Month: August 2022

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCVI (John Brunner, Phillip Mann, Shepherd Mead, and a Frederik Pohl anthology)

/ Joachim Boaz / 26 Comments

Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

I planned to have a review up today. Unfortunately, August is always my least productive month writing as it marks the return to work after a much needed summer break. It’s been a rough few weeks! Stay tuned.

1. The Squares of the City, John Brunner (1965)

  • Murray Tinkelman’s cover for the 1978 edition

From the back cover: CHECHMATE IN PARADISE. Ciudad de Vados was a Latin-American showplace, a paradise…a flourishing supercity designed and run nearly to perfection.

But not quite. They had a traffic problem.

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Short Story Reviews: Sherwood Springer’s “No Land of Nod” (1952) and Wallace West’s “Eddie For Short” (1953)

/ Joachim Boaz / 26 Comments
  • Virgil Finlay’s interior art for Sherwood Springer’s “No Land of Nod” in Thrilling Wonder Stories, ed. Samuel Mines (December 1952)

In the March 1955 issue of John Brunner’s fanzine Noise Level, the young author listed a handful of “thematically edgy stories”–including Sherwood Springer’s “No Land of Nod” (1952), Theodore Sturgeon’s “The World Well Lost” (1953), and Lester del Rey’s “For I am A Jealous People (1954)–that he considered a “step forward” in the field [1]. The previous year he had praised elements of Philip José Farmer’s “The Lovers” (1952) in a fan letter to Startling Stories. According to Jad Smith, the stories feature “lived-in, morally ambiguous backgrounds much noisier and dynamic than the two-dimensional backdrops of more conventional fare” that appealed to Brunner’s embryonic views on genre [2]. Brunner viewed social change as a “messy and unpredictable process riddled with moral complexities” [3].

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Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCV (William Golding, John Wyndham, Mervyn Peake, Joan D. Vinge, Ralph Blum, and an anthology)

/ Joachim Boaz / 45 Comments

Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. 5 Tales From Tomorrow, ed. T. E. Dikty (1957)

  • Richard Powers’ cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: “THE TIME: TOMORROW… when

…space travel is as simple as suburban commuting

…robots do everything from washing dishes to waging wars

…do-it-yourself surgery kits are as common as Band-aids

…giant electronic brains mastermind all human activity

THE PLACE: SPACE SPACE SPACE

where the cold, dark islands of abandoned planets drift in a fabulous universe flooded with blazing energy, the dust of old suns and the heat of smoldering new stars.

Space–the promise of new life to a crowded earth–the new frontier–the hope of tomorrow!”

Contents: Bud Foote’s “Push-Button Passion” (1954), Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations” (1954), Clifford D. Simak’s “How-2” (1954), Robert Abernathy’s “Deep Space” (1954), Everett B. Cole’s “Exile” (1954)

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Future Media Short Story Review: John Brunner’s “Fair” (1956)

/ Joachim Boaz / 72 Comments

Today I’ve reviewed the seventeenth story in my series on the science fictional media landscape of the future. John Brunner explores how total immersion media, one organ in a vast futuristic fair designed to satiate the masses, can transform fear within the broken.

Previously: John D. MacDonald’s “Spectator Sport” (February 1950).

Up Next: C. M. Kornbluth’s “The Advent on Channel Twelve” (1958) and Alice Eleanor Jones’ “The Happy Clown” (December 1955).

  • Terry Maloney’s cover for New Worlds Science Fiction, ed. John Carnell (March 1956)

4.5/5 (Very Good)

John Brunner’s “Fair” first appeared in New Worlds Science Fiction, ed. John Carnell (March 1956) under the pseudonym Keith Woodcott. You can read it online here. It also appeared in his first collection No Future In It (1962).

I recently devoured Jad Smith’s short monograph John Brunner (2012) in the Modern Masters of Science Fiction series for Illinois University Press. Not only did the book rekindle my desire to tackle more of Brunner’s short fiction but I also bought copies of The Squares of the City (1965) and Quicksand (1967). I might even reread The Shockwave Rider (1975) in the near future. If you are at all interested in John Brunner’s science fiction I recommend acquiring a copy.

Smith identifies “Fair” (1956) as Brunner’s “finest achievement during this [early] period” (Smith 28). I’d rank it right under his spectacular generation ship short story “Lungfish” (1957). As with many of Brunner’s best works, “Fair” had a contested publication history–in this instance John Carnell only accepted it under the pseudonym “Keith Woodcott” to “fill out an issue” (Smith 29). The identity of the consummate wordsmith didn’t last long as Carnell accidentally revealed his identity in next issue when the story came in second in the reader’s poll!

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Short Story Review: Philip José Farmer’s “The Lovers” (1952)

/ Joachim Boaz / 28 Comments
  • Earle Bergey’s cover for Startling Stories, ed. Samuel Mines (August 1952)

3.5/5 (Good)

Preliminary note: This is a review of the original 1952 novella. You can read it online here. Philip José Farmer published a novelization in 1961. While the novel was frequently republished, the original novella was not anthologized until 2003 (bibliography). I am in half a mind to read the 1961 version and analyze the changes!

This is a review that I wish I didn’t have to provide a rating as my lukewarm response to the story might obfuscate my fascination with its thematic contents and larger historical context. Philip José Farmer’s novella “The Lovers” (1952) is, without doubt, historically important for the development of the SF genre as it introduced a transgressive mix of sex (mostly implied), unusual xenobiology, and colonial critique. It shocked and fascinated readers at the time. In a letter published in the September issue of Startling Stories, Farmer himself predicted the “Reverberations from THE LOVERS should be really bouncing” later in the year (136). And he was right!

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