Hurrah! A Transatlantic Tunnel Reprint

Tor Books in the USA have announced a new paperback edition of A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! for publication 4th January 2011. It’s already listed on Amazon, with the following cover image, which looks to have been pasted together from Victorian clipart.

Art: ?

A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! is one of my favourite HH books — great fun for anyone who had to read the Victorian classics in Eng. Lit. courses at school. The book is also one of the earliest ‘steampunk’ novels — written way before the term was invented — and is a great alternate history story too.

The Stainless Steel Art (39)

The Russian publisher Eksmo published the first world edition of The Stainless Steel Rat Returns earlier this year — here’s the cover image, which is much more in keeping with previous images of the Rat than the US edition’s ‘cocktail with a speared pig’ cover.

The cover artwork was by A. Dubovik — thanks to Aleks Ionov for the information. I agree with Aleks that the Russian cover is better than the US one, though I’d have liked to have seen a porcuswine in there somewhere!

Cover Art: A. Dubovik

Book News Update

If this is a news blog, I really ought to get better at posting items in a timely fashion. Don’t hold your breath…

Here’s a quick mention of three (fairly) recent book publications — a couple of which have been mentioned before, but which are now available to buy. The first is published in the UK, but should be available from Amazon sites in most countries – and if it isn’t, you can use your Amazon log on to buy from amazon.co.uk. The other two are US publications — they’re listed on Amazon UK as well.

Cover Art: Carlos Ezquerra

The Stainless Steel Rat, script by Kelvin Gosnell and art by Carlos Ezquerra, was published by 2000 AD / Rebellio in July 2010. This reprints the comic adaptations of three Rat novels – The Stainless Steel Rat, The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World, and The Stainless Steel Rat for President. These are reproduced in black and white from the artwork as it originally appeared in the weekly 2000 AD comic. At 26 x 19cm (10 x 8″) the page size is smaller than the original comics, but doesn’t really suffer as a result, and doesn’t suffer from having been ‘invisibly mended’ and colorised, as the Eagle Comics versions were in the USA.

 

If I have one tiny criticism it is that the paper quality could have been slightly better – though, of course, it’s a million times better than the newsprint paper of the old 2000 AD.

 

Many of us in the UK grew up reading these weekly instalments, and Ezquerra’s artwork captures the quirkiness of Harry Harrison’s characters and situations perfectly. A must-have volume for all Rat fans. Buy it, and then write to 2000 AD and ask them to adapt more of the stories…

 

Nebula Awards Showcase 2010, edited by Bill Fawcett, was published by ROC/Penguin in April 2010. This volume contains material relating to the 2009 Nebulas, and also includes Harry Harrison’s award of Grand Master. Harrison’s short story ‘The Streets of Ashkelon’ is included in the volume, and their is the very brief ‘An Appreciation of the Grand Master: Harry Harrison’ by Tom Doherty.

Nebula Awards 2010

 

There is the award-winning fiction, of course, plus seven essays – each a retrospective on a decade of science fiction, from the 1930s through the 1990s.

And the acceptance speech of Ray Bradbury Award-winner Joss Whedon, whoever he is…

Gateways

 

Gateways, edited by Elizabeth Anne Hull, was published by Tor in July 2010, and is described as ‘a feast of great new science fiction honoring grand master Frederik Pohl.’

Harry Harrison’s contributions to the book include fiction titled ‘The Stainless Steel Rat and the Pernicious Porcuswine,’ being the first three chapters of The Stainless Steel Rat Returns; he also wrote a four-page piece called ‘Knowing Fred,’ detailing the various times that his and Fred Pohl’s paths have crossed since their first meeting at the Hydra Club.

Help Wanted – 1950s Comic Books

I’m in the process of completing (?) my research into Harry Harrison’s comic book art from the late 1940s and 1950s, and I need some help tracking down a few final details…

What I need are listings of the story titles from a couple of dozen comic books. All I need are the story titles, no other details. And I’m not looking to buy copies — unless they’re cheap!

Attack! (Trojan, 1953) #5 and #8  (Not the 1952 editions published by Youthful) [War]

Fighting War Stories (Story Comics) #2, October 1952 [War]

Mysterious Stories (Premier, 1954) #3, 4, 5, 6, 7  [Horror]

Weird Adventures (P.L. Publishing, 1951) #3  [Horror]

Daring Confessions (Youthful, 1952) #7  [Romance]

Youthful Hearts (Youthful, 1952) #1, 2, 3  [Romance]

Redskin (Youthful, 1950) #1 – 10, 12  [Western / American Indian]

Thrilling Adventures in Stamps (Youthful) #8, January 1953  [Stamps]

As far as I can see, these aren’t indexed on the Grand Comics Database, comicbookdb.com, or the Michigan State University Libraries Comic Art Collection index, and they’re not in the Digital Comic Museum.

If you can help, please leave me a comment here or e-mail me — the address can be found on the ‘Contact Us’ page.