cover art and b+w frontispiece by jack gaughan (cover credited, both signed with his "jg" monogram)
cover price 50¢
160pp. including titles, indicia etc.
(the tag is true, but pushing the concept - it's set in the far, far future thereof. . .)
it appears that, for a while (?), grosset & dunlap (or charter communications, inc.) misunderstood (?or possibly deliberately misused?) the amazing ace books five-digit cat# system, increasing the cat# (by one, if possible°) only when the cover price was increased above that of the previous printing, instead of with each printing.
° - if not possible, because the cat# one higher already allotted to another book, then to a nearby group of five cat#s starting with a number ending in -0 or in -5 (or sometimes, it seems, in -1 or in -6)
this under-counted the number of printings and, in the absence of any files/access to any files recording the size of print-runs, numbers shipped, returns including stripped covers-only returns, each matched with cover prices, and number of copies remaindered, rendered it near impossible for authors or their agents to make accurate estimates of the royalties outstanding to them.
the science fiction writers of america (very approximately sf & fantasy writers of the world published in america trade organization) attempted to get management(s) to sort out the accounting and to pay all monies owed, and eventually organised a writers' boycott of ace, to help encourage ace's management.
grosset & dunlap's thomas (tom) doherty undertook to sort the financial side of this mess out to the best extent possible, and employed james p. (jim) baen to run and rebuild the editorial side of ace books with tom doherty's further commitment to providing him with an at least adequate budget, and accurate and timely sales & royalty statements - and payments! - to authors or their agents, plus back-payments where such could be calculated, or reasonably reliably estimated.
grosset & dunlap's ace books (etc.) duly recovered under their (and others') efforts, and ran profitably to the point the berkley publishing group (berkley-putnam, putnam) or their owners decided to offer sufficiently large a sum to buy grosset & dunlap / charter communications / ace books (etc.) publishers and fold it into their group.
(tom doherty and jim baen continued to work well together establishing first tor books, and then baen books - both major publishing success stories, though not without their own - rather different - sizable hiccups along their - completely separate - ways.) (this comment is from another edition of this book)
grosset & dunlap(?) charter communications, inc. ace books imprint undated° mmpb fourth printing
grosset & dunlap bought ace books and (all?) charter communications' book-publishing interests 1977
cover art by alex ebel (signed, uncredited)
cover price $1.75
224pp. including titles, indicia etc, end pp. advertising
° - save for 1967 copyright date; this printing may've been 1978; it was before cat# 10704's printing (this comment is from another edition of this book)
berkley publishing group ace imprint mmpb 5/1984 printing (tenth printing / may 1984, so stated)
cover art by alex ebel (signed, retains cover redesign from eighth printing)
cover price ($2.95 canada) • $2.75 u.s.
224pp. including titles, indicia etc, end pp. advertising (this comment is from another edition of this book)
berkley publishing group ace imprint mmpb eighth printing° by printing history number line 8 0 9
the berkley-putnam publishing group bought ace books from grosset & dunlap - or all of g&d(?) in 1980
and, inter alia, also attempted to bring the publishing histories into line with available records of reality
cover art by alex ebel (signed, retained from earlier printings, chopped to fit major cover redesign)
cover price $2.25
224pp. (check) including titles, indicia etc, end pp. advertising (this comment is from another edition of this book)
grosset & dunlap charter communications undated° ace imprint mmpb
grosset & dunlap bought ace books (and all of charter communications book publishing interests) 1977
cover art by alex ebel (signed, retained from 1974 ace books mmpb printing)
cover price $1.95
224pp. (check) including titles, indicia etc, end pp. advertising
° - save for copyright date; this printing may've been 1979; it was after cat# 10703's printing (this comment is from another edition of this book)
ace books mmpb undated° second printing, still states first book publication on front cover
cover art by jack gaughan (retained from first edition ace mmpb)
cover price 60¢
160pp. including titles, indicia etc, end p. advertising
° - near-identical with first edition, the five-digit system cat# allocated this printing implies (does not prove) stocks of G-626 remained and were deemed to've been (re-)numbered 10700 (this comment is from another edition of this book)
granada publishing group panther books imprint p/b first printing, first uk p/b edition
cover bears nine-digit sbn; later printings add the derived isbn given above, later drop this sbn
cover art by chris foss (collected in ''21st century foss'' (1978), q.v., entitled ''ground train passing abandoned working'')
cover price 35p, $1.20 australia, $1.20 new zealand
160pp. including titles, indicia etc, end p. advertising
near-identical 1976 second printing differs:
chris foss is credited on the back cover
cover price 50p, $1.50 australia, $1.70 new zealand, $1.75 canada
indicia publishing history adds line, reprinted 1976
near-identical 1978 third printing differs:
cover price 75p, $2.50 australia, $2.50 new zealand, $2.25 canada
indicia publishing history adds 1978 to reprintings
near-identical 1980 fourth printing differs:
cover price 95p, $3.50 australia, $3.50 new zealand
indicia publishing history adds 1980 to reprintings, here and elsewhere starts to replace panther with granada, but front cover retains panther (this comment is from another edition of this book)
victor gollancz first printing, first h/cvr edition, first uk edition
cover (d-j) art (none: black & magenta typography on ''gollancz yellow'' with title ''zoomed'' back & up)
cover (d-j) price £1.60
192pp. (check) including titles, indicia etc, bound with endpapers between covered boards (this comment is from another edition of this book)