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| David Kreydich, Tim Paxton |
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| Tim Paxton of Tim's Books is another top notch dealer of rare hardcover and paperback books. I read a paperback copy of Arthur C. Clarke's famous novel 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 before the even more famous movie by Stanley Kubrick hit the theaters and saw it in the theater in Birmingham, Alabama as soon as it did. I have a hardcover Book Club edition I picked up a few years ago but that doesn't really count. One of these days I am going to cobble together enough money to buy a real first edition hardcover like Tim is showing here.
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Tim showing off his glass cases with lots of great books in them. In the foreground bookcase at left on the bottom row are three anthology books by North Carolina writer Manly Wade Wellman. The two blue ones are Lonely Vigils and the other one is Worse Things Waiting all published by the long defunct publishing company Carcosa in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
I've always preferred straight science fiction by writers like Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Clifford Simak. But, I've long been intending to start reading "dark fantasy" short stories by writers like H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, Carl Jacobi and so on. I've heard lots of good things about a similar writer, Manly Wade Wellman, and since he's a fellow Southerner, I decided to take the plunge and let Tim talk me into buying one of the these Wellman books. I told Tim I didn't want to start with a book that has continuing characters like Wellman's Silver John character. I just wanted anthology stories with no continuing characters so Tim said Wellman's Worse Things Waiting was the one to get.
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| Rick Santman had the largest selection of hardcover science fiction books by Robert A. Heinlein in the room. I read a paperback edition of Heinlein's Methuselah's Children in the late 1970s or early 1980s. The original novel had been serialzed in Astounding Science Fiction in 1941. The underlying premise was that a group of people known to themselves as the Howard Families was using selective breeding to create a race of humans with much longer lifespans than ordinary humans. The Howards lived among humans but kept their long lifespans a secret for fear of generating envy among the "short-lifers." The main character was a Howard named Lazarus Long who was the beneficiary of mutation in the breeding program which gave him an even longer lifespan than regular Howards. I didn't notice in 1973 when the hardcover sequel Rick is holding here, Time Enough For Love came out which continued the adventures of Lazarus Long. In the early 1980s however I picked up a paperback copy at a bookstore in Savannah, GA across the street from Ogelthorpe Mall where I bought some of my Marvel comics. I carried the book with me to my grandmother's house in Tarrant City, Alabama where I took my usual summer vacations and enjoyed reading it there. If I can live as long as Lazarus Long I may someday find time to read the sequels, The Cat Who Walked Through Walls, 1985 and To Sail Beyond The Sunset, 1987.
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