Let’s solve a SF acrostic from the July 1975 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction together! Put your answers in the comments. Here is a link to the original. Prove your SFF knowledge 1975 style! (hah)
I’ll get us started. Depending on the level of participation, I’ll update the document as we go.
O. Author of Commune 2000 A.D. = Mack Reynolds
U. He had a rendezvous with a Nebula = Arthur
EDIT: The puzzle has been updated 12/16 (10:28 EST)
EDIT 2: A reader and participant completed the entire puzzle here! Thanks everyone for participating! They also identified errors that the puzzle creator made — they spelled Doris Piserchia’s name as Pischeria (yikes!).
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations 
V. Author of Star Rider = Piserchia
Thanks for participating.
Once we get a few more answers from other participants (if people want to participate), I’ll add the answers to the document.
She’s quite the original author!
C. Blish
I. Easter
K. Kornbluth
N You’re
T. Wooden
V. Pieschera
Thanks for participating!
I need to update the document tomorrow morning.
Ah, I had no idea Blish wrote SF lit crit under a pseudonym…. have you read any of it?
He has two books The Issue at Hand and More Issues at Hand. I have both and like them, but I am an admirer of Blish.
I am very confused about T. You’re absolutely eight about it being the Tenn collection by that name. But 136 is “S” as well according to the last letter in the O answer (Mack Reynolds). Maybe there is a puzzle error… ?
Oh! And
N. _____ All Alone = You’re
One of the more underrated fritz leiber novellas!
I haven’t read that one — yet. What is it about?
Kind of a proto-PKD gnostic horror. Protagonist finds himself thrown out of the pattern of life and is hunted by others who also exist outside the pattern.
Sounds great. I’ve reviewed a few stories of his here and there in various anthologies on the site — and his collection A Pail of Air (1964)
https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2013/09/23/book-review-a-pail-of-air-fritz-leiber-1964/
In the A Pail of Air collection I loved the title story, “Coming Attraction” (1950), “The 64-Square Madhouse” (1962), and “The Foxholes of Mars” (1952)
If you’re a fan of Leiber and haven’t read it, it might be worth tracking down. Really solid overall.
L. Imaginary Line on Earth and In Space = Ecliptic
could be wrong but it fits
That’s Mack Reynolds, not Mark.
Good eye. Thank you. My brain… slowly imploding as final grade submission deadlines approach and I have to develop eLearning versions of final exams. I’ll fix it when I update the document tomorrow morning.
sorry to be the token pedant. thought you’d want to know in any case.
Of course! I wanna solve it collectively — hah.
One more guess for tonight,
E. Dating
Willard Libby won a nobel prize for developing carbon dating
Thanks! I’ve updated the sheet with everyone’s answers as of 15 min ago.
I assume H is hoax.
Thanks for participating! What even is the Piltdown Man?
A faked up skeleton meant to be a forerunner of H. Sapiens. Took years for it to be debunked as a fraud.
Oops! I see this is redundant.
C: Blish
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
I: EasterAnd it’s 2050 A. D., not 200!
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
Good eye — it’s fixed! I think it’s 2000 A.D.
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?5977
Yeah, I misread it and thought of Revolt in 2050 A.D.
No worries. Mayor Amalfi in the comments solved the entire puzzle if you’re curious — I posted a picture to a link (they printed it out) as an edit in the post.
V: Piserchia
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
I find her work very interesting. Are you a fan?
S. Sturgeon.
Hello Andrew, I hope you are well — it’s been a while since I’ve heard from you.
H. Wasn’t the Piltdown man a “HOAX?”
Added! What even is the Piltdown Man?
“The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological fraud in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. Although there were doubts about its authenticity virtually from the beginning, the remains were still broadly accepted for many years, and the falsity of the hoax was only definitively demonstrated in 1953. An extensive scientific review in 2016 established that amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson was its likely perpetrator.” (Wikipedia)
Sounds like Charles Dawson had dreams of being the new Charles Darwin.
S. Author of adaptation of Voyage… is Sturgeon
Thanks for participating! I’ve updated the document (as of 10:30 EST 12/16)
U. works out to be “Arthur”, not “Clarke”
J. is “comets”
B. is a word I’ve never seen before, but I won’t spoil it for you yet.
Ah, so you’ve figured out B? Let me know!
The author is Robert Sheckley and the work is Mind Swap so that gives the first letters of all the clues – figured it out because the work ends in “swap”
Link to the solved puzzle https://i.imgur.com/xfKnnWb.jpg
Nooooo! hah. I’m going to try to solve it together first before cheating.
No cheating, I filled it out
No worries. I’ve set up my site to automatically flag links so that I have to manually approve them — after numerous instances of links I did not want….
Answers already given here to E and L are wrong. The puzzle author spelled the name wrong in V
Answers already given to E and L are wrong. The puzzle author spelled the name wrong in V
I’ll go through later tonight or tomorrow morning and make edits. Thank you for participating. I hope you had fun solving the entire puzzle.
Thanks for posting the puzzle.
No problem.
I found it as I was recently browsing some issues of the magazine looking for Phyllis MacLennan stories — I reviewed three here (with links to the stories).
https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2020/11/14/short-story-reviews-phyllis-maclennans-a-contract-in-karasthan-1963-thus-love-betrays-us-1972-and-good-by-miss-patterson-1972/
Link to the solved puzzle here. It keeps vanishing, I guess because it’s a link “i.imgur.com/xfKnnWb dot jpg” preface it with h t t p s : / /