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Laser books was a Sci-Fi imprint of Harlequin Books in the 1970s, in an attempt to create a "category sci-fi" genre akin to their popular subscription romance titles.
The series was edited by Roger Elwood and featured distinctive branding and cover art by well-known Hugo-Winning artist Kelly Freas.
Many of the Sci-Fi elite contributed, under their own names or pseudonyms, as well as some authors not generally known for their sci-fi. Jerry Pournelle, Dean Koontz, Piers Anthony, Tim Powers, Steve Hahn, Joan Hunter Holly, Gordon Eklund and many more had books published in this line.
The books were heavily edited to maintain lengths of 55-60k words, often to the dismay of their authors, several of whom have since republished the books in a less abridged format.
Many of these books were also republished by Ace (UK) or Tor (US), and some are still in print.
Book #0 "Seeds of Change" is unnumbered, and was a giveaway for bookstores to promote the release of the line.
This Listopia list is specifically for the original Laser Books editions only.
The series was edited by Roger Elwood and featured distinctive branding and cover art by well-known Hugo-Winning artist Kelly Freas.
Many of the Sci-Fi elite contributed, under their own names or pseudonyms, as well as some authors not generally known for their sci-fi. Jerry Pournelle, Dean Koontz, Piers Anthony, Tim Powers, Steve Hahn, Joan Hunter Holly, Gordon Eklund and many more had books published in this line.
The books were heavily edited to maintain lengths of 55-60k words, often to the dismay of their authors, several of whom have since republished the books in a less abridged format.
Many of these books were also republished by Ace (UK) or Tor (US), and some are still in print.
Book #0 "Seeds of Change" is unnumbered, and was a giveaway for bookstores to promote the release of the line.
This Listopia list is specifically for the original Laser Books editions only.
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Bill
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Mar 23, 2019 08:02PM
anyone know where to find these in a format a kindle can handle?
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I like the cover art. It reminds me of the illustrations in the Analog magazines that I was reading in the 70s.
The cover art is all Kelly Freas paintings. Makes the series worth collecting for that reason alone!
Bill, these were originally published in the 1970s. None of them will have Kindle formats in the original versions with the Kelly Freas covers. Probably over 50% of the novels have been republished this century though, so your chances of finding a newer edition of the title are decent. Slightly more than half the time when a newer edition is printed the author substantially updated the material.
This could be a plus or a minus. It is a good thing from the author's point of view because Laser Book editors often made drastic changes to the manuscript the authors didn't approve of. At least, this is what many of the authors say, though they protest rather loudly, methinks, possibly to justify coming out with their "director's cut" version to thus make even more money from what is essentially the same book. I personally feel the Laser Books editors' judgments were pretty good and that often the original version is better than the "author revised edition".
Many of these 1970s Laser Books were printed in such quantity that most used copies can still readily be found for under $10. A few are getting hard enough to find that they're going for $20-25 now. If you have to pay more than $25 for ANY title, look around a bit more for a better price is my advice.
One book that has been republished as a Kindle book is Robert B. Marcus Jr.'s Shadow on the Stars. I asked the author (via GoodReads here) if the Kindle version was substantially different. He said it only had a few editing tweaks. The Laser Book print version of this book (used) is one of the more expensive.
This could be a plus or a minus. It is a good thing from the author's point of view because Laser Book editors often made drastic changes to the manuscript the authors didn't approve of. At least, this is what many of the authors say, though they protest rather loudly, methinks, possibly to justify coming out with their "director's cut" version to thus make even more money from what is essentially the same book. I personally feel the Laser Books editors' judgments were pretty good and that often the original version is better than the "author revised edition".
Many of these 1970s Laser Books were printed in such quantity that most used copies can still readily be found for under $10. A few are getting hard enough to find that they're going for $20-25 now. If you have to pay more than $25 for ANY title, look around a bit more for a better price is my advice.
One book that has been republished as a Kindle book is Robert B. Marcus Jr.'s Shadow on the Stars. I asked the author (via GoodReads here) if the Kindle version was substantially different. He said it only had a few editing tweaks. The Laser Book print version of this book (used) is one of the more expensive.
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Anyone can add books to this list.
