I posted recently about one of the local used bookstores (currently there are 4: 2 good, 1 decent, 1 not worth bothering with) closing and some of the titles I picked up.
You know I went back. The store will be open for a little while yet. Here’s what I picked up this time.
I couldn’t resist the cover of the Howard pastiche by Offutt, even though I doubt I’ll read it. The People of the Mist is an upgrade of my existing copy. The Starfollowers of Coramonde is a later edition, but the Darrell K. Sweet cover matches the one on the first novel in the series.
I loved Sean Stewart’s Galveston some years back, but I haven’t read any of his other books. The Tanith Lee speaks for itself. The third row contains the first 3 of 4 in Lawrence Watt-Evans Lords of Dus series.
The last row is a reading copy of one of Evangeline Walton’s books that was part of the BAF series. The Zahn is part of a series that looks like a lot of fun. And the Paul Preuss because I wanted some solid science fiction in the old style.
But the gem of this little collection is the volume in the upper left of the picture. It’s Whispers, edited by Stuart David Schiff. It’s a collection of stories published in his groundbreaking small press magazine of the same title. I’ve got a copy of this already, but I couldn’t pass this one up. The contents include “Sticks” by Karl Edward Wagner, “The Barrow Troll” by David Drake, “The Dakwa” by Manly Wade Wellman, plus stories by Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, William F. Nolan, Hugh B. Cave, Dennis Etchison, Joseph Payne Brennan, Ramsey Campbell, Richard Christian Matheson, Brian Lumley, and many others.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go reread “Sticks”.
Artist Darrell K. Sweet was born on this date, August 15, in 1934. He passed away in 2011. When I was in junior high and high school, if book had cover he’d done, I always picked it up and gave it a look. I didn’t always buy the book, but based on positive experiences with some of the first books I read that he’d done the cover art for, I always gave it a look. I had the privilege of meeting him a couple of times, and I had the opportunity to tell him that at the 2006 WFC.