9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A review on the edition, December 20, 2009
This review is from: Thousandth Night and Minla's Flowers (Hardcover)
The volume includes two previously published novellas by A. Reynolds. Thousandth Night was previously published in the SF Book Club anthology One Million AD edited by G. Dozois. Minla's Flowers was published in the New Space Opera 1 edited by G. Dozois and J. Strahan.
The first printing of this book is a signed limited edition (2000 copies), hardcover, fully cloth-bound. The dust jackets (yes, plural, since there are two illustrations, front and back) are beautifully illustrated by Tomislav Tikulin. The publisher (Subterranean Press) specializes in limited (and most of them signed) edition works, beautifully crafted (usually hardcover, high quality paper), and with original illustrations.
The reason I'm writing this review is that I've seen a number of reviews on Amazon for Subterranean Press books where the reviewers complain about the number of pages and call the authors sell-outs etc. So keep in mind that you're paying for a beautiful, limited edition volume. If all you're looking is the content, you can pick up the original anthologies.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Two Fantastic Books in One, December 5, 2009
This review is from: Thousandth Night and Minla's Flowers (Hardcover)
The inner cover of the book says that, "Like the old Ace double-novels from the fifties and sixties, this book includes two novelettes in one." It delivers two very engrossing novelettes, although there the comparison ends: Reynolds is in many ways better than many of the old pulp-fiction science fiction writers, with the possible exceptions of Bradbury, Asimov and Zelazny.
"Thousandth Night" is a short story that happens before the events of Reynold's "House of Suns" released last year. Members of the Gentian line, who are near-immortal, spacefaring, split off members of a single person, reunite every two hundred thousand years to share their experiences traveling the galaxies. The place of their meeting is a planet built entirely for purposes of the thousand nights they spend sharing their experiences.
This particular story is very prettily written, with descriptions of turrets, towers, and fantastical costumes, with a very subtle nod to Douglas Adams', "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" near the end.
"Minla's Flowers" is the story of a spacetraveler who encounters a planet full of people who are facing a serious planetary emergency, only they don't have space travel, yet (or again). He makes heroic efforts to help them get offworld. This story is much more sad, and unexpected than "Thousandth Night", and if I say more, it will spoil it.
Finally, if you're lucky, which apparently I was, you'll get a signed copy.
Edit: Per the comment below, this run was signed by the author--so it's even better--they're all signed!
If you are a Reynolds fan, this is a must-purchase-now: my amazon.uk order of this still can't be filled, even months after the fact.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Book Nitty-Gritty, January 29, 2011
This review is from: Thousandth Night and Minla's Flowers (Hardcover)
This is one of the admirable and original re-releases from The Subterranean Press and is now out of print.
This Dos-a-Dos binding hearkens back to a French tradition of publishing (and, more specifically to the 2-in-1 pulpy, bug-eyed monsters mass market paperbacks produced in the mid-20th century) in which two works are bound together, back to back with two cover images, two title pages, etc.
Here we have a lovely volume from 2009, bound in orange cloth with a sewn binding on quality stock in dustjacket. Cover illustrations by Tomislav Tikulin.
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