Friday, July 14, 2006

Classic science fiction

Just found out from checking the schedule on the Baen Books homepage that Baen will be republishing some of the work of Cordwainer Smith and A. E. van Vogt, both great authors. Baen has been bringing classic science fiction back into print for several years now- I owe my love of Murray Leinster and Keith Laumer to them. Hopefully, some people will discover Smith and van Vogt in the same way.

My first exposure to van Vogt was, appropriately enough, in the Baen collection Give Me Liberty- I had never even heard of him before that. I was then able to acquire a few of his books from my local used book store. My first exposure to Smith was finding his only novel Norstrilia at the same bookstore. I bought it on the strength of various descriptions of Cordwainer Smith, and ended up loving it.

The van Vogt book consists of one novel and group of stories published in Astounding Science Fiction. The contents of the Smith book aren't listed- though Smith's total body of work is fairly small, so they probably cram a good percentage in if they want- these Baen collections usually don't skimp on length. If the first book sells well enough to justify a follow up, they could probably get his entire body of work available in two books. Now, what I'd really like to see is some more Poul Anderson…


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