Skip to main content

Ep 1: Introduction to the Show, Ace Doubles, and Lisa Morton Interview

In our first episode, Paperback Show host/producer Ricky Lee Grove introduces the Paperback Show Podcast. He shares the story of his first paperback purchase at the age of 12 years old. At a local used paperback shop, he picked up an Ace Double paperback which contained Philip E. High's Reality Forbidden and A. Bertram Chandler's Contraband in Otherspace. He reviews the two novels and outlines the history of Ace books.

In the second half of the Paperback Show, Ricky Lee introduces author Lisa Morton, a multiple Stoker-award-winning author, and discusses her excellent paperback collection of Philip K. Dick's books along with many other paperback-related topics.

Music: US Army Blues Band "Live at Blues Alley". Available at Freemusicarchive.org


Show Notes

  • Ace Books overview
  • Ace science fiction specials edited by Donald Wollheim and Terry Carr, a great place to start collecting paperback science fiction as many are still reasonably priced plus the often feature wonderful cover design by Leo and Diane Dillon. Many great authors were featured in this series (not double books). Authors like Ursula K. Leguin (Left Hand of Darkness), Alexi Panshin (Rite of Passage), PKD 17 paperback originals, Samuel R. Delaney’s Jewels of Aptor. Explain concept of PBO. William Burroughs Junkie and Asimov’s Foundation series (first two in abridged form). Conan appeared in Ace Double with Conan the Conqueror/Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett. Dune by Frank Herbert. Many Hugo and Nebula awards and nominations.
  • List of Ace SF double titles
  • Eight Miles Higher blog profile of Philip E. High
  • Reality Forbidden backgrounder
  • Jack Gaughan cover artist for Reality Forbidden
  • A. Bertram Chandler BackgroundContraband from Other Space (Ace, 1967) (Possibly linked to the 1945 story "Giant Killer")
  • Kelly Freas cover artist for Contraband...
  • Philip K. Dick 
  • Lisa Morton

Popular posts from this blog

Paperback Cover of the Week: Beowulf, translated by Burton Raffel

                                            Signet classics (2008). Cover design by HAVOC Media Burton Raffel  was a lawyer turned critic and translator. He specialized in poetry and, in addition to writing his own poetry, he translated Mandelstram, Old English poetry, Horace, Cervantes, a Vietnamese poetry collection along with many books on the structure and meaning of poetry. Raffel’s Beowulf was the first version of the poem I read. In my teens and enthralled by Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, I sought out anything written by Tolkien. His groundbreaking essay, “Beowulf: The Monster and the Critics”, was a little over my head then, so I sought a translation of the poem to read. Burton Raffel’s was the most common (and still is). I read the poem in a day and started a fascination with the Beowulf story that has lasted my whole life. I’ve probably read a dozen translations/ve...

Ep 17- Bantam, Louis L'amour and the Paperback Western

Ian Ballantine  was a young graduate student in 1939. He wrote a thesis on the economics of the paperback industry in the late 1930s that brought him to the attention of several paperback publishers. He opened the American branch of Penguin Books (a UK company) in 1939. Ian was primarily responsible for re-selling Penguins in the United States. However, World War 2 cut off his shipments from the UK, so he began to publish paperbacks himself. One change he made was to add illustrated covers to his paperbacks which were primarily sold through magazine distributors and needed an eye-catching cover to compete. But when Penguin founder Anthony Lane visited the U.S. Penguin offices after the war, he was appalled at these new illustrated covers. He demanded that the paperbacks be simply text and be color-coded like the British Penguins. Ian Ballantine refused and left the company. Ian started his own company with his wife Betty Ballantine and secured funding from a major hardback publi...

Episode 10 - Daphne Du Maurier & My Cousin Rachel

  Daphne Du Maurier is best known for the film adaptations of her novels. Her bestselling novel Rebecca was made into a very popular Alfred Hitchcock film starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontane. The novel itself has never been out of print, but most people remember the movie and not the original novel which is much, much different than the film. Daphne has been unfairly (and inaccurately) labeled a "woman's author" and a writer of "gothic romances". Nothing could be further from the truth. She was an unsentimental author who wrote of the power struggles between men and women, especially in marriage. She had an uncanny ability to create suspense and mood along with a gift for storytelling. If anything her novels are anti-romances as the woman doesn't get her man and there are no happy endings to her novels.  In this episode of the Paperback Show, we look at Daphne Du Maurier's life and writings paying attention to the paperback versions of her works. ...