We Have a Winner!

Ran correctly guessed the identity of the Burned Book as...

{drumroll}

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart!

Ran, if you're reading this and not the comment thread, e-mail me at andrew dot wheeler at doubledayent dot com to claim your prizes. (Though I'm not sure how you'll be able to prove you are yourself.)

Thanks to everyone who played, and watch for another Antick Musings Contest...well, sometime, maybe.

More Fabulous Prizes!

And here are the things I have in the office that anyone who wins the much-more-elusive-than-I'd-imagined Burned Book Contest can choose from:

• Off the Main Sequence: The Other Science Fiction Stories of Robert A. Heinlein, edited by me
• Best Short Novels: 2005 edited by Jonathan Strahan
• Down These Dark Spaceways edited by Mike Resnick
• The Fair Folk edited by Marvin Kaye
• Quantico by Greg Bear, in its spiffy new SFBC edition
• Between Worlds edited by Robert Silverberg
• Black Seas of Infinity: The Best of H. P. Lovecraft edited by some hack named Wheeler
• and Modern Greats of Science Fiction: Nine Novellas of Distinction, the retitled ibooks edition of Best Short Novels: 2004 edited by Jonathan Strahan

The contest will not end at five o'clock today -- I'm not sure why I gave a deadline anyway, since I want someone to win -- but will continue until everyone gives up or someone guesses correctly.

The winner will get his or her choice of any five of the books mentioned in this post and in Your Fabulous Selection of Prizes!, along with a SFBC baseball cap (if you want one) and maybe a SFBC shoulder bag, if I can find where they got to.

This contest is void where prohibited by law or custom, and is absolutely free to enter. All entries become the property of Blogger, I bet, since I know I didn't read the Terms of Service all that closely, and I'm sure they got something past me. They might even get my firstborn son, for all I know. Anyway, this is an exhibition, not a competition: please, no wagering. The Judge (and that would be me) will not have to make any decision, since the winner will get a question of fact (to whit: what singed book is currently sitting inside an envelope on my shelf right now) correct.

Hey! Come to think of it, the winner can also get the actual Burned Book itself, if she or he is so strange as to want it.

Books That Are Not the Burned Book

At the moment, I'm up to 61 comments on Angry Customers, with the identity of the Burned Book still a mystery.

So maybe it's time for a recap of all the books that we now know are not correct. I've included authors where I thought they might not be blindingly obvious:
Ender's Game
Neuromancer
Starship Troopers
Dune
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Dragonriders of Pern
Fahrenheit 451
any of Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Darkover" books
The Infinity Link by Jeffrey A. Carver
The Earthsea Trilogy
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Mote in God's Eye
The Puppet Masters
Little Fuzzy
Ringworld
Dhalgren
Foundation
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Nine Princes in Amber
1984
Lord of Light
The Stars My Destination
Slan
All My Sins Remembered
A Canticle for Leibowitz
The Martian Chronicles
Day of the Triffids
More Than Human
Childhood's End
The Time Machine
The Inheritors by William Golding
The Anubis Gates
The Female Man
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Flowers for Algernon
A Case of Conscience
Mission of Gravity
The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny
Norstrilia
The Midwich Cuckoos
The Dispossessed
The Sirens of Titan
The Space Merchants
The Crystal World
The End of Eternity
The Birth of the People's Republic of America by John Calvin Bachelor
Oath of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Pavane by Keith Roberts

Again, what we know about this book:

• A SFBC member bought it from the club 20-25 years ago, but did not read it then.
• Recently said member tried to read this book, and found it "a disgrace to science fiction."
• Said member then burned the book around the edges, and sent it to me.
• Oh, and the member also said "[m]ost of the people in the book are the exact opposite of people in most science fiction stories."
• It's a pretty famous SF book.
• It is notably older than 20-25 years.
• It is not as world-famous as Dune.
• The book is listed in David Pringle's Science Fiction: 100 Best Novels
• The book is the author's only major SF novel, though he (another hint) wrote other things.

Please note, given that last hint, that both A Canticle for Leibowitz and Norstrilia have already been guessed. (As has 1984.)

Your Fabulous Selection of Prizes!

The First Antick Musings Contest (see immediately below; particularly the comments) continues at a frantic pace, with sixteen worthy titles having been guessed but, sadly, all incorrectly.

I'll have to look around some more to see if I have anything that isn't a book-shaped object that could be part of the prize, but here are the promised selection of ARCs, from which the winner can choose some number I haven't decided on yet:

• Starwater Strains by Gene Wolfe
• Eternity and Other Stories by Lucius Shepard
• It's Superman! by Tom De Haven
• A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
• The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt
• The Silver Bough by Lisa Tuttle
• The House of Storms by Ian R. MacLeod
• Vellum (US edition) by Hal Duncan

And there are about the same number of fabulous SFBC editions that can also be included in the lucky winner's prize.

Please keep guessing; I've got one more major clue that I'll trot out sometime tomorrow evening if no one has guessed correctly by then.

Angry Customers

I just opened a package that contained a typewritten note and a half-burned book.

The letter reads:

I am returning a book which I purchased from you about 20 or 25 years ago. I am now returning it. I don't expect a refund for it after all this time. I'm only returning to let you know that I hate the book. a disgrace to science fiction. Most of the people in the book are the exact opposite of people in most science fiction stories. It shouldn't be classified as science fiction. It should be classified as fantasy or adventure instead. Maybe it should be classified as childrens literature. If it's still included in the Book Club selections, I suggest that you remove it.

You probably notice that the book is in a damaged and charred condition. That's because I tried to burn it before mailing to you. It might be a good idea for most science fictions who have the book to do the same, assuming that they feel the same way I do about it.

OK, it's time for the very first Antick Musings Contest! Guess which book got this person so incensed, and win something cool. (I'm still figuring out what, exactly, the prize will be, but I can include a selection of SFBC original anthologies, like Between Worlds and The Fair Folk; books I edited like Off the Main Sequence by Heinlein and Black Seas of Infinity by Lovecraft; and whatever I have on my random stack of discarded galleys and whatnot at home. I think I have a numbered bound galley of Knife of Dreams, if anyone wants that.)

Your clues:

• The book in question was sold by the SFBC.
• The book is at least 20 years old.
• I believe that most SF readers would not agree with this person's assessment of this book.

The prize: at least a couple of books, and I'll probably let the lucky winner choose the specifics.

The deadline is five o'clock (Eastern Daylight Time) Monday. I may post more clues if no one is close. C'mon, folks, I want to give stuff away, so start guessing!