FIRE TIME: The Ballantine Edition

Poul Anderson, Fire Time (New York, 1975).

We can begin by appreciating the physical artefact of a book in our hands. I am holding a Ballantine Books edition of Fire Time. See image.

First, a cover illustration that indicates either fantasy or sf. 

Secondly, the front cover blurb: "A big, bold novel of interplanetary conflict and intrigue!" The publisher could have added: "Assuming that that is your idea of a good time, of course..." How many potential readers will be instantly warned off by that single word, "interplanetary"?

Inside the front cover: maps of the Anubelean System and the planet, Ishtar.

Inside the back cover: map of the Gathering of Sehala. (We are not supposed to know what this means yet and will probably not have looked this far ahead, in any case.)

Returning to the beginning but then glancing ahead, we find that the text commences, very properly, on page 1. Between the cover and page 1, there are eight unnumbered pages which we can enumerate as pp. i-viii.

p. i is three paragraphs of blurb introducing some of the characters and their setting.

p. ii lists two other titles on the Ballantine Books list, Brain Wave and A Midsummer Tempest. We reflect on how dissimilar these three works are, almost as if written by different authors:

A Midsummer Tempest is a fantasy novel set in an alternative seventeenth century, is a sequel to two Shakespeare plays and connects with other alternative historical fantasy works by Anderson;

Brain Wave is near future sf about a change in human nature;

Fire Time, set in an interstellar future, is a sequel to The Star Fox, although perhaps readers do not realize this yet.

p. iii is the title page (almost like an inside cover).

p. iv is publication information.

p. v is the dedication "FOR HAL CLEMENT, worldsmith". (Adzel studies at the Clement Institute in Anderson's Technic History.)

p. vii is blank.

p. 1 is the beginning of "FOREWORD" and that is all from me this lunchtime!