Battered Silicon Dispatch Box

Last updated

The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box (BSDB) is an independent, Canadian literary publisher, founded in 1993 by George A. Vanderburgh. Based in Shelburne, Ontario, and in Sauk City, Wisconsin, the company is headed by George Vanderburgh.

The press initially specialized in the writings about Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with the motto "The Sherlockian publisher of first and last resort." Since then the imprint has focused on detective fiction from the Golden Age, as well as pulp fiction serial characters from the 20th century in the series "The Lost Treasures from the Pulps". The press also specializes in new and otherwise out-of-print books by Canadian authors. BSDB has issued books under several logos, including The Other Door, Artemesia House, Mycroft & Moran, Hawk and Whippoorwill and The August Derleth Society.

The BSDB published over 425 titles in its first decade and a half. New titles are added regularly. The press is governed by an editorial board known as "The Sacred Six", whose membership consists of Robert Weinberg, Illinois; Garyn Roberts, Michigan; Randy Vanderbeek, Michigan; Rodney Schroeter, Wisconsin; John Robert Colombo, Toronto; and George Vanderburgh, Shelburne, Ontario.

Their book I Have an Idea for a Book... The Bibliography of Martin H. Greenberg was nominated for the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Related Work. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">August Derleth</span> American writer

August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the cosmic horror genre, as well as his founding of the publisher Arkham House, Derleth was a leading American regional writer of his day, as well as prolific in several other genres, including historical fiction, poetry, detective fiction, science fiction, and biography.

Pulp magazines were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges.

Arkham House is an American publishing house specializing in weird fiction. It was founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin, in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to publish hardcover collections of H. P. Lovecraft's best works, which had previously been published only in pulp magazines. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham, Massachusetts. Arkham House editions are noted for the quality of their printing and binding. The colophon for Arkham House was designed by Frank Utpatel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seabury Quinn</span> American lawyer, journalist, and author

Seabury Grandin Quinn was an American government lawyer, journalist, and pulp magazine author, most famous for his stories of the occult detective Jules de Grandin, published in Weird Tales.

Barry Edward Dempster is a Canadian poet, novelist, and editor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert J. Sawyer</span> Canadian science fiction writer (born 1960)

Robert James Sawyer is a Canadian science fiction writer. He has had 24 novels published and his short fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Amazing Stories, On Spec, Nature, and numerous anthologies. He has won many writing awards, including the best-novel Nebula Award (1995), the best-novel Hugo Award (2003), the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (2006), the Robert A. Heinlein Award (2017), and more Aurora Awards than anyone else in history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Science fiction magazine</span> Publication that offers primarily science fiction

A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard-copy periodical format or on the Internet. Science fiction magazines traditionally featured speculative fiction in short story, novelette, novella or novel form, a format that continues into the present day. Many also contain editorials, book reviews or articles, and some also include stories in the fantasy and horror genres.

Martin Harry Greenberg was an American academic and anthologist in many genres, including mysteries and horror, but especially in speculative fiction. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned over 8,200 original short stories. He founded Tekno Books, a packager of more than 2000 published books. He was also a co-founder of the Sci-Fi Channel. Greenberg was also an expert in terrorism and the Middle East. He was a longtime friend, colleague and business partner of Isaac Asimov.

Dr. Richard Austin Freeman was a British writer of detective stories, mostly featuring the medico-legal forensic investigator Dr. Thorndyke. He invented the inverted detective story. This invention has been described as Freeman's most noticeable contribution to detective fiction. Freeman used some of his early experiences as a colonial surgeon in his novels. Many of the Dr. Thorndyke stories involve genuine, but sometimes arcane, points of scientific knowledge, from areas such as tropical medicine, metallurgy and toxicology.

Raymond Holmes Souster was a Canadian poet whose writing career spanned over 70 years. More than 50 volumes of his own poetry were published during his lifetime, and he edited or co-edited a dozen volumes of poetry by others. A resident of Toronto all of his life, he has been called that city's "most loved poet".

Robert Edward Weinberg was an American author, editor, publisher, and collector of science fiction. His work spans several genres including non-fiction, science fiction, horror, and comic books.

Dundurn Press is one of the largest Canadian-owned book publishing companies of adult and children's fiction and non-fiction. The company publishes Canadian literature, history, biography, politics and arts. Dundurn has about 2500 books in print, and averages around one hundred new titles each year. Dundurn Press was established in 1972 by Kirk Howard, In 2009, Dundurn forged a co-publishing partnership with the Ontario Genealogical Society, and in 2011, Dundurn purchased Napoleon & Company and Blue Butterfly Books. In 2013, Dundurn acquired Thomas Allen Publishers, the publishing branch of Thomas Allen & Son Limited. Thomas Allen & Son Limited is a Canadian book distributor, and remains Canada's oldest family-owned and operated distributor, having been in continuous operation for over 90 years. Dundurn Press authors include Lincoln Alexander, Linda McQuaig, Ted Barris, Michael Coren, Xue Yiwei, and Austin Clarke.

Everett Franklin Bleiler was an American editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" series of science fiction anthologies, and his Checklist of Fantastic Literature has been called "the foundation of modern SF bibliography". Among his other scholarly works are two Hugo Award–nominated volumes concerning early science fiction—Science-Fiction: The Early Years and Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years—and the massive Guide to Supernatural Fiction.

Charles Vincent Emerson Starrett, known as Vincent Starrett, was a Canadian-born American writer, newspaperman, and bibliophile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mycroft & Moran</span>

Mycroft & Moran was an imprint of Arkham House publishers and was created in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1945. The imprint was created to publish weird detective stories and the Solar Pons stories by August Derleth. Arkham retired the imprint in 1982, but has recently allowed it to be revived by another small press publisher.

<i>To the Stars</i> (novel) 1954 science fiction novel by L. Ron Hubbard

To the Stars is a science fiction novel by American writer L. Ron Hubbard. The novel's story is set in a dystopian future, and chronicles the experiences of protagonist Alan Corday aboard a starship called the Hound of Heaven as he copes with the travails of time dilation from traveling at near light speed. Corday is kidnapped by the ship's captain and forced to become a member of their crew, and when he next returns to Earth his fiancee has aged and barely remembers him. He becomes accustomed to life aboard the ship, and when the captain dies Corday assumes command.

Arsenal Pulp Press is a Canadian independent book publishing company, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company publishes a broad range of titles in both fiction and non-fiction, focusing primarily on underrepresented genres such as underground literature, LGBT literature, multiracial literature, graphic novels, visual arts, progressive and activist non-fiction and works in translation, and is noted for founding the annual Three-Day Novel Contest.

Kids Can Press is a Canadian-owned publisher of children's books, with a catalog near 1000 picture books and 500 e-books, non-fiction and fiction titles for toddlers to young adults. The Kids Can Press list includes characters such as Franklin the Turtle which has sold over 65 million books in over 30 languages around the world.

<i>The Dragnet Solar Pons et al.</i>

The Dragnet Solar Pons et al. is a collection of detective short stories by author August Derleth. It was released in 2011 by Battered Silicon Dispatch Box. It is a collection of Derleth's Solar Pons stories which are pastiches of the Sherlock Holmes tales of Arthur Conan Doyle.

James Moss Cardwell, who used the pen name Adobe James, was an American writer and educator.

References

  1. "2013 Hugo Awards". World Science Fiction Society. 22 December 2012. Archived from the original on 2015-09-06. Retrieved 2013-04-03.