Recent Acquisitions #23

[littlerdog.livejournal.com]

The last of my three Alibris books arrived today. You have to wonder how much you're being overcharged for postage when you 'combine postage' yet all three books are sent separately. Eh.

This is of course the book I set out to buy: England Swings SF, edited by Judith Merril.

I'm trying to decide whether the reddish/brownish colour of the edges of the book block is deliberate or a sign of ageing. It is only an mmp, published way back in 1968, so you wouldn't expect it to age well. Judging by a spine crease, it's been read at least once. Judging by the crackling when I open it, it won't bear any hard reading without falling apart. In the front it's been priced in pencil at 1 shilling* and in the back someone's written, again in pencil, 16398. A date, maybe?



Contents:

Introduction by Judith Merril;
'The island' by Roger Jones;
'Ne deja vu pas' by Josephine Saxton;
'Signals' by John Calder;
'Saint 505' by John Clark;
'The singular quest of Martin Borg' by George Collyn;
'The first gorilla on the moon' by Bill Butler;
'Blastoff' by Kyril Bonfiglioli;
'You and me and the continuum' by J.G. Ballard;
'Who's in there with me?' by Daphne Castell;
'The squirrel cage' by Thomas M. Disch;
'Manscarer' by Keith Roberts;
'The total experience kick' by Charles Platt;
'The silver needle' by George Macbeth;
'The baked bean factory' by Michael Shuttleworth;
'The hall of machines' by Langdon Jones;
'The run' by Chris Priest;
'All the king's men' by B.J. Bayley;
'Still trajectories' by Brian W. Aldiss;
'Sun push' by Graham M. Hall;
'Report on a supermarket' by Michael Hamburger;
'Dr. Gelabius' by Hilary Bailey;
'The heat death of the universe' by P.A. Zoline;
'The mountain' by Michael Moorcock;
'Psychosmosis' by David J. Masson;
'The idea of entropy at Maenporth Beach' by Peter Redgrove;
'Same autumn in a different park' by Peter Tate
and
'The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy considered as a downhill motor race' and 'Plan for the assassination of Jacqueline Kennedy' by J.G. Ballard.

Who are these people? Most of the names are unfamiliar. Mind you, that doesn't mean much, coming from someone who can remember half a plot and a bit of a character, but never titles or authors' names. Ahem. But a heck of a lot of stories crammed into a tightly-fonted book. Is fonted a word?

*At least, it looks like 1 shilling to me. But as it's a US edition and I bought it from a US bookshop, that would mean it's crossed the Atlantic at least twice. Hmm.