The Museum's Library & Archives actively collects published works by local authors and is always eager to add to our repertoire. We recently added three books by Wilson Tucker (1914-2006) to the Library stacks.
Born in Deer Creek, Illinois, Arthur Wilson "Bob" Tucker (1914-2006) was a movie projectionist and author who worked and lived in Bloomington for most of his life. He became a well-known writer of science fiction, mystery, and action-adventure -- often writing for Fanzines under the name Bob Tucker. From 1938 to 2001, he published the fanzine Le Zombie, which had over 60 issues and was later revived as a webzine.
Tucker has an already established collection in the Library & Archives that includes the first paperback edition of The Time Masters from Signet in 1954 and a later "revised and rewritten" paperback edition (Lancer, 1971). We also have two versions of The Time Masters from sci-fi pulp magazines* that are rather interesting.
The novel was reprinted in the January 1954 Startling Stories, an international publication, and then serialized in three issues of New Worlds Science Fiction (September-November 1955), which we recently accessioned. We are still on the look out for a hardback, first edition of Time Masters (Rinehart, 1953) to complete the collection.
*"Pulps" were magazines printed beginning in the late 19th century and into the later half of the 20th century as an economical printing method due to the affordability of wood pulp paper.