A selection of science fiction novels from my shelves
I hope you’ve gotten off to a great reading start to 2024! What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading this month?
If you’re new and curious about my rationale for the perimeters of my site, check out this recent interview and podcast. And follow me on Mastodon if you don’t already as I no longer post on my Twitter account. Also make sure to check out the previous installment of this monthly column
And, most importantly, let me know what pre-1985 SF you’ve been reading!
The Photograph (with links to reviews and brief thoughts)
- Adrian Mitchell’s The Bodyguard (1970) might be one of the oddest dystopias ever written.
- Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1976) is a fascinating peek into her vast oeuvre of disquieting visions. While I read it before I started my site, a friend reviewed it for my guest post series on Wilhelm’s fiction. As I recently covered Wilhelm’s far lesser known anti-Vietnam War novel The Killing Thing (1967), her work was on my mind.
- M. John Harrison is rightly famous for his Viriconium Nights sequence: The Pastel City (1971), A Storm of Wings (1980), and In Viriconium (1982). If you enjoyed them, I highly recommend tracking down his first novel — The Committed Men (1971). From my review: “Possessed by destructive melancholy, the inhabitants of a post-apocalyptical UK–where political powers have sunk into oblivion–attempt to recreate a semblance of normalcy. Clement St John Wendover, teeth long since rotted, still administers to the skin diseases and ailments of his one-time patients although he cannot cure them. […] Gathering together a troop of “committed men” (and a woman!), Wendover sets off across the corroded landscape with a newborn mutant child: a new species for an altered Earth or an accidental abnormality….”
- I recently covered a Barrington J. Bayley short story in my cities of the future series and it reminded me of his most extreme moments of off-the-wall invention — The Garments of Caean (1976) immediately came to mind.
What am I writing about?
I recently finished my review article (it has lots of footnotes!) on Kate Wilhelm’s anti-Vietnam War allegory The Killer Thing (1967). Scholarship on the Vietnam War utterly ignores her novel. I’m proud of my review! I’m currently writing more short story reviews to celebrate three SF authors who recently passed away.
What am I reading?
I picked up a John Brunner novel! I’m devouring it. If everything goes to plan, I should have a review up next weekend. I started off 2024 on a history of science fiction reading bender. Three volumes down so far. I finished John Rieder’s thought-provoking Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction (2008) last night.
A Curated List of SF Birthdays from the Last Two Weeks
Jan. 6th: Author Eric Frank Russell (1905-1978). I have his collection of Jay Score / Marathon short stories Men, Martians and Machines (1955) on the slate for 2024.
Jan. 7th: Author Harvey Jacobs (1930-2017). I hope Jacobs wrote another satire as high-quality as “Gravity” (1969). Still looking.
Boris Vallejo’s cover for the 1st edition of Frederik Pohl’s Gateway (1977)
Jan. 8th: Artist Boris Vallejo (1941-): Everyone knows his work, right?
Jan. 9th: Author Karel Čapek (1890-1938). Best known for War with the Newts (1936, trans. 1955) and R.U.R (1920., trans. 1923), which introduced the world to the word “robot.” I’ve been meaning to read both.
Jan. 9th: Author Algis Budrys (1931-2008). I’ve written quite a bit about his work on the site over the years. Check out my short review of Rogue Moon (1960) , “Forever Stenn” (variant title: “The Ridge Around the World” (1957), and Budrys’ Inferno (variant title: The Furious Future) (1963).
Jan. 9th: Author Walt Sheldon (1917-1996). One of a legion of magazine “filler” authors I’ve never read. Write anything memorable?
Jeffrey Catherine Jones’ art for the July 1978 issue of Galileo
Jan. 10th: Pioneering artist Jeffrey Catherine Jones (1944-2011) was born on this day.
Jan. 10th: Author George Alec Effinger (1947-2002). One of my favorite SF authors — in particular, check out my reviews of What Entropy Means to Me (1972) and “Biting Down Hard on Truth” (1974).
Jan. 11th: Author Robert Presslie (1920-2000).
Jan. 11th: Author Jerome Bixby (1923-1998).
Jan. 12th: Author Jack London (1876-1916).
Jan. 13th: Author Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961). Smith’s “Master of the Asteroid” (1932) ranked among my top 20 short stories I read in 2023.
Jan. 13th: Author Ron Goulart (1933-2022). For my views on Goulart’s satire, check out After Things Fell Apart (1970).
Jan. 13th: Jody Scott (1923-2007).
Jan. 13th: Prolific editor and occasional author Roger Elwood (1943-2007).
Jan. 13th: Author P. J. Plauger (1944-). An unknown to me. I acquired Fighting Madness (1976) a few years back but have yet to read it.
Jan. 13th: Artist George Barr (1937-).
Jan. 13th: Artist Peter Elson (1947-1998).
Jan. 14th: Author Kenneth Bulmer (1921-2005).
Jan. 14th: Author David Redd (1946-). I’ve read one of his short stories — “Sundown” (1967).
Jan. 14th: Author Joseph Green (1931-).
Jan. 14th: Author Arthur Byron Cover (1950-). I struggle immensely with his fiction: “A Gross Love Story” (1974), “Gee, Isn’t He the Cutest Little Thing?” (1973), and “Message of Joy” (1974).
Jan. 15th: Author Robert Silverberg (1935-). An absolute favorite of mine! I’ve reviewed 46 of his short stories and twelve of his novels. I’ve also read but never reviewed A Time of Changes (1971) and Tower of Glass (1970). The Man in the Maze (1969) and The Second Trip (serialized: 1971) might be his most underrated novels.
Jan. 16th: Author Nevil Shute (1899-1960). I recently learned that President Eisenhower held a cabinet meeting to figure out how to prevent the popularity of the film adaptation of his iconic novel On the Beach (1959). Stephen Dedman in May the Armed Forces Be with You: The Relationship Between Science Fiction and the United States Military (2016) discusses it.
Jan. 16th: Author Paul O. Williams (1935-2009).
Jan. 18th: Influential early feminist SF author Clare Winger Harris (1891-1968). The first woman to get her start in pulp SF magazines under her own name.
Jan. 18th: Artist Albert Nuetzell (1901-1969).
Eddie Jones’ cover art for the 1976 1st German edition of Edward E. “Doc” Smith’s Skylark of Space (1948)
Jan. 18th: Artist Eddie Jones (1935-1999). A British artist who contributed an immense number of covers for German SF presses.
Jan. 18th: Author Rhoda Lerman (1936-2015)
Jan. 19th: Author Margot Bennett (1912-1980). I recently acquired Bennett’s The Long Way Back (1954).
Jan. 19th: Artist Victor Kalin (1919-1991).
Jan. 20th: Author Louis Charbonneau (1924-2017). Did not care for Down to the Earth (variant title: Antic Earth) (1967).
Jan. 20th: Author Nancy Kress (1948-). Another one of my favorites! “Talp Hunt” (1982) is a killer of a short story. I also reviewed her first three published short stories–“The Earth Dwellers” (1976), “A Delicate Shape of Kipney” (1978), and “And Whether Pigs Have Wings” (1979).
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations 
The Russell I’d recommend is The Best of Eric Frank Russell, part of Ballantine/Del Rey’s exemplary series. I very nearly read their Best of for Gallun except I’ve had a short story heavy week already. On that note, I tackled the venerable Bordertown shared universe series and learned something new about it in the process.
I’ve only read Russell’s The Great Explosion (1962). It was fine… wasn’t blown away.
It seemed like the sort of fix up one would get from one memorable story and a bunch of unnecessary related short stories.
That was indeed the dominate feel of the work.
Making my way through Pangborn’s “Davy” (thx to your review) and Vizenor’s “Bearheart”. I’m not finished with the latter yet but would revise my prior impression likening it to Hoban’s “Riddley Walker”, if the writing style and themes remind me of anything its closer to William S. Burroughs; characterization and plot are of no consequence, this is a picaresque travelogue that is heavy on native american imagery/mythos, allegory, and satire, and also a surprising amount of explicit sex of all varieties (hetero, homo, bestiality, incest, I’m pretty confident pedophilia will make an appearance at some point). The prose is sometimes flatly descriptive and other times poetic, its a strange mix. I have the revised edition w material added in the 90s and am curious where the additions/revisions are.
Also have a Ballard (“The Unlimited Dream Company”) and Silverberg (“The Man in the Maze”) on deck, neither of which I’ve read before.
I hope you’re enjoying Davy!
I also wonder what was changed in the 90s version. I am happy I found a copy of the 70s 1st edition though… never been a huge fan of authors revising or rewriting their earlier work. Sometimes it was purely financial of course — Brunner’s rewrites and restored editions of his 50s/60s novels in the 70s directly tied to his financial worries.
I am, of course, a huge fan of The Man in the Maze as well.
I am enjoying “Davy”. I feel like it succeeds almost purely on the strength of the writing and the narrative voice/approach, which strikes me as rather unusual for the era. Its not like he’s packed the story full of challenging ideas or tension/drama; the plot doesnt even really follow a specific conflict, it just gradually fills in details. Very interesting book.
As I hope my review made clear, its challenging and original ideas relate to how it ruminations on the nature of storytelling and the operations of memory. But yeah, there isn’t much plot.
My current pre-1985 SF reading is a set of stories by F. L. Wallace, following on to my recent reading of his only novel, ADDRESS: CENTAURI. (The stories are, by and large, somewhat better than that novel.)
Michael Arlen’s HELL! SAID THE DUCHESS, is an uneven but sometimes effective mix of near future (as of its publication) satirical SF and Gothic horror. I reviewed it a couple of weeks ago.
Not sure what my next pre-1985 reading will be — I’ve been on a kick catching up with some English women writers (pre-1985, anyway!) — D. E. Stevenson, Ruby Ferguson, Barbara Comyns, A. S. Byatt. (Also some post-1985 stuff by an American (Karen Joy Fowler) and a Canadian-American (Rivka Galchen). Both of those writers are sort of SF-adjacent (that is, Fowler is definitely an SF writer in her short fiction but her novels usually aren’t or are ambiguously so.))
I really liked several of the Barrington Bayley novels I’ve read, but somehow have never gotten to THE GARMENTS OF CAEAN. I’m told it’s one of his best.
I’ve read a couple of Clare Winger Harris’ early stories and they hold up quite well.
As for P. J. Plauger — he’s definitely worth reading, especially his early stories. He didn’t really stick with SF writing — he’s very famous in the Computer Science world (i.e., my day job world, sort of), especially for his ELEMENTS OF PROGRAMMING STYLE (written with Brian Kernighan.) But pretty much all the fiction he wrote between 1973 and 1976 is worth a look.
I don’t think I’ve read anything by Wallace. As I somewhat dismissively described another prolific (at least in the 50s) short fiction author, there are so many of the “magazine filler” writers that I simply have not read. And I always wonder if one of their many 50s short fictions are secretly really good. I’ve never been much for reading a magazine cover to cover but I imagine that would be the way to go…. Something like the 50s run of Galaxy or something would be a worthwhile experience.
I’ve never heard of Michael Arlen.
I have a signed collection of Karen Joy Fowler’s SF stories — Artificial Things (1986). I’ve been meaning to read it forever… the problem with 1.5k unread SF books is that I’ve been “meaning to read” a good 700 of them!
FL Wallace recently had one of his short stories (“Student Body”) published in Jeff Vandermeer’s Big Book of Science Fiction.
It seems as if Vandermeer chose a few mostly forgotten science fiction writers in order to promote their rediscovery, which I believe may have been his intent by including a Wallace short story.
Vandermeer tended to select from the more literary end of the genre’s spectrum, so Wallace was not a name a reader would otherwise expect to find in the anthology.
I believe I’ve only read one other piece of fiction by Wallace (I can’t even remember it), but if you wanted to sample something by Wallace, “Student Body” was given approval by a luminary such as Vandermeer. If you dislike that story, it may show how you’d feel about the gamut of his fiction.
Thank you for the heads up. Looking at the isfdb.org entry reveals that “Student Body” is certainly his most anthologized work, that’s for sure… “Delay in Transit” is close behind.
“End As a World” (1955), a finalist for the Hugo, sounds like it has a fun premise: “The end of the world is coming, there are signposts everywhere. People seem to take that very matter-of-factly, and plan for good sightseeing spots.”
“Student Body” has an intriguing premise, and a fairly uncompromising resolution. The science is silly, but I suppose it’s OK in the context of what the story was trying to do. I think the premise, and the refusal to magically resolve the basic problem, are what appealed to Vander Meer. I think it’s one of Wallace’s better stories.
“End as a World” might be my favorite, but I’m kind of a sucker for its theme. It does not go where you expect it to — on purpose, I have no doubt.
“End as a World” sounds like the one I’ll track down. I’ll put it on my “strange things to check out” list.
Karen Joy Fowler is a wonderful writer, and Artificial Things is a great collection. (The title is taken from the title of one of the stories — “The Lake was Full of Artificial Things” — and that title is taken from Wallace Stevens’ remarkable long poem “Notes Toward the Supreme Fiction”. I’m always well-disposed to stories with titles taken from Stevens! (Probably my favorite American poet.))
As for Michael Arlen, he was a spectacularly successful writer (commercially) in the 1920s. Now only THE GREEN HAT is much remembered. THE GREEN HAT, by the way, is mentioned as a key plot point in Joanna Russ’s great story “The Second Inquisition”.
I wrote about Arlen’s SF novel MAN’S MORTALITY for F&SF.
I plot pointed I clearly missed — alas.
I look forward to Fowler’s collection. Maybe your comments will remind me of her work when the whim hits to…. and my eyes rest on it for a moment in the hunt for what to read next.
Currently reading “Burning Chrome” which is full of pre-85 stores including the influential “Gernsback Continuum” which is also the inspiration for the short film, “Tomorrow Calling.” I’m really enjoying it. About half done.
I must have read Burning Chrome in 2003 or so. I was on a Gibson kick at the time — back when I read newer SF. I’ve read Virtual Light (1993), Idoru (1996), All Tomorrow’s Parties (1999), Neuromancer (1984) (of course), Count Zero (1986), and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988).
I’m reading Fritz Lieber’s The Big Time. Not quite how I remember it, but still good.
I have fond memories when I read it in my late teens. I thought it had a bizarre and original premise and at the time it reminded me of a play. I’m unsure what I would think of it now. That said, my view of Leiber has only increased over the years after devouring stories like “A Bad Day for Sales” (1953), “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” (1949), and, most recently, “The Moon is Green” (1952).
Unfortunately, after I read The Big Time I read the Hugo-winning The Wanderer expecting it to be just as good…. I was sorely disappointed.
I’m almost finished with The Big Time and still enjoying it; finally getting to parts of it that I remember from when I read it as a teenager. I agree about The Wanderer, haven’t reread it but recall it as being too long for a Lieber and too goofy for the premise.
Let’s just say Leiber is capable of far far far better than The Wanderer…
I revisited The Wanderer a couple years ago, for the first time since I was in my teens, and I was really surprised by how much I disliked it … that squabbling ship-of-fools cast scrabbling uphill and down in the canyons … maybe the end of civilization’s a good thing?
Yeah, it’s downright terrible.
I reviewed the novel that should have won the Hugo that year — the infinitely better Davy (1964) by Edgar Pangborn. Unfortunately, if you look through the comments of my post, you’ll learn that it was released in hardback only that year and not a lot of people bought it and thus it wasn’t as widely read as the Leiber before nomination season…. A lot of time what gets on the ballot is influenced by other factors (this year in Hugos is a case in point if you’ve been following the drama).
Currently dipping into Here Comes Civilization, vol. 2 of NESFA’s William Tenn omnibus. I really wish they’d maintained the original Ballantine groupings, which were well-paced for reading through; the thematic groupings might be “interesting” academically but dropping “Betelgeuse Bridge” immediately after “Bernie the Faust” e.g. diminishes them both. But that ear-perfect mid-century Jewish/Brooklynese/Pittsburghese gamut of narrative voices is just such a perfect nostalgia bath (so much of my live soundtrack when I read them in the early 70s!).
I read Thomas Burnett Swann’s Day of the Minotaur early in the month (as a come-down from Count Stenbock). Lyrical passages of description of the environment, wrapped around clutch-grindingly miserable dialog. Surprisingly sexual — our 16-year-old heroine survives an attempted rape by the invading Achaean general, only to move on to a Beauty and the Beast scenario, while her 14-year-old brother is seduced by the wiles of goodsex and badsex beast types. This would never win a Hugo today, even if it managed to see print from a mainline SF imprint! (Sadly, given that it’s a fairly transparent allegory of European Invaders Ruining Everything that would presumably play well.) I was afraid to even look at the Goodreads reviews when I was marking it completed.
Finally got round to ‘Greybeard’ the other day; have been meaning to read it for about 30 years. I’ve read a couple of Aldiss’ short stories but never one of his novels.
I enjoyed it and it made a change in a catastrophe novel not to see the group with the greatest firepower prevail. Nobody really had any significant firepower. Nobody really prevails. This may well be down to the decrepid state of many of the characters.
A book that reaches backwards – I was, curiously, reminded of ‘The Wind in the Willows’ and forwards – M John Harrison’s recent ‘Sunken Land’ came to mind at times. A prevailing sense of water in both instances, perhaps.
I read but never reviewed the Aldiss a few years back. Sometimes if I wait a few weeks I never get around to starting a review…
I enjoyed the focus on elderly main characters. Bishop would also do that to great effect in his masterpiece of a short story “Old Folks at Home” (1978).
I was not as enamored with it as I was with Hothouse, which I did manage to review.
Aldiss is one of those writers I put in the hands of the fates, or serendipidy or whatever, e.g. wait and see if his stuff turns up at secondhand bookshops. Now and then it does. Hothouse looks a good one.
A lot Bishop’s stuff is out of print and not that accessible in the UK, his SF Masterwork titles notwithstanding. I may give ‘No Enemy but Time’ a look this year and check periodically for his other stuff.
I guess you’ll have to buy used copies online then!
Favorite Bishop novels include the ORIGINAL version of A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975) and Stolen Faces (1977).
And Catacomb Years (1979) is a not-to-be-missed short story collection.
The thrill of the chase is almost as exciting as what it may yield.
Any Bishop chase is even more thrilling as I think many of the books you mention weren’t in print over here at all.
Cheers for the tips, I’m sure I’ll get round to him at some point. I did have his PKD novel at one point but got rid of it during one of my book culls.
Within your zone of interest, I’m reading —
[1] Or actually re-reading all of Tiptree/Sheldon’s short fiction, alongside finally reading the biography JAMES TIPTREE: THE DOUBLE LIFE OF ALICE SHELDON by Julie Phillips, pub. 2006.
It’s amazing how quickly and completely ‘Tiptree’s’ fiction dropped in quality once the ‘Tip’ male persona was outed as Sheldon. As that only begins to suggest, this was an intelligent person but seriously messed-up.
[2] THE SELECTED NONFICTION OF J.G BALLARD, which MIT Press brought out at the beginning of this year.
I highly recommend this book. It casts a far wider net than the previous Ballard nonfiction compendium, A USER’S GUIDE TO THE MILLENIUM from 1996, and also deliberately eschews a lot of the previously used material from that book, which was almost entirely book and, IIRC, film reviews.
And it can do that because there are plenty of reviews by Ballard that are fascinating and hadn’t been previously published in book form. And that’s because — and this gets forgotten — Ballard was a professional journalist (and copy editor and technical writer) for even longer than he was a fiction writer.
So, almost every week through the 1970s to the early 2000s, if you looked at the mainstays in the UK print media — the GUARDIAN, NEW STATESMAN, the SPECTATOR, TIMES, even UK VOGUE or whatever — some editor had said, ‘You know, Ballard could do a great job of reviewing this or finding something to say about that.’ And then Ballard delivered the goods: strong ledes, pieces fitting to word count which are always perceptive and provocative, and not infrequently touched by brilliance.
But that’s not all that’s in this almost 400 page book. You also get the essays and the manifestos. The famous ‘This Way to Inner Space’ and ‘What I Believe,’ among others, are in here —
*”I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.
I believe in my own obsessions, in the beauty of the car crash, in the peace of the submerged forest, in the excitements of the deserted holiday beach, in the elegance of automobile graveyards, in the mystery of multi-storey car parks, in the poetry of abandoned hotels.
I believe in the forgotten runways of Wake Island, pointing towards the Pacifics of our imaginations.
I believe in the mysterious beauty of Margaret Thatcher, in the arch of her nostrils and the sheen on her lower lip; in the melancholy of wounded Argentine conscripts; in the haunted smiles of filling station personnel; in my dream of Margaret Thatcher caressed by that young Argentine soldier in a forgotten motel watched by a tubercular filling station attendant.
I believe in the beauty of all women, in the treachery of their imaginations, so close to my heart; in the junction of their disenchanted bodies with the enchanted chromium rails of supermarket counters; in their warm tolerance of my perversions….’*
And so on. The full text is here —
https://www.bjasamuel.com/post/jg-ballard-what-i-believe
And here is the man himself, in a TV interview from 1977: ‘I’m proud to be a science fiction writer. I believe it’s the true literature of the twentieth century.’
I’ve read the Tiptree, Jr. biography. A worthwhile volume for sure!
As the user of a pseudonym (I used to be far more cagey about personal details and wouldn’t even indicate my area of study or any details about the possible state I live in), I get a slight bit of the allure of having one, and how it acts as a protective shield that simultaneously allows you to write more freely. Of course, she had a bit more complex reason to have one than I, but I get the sense of the protective blanket it provides.
I own the Users Guide to the Millennium collection. I also recommend D. Harlan Wilson’s recent monograph J. G. Ballard (2017). As there’s quite a bit of scholarship on Ballard, the Wilson, unlike others in the series, tries quite hard to stake out a position vis-à-vis
earlier biographies. It’s the most argumentative — in a good way — of the volumes in the U. Illinois Masters pub series.
JB: Of course … I get the sense of the protective blanket it (a pseudonym) provides.
I get that; I used a pseudonym myself for years for most of the journalism I did. But I was struck, as I say, by how ‘Tip’ seemed to be a constructed, enabling, actual persona for Sheldon, and when that persona got deconstructed she could no longer write that way.
Granted, that’s the interpretation that biographer Julie Phillips pushed. But that interpretation is supported by the facts.
JB: I also recommend D. Harlan Wilson’s recent monograph J. G. Ballard (2017).
Yeah, I got and read that when it came out. I thought it was solid, and appreciated the information about the one time Ballard went to a SF fan convention in the late 1950s and was so depressed by it — and this the man who’d survived a boyhood in Lunghua concentration camp after witnessing the fall of Shanghai — that he didn’t write any SF for six months.
Tiptree’s identity was revealed in, what, 1976? It truly is striking — only one really major story came after 1977 (I’m going to assume that “The Screwfly Solution”, which isn’t a Tiptree story anyway, was written by 1976) — “Slow Music”, from 1980. A few more pretty decent stories, mind you — but nothing to compare to the brilliance before that.
‘Slow Music’ was in fact written in 1977, according to Phillips, though published in 1980.
Mark and Rich: I also wonder how much her tail-off in quality is connected to the health of her husband (and their looming suicide/murder plot, apparently they had agreed in 1977 that they would conduct one in the future). The health of those around you has a major productivity impact. I would know from personal post-2020 experience. I can’t remember what Phillips actually says about that… I’ll have to check.
Best to look at what Phillips says, which is fairly nuanced.
Essentially, however, while her husband, ‘Ting’, had gone blind and 4-7 years previously they’d agreed to a suicide pact — though to what extent ‘Alli’ might have driven that purported agreement isn’t clear — he was in good enough shape shortly before the double death to visit his son Peter at the latter’s hotel when the son came to town, and was distraught enough to be crying, and Phillips surmises it may have been because he feared Alli would unilaterally execute their pact. Phillips seems on fairly solid ground in suggesting, based on the evidence of comments of those who socialized with the couple, that Ting wasn’t interested in checking out at that point.
Alli very much was, conversely.
This was someone who, forex, a decade before her death wrote to one correspondent — I’ve now opened the Phillips to page 425 — that “Doctor is giving me first pink pills, then purple pills, now puce-colored pills, so far nobody will give me what I deepest crave, a lead-nose .38 bullet in parietal lobe. I dream about oblivion like other people dream of good sex. Oh Jesus for that wonderful instant of knowing: NO MORE.”
This was someone who for all their intelligence was a depressive who self-medicated with dexedrine and similar pharmaceuticals to the extent that one summer she was using nine different drugs, and experiencing the consequent crashes; someone who didn’t like losing their looks and getting old; someone who’d had a childhood of extraordinary privilege; and someone who frankly — for all her laments about being a woman and her stints in CIA, the WACs, and earning a psychology degree that she then did nothing with — continued for the majority of her life to live of greater material privilege than 98 percent of the population as a Virginia hausfrau married childlessly to an upper-class CIA honcho.
I’ve also been reading and re-reading Ballard’s nonfiction, as I say.
I’m struck by the comparison. Ballard witnessed the fall of Shanghai and the destruction of his childhood of privilege; came of age in a Japanese concentration camp; then, when the war ended, was shipped out to what amounted to an alien country — he’d never been to the UK — and made his way there; got married, had kids, and turned himself into a professional writer; and then, when his wife died in a freak accident while he and she were both still in their late twenties, managed to bring up three kids on his own, sending them off to school every day from the house he’d bought in the London suburbs before settling down to turn out the day’s output. (Granted, he drank like a fish, by the accounts of Kingsley Amis and others).
Alice Sheldon couldn’t manage to bring herself up, by contrast. I’m not attached to that judgment. I don’t know what I don’t know about being a depressive as Sheldon was, after all.
Still, you, or someone reading this, may be offended that I’m judgmental at all and say: Who is he to judge?
Who do I have to be, though? The deaths, physical degradation, and suffering of oneself and loved ones happens to every one of us — and that’s all I’ll say about that. I will say that if I was someone who knew I had the mental problems Sheldon had, I would have the guts and basic sense of responsibility to not get married and impose my problems upon anyone else, and if I had gotten married — everyone makes mistakes — and was nonetheless driven to commit suicide, I would plan some arrangement for a blind partner’s upkeep rather than putting a bullet through their head.
I’m not sure what to say other than it sounds like Sheldon had some serious problems — and I’m going to try to be as empathetic as I can. I don’t think I’m in the position to understand what she went through or how she felt, and that’s okay. But I can imagine that again a pseudonym and false persona helped her imagine someone else away from her daily experiences.
Well, her fiction told us all that, right? How many of her stories are about death? All the way back to “The Last Flight of Dr. Ain”.
As for Ballard drinking like a fish — considering how much Kingsley Amis drank, if Amis was impressed by how much Ballard drank, wow!
I think Ballard was the prose editor of ‘Ambit’ as well, may be wrong.
Given what you’ve written above I’m sure you will already own the collection ‘Extreme Metaphors’ but if not, it’s worth seeking out.
A few years ago I attended an event at The Barbican in London organised by Iain Sinclair. Ballard was meant to be there and I think the plan was for him to read ‘I Believe’ on stage. But sadly he pulled out of the event at the last minute, and the last was left to Chris Petit. A great shame.
‘task was left’
Speaking of Ambit, I reviewed the only SF novel of Ambit’s founder and doctor — Martin Bax (who appears to still be alive!)
The Hospital Ship (1976): https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2017/07/20/book-review-the-hospital-ship-martin-bax-1976/
Thanks for this link. I’ve read almost all of Ballard’s books but never saw him in person. Super interesting.
I’m not quite back to 1985 in current reading – instead I’m reading Cherryh’s 1988 Cyteen, which I have never read before.
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is a great story; I remember enjoying it quite a bit.
I read Cyteen in my Hugo award binge days in my late teens and early 20s. Cherryh was a favorite of mine at the time.
Did you see my review of Wilhelm’s The Killer Thing? If you’re already a fans of hers it might be worth the read. It is far from her best but I found the premise and context fascinating.
Yes. I’ll be keeping an eye out for a copy of The Killer Thing.
PS: I did recently read “The Puppet Masters” which I hadn’t read since the 1980s. In retrospect, I’m a little surprised at how little the characters changed over the course of the book – usually Heinlein’s characters change quite a bit over the course of their stories.
The vast majority of my Heinlein reading happened before my site. He was an author of my teenage years as my dad, at that point, was the source of “what SF should I read” and he stopped reading SF at age 14…. Now I send him all my favorite reads!
I know I read The Puppet Masters but the details have squished together with many of his other novels into a large amorphous Heinlein-blob. With a few exceptions of course — I remember details from Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Cat Who Walks Though Walls (I threw it at a wall in annoyance and swore off Heinlein)…
I am reading David I Masson the Caltraps of Time. Some stories I have to read twice to truly follow the language. They are exceptional stories though.
I have only read two Masson short stories — both are reviewed on the site. Let me know your favorites from the collection, I might give him a second chance.
The stories I enjoyed the best was Travelers Rest and Lost Ground as they were the most direct and engaging from a story level. The rest seemed at times more style over substance. I suppose the good thing is he wrote so few stories that they can be contained in one book. I’m not sure praise though.
I think the style is exceptional the content is often obscured by the style though. I’m not sure I’ll revisit.
That was also my view of the two I reviewed.
Reading the magazine version of Michael Bishop’s “The Samurai and the Willows.,” will write about it in a few days. Tomorrow I might read David Drake’s “The Automatic Rifleman” (I’m not even sure if it’s SF, but it was published in Destinies so probably SF-horror). Started Spacepaw by Gordon R. Dickson, which is sort of juvenile SF.
I remember enjoying “The Samurai and the Willows.” I read it in the Catacomb Years (1979) collection that gathers together all Bishop’s Urban Nucleus short stories with chronological bridging introductions that create a downright brilliant future history.
The glissadors of “The Samurai and the Willows” also appear in the Bishop I recently revisited from the Urban Nucleus series — “The Windows in Dante’s Hell” (1973).
Nm, I think I’m mixing up stories. I leafed through “The Samurai and the Willows” — I don’t think it’s the one with glissadors…. This is why I kick myself for not reviewing every story in the Urban Nucleus sequence collected in Catacomb Years.
I think “The Samurai and the Willows” has a glissador — one of the main characters. But it’s been decades since I read it. I should really reread those early Bishop stories.
You’re right. He’s so good!
I’m just finishing up John Brunner’s The Whole Man (The Telepathist in the UK). I read this once before, and it’s still very good.
Also working on an issue of If magazine, May 1962, downloaded from the Internet Archive. So far I’ve read an okay Retief story by Keith Laumer and several pretty bad stories. But ahead is The 64-Square Madhouse by Fritz Lieber, which I’ve never read but I’m told is very good, so looking forward to it.
I read and enjoyed The Whole Man before I started my site. I should also return to it!
I’m currently reading a Brunner that you brought up before on the site. I should have a review up next weekend. I hope… I’m a one-man show here. hah.
Hmm, this may bode ill. I don’t remember what Brunner I may have mentioned here, but all the Brunner I’ve read in a while has been poor. Brunner seems to me to be pretty binary, at least in his novels, and they often strike me as either very good or very bad. It’s why I picked up The Whole Man, to deliberately break the streak.
The Squares of the City — I’m enjoying it so far. I hadn’t read it yet. You mentioned it back in 2020. I have the benefit of being able to search the comments on the site. Haha.
Ah. Yes, this is one of the very good ones IMO. Sorry for making you reveal the title prematurely, it seemed like you were teasing it. I expected to wait for next weekend’s post to see what it was.
Ah, no worries. The main reason I tend to be a bit cagey with revealing my publishing schedule is that I am a notoriously slow writer — often distracted endlessly by compiling footnotes and reading tangentially related scholarship. I also take notes on the entire book and that process often takes far longer than I expect. So it might not be next weekend!
I’ve had a good new year of reading influenced by your site. I read THOSE WHO WATCH by Robert Silverberg, and am still not quite sure what to think of it. Also, I found CAMP CONCENTRATION by Thomas M. Disch on my shelf and am currently making my way through that.
Good good!
I should really reread Camp Concentration… especially as I am such a fan of Disch (especially The Genocides).
I’ve reviewed tons of Silverberg. I don’t doubt that Those Who Watch is far from his best.
I am a big fan of Robert Silverberg’s short fiction, but I am definitely screening any future novel choices through reviews on your site! The only thing “good” about THOSE WHO WATCH is that I finished it quickly.
Let me know the progress of your Silverberg reading project.
I’m reading The Zen Gun by Barrington J. Bayley. It’s completely off the wall! I really want to get my hands on more of his stuff.
While I have not read The Zen Gun, I have heard that it’s an ultra strange one. I’ve reviewed 6 of his novels and 5 of his short stories over the years. Note: some are from the earliest days of my site and I’d like to think I’ve improved as a writer since then.
“The Cabinet of Oliver Naylor” (1976) is my favorite of his short stories and The Fall of Chronopolis (1974) my favorite of his novels. I’m not sure what I’d think of the latter now though…. He also wrote some complete crap like Star Winds (1978).
My pen name — Joachim Boaz — is derived from two sources I read in quick succession: Russell Hoban’s The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz and Barrington J. Bayley’s The Pillars of Eternity, in which a character names himself Joachim Boaz.
I just read The Big Time – and yes, it’s very like a play since it all takes place in a single room with a small fixed cast. I thought it started well, and Leiber handled his characters entertainingly, but then it turned into a series of grandstanding monologues and a resolution that was far too quick and easy.
I also read The Pirates of Zan, which was just plain silly. I think it was supposed to be comic, but I’m not sure. It certainly wasn’t witty. I’m surprised it made it onto the Hugo shortlist.
I’m currently rereading Life During Wartime, which was originally published in 1987, so two years after your cut-off date – although the opening section was originally published in 1986 as ‘R&R’. Good stuff.
Yeah, The Pirates of Zan aka The Pirates of Ersatz is pretty minor stuff. It’s tempting to think it got its Hugo nomination due to the Freas cover (of the serial) with the pirate with a slide rule in his mouth. Note that other negligible Analog serial from the same year also got a Hugo nomination: Garrett and Janifer’s “That Sweet Little Old Lady” aka Brain Twister.
I’m morally certain that both of those got more nomination votes from Analog readers than from readers of the paperbacks. (Completely certain in the case of “That Sweet Little Old Lady” as Brain Twister wasn’t published until 1962.)
Maybe check out my 2023 in review if you haven’t already! I read some great stuff last year. Mostly short fiction as is my current vibe. https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2024/01/01/my-2023-in-review-best-sf-novels-best-sf-short-fiction-and-bonus-categories/
And Speaking of Lucius Shepard, I have some of his earlier Vietnam-related stories on the plate. We’ll see if I get to them this year. But yeah, I really need to read some of his work.
Would you recommend a place to start with Robert Silverberg?
That’s a good question. If you want his attempt at a literary very NEW WAVE novel, check out Dying Inside (1972). It’s a crime that it didn’t win the Hugo that year. Lost to an average Asimov….
You know me and short stories, they really are my thing, and Silverberg is brilliant in short form. A few favorites include: “When We Went to See the End of the World” (1972), “Passengers” (1968), “By the Seawall” (1967), and “Good News from the Vatican” (1971).
I’d say ‘Born with the Dead’. The two other novellas included in the collection are pretty hot as well.
‘Tower of Glass’ is a very hot one as well.
Silverberg is fab but some of his stuff, particularly the language he uses, is a bit dated. I find it all part of the charm, almost, and it can at times be unintentionally funny. A great example is ‘The Book of Skulls’ that reads at times like National Lampoon’s Seek Immortality. If you want to dive back into the early 1970s, that’s a good one to have a look at.
I really need to get to Born with the Dead. It’s an instance of I know that I’ll like it but feel like I need to savor the few Silverberg works I have from that era left to read…
I haven’t yet read much Silverberg, but Born with the Dead is a good one, especially the eerie descriptions of the Cold Towns (as you’ll see when you get to it).
Oh, I know it’ll be good. I like to savor and dole out my remaining Silverberg’s from his best period.
I am currently reading some of Neal Asher’s novel’s. He is post 1985 but I saw a couple of his short works adapted for Love, Death, and Robots on Netflix. (I highly recommend this if you have Netflix.) His ‘Bad Travelling’ from season 3 is excellent and ‘Mason’s Rats’ is hilarious.
For pre-1985 I recently revisited Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber on Audible while commuting and at the gym. I first read them read them in my early teens starting with the Guns of Avalon which was the second in the series. Whether or not they are to your taste I still enjoy them.
I watch very little SF — in any form. I know of it of course and have read some reviews. Sorry.
I read the first in the Chronicles of Amber sequence as an older teen. I did not continue with the series — it was the moment where I was shifting from fantasy (the bloated + endless Tolkein-ripoffs were my favorite, haha) to SF.
I finished that series back in the day. Still have it. That, The Book of Swords series and the Fahferd and Grey Mouser series were about as close as I got to fantasy as well, the original Hobbit and LoR excepted of course. Ah, there was also the Elric series which, even though dark as it was, I loved at the time. Favorite sci-fi authors were Herbert, Heinlein, EE Doc Smith, Asimov, etc. Pretty much what you might expect. Now, I grab up anything from back then.
Making my way through the Novels of the Diadem, by Jo Clayton.
Any good? I’ve read reviews but…. I’m not sure it’s for me!
I love her work, albeit the books in this series are the only works I have read of hers. Back some 50 years ago when they were more popular, and I was a young teenager, the cover art hooked me. heh. But, now, I find them really great and a series far before its time. There were very few female authors that I know of back then, and fewer female protagonists. The series is all about a central female character and her journey through the stars in search of her child. She moves from sheltered dependent to independent traveler. Interesting dichotomy between independent adventurer and concepts of what a woman was at the time. The diadem plays a central role, and as such, she does have help. I have not finished them all. I have one more to get for the full series. They are not for everybody I suppose. But, good escapism and representative of styles of that time.
Joanna Russ’ Alyx stories are another early example.
Those I’ve read so far:
“The Barbarian” (1968)
Picnic on Paradise (1968)
“The Second Inquisition” (1970)
Slowly making my way through Children of Dune. I was a little trepidatious to start but am actually really enjoying it. I think it is the general escape type novel I need with other commitments just now. Not sure I will necessarily feel the need to to much further with the series but enjoying it for what it is and the intrigue around the various houses and characters.
I remember enjoying Children of Dune (1976). At the time I found the series dipped with God Emperor (1981), which I struggled to get through.
How was the Colonialism book?
I just got “The Clone” by Wilhelm and Theodore Thomas (1965) from interlibrary loan.
Thought provoking but deeply frustrating and a bit imprecise. It might have more to do with my views on history writing (a deep-seated suspicion of theory-heavy scholarship)…
For my best academic history of SF reads of last year (I read quite a few), definitely check out my 2023 in review if you haven’t already: https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2024/01/01/my-2023-in-review-best-sf-novels-best-sf-short-fiction-and-bonus-categories/
Karel Čapek’s War with the Newts is a great novel. It’s quite funny satire. At one point, the Germans decide that their newts are a superior Nordic Newt race.
RUR is also very good, but it’s not quite as good. In my opinion, Čapek is one of the best writers of apocalyptic science fiction. His apocalypses are off the wall but also very consistent with human nature. Plus, he’s a really good writer.
I look forward to it. Can’t promise it’ll be soon though! Life with 1.5k unread SF books…