Have you read all of them? (And other dumb questions...)

First, thanks to AsYouKnow_Bob for inviting me to this group. I have about 200 Ace doubles, some 25 Tor doubles, Binary Star 1,2,3 & 4, and a smattering of other publisher's doubles. I'm hooked. The majority have not yet been entered in LT.

There are 442 Ace doubles, according to Double Your Pleasure: The Ace SF Double, by James A. Corrick, a book which has a wealth of info. If there is anything you'd like to know, such as who illustrated what, let me know and I'll look it up.

Now for my dumb question: I have 43 duplicate and 4 triplicate doubles (mostly Ace). Is anyone looking to trade?

Oh, you're welcome, thanks for joining.

For all of the SF fans here on LT, I'm somewhat bemused that this group isn't busier than it is. I tell you, it’s a great relief to be able talk shop with other collectors. (Thanks, LT.)

Now that you're here, I’ll complain to you: the Amazon data for the Ace doubles is just appallingly bad. I'm gradually resigning myself to having to find an evening to fix practically every single entry. I’m contemplating deleting the entire day of input and manually re-entering each book.

(I have enough to say that I should probably
start a couple of new threads, but maybe there aren't enough of us here yet.)

Thanks for reminding me of the Corrick, I just entered it in my library and entered it as a 'Touchstone work' here. Double Your Pleasure

I forget if Corrick counts the first Ace Double as “SF”, but I seem to recall deciding that (at collector’s prices...) I didn’t need it. Oh, and I think the "442" number includes BOTH works in a Double, and the actual number of books is half that.

>Is anyone looking to trade?

I do have some duplicates (...I nearly typed "I haves some doubles”...), but, as my house is basically full, my dupes have been relegated to storage, and it'll probably be a few weeks before I go see what I have to trade. (Probably a couple dozen.)

I enjoyed Tor's series so much that I still pick them up when I see them, to give away to friends. I think I currently have 25? spares of the Tor Doubles. (By my count, there were 36 numbered Tor Doubles, and three earlier (unnumbered) “Doubles” from Tor in the early '80s.)

BTW, there was a Binary Star #5 (but you probably knew that).

Well, in the meantime - until I get to my storage - here are 12 Ace Doubles on my shelves that I would not mind upgrading:

D-69, D-103, D-146, D-193, D-227, D-286, D-485;
F-147, F-161, F-199, F-215, F-261.

>Have you read all of them?

Most of the Ace Doubles are actually from Before My Time, and they have not aged all that well. As a kid, a pal of mine had older brothers who had a big box of the F-series and M-series; I read a couple score of those.

I remember some Delanys and PKDs and LeGuins and a Poul Anderson fondly, but, for a lot of the Doubles, I could tell (even as a kid!) that they were not first-rank stories.

I went off to college just about the time the Doubles ended, and didn’t re-visit them until the '80s when the Tor Doubles reminded me just how fond I was of (some of) them, and I started picking up the entire set. Quite often, the good ones have been reprinted singly, so I’ve also read some of the contents of the D series in later printing.

I guess the short answer is “maybe about a quarter of them”?

Better check out my ACE Double tag before you go typing everything in. I entered mine over the course of the last two days. I hope my convention of making a leading "The" in a title subordinate doesn't irritate everybody, but that's how I've always cataloged.
No, I didn't know there was a Binary Star #5, Arrg.
But for something exotic have you ever seen a Magabook? Two complete novels (by the same author) put out by Galaxy Publishing. I have all three from 1963-65. Don't think I've entered them yet either. On second thought, better give me a couple more days for all my doubles to be entered. And a couple more weeks/months for all the pre-ISBN, unfound-on-Amazon books.

What a list you have, the good news is I have all of them too. Because, as you know, Bob...
Hits:
F-161 2 copies
F-261 2 copies
I only have about 9 dupes from the D series.

Binary Star #5: "Nightflyers" George R.R. Martin / "True Names" Vernor Vinge; Dell #10757 Feb 1981, $2.50. ISBN 0440107571.

This came out just about the month when Dell gave up on SF, so it was probably very badly distributed.

I'll have to check Magabooks; I think I have one, but my Galaxy stuff is from those dark days before computerized databases...

My LT catalog of pre-ISBN SF is in such awful shape that I may yet need to delete it all and start over.

I have been doing a fair bit of combining of the doubles - and there are very low numbers of ownership, lower than I expect, of the Ace doubles (the Tor doubles do better) and sometimes there are as many different author names as copies.

I have not noticed any mention of the Gollancz Binary series (published in the UK) - of which there are definitely 5 and maybe 6 (but I haven't seen number 6 and nor has anyone I know).

I have not noticed any mention of the Gollancz Binary series (published in the UK)

That's new to me. Do you happen to have a list of them (or a link)?

(BTW, I appreciate your work on the doubles - I haven't touched them yet; they're sitting in my catalog with the awful Amazon data, waiting of a better system of handling multiple authors.)

I don't think there is a good page on them on the internet.

However here is a list of them

Binary 1 (ISBN: 1857987594) - Leningrad Nights / How The Other Half Lives by Graham Joyce and James Lovegrove

Binary 2 (ISBN: 1857987594) The Vaccinator / Andy Warhol's Dracula by Michael Marshall Smith and Kim Newman

Binary 3 (ISBN: 0575073055) Watching Trees Grow / Tendeleo's Story by Peter Hamilton and Ian McDonald

Binary 4 (ISBN: 0575073063) Making History / Reality Dust by Paul McAuley and Stephen Baxter

Binary 5 (ISBN: 0575075058) The Human Front / A Writer's Life by Ken MacLeod and Eric Brown

I have Binary 1, 2 and 5 in my library (although not all the touchstones work - the titles here are how I have entered them).

All of the individual stories were first published as novellas by PS Publishing. Gollancz then published a series of hardback books each with 4 novellas in (Foursight, Futures, Cities and Infinities). Gollancz then published two novellas back-to-back in the typical double format. The novellas from Foursight made up Binary 1 and 2. Futures made up 3 and 4. And 2 of the novellas from Infinities made up Binary 5.

Thanks, andyl.

I seem to have numbers 1 & 2, purchased from Amazon.uk. I haven't kept up with the series, thanks for the information.

It's odd that I never noticed the MacLeod was part of a "double", that puts it on my "Must Purchase" list.

That's hilarious -
I've looked at #5 (the MacLeod) on amazon.uk, and there

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0575075058/ref=pd_luc_mri/026-4312533-3...

it never gives a hint that that it's part of a double. However, if you then use the "view" to look at the back cover, there's the Eric Brown.

I had once looked at this book and decided I didn't need it, because the MacLeod portion has been reprinted here as part of Giant Lizards from Another Star.
(Thus showing the problem with cataloging the individual halves separately: had I known it was a double, I would have bought the thing.)