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Home | Books
| Seventy-Five
Seventy-Five: The
Diamond Anniversary of a Science Fiction Pioneer—Jack Williamson
Edited
by Stephen Haffner & Richard A. Hauptmann
Foreword by Connie
Willis
Introduction by Sir Arthur C. Clarke
ISBN-10
1893887200
ISBN-13 9781893887206
$50.00 $40.00
608 pages Hardcover
Endpapers
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1930s
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1940s
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Spine Art
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Description
A literary and visual
feast, this 8.5" x 11" 603 page hardcover
celebrates the first seventy-five years of Jack Williamson’s career in
Science Fiction. From "The Metal Man" in 1928 to his recent Hugo and
Nebula Award-winning novella "The Ultimate Earth," inside are some of
the best of Williamson’s stories, including excerpts of such classic
novels as The Legion of Space,
Golden Blood and The Legion
of Time.
Also
included are several never-before-published gems such as a vintage
1930s tale "The Crystal Castle," a collaboration with long-time friend
Edmond Hamilton, and a story originally commissioned for Last Dangerous
Visions, "Previews of Hell."
Sidebars with essays,
correspondence, and articles are decorated with over 300 book and
magazine covers and interior illustrations. A full-color 32-page
section features an illustrated timeline of the author’s career, and
reprints a complete story arc from Jack Williamson and Lee Elias’ 1950s
Sunday comic strip, Beyond Mars.
Seventy-Five: The Diamond Anniversary
of a Science Fiction Pioneer also features a foreword by
award-winning
author Connie Willis and an introduction by a fellow pioneer, Sir
Arthur C. Clarke.
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Table
of Contents
"75
Years of Wonder” by Connie
Willis
"Introduction" by Sir Arthur C. Clarke
"Scientifiction, Searchlight of Science"
"The Metal Man"
Sidebar: AS I KNEW HUGO
"The Crystal Castle"
39
Sidebar: THE YEARS OF WONDER
Sidebar: THE POLYCRAT
Sidebar: Excerpt from "The Prince of Space"
Golden Blood
(excerpt)
Sidebar: WORLD OF WEIRD
Sidebar: JACK WILLIAMSON IN WEIRD TALES
The Legion of
Space (excerpt)
Sidebar: Introduction from THE LEGION AT WAR
"The Red
Beak of Thoth"
(with
Edmond
Hamilton)
Sidebar: EDMOND HAMILTON: AS I KNEW HIM
Sidebar: THE CRIMSON WORLD
The Legion of
Time (excerpt)
Sidebar: NOT THE, BUT A
Sidebar: FUTURE TRENDS IN FANTASY
Sidebar: Excerpt from "Darker Than You Think"
"Collision Orbit"
Sidebar: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF “SEETEE” STEWART
Sidebar: A SILENT COLLABORATOR
Sidebar: ANTIMATTER: FICTION INTO FACT
Sidebar: LEE ELIAS
Sidebar: "Beyond Mars"—excerpt from WONDER’S CHILD: MY LIFE IN SCIENCE
FICTION
Sidebar: Excerpt from "The Electron Flame"
"The Rajah McCarthy
and the Jungle Tomato"
Sidebar: Excerpt from WWII Diary
Sidebar: Excerpt from WWII Diary
Sidebar: Excerpt from “The Bomb, 1945” Chapter 21 of WONDER’S CHILD: MY
LIFE IN SCIENCE FICTION
"With Folded Hands"
Sidebar: ME & MY HUMANOIDS
Sidebar: . . . AND SEARCHING MIND
Sidebar: THE HUMANOIDS ARE ON THE AIR!
Sidebar: Excerpt from THE HUMANOID TOUCH
Beyond Mars
(Illustrated by Lee Elias)
A JACK WILLIAMSON CHRONOLOGY
"The Happiest
Creature"
Sidebar: Excerpt from DRAGON’S ISLAND
H. G. Wells:
Critic of Progress: The Limits of Progress: Cosmic
Sidebar: YOUTH AGAINST SPACE: HEINLEIN’S JUVENILES REVISITED
"Jamboree"
Sidebar: PLOTTING "JAMBOREE"
"The Next Century of Science Fiction"
Sidebar: APOCALYPSE (with David Ketterer)
Sidebar: JACK WILLIAMSON’S 10 FAVORITE WORKS OF H. G.
WELLS
Sidebar: JACK WILLIAMSON’S 10 MOST OPTIMISTIC FUTURES
"People Machines: Hints for Design and Assembly"
Sidebar: SPACE OPERA
Sidebar: R FOR CHARACTER
"Previews of Hell"
Sidebar: THE COLLABORATIONS
Demon Moon
(excerpt)
Sidebar: THE LOGIC OF FANTASY
Sidebar: RECALL TO ARMS!
Sidebar: THE CRITIC AS CONQUISTADOR
Sidebar: READ THIS
Sidebar: JACK WILLIAMSON’S DEGREES, HONORS, AND AWARDS
Sidebar: THE WORK OF JACK WILLIAMSON: An Annotated Bibliography and
Guide
Sidebar: THE JACK WILLIAMSON LIBERAL ARTS BUILDING
"The Firefly Tree"
Sidebar: JACK WILLIAMSON SHORT FICTION COLLECTIONS
"The Ultimate Earth"
Sidebar: THE WILLIAMSON EFFECT
Sidebar: THE WILLIAMSON LECTURESHIP SERIES
Sidebar: RECOLLECTIONS OF ANALOG
Sidebar: BACK TO THE CLASSROOM by Patrice Caldwell, Ph.D.
Sidebar: THE WILLIAMSON ENDOWED CHAIR IN SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES
Sidebar: Excerpt from FIRECHILD
Sidebar: TERMS ATTRIBUTED TO OR INVENTED BY JACK WILLIAMSON
Sidebar: ASTEROID #5516 JAWilliamson
Afterword by Jack Williamson
Sidebar: PICTURES IN COLOR
Acknowledgments
Reviews
“What a magnificent book! The quality of the fiction isn't news
to me, of course, but I'm bowled over by all the accessory stuff
wrapped around it. It's a really splendid editing job."
—Robert Silverberg, author of The Alien
Years and Phases of the Moon
Starred Review "A true labor of
love, this glorious tribute to Williamson’s prestigious sf career has
been assembled by publisher Haffner and Williamson bibliographer
Hauptmann. This massive illustrated collection runs the gamut,
including numerous short pieces (some appearing for the first time) and
excerpts form novels plus numerous color reproductions of Williamson’s
1950s comic strip, Beyond Mars. The pages are buttressed with
illustrations and cover shots plus sidebars providing a plethora of
info on Williamson and his work. Superb."
—Michael Rogers, Library Journal
"What a well-done
book! Nice touches abound, including about thirty
pages of color in the center which include the 1954 "Beyond Mars" comic
penned by Williamson. My sincere congrats to Stephen
and to Jack."
—Douglas A. Anderson, editor of Tales
Before Tolkien and Adrift
on The Haunted Seas: The Best Short
Stories of William Hope Hodgson
". . . he's SF's
grand sequoia, and trying to review a book like this
is somewhat like trying to review a sequoia. When people speak of
him as a "pioneer," the word takes on an astonishing dual meaning,
since he actually lived the early part of his life at the tail end of
the pioneer era, having been born in the Arizona Territory and having
traveled in a covered wagon in his boyhood. He knew Gernsback, and
became such a popular contributor to the 1930s pulps (most notably with
"The Legion of Space" and "The Legion of Time", both excerpted here)
that he was already in danger of becoming superannuated when Campbell's
Golden Age began to take shape in the early 1940s. But he adapted,
providing Campbell with his famous "Seetee" stories and "With Folded
Hands"--perhaps his single most famous tale--and he adapted again
when Campbell went wonky with Dianetics and the Dean Drive. He began to
publish novels with specialty presses as early as 1947 and with
mainstream presses as early as 1951, introduced a syndicated comic
strip in 1951, and started a series of collaborations with
Frederik Pohl in 1953. He became an early champion of SF in academia,
earning his bachelor's degree in 1957 and his doctorate in 1964
(with a dissertation on Wells, also excerpted here), the same year he
introduced an SF course at Eastern New Mexico University, which
eventually named its Liberal Arts building for him. And on and on.
All of this and a
great deal more is catalogued in sumptuous detail in
this generously illustrated book, which includes his earliest pulp
stories, bibliographical notes, memoirs (the piece on Edmond Hamilton
is especially touching), tips on writing (most of them disarmingly
basic), essays, a lengthy color excerpt from the "Beyond Mars" comic
strip (which has not really aged as well as some of the early pulp
tales), glossaries (including one listing terms he invented or
promoted, such as "terrforming" and "genetic engineering"), and endless
photos, cover and interior illustrations, and chronologies.
—Gary K. Wolfe, Locus
"Any true fan of
Williamson's must spring for the massive and classy commemorative
volume issued by Haffner Press. Seventy-Five:
The Diamond Anniversary of a
Science Fiction Pioneer contains copious
fiction, facts and
photos relating to the Grand Master's life and career."
—Paul di
Filippo,
Science Fiction Weekly
GRADE 'A' ". . . a
lavish
collection of his classic science
fiction and
related nonfiction, starting with an introduction by a relative
newcomer to the genre, Sir Arthur C. Clarke—now 86—and a foreword by
Connie Willis , who reminds us that Williamson invented the terms
“android," “genetic engineering" and “terraforming." Included are “The
Metal Man," the story that started it all; “With Folded Hands," the
famous nightmare vision of a future in which robot “servants" are so
insistently helpful that humanity is ultimately enslaved by them;
excerpts from the fast-moving pulp novels Golden
Blood, The Legion of Space
and The
Legion of Time;
samples of the Sunday comic strip Beyond
Mars; and
“Collision Orbit," a tale from the “seetee" cycle, a
word derived from CT, short for “contraterrene," an early term for
antimatter, which, in these popular space adventures, provides a source
of immense energy. Seventy-Five
is profusely illustrated and handsomely produced and designed. The book
brought back the fun of the science fiction I read so avidly in my
youth—some of it, of course, by Jack Williamson. I look forward to
another volume from him in four years, when he celebrates his first
century."
—Lawrence Tucker, SCI FI, The Official
Magazine of the SCI FI Channel
Excerpts
TBA
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Stark and the
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Seventy-Five: The Diamond Anniversary of a
Science FIction Pioneer--Jack Williamson
Edited by
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Richard A. Hauptmann
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