The Last Science Fiction Writer

Allen Steele

ISBN 10: 1596061529 / ISBN 13: 9781596061521

Published by Subterranean, Burton, MI, 2008

About this Item

Limited, signed first edition, issued in a limited edition of 1,000 signed copies. Signed by Allen Steele on the limitation page bound in at the beginning of the book. Fine book in fine dust jacket, now in new removable protective cover. Blue cloth hardcover with paler blue spine titles; pages are clean and unmarked. Subterranean hard cover with dust jacket, first edition 2018, ISBN: 9781596061521. 310 pages, cover art by Bob Eggleton. 8vo (5.75" x 8.75") Includes an introduction by Steele, and ten short works, including the young adult novella "Escape From Earth.".

Seller Inventory # 031522119781596061521clr

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Last Science Fiction Writer
• Publisher: Subterranean, Burton, MI
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1596061529
• ISBN 13: 9781596061521
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Bob Eggleton
• Edition: first edition.
• Condition: fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: fine
• Signed: signed by author or artist

About this title

Synopsis

Presents a collection of short stories, including "Moreau," "The War of Dogs and Boids," and "An Incident of the Luncheon of the Boating Party."

Reviews

In Steele's fifth collection of short science fiction stories, the adventurers who look outward are rewarded with learning where they truly belong, be they canines transplanted off Earth (The War of Dogs and Boids), prospectless teens who stumble across a time-travel repair mission (Escape from Earth) or a virtual author breaking free of marketing straitjackets (The Last Science Fiction Writer). Staying too close to home, in contrast, leads nowhere, as the savage survivors of the next Ice Age find out in Take Me Back to Old Tennessee. If Steele (Galaxy Blues) could resist the tendency to pick on the easy targets in obvious ways, he would make his points more convincingly, but even his more unsubtle stories are written in a direct, entertaining style, with morals many readers will share and appreciate. (Nov.)
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Arguably one of sf’s more durable practitioners, Steele continues to be as adept at short stories as at novels. Here we have a space-struck teenager meeting space travelers from an alternate earth (“Escape from Earth”), a time traveler winding up in an impressionist painting (“An Incident at the Luncheon of the Boating Party”), and a rather barbed variation on the hoary old theme of a boy’s first hunt (“The Teb Hunter”). There are also the employment of biotech for an homage to H. G. Wells (“Moreau²”) and a piece that reads so much like a folktale as to suggest that Steele counts folklorist among his many attainments (“Carry Me Back to Old Tennessee”). And five more in this admirable showcase of the technical skills and wide range of interests of one of sf’s brighter lights. --Roland Green