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Ace is the Place for Double Sci Fi
For a guy who never finished high school, my Dad was a tremendous reader. He'd be watching the White Sox on TV with a quart of Drewrys beer, a lit Pall Mall, and a book open in his lap, attention on the printed page during commercials. Wide-ranging in his genre tastes, Dad was fond of the science fiction of Andre Norton. And he was a avid lover of the Ace series of double paperbacks. According to AbeBooks:"One of Ace’s biggest coups was the Ace Doubles series. These paperbacks contained two different novels that were bound together in the dos-a-dos style. Their strategy was to pair a famous writer with a lesser known one and constantly introduce readers to new literary talent. While Ace did not invent this concept, they did popularize it, and it became a fantastic marketing tool that benefited both the publisher and readers for many years. Ace published several hundred Ace Doubles in the dos-a-dos format between 1952 and 1973, and many science fiction fans have built collections around these eye-catching paperbacks."
They were basically novellas, but it was really cool to flip one over and see brand new cover art and a different story. That said, I have two novellas from my frenzy of 2013 writing. Since both stories involve hapless travelers set upon by monsters, my wife suggested they'd make a great single edition. I immediately thought of Ace Doubles. These two stories are an Ace Double. But I gather it's a production pain since you have to commission two covers and arrange the text in a just-so manner.
Maybe I can't swing a double, but the two tales of a mysterious, dangerous, wider world are what I shall write next.
A most Merry Christmas!