Before the SF Masterworks: How Gollancz Science Fiction first made it into Paperback...

[@colinr0380]

Wow, this brought back some memories! Particularly of getting that edition of A Time of Changes out of my local Derbyshire library as a 12 year old in 1992! That might explain why copies of these books are mostly in poor condition if they were put into the hands of little tykes like me back in the day! 😅 I understand what you mean about Arthur C. Clarke, but I also have very strong memories of a year earlier my father taking me into the 'adult' section of the library and letting me choose any books as long as one of them was A Fall of Moondust (though I don't think it was the Gollancz edition in this series - maybe an earlier edition that the library had). That was his kind of way of inducting me into sci-fi, I guess! It was very enjoyable and with that encouragement I went on a sci-fi spree through the rest of the library's collection, including A Time of Changes. That reminds me that he also admirably stood up for me when the librarian was rather worried about allowing me to rent out Blood Music by Greg Bear (in the edition with that disembodied dripping head on the cover, which probably freaked her out!), even though my father was very much a "hard sci-fi" Arthur C. Clarke and Iain M. Banks guy than of the more speculative stuff!

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

One of the biggest barriers to literacy is adults worrying about content: and in the age of the internet, it's absurd. It's hard enough to get children reading now that screens surround them so preventing them from reading almost anything (within reason) is a bad idea.

[@psychbookman8613]

Last night, I found my first Gollancz yellow jacket "in the wild" - a rare find here in Boston. A copy of "A Pocketful of Stars" edited by Damon Knight...in nice knick, as you say. So thrilled...I think I let out a giddy shriek. Would never have recognized it, or appreciated what was inside, but for your channel. Thank you for the amazing content you continue to provide.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Good score!

[@mrbook451]

These books were so well made - great to collect - wish I had more of them - loved the video so thanks Steve

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Yes, they're crackers. Wish I'd bought and kept them all!

[@Spacejack-xx2yp]

The cover styling on these is lovely.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Yes, they are the greatest!

[@waltera13]

As always it's wonderful to get your perspective on the books you love and why; both from the sense of a collector collecting as well as from an educated reader saying what he wants from something. What's most important in these videos is what you like, and why. Even if I have a "mixed" relationship with some of those same books' covers. I do get the cleanliness of the design, I do get that mid-80s, early trade, Picadore-ish classiness, yet still wonder about some of the choices, like why the cover picture is asymmetrical? I also appreciate your nostalgia for the original yellow jackets even if they're not for me. I would love to talk more about the design for these books but I fear it will just sound like trolling or negativity, which is funny because I really quite like them. Thank you for showing these together as a collection & placing them in context for us.

[@SciFiScavenger]

I think I only have one of those in that format, A Time of Changes. Nice overview Steve. 👍

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Well, that's one of the very finest, mate. As I said, you'll struggle to find them at all and in good nick, well....

[@SciFiFinds]

I adore Flowers for Algernon-beautiful stuff. Great video, as always. I own a few of these, so it's great to get some background on them.

[@SlowDazzle11]

Wonderful series! Oh for the days when SF covers were beautiful!

[@silex9837]

Marvellous covers and texts.

[@nothingtactical3521]

My favorite paperbacks to collect! Awesome video!

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Thanks. They really are stunning.

[@themojocorpse1290]

Great stuff Steve ! I have a real mixture of these books, the black and the new yellow spines. I do like the original run and black but I’m just pleased we still have the SF masterworks around .

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

I much prefer these to either of the Masteworks liveries, but overall, Masterworks has been the BEST thing to happen in SF backlist publishing in genre SF this century.

[@LiminalSpaces03]

Great video about a set I knew very little about! Thanks so much!

[@PeterKerans-h6z]

I don’t recall ever seeing many of these in bookshops in Australia. Most of the titles bring back great reading memories, but it’s so true their lustre can change significantly when you are older. Recently re-read The Repoductive System and still enjoyed it, almost as much as my Sladek favourite, Tik-Tok. I look forward to the Gollancz yellow jacket video. Great video, thanks.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

I agree re 'Tik Tok', which is why I put it in my book '100 Must Read Science Fiction Novels'

[@paulcollins5586]

Nice presentation. Great style to those books.

[@salty-walt]

I really appreciate you doing these together as a group to give us an overview. I hope you can give us an overview of the next Gollacz series as well - I rather like those off size mass market ones. For my taste the cover art are some hits and some misses but I think most of them are hits. I think that Dangerous Visions cover really stands out. I have to agree: I have a bunch of American white covered trade paperbacks, with postmodern art that looked terrible when they came out, and now they look terrible and dated as well. Of course looking forward to your tour of your yellow backs as well. I'm not as available as usual to watch videos so I'll catch these when I can.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

I won't be doing the demy-sized wrap cover Gollancz trades of the late 90s as I basically don't own any of the ugly things! But the hardcovers...well, you know my feelings about that!

[@salty-walt]

@@outlawbookselleroriginal you go girl, get on with your bad self!

[@OmnivorousReader]

There is some stunning artwork on those covers and I don't think I have ever seen any of those liveries in Australia.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

I don't think any of them were ever sold outside the UK market- as I said in the video, the series lasted less than 2 years. Shame!

[@markandresen1]

I'd have said swerving Basingstoke was a life-saving decision.

[@sylvanyoung]

Nice cover art .As usual great video....from exprience and love of the genra . I have and have read some of the works mention and some made me instant fans . Alas none is in Gollancz A or B . The only G have is Keith Roberts Pavane .. is a "VG SF " ? 'A' format . Read Clarke , like Space O . Struggled through Rama . Found Clarke more than a bit wordy ( woody ? ) , dare not admitted it to my SF mates .Priest , one of my faves . Ellison was difficult to work with ( so i am told ).Even when he was jointly sued, the other party were a bit warry of him .But i am a fan/ collector of both his fiction and non fiction . The Glass Teat. Thank you for the video .

[@vintagesf]

Clean graphic design with beautiful art can be appreciated even without reading the book. This was an amazing series. Thank you for the history, context and personal reflections. Do you know who the editor or perhaps manager is that championed the publication of the series?

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Agreed. I'm not entirely certain, but I think Malcolm Edwards was probably still the man at Gollancz at that time. I recall talking to him on the phone in '87 and I'm sure he wasn't at HarperCollins at that time.

[@CasperHulshof]

Thank you, I massively enjoyed this as a collector of the black-spined Masterworks. Some of these 'previous' works were not redone (like the Crowley book), I will be on the look-out for those. Many of the covers were reused for the newer editions (e.g. Sirens of Titan).

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Yes, they didn't all get resurrected- the truly pioneering factors here were (1) a reissue of 'classic' works - not a new thing evn then, but (2) in B Format with its then literary connotations and (3) the impeccable presentation, which was tasteful and subtle in most cases compared to much genre SF at that time.

[@smallscalefutures]

Great video Steve....as a side note I noticed in the left hand margin of the video your Coronet Edmund Cooper books. I grew up reading his books and he's a neglected author these days, and maybe a little dated, but I'd love to see a video on him as he was fairly prolific and many of his books had some quirky ideas

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

I've reviewed one Cooper here on the channel already and mentioned others a few times. I've only ever read two of his books so I need to get more of them under my belt before I do that. He very much seemed the odd man out-sometimes a good place to be in SF

[@TauZeroSF]

Such great covers. So far I only have Wreath of Stars which I found in great shape here in western Canada. Keeping my eye out for others, though I don’t want to double dip if I own a book in another printing.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

As I say, they're very hard to find even in the UK. Most never had a second printing in this livery.

[@conradledebuhr1765]

When bookshopping here in the States this last weekend I ran across a couple entries on the Gollancz Collector's Edition line in really nice shape for fairly cheap - No Enemy But Time and a Philip Mann novel I can't recall the name of. I find it strange that Gollancz had that line running concurrently with Masterworks in the early 2000s, even though I quite like the physicality of them. Oh, the reprint lines of Golancz...

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Yes, probably 'Eye of the Queen' by Mann? That was a strange series, pointless in my view and I never liked them: I think it was a thing where they felt there was a small demand for those books, so kept print runs small and format large which justified price when doinga larger run of slower-selling mass market format may not have worked.

[@conradledebuhr1765]

@@outlawbookselleroriginal Yes, it was Eye of the Queen! Interesting insight, with that explanation it makes sense why they only lasted a couple of years. I like the format myself (I'm a sucker for the French wrap) but thanks for the knowledge!

[@thomasp6034]

SF as a genre is far richer than crime or horror. There are just so many more possibilities. With a horror novel, it really has to scare the reader, and if it doesn't, it's a failure. Maybe as we get older we just aren't so easily frightened. With the crime novel, as you say, there is generally a mystery of some sort, or a cat-and-mouse pursuit tale, which can be pretty limiting.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

I personally don't see either as genres: Crime is a subgenre of Realist Fiction, while Horror is a bricolage- some 'Horror' novels are SF, some are Fantasy (the supernatural ones) and some are Crime (such as the works of Thomas Harris). You could say it's an approach or a marketing/packaging category, but it's undefinable as a genre. Really, if you look at the history of how Fiction evolved historically, there was first only Story, then Realism made itself distinct from Fantasy and shortly after SF appeared. All other 'genres' are simply subgenres that fit within these categories and most of them are impossible to define- such as Historical Fiction: when did history end?

[@brettrobson5739]

Great to see some love for Rogue Moon. I've seen it dismissed as a BDO story so many times it's become infuriating.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

I think the only people who do that don't really understand its place historically or in terms of its harder-edged attitude than typical BDO novels- and it precedes all the classic ones.

[@StrayGator]

It's obvious looking at these where Arrow/Hamlyn got the inspiration for their Ventures pb SF series around the same time.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Yeah, you have a point there....

[@AlienBigCat23]

Futique gems 👌

[@expressoric]

They looked good, the merging of the old SF covers with the established design. I haven't read "The Sirens of Titan" for really very many years. Vonnegut was a very good writer, but I think his handling of SF tropes is weak. I suppose "A Time of Changes" is a very good novel, but I don't like it as much as his other ones. I didn't like the first person narrative. I didn't really like "Nova" at all, I preferred "Babel-17". I don't really remember what "Rogue Moon" was about, only about the plot. "Inverted World" is complex and challenging. "Dangerous Visions" has already been showed with accolades, I can't seem to add anything new. I suppose it's less shocking now, but I think it's themes and concerns are still universal. I don't see why Harlan Ellison should have written a best seller, not many SF authors have. A novel like "Dune" is a best seller, but I don't think it's as good as what Ellison or other SF authors have written. I have that edition of "Beasts". It's an excellent novel.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

To me Vonnegut always just used SF tropes as a basis for expounding his satiric and fatalistic view of the world, rather than make them the thing itself. 'Time of Changes' really had to be first person to make sense and the most of its key concept, I think. 'Nova' is above all a stylistic exercise. 'Inverted World' is only the tip of the iceberg for Priest- all his work is challenging and that's the genius of it. Try more.

[@expressoric]

@@outlawbookselleroriginal That's what I think of Vonnegut. Despite what I felt about "A Time of Changes" at the time I read it, It is very well written. That's probably why I don't like "Nova". "The Affirmation" is the best one I've read by him. The other one of his I've read, is "A Dream of Wessex", which I don't think is as imaginatively written as the other two.

[@davidbooks.and.comics]

I read Sirens of Titan about mind manipulation and an genuine exploration of epistemology

[@thestorymerchant28]

I just sold a copy of Beasts by John Crowley in this series, maybe due to your video? Thanks?!

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Maybe. Wish I'd kept my copy in this livery, I don't think it's been reprinted since, shame as it's brilliant.

[@gbeat7941]

I must admit I didn’t get Rogue Moon at all - as I recall the labyrinth is discussed but never actually seen in the novel? Which seemed a strange anticlimactic choice. I did like Door into Summer although haven’t been that impressed by other Heinlein’s that I’ve read.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

To me one of the whole points of 'Rogue Moon' is that it defies expectations and remains enigmatic. It almost asks the questions "How can we understand the truly alien? Is it simply beyond our comprehension?" but also "Would the story really be as satisfying with any 'explanation' the author can devise? Or is it instead asking us something about our expectations?" While subsequent books of the Big Dumb Object subgenre simply bore by overloading the reader with a feeling that there's something wrong with them if they don't respond to the hollowness of a poorly evoked 'sense of wonder', 'Rogue Moon' is more metafictional, perhaps commenting on itself and the genre, which is one way in which it is a precursor of New Wave SF.

[@chocolatemonk]

there you go again presenting another series that has nice art and layout. . . .my wallet is weeping. May I ask what changed to trigger your "career ambitions?" I am paying attention to my professional and personal habits lately and trying to cultivate some

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

What triggered them was a desire to be able to act as independently as possible in bookselling while still being an employee: this meant that I aimed in every shop I worked in to be manager. It was a case of 'I know best and I'm going to impose my will upon this business to deliver the best book experience,'. Money was never a motivator, as you simply don't ever earn serious money in retailing.

[@markandresen1]

Beautiful covers. On a side-note, you'll recall how disappointed I've been with book covers over twenty years and that modern cover designers should step-up. At last, since 2020, this has been happening. Walking into a Waterstones nowadays can be a much more heartening experience, with the contrast of bold colours and diversity.

[@CasperHulshof]

Say what you will about 'Booktok' and authors like Rebecca Yarros, the book covers do look great indeed.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

The thing I notice the most is how contemporary jackets are slathered with text- and how they fall into a handful of generic- looking categories, like the one I dubbed 'Floral Gothic', which I feel is self-explanatory, Mark. Good to hear from you mate!

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

I'd disagree with that- they are very, very generic and only beautiful within very safe limits: for example, the majority of Romantasy book cover designs owe much to the 'Floral Gothic' of books like 'The Essex Serpent' for example, a style which goes back some years. They don't really step outside of a very narrow box, but then they are mostly very generic texts of a variety that doesn't push any surprising envelope, texts that are aimed at a market that wants 'more of the same'. Fantasy has long had this problem and now it feels terminal- what is supposedly about the imagination ends up being about the same old symbols and tropes again and again....