We’re talking about books disappearing: books originally printed only in paperback—and books that are no longer in issue. I’m going to be listing, among others, people I knew personally, and series I’d expect an sf fan to have read, or looked at, or have some familiarity with.
Let’s start with:
Clifford “Cliff” Simak: City.
Gordon R “Gordie” Dickson. The Dorsai stories.
Hal Clement. Mission of Gravity
Lin Carter. Sword and sorcery…from the Old School.
Poul Anderson: many, many, from SF to near-historical.
Robert Howard. Conan, Kane, Kull.
C.L. Moore: many stories.
Leigh Brackett: many stories.
Edgar Rice Burroughs: Tarzan, John Carter of Mars
Joe Green: Tom Corbett, Space Cadet
Anthony Gilmore: Space Hawk.
Andre Norton: the Witchworld, et al; and Star Man’s Son.
Jack Vance: the Dirdir, the Pneume, etc.
Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven as a team, the hell books.
Larry Niven: Ringworld
Joe Haldeman: the Forever War
Abbey and Asprin: Thieves’ World (give CC time)
Marion Zimmer Bradley: Darkover novels.
Anne McCaffrey: the Pern novels.
Roger Zelazny: Dilvish the Damned [story], Lord of Light, the Amber stories, Damnation Alley.
The point being—most of the younger people coming in may not even have heard of these.
Name more of the ones that are harder to find in print now.
I was surprised at how many of these I had on the shelves.
But how could you leave out Alfred Bester?
Or not include a little Heinlein?
BTW, the new Heinlein biography is very interesting. Very.
And I know that Mission Of Gravity was out in hardcover because I have one.
Phil Brown
I have the following:
Simak: Way Station. I think I had City in the past but no more.
All of McCaffery
All of Marian Zimmer Bradley
Most of Zelazney
Some Pournelle and Niven (Mote in God’s Eye is my favorite)
Some Norton, but I didn’t like the Witchworld ones so got rid of them. Others, though, I treasure- Beastmaster, Lord of Thunder, Star Man’s Son and the time traveling ones. She was my first SF writer when I was in fifth grade (you had not yet started to write, or at least you were not yet published, CJ) and felt just as much an outcaste as so many of her heroes do.
A fair amount of Paul Anderson
I had at one time many of the others, but have not kept them through the many moves in the last 30 years. But I’ve been collecting my books for 40-45 years, ever since Ballantine started reprinting the books that influenced Tolkien. (You should have James Branch Cabell on your list 🙂
I take your point. When I want to reread these books, or share them with my youngsters, where do I go to get them? and I was alive and reading when a lot of them were written. What are the young people now discovering SF to do without access to these books?
To add to the list:
as noted above: James Branch Cabell
Hope Mirlees
Asimov
Van Vogt
Samuel Delaney
John Boyd
Ray Bradbury
John Brunner
Peter Dickinson
M.A. Foster
Alan Nourse
James Schmidt
On my shelves? I only have some of the Amber by Zelazny left. I have loaned the others I have had out (the Nivens, Haldemans and McCaffreys), mostly to younger readers. (Including 2 copies of Fortress in the Eye of Time, to teenage Harry Potter fans. Haven’t gotten them back. 🙂
Most of them I’ve read. I just keep the ones I want to re-read. And why not add Charles Sheffield and Julian May?
Bradbury and Heinlein are easily found in the bookstores. Same with Asimov. At least the kiddos have a choice to read those or not as they are purchasable from most stores. Some of the other older authors do have some books available although not all of their books and strangely not some of what you’d conciser their best work either.
It’s the stuff that you can’t buy in the stores or at all that is sad to have artificially removed from the canon. I recently bought a stack of Thieves’ World books from a used bookstore. They smell horrible. Not sure if I can have any extended time with them because of my allergies, but there wasn’t any other way of getting them so I bought them anyway just in case those were the only copies I’d run across. I didn’t want to have to buy #7 here and #2 there etc.
Hang on with the TW! Lynn has rights to that and will be bringing it out from CC.
Any thoughts towards digitalizing the Merovingen series? I got three of those moldy things too, but I actually read through two of them this month despite the mold. The general mold count is at a 5 year high right now so I figured as long as I was miserable anyway…
Sweetbo, even real bad smell can be removed with vinegar – place books in a large zip-lock bag, with a glass of vinegar. It will take some time (weeks, in fact) but it works.
I’ve been told active coal do the trick too but haven’t tested it.
Actually, I really liked the ideas and thoughts that went into Larry Niven’s Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring.
A few more for the list:
Cordwainer Smith – many related short stories
Edmond Hamilton – many classic space operas
E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith – the Lensmen series
John W. Campbell, Jr. – Who Goes There?, Islands of Space
Jack Williamson – many golden age novels, series & short stories
Frederick Pohl – the Heechee saga
Alan Dean Foster – the Icerigger trilogy, Midworld, Nor Crystal Tears, the Pip and Flinx novels (ongoing, but I am having difficulty tracking down the first novels of the series)
Robert L. Forward – Dragon’s Egg, The Flight of the Dragon Fly
Yes! I have Dragon’s Egg. Lots of science in that science fiction. I loved it.
I lucked out, and recently got a donated stash of Doc Savage books, all dating from the 60s or earlier. Some of them are hopelessly misogynistic, but I love the tentative steps towards forensic science scattered amongst the less plausible gee-whiz rayguns.
Tulrose, how about adding Robert L. Forward too? I think we can all think of several good sci-fi authors who wrote one or a handful of books that are now out of print, and probably will never be reissued.
I have:
Zenna Henderson and her people stories
James White and his hospital series
Kenneth Bulmer – The Million Year Hunt
John Rackham – The Beasts of Kohl
John Brunner – The World Swappers, The Whole Man
Alan E. Nourse’s many books
Roger Zelazny – This Immortal
Clifford D. Simak – Way Station
Philip E. High – Invader on My Back
Andre Norton – many of her early SF novels
Norman Spinrad – The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde
Alfred Bester – The Stars My Destination
Anne McCaffrey – Restoree
Oh yes I have to add
Robert E. Howard – King Kull 2 versions – 1 where Lin Carter finished a couple of stories left unfinished
by REH
Elizabeth Lynn – The Sardonyx Net
I’ve been exposed to about half, I think. The other half vanished before my time.
Cordwainer Smith was a gem. Some of his best are in print; the others are a bit of a pain to track down.
I’d add: Fritz Leiber’s Changewar stories.
(The Lankhmar stories have been properly saved from obscurity.)
I have:
1 Gordon Dickson Dorsai story
Poul Anderson’s “JHeechee” stories
Robert E. Howard’s Conan, some of the Bran Mak Morn, and Cormac mac Art, plus one Dennis Dorgan (amazing how the plots, situations, and sometimes the actual motions of the characters match other REH stories)
Andre Norton: Some of the Witchworld, Star Guard, The Beast Masster series, I used to have Star Man’s Son (Daybreak – 2250A.D.) Have downloaded a bunch from Project Gutenberg
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle – Lucifer’s Hammer
Larry Niven – Ringworld Books, and short stories in “Inconstant Moon”
Joe Haldeman’s Forever War and the much more chilling Forever Peace
Anne McCaffrey’s Pern up to “Moreta”
Roger Zelazny’s Amber series.
H. Beam Piper – The Fuzzy books
Fred Saberhagen – The Book of Swords, Berzerker novels
Michael Moorcock – Elric
E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensmen, Skylark, and other stories.
OMG How could I have forgotten H. Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy series as well as the add ons by William Tuning and Ardath Mayhar *headdesk*
Plus:
Wilmar Shiras – Children of the Atom
Fred Saberhagen – The Dracula Tapes
great topic!
Cordainer Smith, absolutely !! And unlike many, his works have aged well.
Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni books (the early ones). Not sci-fi, but very influential (at the start of “everything is a trilogy”)
All except Joe Green and Anthony Gilmore.
Simak wrote (for me) the perfect SF story. Way Station.
A. E. Van Vogt, Stanley G. Weinbaum, A.A Merritt, E. R. Eddison, Leslie Barringer, I still have all of my Andre Norton’s, Burroughs and some of the Poul Anderson’s. I had a lot of A. Bertram Chandler, & Leigh Brackett and almost all of the others listed elsewhere, but lost a bunch of them in a flood in the 90’s. They did pay for replacement floors though.
Ah, Barringer, yes. You may recognize my nom de plume.
Jane (in her blog) mentioned going to work in the longago for WaRP Graphics. In our library, we have a copy of Wendy Pini’s original animated take on the Elric stories, Law and Chaos. Just… wow.
I have most of the above (all that CJ mentions) but I’ve been collecting the stuff for mumble, mumble years. Yeah, a lot of this did have its day in hardcover, but those hardcovers are now seriously collectible and are not going to show up in the stacks of the neighborhood used book store. A few (like Doc Smith) have had quality reprints in the last few years. A few more (like Howard) have had reprints that you might even see in non-specialty stores. So many others been crowded completely off the shelves. I would not know where to go to replace many favorites. A newcomer to the field won’t even hear of them…
I love just about everything mentioned here. And I’ll add Mary Gentle’s “Golden Witchbreed” and “Ancient Light” duopoly. I truly truly love Zenna Henderson.
if I’m not totaly mistaken there was a Pern movie in the works anybody remember hearing that?
I found this reference – one fell through and another doesn’t seem to be going anywhere yet. I seem to remember a post by Anne McCaffrey about the first one, and her not being very pleased with it, but I can’t find a reference, so maybe I’m dreaming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonriders_of_Pern#Television_and_movies
NESFA press has reissued the Cordwainer Smith stories – with errata corrected. Apparently the originals suffered from sloppy printing. They are classics.
And what about Ron Goulart? DEfinitely surreal humor when I first read them Now I am amazed at his prescience. If I had his crystal ball I’d have made a mint on the stock market.
I find on reading that the sexism in the Sector General books grates.
The Icerigger books are fabulous.
And Brian Dailey Jinx on a Terran Inheritance, Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds, Fall of the White Ship Avatar. What a wonderful trilogy, with prolific invention of worlds many or which I have often wished that he had revisited.
Kimbriel’s Nuala books never got the notice that they deserved.
The Nuala books are coming out as e-books later this year / early next year. They’ll be on BookViewCafe.