SF Masterwork series continued...

[pyan]

And the Chanur series...

(but I would say that, wouldn't I...)

[amzolt]

Originally Posted by pyan

And the Chanur series...

(but I would say that, wouldn't I...)

I found the Chanurverse the most different of Cherryh's various Spaces...

[Connavar]

Originally Posted by iansales

The SF Masterworks series are published in the UK. None of Cherryh's books are currently in print in the UK - have a look on amazon.co.uk. The easy availability of US-published books is irrelevant.

Masterworks series is apparently not only bought by UK readers. To my point of view it shouldn't matter if you are out of print in UK or not. Its are suppose to be Masterwork series....

Plus its easy to forget whose have many books out but only in US. Over we are in the middle. The sf books shelfs are much more US,than UK.

I barely know where my books was published before i started reading the actual book.

[iansales]

But it does matter. A British publisher is only concerned with the British market. They don't care if a book is still in print in the US because Americans won't be buying their edition. Until the advent of Amazon and other online book retailers, the biggest importer of US paperbacks into the UK was Andromeda Bookshop, a sf/fantasy book shop in Birmingham. They made their money from supplying US books to British readers.

[Fried Egg]

Originally Posted by Connavar

Masterworks series is apparently not only bought by UK readers. To my point of view it shouldn't matter if you are out of print in UK or not. Its are suppose to be Masterwork series....

If that's true, where's the Asimov? I don't care what some say about his work, if the likes of E.E.Doc Smith can get in there, Asimov sure can.

[AE35Unit]

Originally Posted by Fried Egg

If that's true, where's the Asimov? I don't care what some say about his work, if the likes of E.E.Doc Smith can get in there, Asimov sure can.

Isn't there a copyright issue here? Same reason there's no Asimov on project gutenberg I suppose.

[iansales]

Egg - EE Doc Smith isn't in the Masterworks series. AFAIK, the only copies of his books still in print are published by US small press.

Unit - copyright differs between the UK and US. There are books that are out of copyright in the US, but still in copyright in the UK. And vice versa.

But with the Masterworks series, it's more a case of publishing rights. If Gollancz don't have, or can't negotiate, the paperback rights to a novel, they can't put it in the Masterworks series. Some of the books they only have hardback rights to - which is why they did the hardback Masterworks series, and then starting including the paperback series as unjacketed hardbacks. Plus, of course, it all depends on the editors' choice as to what or is not a masterwork :-)

[Fried Egg]

Originally Posted by iansales

Egg - EE Doc Smith isn't in the Masterworks series. AFAIK, the only copies of his books still in print are published by US small press.

Ah, so I stand corrected. I could have sworn that I saw it in there collected in an omnibus volume. But alas it would appear not.

Anyway, I still say Asimov should be in there...

[GOLLUM]

Considering the restrictions they potentially face with publishing rights, I think they've done a pretty good job so far in their selections both for SF and Fantasy.

Does Ian or anyone else know of a better collection (SF or Fantasy) that attempts to do what VG is doing?

Before you answer, I am also collecting the Ballantine and Newcastle series (more Fantasy).

[iansales]

Gollum - I think the series is excellent.

To be fair, they've done the same thing several times before. There was the Gollancz Collectables yellowjacket range, published five or six years ago, which had some good titles. And back in the 1980s, they did a range of SF Classics - they were B-format paperbacks initially, but they changed to A-format around number 25, I think, and then it trailed away and vanished around number 30 or 35.

[GOLLUM]

Yes I've got some of the yellow jackets Ian, although I'm not collecting them per se.

I only started collecting both series about 3 years ago, so to have complete sets of both SF and Fantasy, I'm reasonably pleased with that.

So maybe the best collection to date across the board for novels in the SF and Fantasy categories then?

The other thing that appeals is the general affordability, the more recent HBs notwithstanding.

[iansales]

I've been collecting the SF and Fantasy Masterworks too. (There was a Crime Masterworks, but I'm not a huge fan of crime fiction.) I especially like the Fantasy one because it includes quite a few older works. Most of the SF ones weren't so hard to find, however.

[Ian Whates]

Originally Posted by iansales

Gollum - I think the series is excellent.

To be fair, they've done the same thing several times before. There was the Gollancz Collectables yellowjacket range, published five or six years ago, which had some good titles. And back in the 1980s, they did a range of SF Classics - they were B-format paperbacks initially, but they changed to A-format around number 25, I think, and then it trailed away and vanished around number 30 or 35.

I agree with Ian entirely, an excellent series (although at one stage, I did think they ought to consider retitling as "The Masterworks of Philip K Dick and a few others": 55 - 58; three Dick titles out of four releases).

The Gollancz yellowjackets Ian refers to were originally brought out as a rival to Millennium's SF Masterwork series, until Gollancz merged with Millenium and continued with the Masterworks themselves (#23, Silverberg's The Book of Skulls was the last to appear with the 'M' on the spine badge rather than the 'G'). Many of the yellowjacket titles have since reappeared in the Masterworks series.

Must confess, I have a real soft spot for the old NEL 'SF Master' series from the 1970s. I've managed to collect some really old, all-but forgotten classics in this sequence. Those I have include:

Edwin Lester Arnold -- Lieut Gulliver Jones: His Vacation
Cyrano de Bergerac -- Other Worlds
Hal Clement -- Mission of Gravity
Charles L. Harness -- The Paradox Men
Alun Llewellyn -- The Strange Invaders
Charles Eric Maine -- The Mind of Mr Soames
David I Masson -- The Caltraps of Time
Naomi Mitchell - Memoirs of a Space Woman
Joseph O'Neal -- Land Under England
Vercors -- Borderline

The series also featured titles by the likes of Poul Anderson, Philip K Dick, Harry Harrison, Ward Moore etc, but, as far as I'm aware, never included more than one book by a given author. They really did find some obscure delights.

[GOLLUM]

I wasn't aware of the NEL 'SF Master' series. Thanks for the tip. I've heard of some of those titles but not all.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by iansales

I've been collecting the SF and Fantasy Masterworks too. (There was a Crime Masterworks, but I'm not a huge fan of crime fiction.) I especially like the Fantasy one because it includes quite a few older works. Most of the SF ones weren't so hard to find, however.

That was my experience too. I was lucky to be able to source something like 43 of the then 47 in the Fantasy series off the shelf in Melbourne but 1 book I had to source from a Polish site that a friend of mine, whose folks still lived in Poland, were able to purchase for me and then deliver here. Another was obtained via a French website. A few others from interstate.