This is a thing that doesn’t exist? The completist in me needs to finish the hardcover movie adaptions, but I can’t? What’s that about?
Star Trek VI in Hardcover
- Thread starter Bryan Levy
- Start date
Yeah, the TNG movies were the only ones that had their novelizations done in hardcover. And Trek XI, but only in certain markets.
TMP had an official hardcover release, as well as a book club edition. Treks II - V for sure had book club hardcovers, as well.
Yeah, IV showed up today, it’s the only one I had to spend more than five bucks on. I’m pretty sure that the TMP copy I have isn’t the book club edition, but it’s not one of the signed ones.
Yes, I have the book club hardcovers of II, III, and IV. Picked them up decades ago, back when Downtown Long Beach was the used book capital of Los Angeles County. (And now, even the venerable Acres of Books is long-gone). When I got an assortment of dust-jacket protectors, some years ago, and had the bookbinding guru at the Printing Museum teach me how to use them, those were among the books on which they were first applied.
And I have the publisher hardover if TMP.
And book club hardcovers of three ADF Humanx Commonwealth* novels (Cachalot, Midworld, and Mission to Moulokin) that never got publisher hardcovers.
For decades, my "holy grail" book was the publisher hardcover of ADF's SW novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Lost count of how many times I kicked myself for not dropping $8 on it when it was in the bookstores. Book club hardcovers are common as cowpats, but the publisher hardcover is quite rare. Bought one in a memorabilia shop in Old Sacramento, then somehow walked away from it, only hours later. Eventually found one on eBay.
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* I started to say, "ADF HC novels," then realized how ambiguous that would be in a discussion of hardcovers.
And I have the publisher hardover if TMP.
And book club hardcovers of three ADF Humanx Commonwealth* novels (Cachalot, Midworld, and Mission to Moulokin) that never got publisher hardcovers.
For decades, my "holy grail" book was the publisher hardcover of ADF's SW novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Lost count of how many times I kicked myself for not dropping $8 on it when it was in the bookstores. Book club hardcovers are common as cowpats, but the publisher hardcover is quite rare. Bought one in a memorabilia shop in Old Sacramento, then somehow walked away from it, only hours later. Eventually found one on eBay.
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* I started to say, "ADF HC novels," then realized how ambiguous that would be in a discussion of hardcovers.
Did you get this one?
ST IV hardcover - back cover by Ian McLean, on Flickr
A friend found this in a US "Goodwill" for 50 cents. A hardcover from the "Just For Boys Weekly Reader Book Club".
A part of me wants to read this, just out of spite
I have TWOK in hardcover (though, ET, Star Wars and Close Encounters were in the same book so it was a bit of a mix:P )
Did you get this one?
ST IV hardcover - back cover by Ian McLean, on Flickr
A friend found this in a US "Goodwill" for 50 cents. A hardcover from the "Just For Boys Weekly Reader Book Club".
I bet the shirtless volleyball scene is wild.
All 6 TOS movie novelizations got hardcover reprints in the UK, for the library market. Because very few of these went to private collections, most are pretty beat-up from being lent out by libraries for years. "Fine" copies can be awfully spendy. All were done by Severn House except TWOK, which was from Macdonald.
TMP - ISBN 0-7278-0631-9
TWOK - ISBN 0-356-08687-9
TSFS - ISBN 0-7278-1142-8
TVH - ISBN 0-7278-1519-9
TFF - ISBN 0-7278-4021-5
TUC - ISBN 0-7278-4385-0 (This is the only worldwide hardcover edition, so it's a great one for your collection!)
ABE Books is a much better source for finding these than eBay. ABE is great because you can search by ISBN. However, because the book club (SFBC) editions of the first five don't have an ISBN, a lot of the listings on ABE Books erroneously assign the UK ISBN to American book club hardcovers. So shop with care!
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Don't forget Alibris. And if you're an Amtrak Guest Rewards member, Alibris is on Ponts for Shopping: any purchase through the Alibris network, from any member bookseller (so long as you are signed on to Amtrak Guest Rewards and Points for Shopping, and follow the Points for Shopping link into Alibris) is worth four Amtrak Guest Rewards points per dollar spent.
These days, if I'm looking for something out-of-print, or sometimes just looking for something not in wide distribution, I'll go there just for the Guest Rewards points.
That said, most of the "nonstandard" hardcovers in my library originated from SFBC (mostly via the now-long-gone used book dealers I alluded to), or (in the case of books inherited from family members from Doubleday Bargain Book Club, or maybe Book of the Month Club). But I do have an oddball hardcover of Vardeman's The Klingon Gambit, of very uncertain pedigree.
These days, if I'm looking for something out-of-print, or sometimes just looking for something not in wide distribution, I'll go there just for the Guest Rewards points.
That said, most of the "nonstandard" hardcovers in my library originated from SFBC (mostly via the now-long-gone used book dealers I alluded to), or (in the case of books inherited from family members from Doubleday Bargain Book Club, or maybe Book of the Month Club). But I do have an oddball hardcover of Vardeman's The Klingon Gambit, of very uncertain pedigree.
Gregg Press. They also catered to the library market, but in the USA. Starting in the mid-1970's, they did hardcover reprints of notable science fiction “paperback originals” (which is how the vast majority of SF books were published before, say, the mid-80’s). Initially, Gregg Press books were issued without dust jackets of any kind, in durable green hardcovers that still looked great even after multiple readings -- because they were meant for libraries. Gregg Press would usually "photo-offset" the pages of the first printing paperback, zooming them up slightly to fill the larger page of the reprint. By the time they were doing Star Trek reprints, they were publishing them in cheaper black boards with dustjackets using the same art as the Pocket/Timescape originals, but new jacket typography, including the Star Trek logo that originated with TMP, but not seen on books other than the movie novelizations until later.
David G. Hartwell (who originated the Gregg SF line) was still editing it after the collapse of his Timescape imprint at S&S/Pocket. He started reprinting early Pocket Star Trek novels (many he originally edited for Pocket/Timescape) in 1984, with 5 titles (Including The Klingon Gambit). He did 6 more titles in 1985, and a further 6 titles in 1986. The Gregg Press line was distributed in the UK by Firecrest, with different ISBNs.
Six final titles were reprinted ONLY by Firecrest in 1987; by that time, Gregg Press was out of business (at least out of the Star Trek and SF business) so these final 6 are extremely hard to come by in the US (trust me on this!) I don't know if Hartwell was involved with those final 6, but I suspect he was, and suspect they would've come out from Gregg in the USA had the line not ended.
I remember seeing copies of Gregg Press reprints at SF and Trek conventions in the late '80's, so lots of these probably ended up in the collections of well-off Trekfans. Sadly, I was anything but well-off back then, and never acquired any until after the turn of the millennium.
Probably more than you wanted to know, but that's the thumbnail history of your oddball book.
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Thanks for the explanation. I'm fascinated (as Groucho said, "I'm fascinated, too. Right here on the arm"). I'd kind of figured that it was something intended for the lending library market.
It always reminded me just a little bit of institutional edition books I'd seen, with paperback "blocks" factory-bound in "Ehlerman-style" laminated covers (but made either from untrimmed paperback cover sheets, or from specially printed variations on the paperback cover art).
(Which is to say that with a number of paperbacks that were never issued in even book-club or library hardcover versions, I've had a local library bindery convert them to hardcover, for the sake of durability, either with the aforementioned "Ehlerman-style" covers, or with buckram covers. In a few cases, the original paperback was so badly worn that the process backfired.)
It always reminded me just a little bit of institutional edition books I'd seen, with paperback "blocks" factory-bound in "Ehlerman-style" laminated covers (but made either from untrimmed paperback cover sheets, or from specially printed variations on the paperback cover art).
(Which is to say that with a number of paperbacks that were never issued in even book-club or library hardcover versions, I've had a local library bindery convert them to hardcover, for the sake of durability, either with the aforementioned "Ehlerman-style" covers, or with buckram covers. In a few cases, the original paperback was so badly worn that the process backfired.)
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