Treasured Out-of-Print SciFi/Fantasy

[Mystery Man]

How about those favorites in your collection that are out of print?

For me the Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh adventures by Brian Daley. I read them back in the 80's and still to this day find them some of the best sci/fi I've read.

Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds
Jinx on a Terran Inheritance
Fall of the White Ship Avatar

Great memorable characters, intelligent sci/fi, humor, they had it all.

Sadly out of print and even more tragic is the death of Daley before he could write more.

 

[Umbran]

Well, if they're already in my collection, I have them on hand to read, and I don't bother to keep track of whether or not they're still in print.

One decent series I had to hunt down in used booksotres was by George Alec Effinger - When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, and The Exile Kiss are a kind of hard-boiled cyberpunk in an Arabian setting.

 

[Mystery Man]

Well, if they're already in my collection, I have them on hand to read, and I don't bother to keep track of whether or not they're still in print.

That's not the question. The question is what do you have that is out of print that is your favorite? You can probably guess at which ones those are depending on when they were written.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers

From the cover:
"The year is 1718. Blackbeard still terrorizes the Caribbean sea, one of the last pirates to challenge the reign of King George.
Sailing unwittingly into this unsavory company comes one John Chandagnac, bookkeeper and puppeteer. He seems an unlikely candidate for piracy, or the machinations of dark sorcery. But, christened Jack Shandy by a drunken pirate captain, he may turn out to be one of the greatest of them all...
A hunt for unearthly spirits with the aid of a mummified two-headed dog. A journey through the Florida swamps in search of the Fountain of Youth. A battle at sea with the Royal English Navy. An encounter with sunken ships crewed by zombies."

Won the World Fantasy Award in 1988 and the Ditmar Award in 1989. The best pirate novel I've ever read, and one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read. It's been out of print for years, but it shows up on occasion in used book stores. If you can find it, get it.

 

[Crothian]

My collection of orginal Thieves World books and the Graphic Novels.

 

[Chimera]

Nick Pollotta's Bureau 13 books.

Bureau 13
Doomsday Exam
Full Moonster

Fun books. Based off the game 'Stalking the Night Fantastic'.

Bureau 13 is a secret agency that deals with the supernatural. The team includes the leader (a former street cop), a catholic priest, a wizard/mage type, a telepath, a soldier (gun bunny) and various others.

Unfortunately, what I heard of it, which may or may not be correct, is that the guy who owns the game system is a Class One Jerk who wouldn't allow more books or printings of the books based on his game. He also won't license anything else connected to it.

You may recall a brief reference to a shadowy "Bureau 13" on an episode of Babylon 5 (shades of Section 31 in Star Trek, a bit close if you ask me), but this was never followed up.

 

[Mallus]

Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds... snip

I'd forgotten all about those, they were fantastically entertaining... and damnit, I'm sure I've lost my copies...

Soldiers of Paradise
Sugar Rain
The Cult of Loving Kindness by Paul Park

They get called The Starbridge Chronicles, though its hard to imagine three books less like a typical SF/F trilogy.

Also Out on Blue Six by Ian McDonald. The most joyful quasi-dysptopian future Earth run by AI novels I've ever read.

 

[Wombat]

For many years that was The War For The Oaks, by Emma Bull, but not it is available again (after only about a 15 year hiatus).

But I still have A Field Guide to the Little People, a fabulous book on the fey by Nancy Arrowsmith. I am constantly saddened that this hasn't been republished

Then there's Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle -- don't know if that every made it beyond trade paper editions.

These books are all still quite wonderous.

 

[The Other Librarian]

One decent series I had to hunt down in used booksotres was by George Alec Effinger - When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, and The Exile Kiss are a kind of hard-boiled cyberpunk in an Arabian setting.

I really enjoyed that series. What else has GAE written? Anything as good?

Another writer I'm always on the lookout for is Bernard King, who wrote a sort of twisted icelandic saga called Starkadder, and a couple of other fantasy novels. All I ever find though is some other King guy, whoever he is.

 

[Andre]

On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers

Won the World Fantasy Award in 1988 and the Ditmar Award in 1989. The best pirate novel I've ever read, and one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read. It's been out of print for years, but it shows up on occasion in used book stores. If you can find it, get it.
[/color]

Great book - highly recommended.

For me, though, my favorite has to be The Blackcollar by Timothy Zahn. The sequel is The Backlash Mission (but it's not as good as the first book). I also love his collections of short stories. Fortunately, if you're patient you can find a number of Zahn's books on eBay at reasonable prices.

Another great book is The Bug Wars by Robert Asprin. Intelligent lizards fighting intelligent bugs in a war of annihilation. Rahm and Zur are two of my all-time favorite characters.

Lastly, Master of the Five Magics by Lyndon Hardy is great fantasy. The author does a great job of weaving an interesting story around a version of magic that's very different from D&D's techno-magic.

PS - I can't believe I posted about Blackcollar before Hypersmurf.