A Quasi Belmont Double: A Pair From Space, by Robert Silverberg and James Blish

Review: A Pair From Space, by Robert Silverberg and James Blish

a review by Rich Horton

The most famous "double books" of all time are of course the Ace Doubles, which ran from about 1952 through 1973. Ace Doubles were bound tête-bêche -- so that each book had a front cover, rotated 180 degrees from the other. Ace Doubles were mostly Science Fiction (and Fantasy), but there were also plenty of Westerns and Mysteries published in that format. This format is often miscalled dos-à-dos (I confess I have made this mistake!) -- instead, dos-à-dos books are both upright but bound cleverly so that they meet in the middle. The best recent example I can think of is Theodora Goss's The Thorn and the Blossom: A Two-Sided Love Story, which binds together the same story from the point of view of each lover.

There was a fairly short-lived series of double books published between 1967 and 1969, 8 books in all (so 16 titles), from the low end publisher Belmont. These are called Belmont Doubles. The individual stories -- usually novella length -- were sometimes magazine reprints, though a number of them were original to Belmont. The books were not bound either tête-bêche or dos-à-dos, but simply sequentially. The covers highlighted both titles, with separate illustrations, either one on the top and one on the bottom, or side to side. I will say that overall the quality of these books was not very high -- Harlan Ellison famously would offer to buy copies of his Belmont Double Doomsman from fans who asked him to sign it -- and he would then rip it in half, leaving the other story (Lee Hoffman's Telepower) intact. (Reportedly, Hoffman was less than pleased with Ellison's stunt.) Still, some decent work was reprinted here.

I have recently discovered a curious Belmont publication that is not one of the official Belmont Doubles. This is A Pair From Space, a 1965 omnibus featuring novellas by James Blish and Robert Silverberg. Both novellas were originally published in the 1950s. James Blish's "Giants in the Earth" first appeared as "Beanstalk" in the Kendall Foster Crossen anthology Future Tense in 1952, and was reprinted as "Giants in the Earth" in Science Fiction Stories for January, 1956. Robert Silverberg's "We, the Marauders" first appeared (with the same title) in Science Fiction Quarterly for January, 1958. (Science Fiction Quarterly and Science Fiction Stories were sister magazines, published by Columbia, which was the predecessor company to Belmont.) It strikes me that A Pair From Space is almost a sort of trial run for the Belmont Doubles.

As the cover picture shows, the two stories are presented top-to-bottom, each with its own illustration. That said, the illustrations are mixed up -- the one for "Giants in the Earth" is at the bottom, but "Giants in the Earth" is listed first. Both novellas were separately published as novels, though they got there in slightly different ways. Silverberg's "We, the Marauders" was cut from the text of his novel Invaders from Earth, which appeared as half an Ace Double in 1958. The novel was about 52,000 words long -- the magazine version was about 38,000 words. At this late date, Silverberg can't recall whether he or editor Robert A. W. Lowndes made the cuts -- but there are quite significant changes to the plot. As for "Giants in the Earth" aka "Beanstalk", it was expanded in 1961, from some 32,000 words to perhaps 44,000 words, and published as Titan's Daughter. (A later edition changed the title slightly to Titans' Daughter -- possibly simply a typo though the revised title does make sense.) This change keeps the basic plot intact, but adds details throughout -- some just padding, but some sensible clarifications or worthwhile if minor plot additions.

As for the actual stories in this book -- I discuss them both in separate posts. 

Invaders From Earth/"We, The Marauders"

Titan's Daughter/"Giants in the Earth" aka "Beanstalk"