I’ve been trying to think if I have a decent steampunk collection or not. I’m still not sure. The first and obvious thing I’m missing is K.W. Jeter’s Infernal Devices. I don’t even think I have it in paperback. And my James Blaylock collection–Homunculus, Lord Kelvin’s Machine, the wonderful The Digging Leviathan (not to mention books like The Paper Grail and The Last Coin) I only have in paperback. Even worse, I did have the first edition hardcover of Paul di Filippo’s The Steampunk Trilogy (collecting the novellas Victoria, Hottentots and Walt and Emily) but I don’t think I have it any more.
Which leaves… what?
Well, for one, I have a UK first edition hardcover of Bruce Sterling and William Gibson’s The Difference Engine–and it’s signed by both authors. I remember getting it quite vividly, because it was in this bookshop in Greenwich (that wonderland of books) and it was priced, in pencil, at £12–but when I took it to the counter the seller said, no, no, this is from the previous shop! We actually sell it at £18! .
So I huffed and I puffed and I walked away, and agonised over it for a couple of hours–and then I came back, resolved to pay the whole £18, as unfair as it seemed.
But the owner was no longer there. His assistant was, and when I asked for the book he reached for it, gave me a little smile and said, ‘That’d be twelve pounds.’
Bless that nameless bookshop assistant. Perhaps he was the saint of poor book collectors in disguise. Do book collectors have a saint? Do poor ones?
Probably.
And then, of course, there’s my Tim Powers collection.
Ok, so I’m not the biggest Powers collector in the world. Others put mine to shame. But I have a decent collection. And some rare ephemera. The first Powers book I bought was On Stranger Tides, the US hardcover first edition, in a remaindered stall in South Africa. It cost me 3 Rands. I wish I’d picked up the other copies! And those R3 launched me on spending a hell of a lot more money over the years. I have, for instance, the insanely beautiful UK first editions of both On Stranger Tides and The Stress of Her Regards. These books are stunning. The artwork is to die for. Mine are in perfect shape–I remember picking them up in Spitalfields Market in London, for £20 each–a bargain. I don’t have a UK first edition of The Anubis Gates, of course–I only have the trade paperback edition, not the rare and very expensive hardcover. What I do have, however, is the Hebrew edition of The Anubis Gates–signed by both the translator and editor, if I recall correctly. And all–or most, anyway–of my Powers books now have a signed bookplate inserted in them. I even have that rare and strange artefact, that single folded sheet of an “excerpt” from The Twelve Hours of the Night, which I bought blind over the internet, and was horrified to discover I’d paid–how much?–for a single, tiny piece of paper!
Signed, though.
The other beautiful Powers book is of course the first US hardcover (well, the trade edition, not the super-rare limited) of what is possibly his best book–Last Call. It stands, with the two UK editions I mention above, as some of the most beautiful samples of book-crafting, and should be a joy for any collection.
What else do I have? Oh, but I have some good stuff! For instance, I have both the UK hardcover and the rare proof copy of Chris Wooding’s Silver Smarties Award-winning novel, The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray. Inscribed by the Woodling himself. In fact, I could have had a lot more of Chris’ books–at one point he was moving house and was going to donate many extra copies to his local charity shop when I came over to swoop some of them up. I didn’t get to keep them for very long–I was moving myself (to the South Pacific) and so the books, I think, ended up sold for charity anyway–which is no bad thing, of course.
And like the Pullmans, my first edition of Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines had to go to pay the bills… though in this case, at least, I can feel gratified – the same artist who did Mortal Engines, the wonderful David Frankland, now does the cover art for my own series published by HarperCollins.
And I have a decent China Mieville collection. I jumped on the bandwagon early–I got my copy of Perdido Street Station a couple of weeks before the official publication date, and got it signed in the process. And I have The Scar, of course, and Iron Council… though my copy of Perdido is somewhat battered and bruised and far from being Fine. I had–or have, I am no longer sure–some more, of course. US editions, proof copies, an increasingly rare, signed copy of King Rat.
And then there’s my Kim Newman collection. I finally got hold of a first edition of Anno Dracula–what a wonderful novel!–from, of all places, Australia. It cost next to nothing (apart from the postage) and when it arrived was absolutely perfect. And I picked up a copy of The Bloody Red Baron signed, and a copy of Dracula Cha Cha Cha, and I have the (paperback only, alas) PS Publishing edition of Andy Warhol’s Dracula (as well as the Gollancz paperback where it is twinned with Michael Marshall Smith’s The Vaccinator – both sides inscribed, of course). So yes, I do have a set of the Anno Dracula books, at least.
Oh – and I have a copy of The Bookman, too! I can even sign it to myself if I want! Nice to know things worked out all right in the end, isn’t it?
And what about you – which books do you treasure?
Lavie Tidhar is the author of An Occupation of Angels (2005), HebrewPunk (2007), Cloud Permutations (forthcoming 2009), and The Tel Aviv Dossier (with Nir Yaniv) – plus many short stories in places such as Sci Fiction, Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld Magazine, Postscripts, Interzone and others.
More famously in these parts, Lavie is the editor of The Apex Book of World SF
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[...] Confessions of a Book Junkie column, so (sequentially numbered 19), I get to talk about collecting steampunk, the books I still have, the books I found, and the books I lost along the way: I’ve been trying [...]