jamesenge | Entries tagged with jack vance

Past Me is sometimes a deadly enemy. For instance, he only left me two pieces of pizza from the other night so that I could celebrate the first day of True Summer with the Breakfast of Champions–cold pizza and hot tea, ideally enjoyed sometime in the early afternoon. Two pieces! Hardly worth getting out of bed for.

On the other hand, he’s sometimes a solid friend. A week or two ago, he ordered some books in anticipation that they would arrive this week for the beginning of my sort-of vacation. It’s a pretty good stack.

photos of 5 books: TWILIGHT OF THE GODS by Edmond Hamilton; RIME ISLE by Fritz Leiber; THE WATERS OF CENTAURUS and A HANDFUL OF TIME by Rosel George Brown; THE DRAGON MASTERS backed by THE LAST CASTLE, an Ace Double by Jack Vance.

I have an ebook of the DMR book, which collects some of Edmond Hamilton’s mythological fantasies, but I liked it so much I wanted a physical copy.

I’ve been on kind of a Rosel George Brown kick, lately. She was a talented writer who tragically died of cancer when she was just getting started. Maybe I’ll have more to say when I’ve worked through these.

Like all right-thinking people, I must have four or five copies of The Dragon Masters and The Last Castle in different formats. But I’ve long wanted the one Ace Double edition that collects them both, and now I do.

Rime Isle (Whispers, 1977) collects “The Frost Monstreme” (first seen in Flashing Swords 3) and “Rime Isle” (serialized in Cosmos, where I read it with bated breath lo these many years ago). But they really belong together as a single short novel. They were, of course, collected together in Swords and Ice Magic (Ace, 1977), with a great Michael Whelan cover. But, if I’m being honest with you (as is my practice, since it’s just you and me here in the absolute privacy of my blog, where no one ever comes) the other stories in Swords and Ice Magic are less than essential Leiber. It’s nice to have them by themselves, and as a bonus this edition is illustrated by Tim Kirk, one of my favorite fantasy artists from the 70s.

Photo of two books: the ACE Double of The Last Castle, backed with THE DRAGON MASTERS, and the cover of RIME ISLE without its dust jacket. — Left: the flip side of the Vance double-novel.
Right: the cover of Rime Isle without its dust jacket.

I like the embossed volcano-in-a-glacier on Rime Isle‘s cover.

Close-up of the volcano embossed on the RIME ISLE cover.

This edition came with an unexpected bonus: signatures from the artist, the designer, Stuart Schiff (the genius behind the journal Whispers and Whispers Press), and Leiber himself.