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Ace Books

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Ace Books is the oldest continuing publisher of science fiction and fantasy novels, founded in 1952 by magazine publisher A. A. Wyn. It was originally a genre publisher, starting with mysteries and westerns, but soon branched out into science fiction, non-fiction, gothic novels, romances, and other genres. It became well-known for the dos-à-dos format used for the great majority of its early books, although it did not originate the format. By the end of the fifties Ace was a prolific and successful paperback publisher.

With the death of owner A. A. Wyn in 1967, Ace's fortunes began to decline. Two prominent editors, Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr left in 1971, and in 1972 it was sold to Grosset & Dunlap. Further mergers and acquisitions ultimately resulted in Ace becoming a part of Berkley Books, and Ace is now a paperback imprint of Penguin Group (USA). The editorial team at Ace is the same team that edits the Roc imprint, although the two imprints maintain a separate identity.[1]

Founding and Ace Double concept

Ace Double D-36, Robert E. Howard's Conan the Conqueror. The novel on the reverse side was Leigh Brackett's The Sword of Rhiannon.

In 1952 Donald A. Wollheim was working at Avon Books, and while looking for other jobs (he intensely disliked working at Avon) he got the idea of trying to persuade A. A. Wyn to found a new paperback publishing company. Wyn was the well-established publisher of books and pulp magazines under the name A. A. Wyn's Magazine Publishers[2]; the magazines included Ace Mystery and Ace Sports[3], and it is perhaps from these that Ace Books drew its name. Wyn liked the idea, but delayed several months, and in the meantime Wollheim applied for other jobs, including assistant editor at Pyramid Books. Pyramid mistakenly called Rose Wyn (A. A. Wyn's wife) for a reference, thinking Wollheim had worked for her. When Rose Wyn told her husband that Wollheim was applying for another job, Wyn made up his mind to take the plunge and hired Wollheim immediately as an editor.[4]

The first book published by Ace was a pair of mysteries bound dos-à-dos: Keith Vining's Too Hot for Hell backed with Samuel W. Taylor's The Grinning Gismo, priced at 35 cents, with serial number D-01. A dos-à-dos book has the two titles bound upside-down with respect to one another, so that there are two front covers and the two texts meet in the middle (perhaps with some advertising pages in between). This format has been generally regarded as an innovation of Ace's; it was not, but Ace published hundreds of titles bound in this way over the next twenty years, and became much the best-known publisher of the format. Books by established authors were often bound together with those by the lesser-known, the theory being that this would help the more obscure authors gain popularity in their own right. The main drawback to the Doubles format was that the two books had to fit a fixed page length (usually totalling between 256 and 320 low-height pages), so that one or both would often be cut to fit. The statement "Complete and Unabridged" on the cover was not a guarantee, as many books labelled thus were in fact cut significantly.[5]

The last Ace double in dos-à-dos format was Mack Reynolds' The Rival Rigelians, bound with his Planetary Agent X, released in September 1973. Although Ace did later release volumes containing two novels, they were not arranged dos-à-dos but instead conventionally. It was not until 1978 that Ace finally stopped releasing Doubles. All told, Ace published nearly 650 Ace Doubles, of which over 600 were in dos-à-dos format.

Genres in the fifties and sixties

Genre distribution for the first seventeen years of Ace's existence. As can be seen from the graph, science fiction overtook the other two main genres by the mid-fifties, and was by far the dominant genre published in the sixties.

The second title, also dos-à-dos, was a western: William Colt MacDonald's Bad Man's Return, bound with J. Edward Leithead's Bloody Hoofs. Mysteries and westerns alternated, more or less regularly, for the first thirty titles, with a couple of books not in either genre such as P. G. Wodehouse's Quick Service, bound with his The Code of the Woosters. In 1953, A.E. van Vogt's The World of Null-A, bound with his The Universe Maker, appeared; this was Ace's first science fiction title. Earlier in 1953, Ace released Theodore S. Drachman's Cry Plague!, with a plot that could be regarded as sf, but the book it was bound with (Leslie Edgley's The Judas Goat) was not sf, and so the van Vogt is generally regarded as Ace's first foray into the genre. Another sf Ace Double followed later that year, and sf was rapidly established alongside westerns and mysteries as a regular part of Ace's output. By 1955 there were more sf titles released each year than in either of the other two genres, and from 1961 onwards the sf titles outnumbered the mysteries and westerns combined.

The very next book after the van Vogt double was another first: Dorothy Malone's Cookbook for Beginners (1953) was the first Ace book that was not in dos-à-dos format. Single novels began to appear frequently from 1954 on, and were initially used mainly for books not in Ace's main three genres, though the occasional sf, mystery or western title did appear in single format. By the sixties, however, this had changed, with some of the change apparently organized into the letter-series system: the F and M series singles were overwhelmingly science fiction, but singles in the original D/G/S series, and the K series titles (all of which were singles), mostly printed books outside Ace's three genres.

By the late 1950s, Ace's output was approaching a hundred titles a year, still heavily dominated by the three main genres. Almost all the books were 35 cents, though some slim single volumes were 25 cents, and there were a handful at 50 cents. In the early sixties, rising costs finally forced an increase in the price of the books, and more and more books appeared at 40 cents, 45 cents and more; a few fat volumes such as the 1967 paperback of Frank Herbert's Dune were priced at 95 cents. Other genres began to make a much more frequent appearance, as well; scores of "nurse romances" appeared, beginning in 1960 with Joan Sargent's Cruise Nurse bound with Calling Dr. Merriman by Margaret Howe. By the end of the decade perhaps seventy more had appeared, along with gothic novels, self-improvement books, "strange but true" books, and many others.

Ace as a dominant SF publisher

Along with Ballantine Books, Ace dominated the science fiction paperback publishing field in the fifties and sixties. Other publishers followed their lead and began to cater to the increasing audience for sf but none matched the influence of these two.

The dominance was not reflected only in numbers of books published. Several noted science fiction authors had their first novel published by Ace in the fifties and sixties. These include:

Other prominent figures had much early work published by Ace, including John Brunner, Thomas M. Disch, and Robert Silverberg.

Lord of the Rings controversy

In 1965 Wollheim discovered a copyright loophole in the American edition of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. The Houghton Mifflin edition had been bound using pages printed in the United Kingdom for the George Allen & Unwin edition, and as a result US copyright law (later changed) did not protect the text. Exploiting this loophole, Ace Books published the first ever paperback edition of Tolkien's work, featuring cover art and hand-drawn title pages by Jack Gaughan. After considerable controversy and the release of a competitive and authorized (and more complete) edition by Ballantine Books, Ace agreed to pay royalties to Tolkien and let its still-popular edition go out of print.[6][7]

From the mid-1960s to the present

Joanna Russ's And Chaos Died (1970), from the first Ace SF Special series. The cover is by Leo and Diane Dillon.

In 1964 Terry Carr joined the company and in 1968 he initiated the Ace Science Fiction Special line, publishing critically acclaimed original novels by such authors as Alexei Panshin, R. A. Lafferty, Joanna Russ and Ursula Le Guin. During the mid-late 1960s Ace also obtained licenses to publish original novels based upon several popular television series of the day, most notably some two-dozen volumes based upon The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and a trilogy based upon The Prisoner.

Carr and Wollheim also co-edited an annual Year's Best Science Fiction anthology series; and Carr also edited Universe, a well-received original anthology series. Universe was initially published by Ace, although when Carr left Ace Books in 1971 the series moved elsewhere.

Wyn died in 1967[2], and the company grew overextended, and failed to pay its authors reliably. Without money to pay the signing bonus, Wollheim was unwilling to send signed contracts to the authors. On at least one occasion a book without a valid contract went to the printer, and Wollheim later found out that the author, who was owed $3,000 by Ace, was reduced to picking fruit for a living.[8]

In 1971 both Wollheim and Carr left Ace. Wollheim had made plans to launch a separate paperback house, and in cooperation with New American Library[8] he proceeded to set up DAW Books. Carr became a freelance editor; both Carr and Wollheim went on to edit separate Year's Best volumes.

In 1972, Ace was acquired by Grosset & Dunlap, and in 1982, Grosset & Dunlap were acquired by G.P. Putnam's Sons; Ace were reputedly the only profitable element of the Grosset & Dunlap empire by this time.[9], [10] Ace soon became the sf imprint of their parent company.[11] In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Grosset & Dunlap operated an imprint called Ace Charter Books which published mystery fiction such as reprints of the Saint series by Leslie Charteris.

Carr returned to Ace Books in 1984 as a freelance editor[12], launching a new series of Ace Specials devoted entirely to first novels, almost all from newer authors. This series was even more successful than the first: it included, in 1984 alone, William Gibson's Neuromancer, Kim Stanley Robinson's The Wild Shore, Lucius Shepard's Green Eyes, and Michael Swanwick's In the Drift; all are first novels by authors now regarded as major figures within the sf genre.

Other prominent sf publishing figures who worked at one time at Ace include Tom Doherty, who left to start Tor Books, and Jim Baen, who left to work at Tor and who eventually founded Baen Books. Writers who have worked at Ace include Frederik Pohl, Ellen Kushner, and Laura Anne Gilman.

In 1996, Penguin Group (USA) acquired the Putnam Berkley Group, and has retained Ace as their sf imprint. Ace's current (2006) list includes Julian May, Patricia McKillip, and Sharon Shinn[13],[14],[15], with books from writers such as Alastair Reynolds, Charles Stross, Jack McDevitt and Joe Haldeman planned for the remainder of the year.[16]

Editors

The following people worked at Ace Books in various editorial roles. The list is sorted in order of the date they started working at Ace, where known. It includes editors who are notable for some reason, as well as the most recent editors at the imprint.

Serial numbers

Ace titles have had two main types of serial numbers: letter series, such as "D-31" or "H-77", and numeric, such as "10293" or "15697". The letters were used to indicate a price, as given in the following list, which also shows the date range for which each letter prefix was in use.

  • D-series. Price 35¢. Date range: 1952 to 1965.
  • S-series. Price 25¢. Date range: 1954 to 1958.
  • T-series. Price 40¢. Note that this prefix is listed in Tuck's Encyclopedia[33], but he gives no examples in his index and there are none cited in other bibliographic sources. This series may not exist.
  • F-series. Price 40¢. Date range 1960 to 1967.
  • M-series. Price 45¢. Date range 1964 to 1966.
  • G-series. Price 50¢. Date range 1958 to 1960 (D/S/G series); 1964 to 1968 (later series).
  • K-series. Price 50¢. Date range 1959 to 1968.
  • H-series. Price 60¢. Date range 1965 or 1966 to 1968.
  • A-series. Price 75¢. Date range 1965 to 1968.
  • N-series. Price 95¢. Date range 1965 to 1968?.

The first series of Ace books began in 1952 with D-01, a western in dos-à-dos format: Keith Vining's Too Hot for Hell backed with Samuel W. Taylor's The Grinning Gismo. That series continued until D-599, which was Patricia Libby's Winged Victory for Nurse Kerry; but the series also included several G and S serial numbers, depending on the price. The D and S did not indicate "Double" (i.e. dos-à-dos) or "Single"; there are D-series titles that are not dos-à-dos, although none of the dos-à-dos titles have an S serial number.

Towards the end of this initial series, the F series was begun, at a new price level, and thereafter there were always several different letter series running simultaneously. The D and S prefixes did not appear again after the first series, but the G prefix acquired its own series starting with G-501. Hence the eight earlier G-series titles can be considered part of a different series to the G-series proper. All series after the first kept independent numbering systems, starting at 1 or 101.

In January 1969, Ace switched to a numeric coding system. The code depended on the title of the book; or specifically on the first significant word in the title. For example, Tom Purdom's The Barons of Behavior was published by Ace in about 1972 as serial number 04760. The first letter of "Barons" is "B", so the code assigned is fairly early in the numeric range 00000 to 99999. This procedure for assigning numeric codes was in use at Ace at least into the early 1990s, and may still be in use today. For Ace doubles, one of the titles was selected and used to determine what serial number should be used. For example, 11560 is the Ace double The Communipaths by Suzette Haden Elgin, backed with Louis Trimble's The Noblest Experiment in the Galaxy. The serial number here is derived from The Communipaths; a serial number derived from the Trimble would have been about 58000.

For the later numeric series titles, the number is also part of the ISBN. To form the ISBN (if it exists) for one of these books one prefixes "0" for English language/US, and "441" (Ace's publisher number), to the serial number. The last digit can then be calculated with an ISBN check digit calculator. For example, Christopher Stasheff's Escape Velocity has serial number 21599; the ISBN is 0-441-21599-8.

Ace titles

Ace titles are frequently collected, both for their covers, and by collectors of the individual genres. The following articles provide lists of these titles, organized by genre and by format (e.g. dos-à-dos vs. normal format).

Two combined lists are given, one for all Ace Doubles, of whatever genre, and another list of all the Ace Singles. However, the following lists give the individual series titles, for all genres.

References

  1. ^ a b "SF Canada Article - "An Interview with Editor John Morgan" by Celu Amberstone". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ a b Tuck, Donald H. (1978). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume 2. Chicago: Advent: Publishers, Inc. p. 471. ISBN 0-911682-22-8.
  3. ^ "Magazine Data File". Retrieved 11 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ a b Knight, Damon (1977). The Futurians. New York: John Day. p. 130.
  5. ^ Corrick, James A. (1989). Double Your Pleasure: the ACE SF Double. New York: Gryphon Books. p. 11. ISBN 0-936071-13-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  6. ^ Reynolds, Pat (2004). "The Lord of the Rings: The Tale of a Text". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981]. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. especially #270, #273 and #277. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
  8. ^ a b c Knight, Damon (1977). The Futurians. New York: John Day. p. 176.
  9. ^ a b c Bloom, Jeremy (1999). "Chicon 2000:Editor Guest of Honor: Jim Baen". An Interview with the Editor Guest of Honor, Jim Baen. Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ "Penguin Group (USA): About Us: History". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ a b "Penguin Group (USA): About Us: Ace Books". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  12. ^ Clute, John & Nicholls, Peter (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc. p. 199. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |origdate= ignored (|orig-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  13. ^ "Locus Online: New Books, 2nd Week February 2006". Retrieved 11 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ "Locus Online: New Books, 2nd Week March 2006". Retrieved 11 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  15. ^ "Locus Online: New in Paperback: April 2006". Retrieved 11 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ "Locus Online: Forthcoming Books". Retrieved 11 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ "Author Biography and Bibliography". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  18. ^ "MyLuckyDay" (PDF). Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  19. ^ "SFBook.com Science Fiction - Frederik Pohl". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  20. ^ a b "Beth Meacham's Home Page". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  21. ^ "Science Fiction Weekly Interview". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  22. ^ "Locus Online: Tom Doherty Interview Excerpts". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  23. ^ "Ellen Kushner & Delia Sherman - Brief Biographies". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  24. ^ "Westercon 54: Progress Report 1". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  25. ^ "Robert Jordan". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  26. ^ "The Forlorn Hope". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  27. ^ "Chicago in 2000: Ginjer Buchanan Card". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  28. ^ "Science Fiction Writer Robert J. Sawyer: Dedication & Acknowledgments: End of an Era". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  29. ^ "Laura Anne Gilman (bluejack SF author profiles)". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  30. ^ "A Conversation With Dana Stabenow". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  31. ^ "International Horror Guild". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  32. ^ "Client and Agency News". Retrieved 10 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  33. ^ Tuck, Donald H. (1982). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume 3. Chicago: Advent: Publishers, Inc. p. 715. ISBN 0-911682-26-0.

The following references works cover various aspects of Ace Books.

  • Corrick, James A. Double Your Pleasure: The Ace SF Double, Gryphon Books, 1989. ISBN 0-936071-13-3. A historical article, followed by a checklist of the SF Doubles, giving prior publication history for the contents of each one.
  • Thiessen, J. Grant Science Fiction Collector #1, Pandora's Books, 1976. Includes Ace Double checklist.
  • Thiessen, J. Grant Science Fiction Collector #2, Pandora's Books, date unknown. Includes errata for checklist in #1.
  • Tuck, Donald H. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume 3, Advent: Publishers, Inc., 1982. ISBN 0911682-26-0. Lists all ACE sf titles, single and double, published through 1968.

The following references have not been seen:

  • Jaffery, Sheldon Double Trouble: A Bibliographic Chronicle of Ace Mystery Doubles, Starmont Popular Culture Series no. 11, Borgo Press, 1987. ISBN 1557421188.
  • Jaffery, Sheldon Double Futures: An Annotated Bibliography of the Ace Science Fiction Doubles, Borgo Press, 1999. ISBN 1557421390.
  • Peters, Harold R. Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror in the Ace Letter-Series Editions: A Collector's Notebook, Silver Sun Press, 1996.
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