I do not own many SF magazines from the 40s-70s.  The reasons are as follows: 1) Novels tended to be serialized which means I have to track down multiple magazines to read an entire novel.  2) The novels were often radically altered for their first book form publication (think, Herbert’s “Dune World” (1963) that later became Dune (1965).  Thus, I rather own the later novel form that wasn’t as constrained by the strictures of magazine form. 3) I love short story collections and would rather own the entire collection than read a singleton story.

However, while looking through the February 1966 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction I discovered that it contained late Jack Vance’s novelette “The Mountains of Magnatz,” part of his famous Dying Earth sequence of stories.   And unlike many of the other Dying Earth shorts it was NEVER republished in a later collection or anthology!

Thus, I am starting a post category of grouped short story reviews (3 or so each).  My guidelines are simple: 1) The story was not published in a later print English language collection (I am disregarding eBook grouped collections such as those of out of print shorts on Gutenberg etc). 2) No serialized works unless they were never republished in a single volume.  I might slip a bit — for example works like Zelazny’s “The Song of the Blue Baboon” (1968) was published only a few years ago and I probably won’t acquire a brand new collection.

Considering a have a mere six SF magazines (shocker, I know!)—Chris over at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed, & Creased has promised a shipment of some of his duplicate Analogs—these are the stories so far that fit the guidelines.

The Story Bank so Far (with additional magazines added 3/24/14)

Murray Leinster’s “Lord of the Uffts” (1964)

Bill Doede’s “Alpha, Beta, Love . . .” (1964)

Daniel Keyes’ “A Jury of Its Peers” (1963)

J. T. McIntosh’s “To the Stars” (1963)

Mack Reynolds’  “Last of a Noble Breed” (1965)

Jack Vance’s “The Mountains of Magnatz” (1966)

Damon Knight’s “The World and Thorinn” (1968)

H. L. Gold’s “The Riches of Embarrassment (1968)

Joseph P. Martino’s “Brain Drain” (1968)

Ross Rocklynne’s “Touch of the Moon” (1968)

Charles W. Runyon’s “The Youth Addicts” (1967)

H. H. Hollis’ “The Long, Slow Orbits” (1967)

Burt K. Filer’s “The Hole” (1967)

Roger Zelazny’s “The Song of the Blue Baboon” (1967)*

Karen Ripley’s “In Another Land” (1967)

E. G. Von Wald’s “Merlin Planet” (1967)

D. M. Melton’s “What the Old Aliens Left” (1967)

Larry Tritten’s “West is West” (1967)

Reginald Bretnor’s “The Gadge System” (1966)

Richard Winkler’s “An Afternoon in May” (1959)

D. K. Findlay’s “The Way Back” (1966)

Doris Pitkin Buck’s “Girls Will Be Girls” (1966)

Randall Garrett’s “Witness for the Persecution” (1966)

Michael Kurland’s “Please State My Business” (1965)

Alma Hill’s “Castles in Space” (1966)

E. Clayton McCarty’s “The Pretend Kind” (1966)

Garrett Brown’s “To Conquer Earth” (1966)

Robert F. Young’s “A Glass of Mars” (1965)

Robert Lory’s “Coming Out Part” (1965)

Emil Petaja’s “World of the Spectrum” (1965)

Fritz Leiber’s “Success” (1963) — in 2002 there was a limited run republication but I think it still is an unknown work by the great.

Kenneth Smith’s “With These Hands” (1963)

Calvin D. Demmon’s “Fred” (1963)

Reginald Bretnor’s “Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: LXIV” (1963)

T. P. Caravan’s “The Censors: A Sad Allegory” (1963)

Paul J. Robbins’ “Sweets to the Sweet” (1963)

Jeff Jones’ “Downfall” (1974)

Duncan Lunan’s “Derelict” (1974)

Sanford Zane Meschkow’s “Local Control” (1974)

Barry N. Malzberg’s “Upping the Planet” (1974)

F. M. Busby’s “What Was That?” (1974)

Dean McLaughlin’s “To Walk With Thunder” (1973)

Gerard F. Conway’s “The Once and Always War” (1973)

Paul David Novitski’s “The Wind Does She Fly” (1973)

Clark Cox’s “They Roar” (1973)

Geo. Alec Effinger’s “Hard Times” (1973)

John Haldeman’s “Two Men and a Rock” (1973) 3/5 (Average)

Betsy Curtis’s “Of Course” (1973)

William Rotsler’s “Seed” (1973)

Robert F. Young’s “Adventures of the Last Earthman in Search for Love” (1973)

Gordon Eklund’s “The Ascending Eye” (1973)

Douglas R. Mason’s “Link” (1973)

A. G. Moran’s “Close Your Eyes and Stare at Your Memories” (1973) 3/5 (Average)

William C. Johnston’s “Mere Anarchy” (1973)

Gerard F. Conway’s “Star Walk” (1973)

Reginald Bretnor’s “Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: LXV” (1963)

Herbert W. Franke’s “The Man Who Feared Robots” (1963)

Jack Sharkey’s “Collector’s Item” (1963)

Randall Garrett’s “Through Time and Space with Benedict Breadfruit: IV” (1962)

Randall Garrett’s “The Asses of Balaam” (1961)

Robert Thurston’s “Parker Frightened on a Tightrope” (1976)

Keith Taylor’s “The Forest of Andred” (1976)

My goal: discover lesser known and uncollected short stories of the famous SF authors (just from the above list: Zelazny, Vance, Knight, Garrett).  And, perhaps discover a few unknown authors whose works deserve to be collected in some anthology to garner a larger readership.  I expect there will be quite a few duds!

All the stories/authors will be listed under the Sci-Fi Short Story Review Index found on the right sidebar.

Thoughts?