I had a few options here.
As a compulsory collector and reader of the Fantasy Masterworks series (I came very late to the party though) I first looked if I might find the trilogy somewhere within its titles.
And yes they are; the three books are collected in 2 volumes:
Nr 27 Lyonesse 1 collects Suldrun's Garden and nr 35 comprising Lyonesse 2 and 3 collects The Green Pearl and Madouc. Because they've both been out of stock for a while, the second hand prices have become a prohibitively expensive. Lyonesse 1 seems pretty reasonable most of the time but Lyonesse 2 usually goes upwards of 60 dollars.
Yeah, hmm, I guess I'll just keep my eyes open for a good opportunity to collect these particular ones.
I also had already bought what I believe to be Suldrun's Garden under nothing but the name of "Lyonesse" as part of the Ultimate Fantasies Sequence published in 2008 by Gollancz.
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| Beautiful Artwork, Slight embossing and reflective lettering. |
It's an ex library copy and as such arrived in deplorable condition. I cleaned it up as best I could and bending it back in its original shape I wedged it for several months beneath some heavy objects and let it stay there. It turned out reasonably well but the entire book is still pretty yellow from exposure to sunlight. I'm pretty sure there's nothing to be done about that.
It's a start but as the Ultimate Fantasies Sequence is comprised of 8 books with only this one a jack Vance book I had to look elsewhere.
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| Very noticable discoloration on Lyonesse. Also, 5 out of 8 books. I'm currently tracking down the remaining 3. |
Another option was to try and track down the Gollancz Big Black Books version, collecting all three books in a very handsome hardcover.
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| Pretty |
Perfect for what I wanted but because I have the 2 books in the 6 book series that collect Lovecraft's work (Because the faux leather makes it seem like it's an occult work, what? shutup!) Buying Lyonesse in GBBB version would lead me to absolutely having to get the three remaining ones. Not a bad thing in itself as I've already read all of Conan and alot of Howard in general. That accounts for 2 more books in the Big Black Gollancz series but I'm not really keen to read Tarzan and the books in general are hard to track down and pretty expensive as a result.
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| Pay no attention to the dishevelled bookmarks, been re-reading these dipping in and out over the longest time. |
There were some russian translations, some spanish versions with beautiful art but the odd purple text kind of put me off (not knowing any spanish might have something to do with it too, idem ditto russian). Some cd-audio versions and a whole host of out of stock notifications.
There were also versions without immediately visible cover art collecting each individual book in the trilogy. Pretty expensive at 19 euros per book. 150-230mm in paperback, a size I love. Great I thought, and delved a bit further.
Publisher was Spatterlight Press. Sounded kind of familiar but looking at their catalogue (we're still on the bookdepository site at this point) they hadn't published alot. In fact, all they seemed to have published was relative recent and all of it Jack Vance.
A slight tingle but I easily ignored it.
I then looked at google pictures at individual covers for the lyonesse trilogy as published by Spatterlight Press and something in my mind started to hum.
Overall pretty good-looking cover art but the bottom of the cover had a grey-white background with black lettering. I glanced at the rest of the visible pictures and there were a few similar ones, all by Jack Vance but not part of Lyonesse. All with that grey-white background with black lettering at the bottom. A theme...
At this point alarm bells were ringing.
Still in google Pictures I typed in Spatterlight Press and... my jaw dropped.
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| Nervous Excitement accompanied by a sinking feeling |
62 Deluxe paperback volumes...
The Spatterlight Press signature series...
Jack Vance. Return of the Master.
Spatterlight Presents the collected body of work of Jack Vance-
An Integral edition in 62 deluxe paperbacks.
An Integral edition in 62 deluxe paperbacks.
I went to their site and...
Spatterlight Press'- Jack Vance Signature Series
Turns out that Spatterlight Press was formed by friends and family of the late Jack Vance in order to publish, promote and preserve his entire written body of work, excluding a mystery crime trilogy he wrote for the Ellery Queen house name under the pseudonym of John Holbrook Vance.
A fucking titanic and dedicated undertaking of very high quality, still being published right now with a few evolving parameters (introductions by noteworthy authors, varied artists and such) and, for me, a chance to jump in early. Get the books as they come out. I'm not sure about the color pattern that a finished collection would have on shelves (see the picture of the hypothetical complete dutch version of the series above) but regardless, it would be an absolute eye-drawing prestige piece worthy of any collector.
62 books though...
There's bound to be a few bad ones in there, right? I have a rule that whatever I buy has to be eventually read. It's an everlasting and ongoing process, but I haven't given up on it yet. There's a ridiculous amount on my To Be Read bookshelf though and I'm not sure if I'm willing to commit to anything of this magnitude. But on the other hand, it isn't as if they look like massive tomes.
I have already read The Dying Earth saga and after a wobbly start (mine) ended up liking it quite alot. I actually fell in love with the novella Dan Simmons did in homage to it, a very beautifully written little book. Also, I think the name Spatterlight came from somewhere in the Dying Earth Saga, but I'm not exactly sure from what. In this series The Dying Earth will take up 4 volumes.
The Lyonesse trilogy will take up 3 volumes.
Names that ring a bell are Emphyrio and Night Lamp which were both published under the SF Masterworks collection by Gollancz (which I will NEVER collect, there's simply too much in that collection for me to open that particular door).
The Blue World has an arresting cover that I doubt will hold up when I actually would have the thing in my hands.
The 5 volume Demon Princes has way better covers than whatever is out from other publishers right now.
Those are the ones that I had considered in the past and had thought about purchasing (barring Blue World). That's 14 out of 62, With 4 of those having been read already. And most of them don't really look that big...
I'm in trouble aren't I?
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