From: potter@csusac.ecs.csus.edu (Eustace Kolchak)
Subject: eric frank russell
Followup-To: alt.dev.null
Summary: should NOT be hard to find!
Keywords:  you got the Willies?
Organization: INS, Inc.
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 06:14:05 GMT

Hal the Monash Auzzie Person asked:

> Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
> From: 10726446@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au (LAU WAI KUEN)
> Subject: eric frank russell
> Organization: Faculty of Engineering, Monash University 
> Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 00:41:08 GMT
> 
>   Yo!  Does anyone know if the book 'Next of Kin' by Eric Frank Russell
> is still in print.  A friend swears the book is brilliant, but I can't
> find the damn thing _anywhere_.  It's beginning to get on my nerves,
> and I've got a feeling the book is out of print (since E.F.R. is
> dead and not that well known).

EFR died in 1978, in his early seventies; but he's certainly neither 
forgotten, nor is he "not that well known."

A vague publishing history on your book, one of my all-time favorites:
 
....First showed up in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION in the U.S. in 1956.
This was a short, novella-length version, on which the title, "PLUS X"
was used.  (Campbell gave the story the cover, done by Kelly Freas.)

   In the U.S., the book was published, severely cut even from 
the ASTOUNDING length, by Ace in 1958.   Ace apparently did 
both a stand-alone version, and a composite (the late, unlamented,
super-chopped Ace "double novels" < read: two short books chopped
down to novella length, pasted together, back-to-back, and sold with
two front covers...>)  with a set of Russell short stories,
"SIX WORLDS YONDER," in the sixties.

  Ace seems to have used both "PLUS X" and "THE SPACE WILLIES" as
titles in various editions, but I can't give you specifics, due
to lack of physical access to my archives in Nevada.) 

    Russell's original-length version (slightly modified to include 
editorial suggestions Campbell and others had made) was printed 
in hardback by Dobson, in the U.K., in 1959.  (My U.K. Russell 
bibliographical contact, Morrie Stephens, says Dobson may have
done both hardback and paperback editions; but since the poor lad 
wasn't alive at the time, and everyone else on that foggy isle 
drinks far too much tea to have a reliable memory, we've not
yet got a solid yea or nay on this.)  

    We do know that DAW Books appears to have had an edition in
the early seventies, about the same time as the Sphere Books 
edition, in the U.K. and Ozzieland/EnnZedd.  (The Sphere Books
edition, from Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Ltd, ( in Aylesbury, Bucks)
had an ISBN of 0 7221 7542 6.  (Mentioned here 'coz I figure it's
the version you're most likely to find, down there in the Sheep
Capitol Of the Known Universe.))

    Most recent edition I know of on this continent dates from 
late '85 to early '86, from Del Rey/Ballantine. 

    I believe I've seen a U.K. edition from the fifties that
carried the original misbegotten Ace title, "THE SPACE WILLIES,"
but I can't remember the publisher......
 
So, look for any of three titles: 
 
   "PLUS X" (Used on at least one release of the early-seventies DAW)
   "THE SPACE WILLIES" (old, OLD paperback editions)
   "NEXT OF KIN,"  (old, old, and the most recent printings as well.) 
 
Good luck.  There are many, many copies lying around, because EFR
is *not* as "unknown" as you might think.  In fact, the last major
publication of his books in the U.S. came about because the
publisher (Del Rey) and an author (Jack Chalker) got together and
ramrodded the series through, just to get EFR's books back into print!

Enjoy the book when you find it.  It's a real lark, and would make
a fun movie.  (Or even a *really* great "STAR TREK: TNG" episode,
should any of the production staff happen to be reading this.)
(Hint, hint.)

-- 
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