But the copyright page info somehow disturbs me. It covers the original serialization in Analog, then prints "Copyright (c) 1962, 1963 by H. Beam Piper."

Only the 1970s Ace edition, which I dug out for comparison, says "Copyright (c) 1963 by Ace Books."

So who holds the copyright? Piper's estate, or somebody else? Or did Space Viking lapse into public domain at some point?

The story, as I recall it, goes like this. H. Beam Piper died in 1964. Sometime later, but by the mid-seventies, Ace Books, which had published several Piper books, bought the estate outright. Up through the mid-to-late eighties at least, they reprinted numerous Piper volumes, including some previously-unpublished manuscripts.

This new edition of Space Viking is from Cosmos Books, an imprint of Dorchester Publishing Company. I don't know if it's affiliated with Ace Books in any way---I haven't got a recent release to check their own info. It further mentions that it's "in collaboration with Wildside Press LLC." That stirs a vague memory but not enough info to type up here.

So has there been some agreement between publishers? Or did Space Viking just at some point fall into the public domain, and anybody can reprint it now? Are any of Piper's other books scheduled for reprinting?

(Further muddying the water---an error in a planetary name in all previous editions, including the Analog serialization (I bought those issues to read it there---that's how devoted to this work I am), has been corrected here. By whose authority?)

I just, yesterday and today, read a biography of H. Beam Piper---a strange production in some ways, but, likely, the only one I'll ever see.

There's a statement in the forward, that states unequivocally, that in 2006, all of Piper's work except his last three novels have lapsed into public domain. No further explanation. I don't know the ins-and-outs of the copyright issues, but I believe that these last three works are posthumous productions and therefore the copyright is held by someone else.