy. Limited edition, one of 1,950, this unnumbered and unsigned. A science fiction tale set in Boston, a tasty satire. Book is bright, clean, housed in a lightly worn slipcase.
Hardcover. West Plains MO, Russ Cochran, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Hardcover Very Good+ Two volume set in a slipcase. Volumes entitled: Weird Science-Fantasy No. 23-29 and Incredible Science Fiction No. 30-33. Black and white reproductions of the comics with color reproductions of the covers. Featuring tales by Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood, Al Williamson, Reed Crandall, and Joe Orlando.
Hardcover. Washington DC, Brookings Institution Press, 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 305 pages. Disinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent additions to our daily vocabulary appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multi-front challenge to America's ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood. In this path-breaking book, Jonathan Rauch reaches back to the parallel eighteenth-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the "The Constitution of Knowledge" our social system for turning disagreement into truth. By explicating the Constitution of Knowledge and probing the war on reality, Rauch arms defenders of truth with a clearer understanding of what they must protect, why they must do it, and how they can do it. His book is a sweeping and readable description of how every American can help defend objective truth and free inquiry from threats as far away as Russia and as close as the cellphone. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Flame Tree Publishing, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 128 pages. From classic Star Wars, Blade Runner and Matrix all the way back to The Day the Earth Stood Still sf movie posters have lurked and flickered across our subways, streets and bedroom walls since the early 1950s. From the kitsch of the Attack of the 50ft Woman, through to the many versions of Time Machine or War of the Worlds the 1980s hailed a more sophisticated filmic appeal for our sf dollar, with the onset of green screen and cgi. The films may change, but somehow the posters remain the same: geeky, powerful, escapist fantasy, and we love them all! The book features an arguable, quirky selection of what we think are the best.
Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1st US, 1932, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth stamped in blue, 313 pages. A borderline science fiction novel by the Scottish author John Buchan, known for his classic mysteries. Part of the action is autobiographical, featuring the agonies of a contemporary up-and-coming politician. It explores the theory of serial time put forward by J W Dunne: Buchan had been reading An Experiment with Time. Mild soil to covers, no markings.
Hardcover. NY, HarperCollins, 1st illust thus, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. The second volume of a glorious two-volume, four-color graphic novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman's #1 New York Times bestselling and Newbery and Carnegie Medal-winning novel The Graveyard Book, adapted by P. Craig Russell and illustrated by an extraordinary team of renowned artists. Inventive, chilling, and filled with wonder, Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book reaches new heights in this stunning adaptation. Artists Kevin Nowlan, P. Craig Russell, Galen Showman, Scott Hampton, and David Lafuente lend their own signature styles to create an imaginatively diverse and yet cohesive interpretation of Neil Gaiman's luminous novel. Volume Two includes chapter six to the end of the book. The concluding volume of the graphic novel adaptation of the book about a boy, raised by the inhabitants of the local graveyard who rally to protect him from a league of villains named Jack that seeks to destroy him. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Taschen, 2nd pr., 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Huge oversized hardcover, 16x11", 596 pages. The full, fascinating story of this fabled company, written and designed by EC-expert Grant Geissman. Even the most die-hard EC Fan-Addicts will find something new within these pages, with the Gaines family archives providing over 100 rarities that have never seen print. Cover images are reproduced from Gaines file copies. 1,000 illustrations include the rarest and most notorious covers, interior pages and panels, rare photos, vintage original artwork, and some of the most celebrated stories ever to be printed in four colors. Author Grant Geissman was a customer in Bud Plant's San Jose comic book store in 1968-69, long before he became a recording star and EC expert. Grant has written several books on EC and, in my mind, is the foremost authority on both Mad and EC. He generously did a special bookplate for us, which reproduces a "fantasy" cover for Incredible Science Fiction that he commissioned from Angelo Torres. It's in full color and signed by Grant.
Softcover. Middletown CT, Wesleyan University Press, 1st thus, 2003, Softcover, 157 pages. A new English translation by I.F. Clarke of this "demise of the human race" story. Originally published in French in 1805, The Last Man is a powerful story of the demise of the human race. Drawing on the traditional account in Revelations, The Last Man was the first end-of-the-world story in future fiction. As the first secular apocalypse story, The Last Man served as the departure point for many other speculative fictions of this type throughout the 19th century, including works by Shelley, Flammarion and Wells. Grainville's masterful imagination is evident in the vast scale of the action as Omegarus, the Last Adam, and Syderia, the Last Eve, are led toward the moment when "the light of the sun and the stars is extinguished." Essential reading for anyone interested in the roots of apocalyptic science fiction. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Harper Design, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 304 pages illustrated in color and b&w. Foreword by Fraser Heston. In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1968 science fiction cult classic film the Planet of the Apes, a handsomely designed commemorative volume full of rich, behind-the-scenes detail and exclusive, never-before-seen photographs and illustrations. Based on Pierre Boulle's novel La Planete de Singes, the original Planet of the Apes was one of the most iconic films of the 1960s. Starring Hollywood stalwarts Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowell, the movie captivated audiences and sparked a franchise that included eight sequels, two television series, and a comic strip. Now, five decades after its theatrical release, New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Rinzler tells the thrilling story of this legendary Hollywood classic-a film the book's author thought would be impossible to make. Clean, bright copy. PLEASE NOTE: DUE TO WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.
Hardcover. NY, HarperCollins , 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 402 pages. With dry wit and psychological acuity, this near-future novel explores the aftershocks of an economically devastating U.S. sovereign debt default on four generations of a once-prosperous American family. Down-to-earth and perfectly realistic in scale, this is not an over-the-top Blade Runner tale. It is not science fiction. In 2029, the United States is engaged in a bloodless world war that will wipe out the savings of millions of American families. Overnight, on the international currency exchange, the "almighty dollar" plummets in value, to be replaced by a new global currency, the "bancor." In retaliation, the president declares that America will default on its loans. Clean copy.
Softcover. NY, Harmony Books, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 249 pages. The original, complete, and totally unedited scripts from the now famous BBC "Hitchhiker Radio Show." Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, reprint, 1965, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 368 pages. Hans Vaihinger (1852-1933) was an important and fascinating figure in German philosophy in the early twentieth century, founding the well-known journal Kantstudien. Yet he was overshadowed by the burgeoning movements of phenomenology and analytical philosophy, as well as hostility towards his work because of his defense of Jewish scholars in a Germany controlled by Nazism. However, it is widely acknowledged today that The Philosophy of 'As If' is a philosophical masterwork. Vaihinger argues that in face of an overwhelmingly complex world, we produce a simpler set of ideas, or idealizations, that help us negotiate it. When cast as fictions, such ideas provide an easier and more useful way to think about certain subjects, from mathematics and physics to law and morality, than would the truth in all its complexity. Even in science, he wrote, we must proceed "as if" a material world exists independently of perceiving subjects; in behavior, we must act "as if" ethical certainty were possible; in religion, we must believe "as if" there were a God. He also explores the role of fictions in the history of philosophy, going back to the ancient Greeks and the work of Leibniz, Adam Smith and Bentham. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. Hermes Press, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 192 pages. Music inspired, science fiction and fantasy combined in a way that revolutionized poster art of the Psychedelic 1960's-era. Famous for his rock posters, The Psychedelic Rock Art of Carl Lundgren, a Detroit, Michigan based artist, showcases his posters which were as important to the Detroit Music and Art history as were the music legends themselves; The Who, Jefferson Airplane and Pink Floyd to name a few. The book's forward is written by Mitch Ryder, who was lead vocalist of a Detroit 1960's rock group The Detroit Wheels. The introduction is by Russ Gibb, a former radio personality and rock promoter from Dearborn, Michigan, who played a major role in the late sixties/early seventiesMotor City music scene.
Hardcover. NY, Garden City Books, BC Ed., 1956, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Book Club edition, 192 pages. Bright, clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Pantheon, 6th pr., 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 338 pages. Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges was madly in love when his life was shattered by painful heartbreak. But the breakdown that followed illuminated an incontrovertible truth-that love is necessarily imbued with loss, that the one doesn't exist without the other. German physicist Werner Heisenberg was fighting with the scientific establishment on the meaning of the quantum realm's absurdity when he had his own epiphany-that there is no such thing as a complete, perfect description of reality. Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant pushed the assumptions of human reason to their mind-bending conclusions, but emerged with an idea that crowned a towering philosophical system-that the human mind has fundamental limits, and those limits undergird both our greatest achievements as well as our missteps. Through fiction, science, and philosophy, the work of these three thinkers coalesced around the powerful, haunting fact that there is an irreconcilable difference between reality "out there" and reality as we experience it. Clean copy.