A selection of read books from my shelves
What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading or planning to read this month? Here’s the August installment of this column.
I often think back to how I got hooked on science fiction. As I have mentioned many times before, I primarily read fantasy–in particular every bloated Tolkein ripoff I could get my hands on–before I moved to science fiction in my late teens. Tad Williams’ fantasy trilogy Memory, Sorrow & Thorn (1988-1998) holds special significance. While looking for other fantasy titles by Williams at the local used book store, I stumbled across his equally bloated four-volume SF sequence Otherland (1996-2001). And so the slow shift began… I had read other science fiction but nothing hooked me quite like Otherland. It’s one of those works that I plan on never rereading—the spell would break.
I still own the first science fiction novel (other than maybe something my parents read me as a kid?) I ever read–Isaac Asimov’s The Currents of Space (1952). If I remember correctly, my father will see this post and corroborate or clarify, I found it collecting dust on my father’s bookshelf in his old bedroom at his parents’ house. Unfortunately, I disliked it at the time and can’t remember a single detail from the story. Of course, I returned to Asimov later.
What’s the first SF work you remembering reading?
And let me know what pre-1985 science fiction you’ve been reading!
The Photograph (with links to reviews and brief thoughts)
- Michael Bishop’s Stolen Faces (1977) is one of the underrated SF novels of the 70s. From my review: “Like some nightmarish condensate that gathers into waiting cups, it induces hellish visions. Metaphors and images of bodily decay, societal decadence, and strange rituals abound. I suspect that Bishop’s profoundly uncomfortable themes, deliberate plotting, and metaphorical/literary way of telling have prevented the novel from gaining a wider audience.”
- As I’ve recently been reading and writing about Ted White’s magazines, I thought I’d feature a novel that first appeared as a serial. Silverberg’s The Second Trip first appeared in the July and September 1971 issues of Amazing Science Fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed this one: “Our hero desperately attempts to re-integrate himself into society (as his persona has been designed to do), to come to grips with his laboratory-constructed reality, to sift through his past cobbled from the minds of his creators, to apply “real” meaning to his fragmented (invented) memories. However, he’s thwarted, not by his own mental anguish, but by the malevolent force of his body’s previous occupant…”
- Joanna Russ’ The Female Man (1975) is a justified classic… I, unfortunately, could not gather the strength to review it.
- Isaac Asimov’s The Currents of Space (1952).
What am I writing about?
In case you missed it, I posted the promised article I’ve obsessed over this year a few weeks ago: “’We Must Start Over Again and Find Some Other Way of Life’: The Role of Organized Labor in the 1940s and ’50s Science Fiction of Clifford D. Simak.” I’ve reviewed a wide range of SF this month: three grimy/moody/envelope-pushing short stories by Ted White; two visions with queer main characters that appeared in Ted White’s magazines; and Pat Murphy’s unknown yet worthwhile first novel.
As for current projects, I think I’m going to keep it under wraps. I put forth a grand vision last month and I perpetually feel pulled in all directions by my whims. And my whims have shifted since last month.
What am I reading?
I’m devouring more short stories on unions and organized labor in the 1950s. Stay tuned! My current history read:
A Curated List of SF Birthdays from the Last Two Weeks
September 14th: Martin Caidin (1927-1997). In addition to his slick best-selling SF thrillers, he claimed to posses the power of telekinesis.
September 14th: Artist Rowena Morrill (1944-2021). Can’t say I’m much of a fan of her work.
Charles Moll’s cover for the 1st edition of Norman Spinrad’s No Direction Home (1975)
September 15th: Norman Spinrad (1940-). My most recent Spinrad review: “The Weed of Time” (1970).
September 15th: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1942-). I’ve reviewed her post-apocalyptic novel False Dawn (1978) and Hyacinths (1983), an unsettling dystopian tale of a future where even the unregulated creative world of dreams is harnessed and controlled.
September 15th: Howard Waldrop (1946-2024). I thoroughly enjoyed Waldrop’s “Mary Margaret Road-Grade” (1976).
September 16th: Lisa Tuttle (1952-). I read and reviewed my first Tuttle work a few weeks ago! “Stone Circle” (1976).
September 18th: Francis Stevens (1883-1948). Best known for her SF satire The Heads of Cerberus (1919).
Bob Haberfield’s cover for the 1973 edition
September 19th: Hilary Bailey (1936-2017). I’ve covered a few of her short stories. I remain most impressed with her novel co-written with her then-husband Michael Moorcock The Black Corridor (1969).
September 19th: Damon Knight (1922-2002). My most recent Knight review: Far Out (1961).
September 19th: Tanith Lee (1947-2015). If you haven’t read any of her science fiction yet, check out her brilliant and moody Electric Forest (1979).
September 20th: Keith Roberts (1935-2000). Check out his wonderful collection The Grain Kings (1976).
September 20th: George R. R. Martin (19480).
September 20th: James P. Blaylock (1950-). A complete unknown to me. I always see his name on the shelves of my local Half Price Book store.
Fred Marcellino’s cover for the 1981 edition
September 20th: A. A. Attanasio (1951-). His monolithic looking Radix (1981) judges me, unread, from the shelves. I have yet to explore his work.
September 23rd: Wilmar H. Shiras (1908-1990). I reviewed the majority of her science fiction here.
September 23th: Richard Wilson (1920-1987). I’ve only read “Mother to the World” (1968). It’s not a story that easily leaves the memory.
Jack Gaughan’s cover for the 1st hardback edition The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
September 24th: Jack Gaughan (1930-1985). On of the prolific SF artists of the late 40s-early 80s.
September 24th: John Brunner (1934-1995). The author of my favorite SF novel: Stand on Zanzibar (1968).
September 24th: John Kessel (1950-). An unknown to me.
September 25th: Betty Ballantine (1919)-2019) — with her husband she co-created Bantam and Ballantine Books.
September 26th: Douglas R. Mason (1918-2013). An incredibly prolific British SF author… Did he write anything worth tracking down? I’ve not had luck so far.
- Eight Against Utopia (variant title: From Carthage Then I Came) (1966)
- “The Man Who Missed the Ferry” (1966)
- “Six Cubed Plus One” (1966)
September 28th: Mary Gnaedinger (1897-1976)—the influential editor of Fantastic Mysteries and Fantastic Novels Magazine.
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 
I’m sure the first science fiction I read was either War of the Worlds by HG Wells or something by Ray Bradbury when I was in middle school. I couldn’t say which work by Bradbury would have been my first. I never thought of Bradbury or Wells as science fiction at the time. I took the stance that “I didn’t enjoy sci-fi” until I was well into my 20s. I never read any other science fiction writers after those two names until following university.
I was a major fan of Neil Gaiman, and he kept mentioning Harlan Ellison as an influence on him. Well, I had to read this Ellison’s work to understand why Gaiman kept praising him. My then-girlfriend (the less said about those days, the better) ordered a copy of The Essential Ellison. Reading Ellison ignited a love of science fiction which led to discovering Michael Moorcock, then the entirety of Philip K. Dick’s writing.
I’ll credit Harlan Ellison as my true introduction to science fiction.
I have been reading Quark 3, edited by Samuel R. Delany. Let me preface this by saying I have read and enjoyed the other three Quark anthologies, also I love New Wave science fiction. For whatever reason, Quark 3 has been a hugely disappointing read. It seems to exemplify some of the worst excesses of the New Wave’s experimentation, like the bottom of the barrel contributions from an issue of Moorcock’s New Worlds.
-There is a superb contribution from M. John Harrison (“Ring of Pain”), which makes me not regret paying $6 for this book.
-Hilary Bailey has one of her better stories, as I find Bailey quite hit or miss.
-There are quality Kate Wilhelm (“Where Have You Been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?”) and Delany (“Dog in a Fisherman’s Net”) stories, but I’ve already read those stories elsewhere.
That was about it for worthwhile fiction. -Even a James Sallis story (“Field”) couldn’t add to the positive column. I’m usually a fan of Sallis’ writing, but this one doesn’t hold together. There’s a germ of a good idea that makes me wish I could have enjoyed it, but when Sallis randomly included an excerpt from operating instructions for a lawnmower, he lost me.
There’s so much in your wonderful comment so I’ll focus on a few points.
I also thought there might be a Bradbury that I read earlier than Asimov’s Currents of Space. However, all my specific Bradbury memories (Fahrenheit 451, etc.) come from early in High School. Same thing with Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon and Wells’ The Time Machine and The Invisible Man that feature in the pantheon of early reads. I seem to remember listening to The Illustrated Man on a car trip that might have been in middle school, for all I know the same car trip to my grandparents’ place in which I read Currents..
I own the Quark anthologies but have only read individual stories out of them. most recently, Disch’s fascinating and dense “Et in Arcadia Ego” (1971) out of Quark/2. I didn’t manage to review it.
I read the Harrison story in his collection The Machine in Shaft Ten and Other Stories. As I didn’t write a story-by-story review I can’t remember what I thought about it.
I struggle with Sallis. I want to like him. I try to like him. I give his short stories a reread after I finish the first pass. I struggle to understand what I am reading.
I believe it was “Faces & Hands” from the Nova 1 anthology which made me appreciate Sallis. It starts out as a science fiction story then morphs into a downbeat story about the main character’s relationship with a prostitute. The New Wave style at its finest.
——————————————
Oh, back to Quark 3, I should have singled out Tom Veitch’s story (“A Sex Song”) for specific scorn. Veitch is trying for stream of consciousness, but the story reads like a Mad Libs. Truly terrible but unintentionally funny.
Sounds like the moody broody stuff I’d like. I’ll put it on my list. Thank you!
I’ve read: “A Few Last Words” (1968)
“Delta Flight 281” (1974)
“The First Few Kinds of Truth” (1974)
“Kazoo” (1967)
“Letter to a Young Poet” (1968)
I tried to read Radix several years ago but never finished it. I don’t recall a lot except that I intensely disliked the main character.
I enjoy the cover art least! Planning to read any pre-1985 in the next month or so?
I’ve read Radix a couple of times. The first half is good, and the second half has lots of interesting ideas. I like the world-building, but Attanasio loses control of his prose every now and again. I always remember it being better than it probably was, and I’ll probably read it again one day.
Yeah, I can’t promise I’ll get to it anytime soon. So many projects at the moment. What are you currently reading?
I think War of the Worlds was probably the first one, read it in my early teens. My mother had told me how she read it when she was very young, so young that she actually believed that it was a true story, and I was intrigued. I stille think it holds up extremely well, though its some time since I’ve reread it.
Around the same time I began reading a lot of YA science fiction, in particular John Christopher and H M Hoover. Hoover was the one that really got me hooked, and I still occasionally return to her stuff. Despite its flaws, I’m sort of impressed by her consistent critique of anthropocentrism. In the first of hers I read, The Lost Star, there’s a species that could have been a textbook example of “bad”, inhuman aliens (arthropods, sort of collectivists, with almost no obvious emotions), and yet she makes them seem very sympathetic, in a way much preferable to humans.
Right now I’m in the middle of reading Dhalgren. Unexpectedly, my local second hand bookstore had a copy, so I decided that now was the time. Lots of longwinded “literary” passages that didn’t really need to be that long, but the central mystery keeps my going at a steady pace.
I haven’t heard of H. M. Hoover.
There’s a short list of possible earlier works that I heard or read before Currents of Space and I contemplated whether War of the Worlds might have been one for me. I still think it was after the encounter with my dad’s childhood bookshelf.
I have never managed to finish Dhalgren. I’ve tried, and put it down, a few times. I shoul try again, eventually.
Yeah, Hoover doesn’t seem to be very well known. Yet for some strange reason, when the danish publisher Tellerup put out a series specialising in (mostly YA) SF in the eighties, they translated and released the majority of her work; otherwise I would probably never have heard of her either. I guess they got some cheap licensing deal for the whole lot.
If you read John Christophers Tripods-series before you read Currents of Space, you also sort of read War of the Worlds before, it’s almost fan fiction. It was also some of the Christopher books I read very early.
I hope you get to Dhalgren at some point, it would be interesting to see what you’ll make of it, containing, as it does, a lot of the elements that you often examine here (metafiction, counterculture).
Yeah, it’s often fascinating what foreign SF is translated in which country.
Every time I picked up Dhalgren I enjoyed what I read — but my whims shifted. I don’t feel the pressing need to write about the novel as it’s studied quite a bit. I tend to read what I want to write about. But perhaps!
Here in the UK there was a comic aimed at kids called ‘Eagle’ with the front cover story always “Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future”. So after the age of 7 or 8 SF was always on my radar. And there was a series called The Lost Planet by Angus MacVicar. I think the first ‘adult’ SF I read was as a teenager – Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.
Ah yes, I’ve heard of Dan Dare and looked through a few issues, although I have not read any of them. I wonder what a younger me would have thought about comics. I wasn’t exposed to them until much much much later and by that point I just preferred reading non-comic materials.
I also read Stranger but much much much later than the Asimov I mentioned — I think I was a junior in high school.
If we’re including comics, I read a whole bunch of them before I got to SF books. I loved Tintin and Spirou comics when I was a kid, and especially those of them with science fiction plots. Also Star Wars comics a bit later, and Valerian & Laureline, some of which are really good (unlike the movie!!), and something I stille reread from time to time.
Was never much of a comics person which is why I didn’t think of adding them to the question. I think the earliest ones I read were in the last five years and I covered them on the site.
Comics is very much its own medium I think, something between a movie and a book, so I it makes sense to see at as a different question. If were simply talkning about the earliest exposure to SF in any form, that would probably be movies or tv shows for most people.
Just read Jim Hogan’s Inherit the Stars (1977) properly for the first time. I say “properly” because my first attempt as a 12-year-old tyke transfixed by the cover art bumped up against a narrative I wasn’t quite prepared for at that age, as the bulk of the text is all scientists sciencing. Hogan, as I’m sure you know, became a rather (ahem) problematic individual, but this maiden effort conveys the detective work of unraveling a scientific mystery very enjoyably despite heavy exposition and many dated elements — not to mention the way Hogan slips in his bizarre fascination with Velikovsky. There was more bad than good the man produced in his career, I’m sorry to say. But Inherit the Stars mostly hits the right notes for readers with a hankering for old-school solve-the-problem hard SF.
The 1st edition cover by Darrell K. Sweet? Yeah, it’s a good one!
Ah, I think whatever age you read something, even if you didn’t get it at the time, is still “properly” reading! But yeah, as with Asimov, not exemplary figures… For those who do not know, Hogan spouted Holocaust-denying nonsense later in his life.
I am a major fan of “Inherit the Stars” (and the similar “solve the scientific mystery” early Hogan “Thrice Upon a Time”) – it avoids the problems of later Hogan (and in retrospect some of those problems become apparent even in earlier works, like “Code of Lifemaker”), and makes scientific discussions genuinely exciting. Hogan even has a doctrinaire mainstream scientist be right about almost everything.
The first SF book I read was Robert Heinlein’s “Glory Road”, but I didn’t finish it [I did read it in it’s entirety some time later], and also Robert E. Howard’s “Conan the Conqueror”, which I also didn’t finish, and never would! The first SF book I actually did read up to the end, was Philip J. Farmer’s “The Makers of Universes”.
I also read Glory Road quite early on, maybe a few years after Currents — I assume from my father’s childhood shelf as well. I do not remember anything about it.
I’m not sure what the first science fiction I read. Maybe “Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator” (for some definition of science fiction). I read the Mushroom Planet books, and John Christopher’s Tripods, too.
This weekend I read “This Perfect Day” by Ira Levin, which my bookclub is going to discuss later in October, which is certainly pre-1985
Ah, thanks for the reminder! I think I read the entire Tripods trilogy BEFORE I read Tad Williams’ Otherland series. Regardless, the Otherland series still represents the moment when I overtly moved away from fantasy.
How was the Levin? It’s on my list to acquire.
I liked it. As the afterword says, it’s basically Brave New World as a thriller.
I’m glad one of those innumerable Brave New World blurb comparisons makes sense. It must be the most frequent comparison to appear on the covers of a SF novel–along with 1984… haha.
Yeah, in this case it’s an apt comparison; the novel starts in a future society where human life is maintained in a peaceful cooperative state by drugs and intensive monitoring.
“Christ, Marx, Wood and Wei,
Led us to this perfect day.
Marx, Wood, Wei and Christ,
All but Wei were sacrificed.
Wood, Wei, Christ and Marx,
Gave us lovely schools and parks.
Wei, Christ, Marx and Wood,
Made us humble, made us good.“
P.S. The book is sexist in a very 1970s way.
Some more thoughts: It’s a very 1970s dystopia, with the rebels engaging in anti-social behavior like smoking tobacco (!) as a sign of their free spirits. The computer overlord is a mainframe that directs actions over the whole world, but Levin knew enough to suggest that cooling the system would be an important factor. There’s less sex in the dystopian society than in Brave New World – but more sex in the plot. The thriller aspect of the plot means that the main character and thus the reader gets three or four “reveals” about the true nature of the world (something Huxley wasn’t interested in shaping his plot to provide), but they were fairly foreshadowed.
Sounds intriguing. I can’t promise I’ll get to it anytime soon but I’ll probably go ahead and acquire a copy…
Honestly can’t recall what my first sf book was, will have to think about that.
Currently reading Silverberg’s “Masks of Time” and oof it’s just an embarassment. The premise is a decent kernel for a plot, which is what has kept me from giving up on it entirely, but the constant soft-porn sexual digressions are an indulgence of his worst extincts that just bog everything down in a morass of patronizingly sexist sequences that seem to go on forever. With “Up the Line” this kind of horribly dated masturbatory blather made me give up entirely by the end of the second chapter, here I find myself skipping entire pages just to try and leapfrog ahead to where something more interesting is happening (ie, more ruminations on the man who has appeared in the narrator’s midst claiming to be from the future). Maybe he just thought it would be commercially viable in the newly permissive environment to mix his sci-fi tropes with the erotica he had been pseudonymously cranking out, or maybe he just really enjoyed writing this crap but it’s really a waste of his skills as a prose stylist. In his other peak period material there’s plentybof examples where he manages to integrate these tendencies into his stories in ways that at least are more subtle or less obtrusive, here they overwhelm the work. Frustrating.
I read but never got around to reviewing Masks of Time. Thus, my memories are faded at best… Maybe mercifully.
Best to memory-hole it lol
Aftet some thought I’m thinking the first sf I must have read was Asimov’s Foundation trilogy when I was 13 or so, having been led to it by the light of its similar stature to Lord of the Rings (“the greatest science fiction trilogy ever” etc.) I was not impressed when I last revisited it, the writing is such a chore. I think after that I went straight to William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Philip K. Dick.
The last time I read Foundation was in my late teens. I enjoyed it then. I’m not sure what I would think now. I suspect I’d appreciate the scope, but after my friend documented every use of the word atomic across the trilogy, I’d be relentlessly aware of that word. hah
My first SF book was one of James Blish’s collections of Star Trek adaptations, the first I think, which I read before ever seeing the show. The second was the anthology Where Do We Go from Here? edited by Asimov. Lately I’ve been rereading a couple of Niven collections, Neutron Star (the titular short story of which is also in the Asimov book) and The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton.
Isn’t there some debate that Blish himself didn’t watch much of the show before he wrote them? For good reason, he couldn’t resist the paycheck.
I haven’t heard this about Blish not watching the show, but it could certainly be true. My very old memory after seeing the shows was that he tended to change the plots but kept the core ideas. Both the Blish and the Asimov collections were heavy on ideas, and I think this is what got me reading SF.
If I understand correctly, Blish had only preliminary scripts for the episodes, and so followed plotlines that were changed before filming.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/James_Blish:
“James Blish was contracted to write this book because he had experience writing for Star Trek: he’s (sic) already written most of the episode adaptations. The problem was that he was living in England at the time, where the show was not airing; he based his adaptations on scripts, many of them early draft scripts. In short, Mr. Blish was contracted to write a novel based on a show he had never seen.”
That’s consistent with my old memory that he kept the core ideas but changed the plots. Thanks for confirming that I’m not completely senile yet!
“Where Do We Go From Here?” was an anthology that I loved as a teen.
I still have that book, a first edition hardcover bought secondhand, with public library label and cellophane cover over the jacket.
I bought myself a copy at a con as an adult 🙂
Ah, the Where Do We Go From Here? anthology has an early William Tevis short story. I’ve only read his novel-length work.
I honestly don’t know the first book, but Clarke and Heinlein must have figured very early (pretty sure “2001”, “Childhood’s End”, “Time for the Stars” and “Citizen of the Galaxy” were all before I was 10)-I now wish I’d kept my “books read” book that my school encouraged us to do. I know I read the High Crusade fairly young, for example.
One definite favourite anthology series, though, was the great “Out of this World”, by Mably Owen and Amabel Williams-Ellis; our local library seemed to have all of them, and the one off Worlds Apart. Highlights included Williams-Ellis’ “Changeling”; Leinster’s “First Contact” and many others like Gurevich’s “Infra Draconis,” Porges’ “The Ruum,” and Leiber’s “A Pail of Air.”
Hello Nick, I see that you double-posted your comment. Can I go ahead and delete the second one? The first one was caught by my spam filter — but I always make sure to check it regularly so I unspammed it.
I also read a bunch of Heinlein juveniles i.e. what my dad read in his teens from the same shelf he had. But again, it must have been later post-Currents. I think it is humorous that my father stopped reading SF in his mid-teens. I became obsessed in my late teens to my current mid/latish 30s. I send him all my good reads now! Books are wonderful.
Reassuring, I wondered if I’d broken something. Yes, go ahead-though please add Gurevich’s name in front of Infra Draconis-as I say it was a story I had to go back and track down years later.
I guess I should, for consistency, please also say add *Porges’* The Ruum, and *Leiber’s* A Pail Of Air
Will do. I’m a big fan of the Leiber. I haven’t read anything by Arthur Porges yet.
I have that edition of The Currents of Space!The first SF I ever read was Childhood’s End, I was about seven years old.
Yeah, it’s the exact copy I got off my dad’s bookcase. I read Childhood’s End as well early in my SF reading career — again, in my mid-to-late teens when I tackled so many of the classics.
Out of curiosity, I googled Rowena Morrill and her art is not to my taste either. It looks right out 1980’s fantasy movies or fantasy metal. Though, ten year old me would have wanted some of the dresses on the non scantily clad women — they’re very floaty. The story about Saddam Hussein having some of his art hanging on his walls is wild!
The first science fiction I read was John Christopher’s Tripod series. I then moved on to The Lotus Caves. Christopher was such a good writer that for years, I found most science fiction disappointing (William Sleator being the exception) because it wasn’t as good as his work. Juvenile science fiction can really be hit-or-miss and it’s been a boy
Currently I’m reading John Russell Fearn’s Scourge of the Atom. I don’t remember how I stumbled on his writing (maybe I was browsing the SF Gateway catalog), but for a pulp science fiction author, he was a very good writer. His plots are very out there and a lot of fun. Fortunately, plenty of his novels are now available as ebooks. I like how his pen name Vargo Statten sounds like the name of a character in a science fiction novel.
If you click the link that I provide to The Internet Speculative Fiction Database, you can browse through her entire cover list.
You are braver than me for tackling John Russell Fearn… haha.
My first SF book I’ve read is probably a comic : Valérian (Méziéres and Christin). No, it was Jules Vernes, Rocket to the Moon 🙂 After that, a friend of mine had all the old classics his mother bought him : Wells, Stevenson… So, I began with the beginning. Quite handy.
Radix has long been one of my favorite SF books. It’s quite funny to read the comment about the main character as the story is about a weak character becoming… something else. So it’s quite logical he is not very likable in the beginning of the book.
Radix obsessed me as comics author and some of my SF stories were quite inspired by the book. At the same time, I was reading a lot of Jodorowski’s comics and there are some similarities with Radix. I cannot read anymore Jodorowski, but I may read again Radix.
The second Attanasio’s book I’ve read was quite disappointing (history and adventure).
I did not read a single comic as a kid. The only ones I’ve read I reviewed recently for the site — Enki Bilal’s La Foire aux immortels (trans. The Carnival of Immortals) (1980), vol. 1 of The Nikopol Trilogy (1980-2005) Future Day, Gene Day (1979), Empire (1978) (Samuel R. Delany and Howard V. Chaykin), and one more that I can’t remember for the life of me…. French…. somewhat pornographic… ridiculous. Woman with virile robot…
EDIT: Figured out the name — Paul Gillon’s The Survivor, 1 (1985, trans. 1990)
Well, in France, in the 80’s, there were plenty of interesting comics stuff (Métal Hurlant magazine…). And I can understand your point of view about The Survivor. Not his best album.
Enki Bilal is the best of the bunch I’ve read so far. At least his story was a bit surreal and original and had some great art to accompany it.
My SF reading started in a small Alabama town where I attended first through third grades (circa 1954-56), and where the public library was one large room. The only SF for kids they had was the entirety of the Winston juvenile SF series (those that had been published by then) and a couple other negligible volumes. I think the first Winston volume I read was SONS OF THE OCEAN DEEPS by Bryce Walton, not that it much matters. I was hooked on the genre even though most of the books were routine. The only adult SF I remember from then was the first Judith Merril “year’s best” anthology, most of which I didn’t understand, but that didn’t stop me. We then decamped to Baton Rouge, with a plausible public library, and thence to Kansas City, with the same, with good selections of adult and YA SF which I read as fast as I could check them out and return them, including THE CURRENTS OF SPACE–not bad, I thought, but outshone by my favorites, which I decided about 1958 were Hal Clement’s NEEDLE, Heinlein’s THE DOOR INTO SUMMER, and Manly Wade Wellman’s TWICE IN TIME. Needless to say these were eclipsed before long as I read everything I could get my hands on.
Hello John, thank you for sharing your reading story. I grew up in rural Virginia but close enough to a town that had a substantial library — thank goodness! I remember vividly the reading incentive system they had, read a certain amount at a certain reading level and get a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut. Thus, it incentivized longer books — hence LOTS OF FANTASY for me. I could maximize the quantity of points and pan pizzas. My middle school also had a system where you could pick a book from their library (this was later in Texas) and take a test, earn points, and cash them in for small pizzas. I was always at the top of the list. But… I had a terribly strategy. Reread all the earlier fantasy series that I had already read previously and earn points with less effort.
Read Jack Vance’s Galactic Effectuator last week, a reminder that late Vance, and minor Vance, are still Jack Vance. The novella is better than the long short story, but the hardboiled-PI-in-Galactic-Reach provides a nice fusion of Jack and John Holbrook Vance’s dual career. Currently embroiled in a lapbreaker bio of Leon Russell, but debating whether to follow with Brunner’s The Traveler in Black or Tate’s Seagulls Under Glass.
Not SF precisely, but also enjoyed the recent reissue of Ulric Daubeny’s The Elemental, a 1919 collection of shorts in a very M.R. Jamesian voice, marking a shift in the genre toward Cosmic Horror. Recommended for lovers of both James and Lovecraft.
I can pretty well say that the first SF I read was a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, “Sunjammer” (later retitled “The Wind from the Sun” in anthologies), published in Boy’s Life, of all places, in 1964 (I was eight!). Followed soon after by the last of Asimov’s Lucky Starr juveniles. Was definitely unprepared for The Zap Gun in 6th grade, but good lord after that I was prepared for anything.
The Tate would certainly be the lesser known path. I feel like I should read some of Tate’s work. I have The Thinking Seat and Seagulls on the shelf. I’d love to know your thoughts on that one.
“Sunjammer” certainly conveys that vaunted SF sense of wonder. A good first read I imagine!
LOL I went to look at Tate’s isfdb listing and saw that there was a 1972 interview with him in Vector, so I toddled off to fanac.org to take a look at it … the first question was “I’m always painfully intrigued about how people discovered SF … [s]o let’s begin by asking how and when you discovered SF.” Some questions are just … perennial.
Re Seagulls: the last story, “Crumbling Hollywood Mansion, Crumbling Hollywood Man”, is one for your Media project.
The collection as a whole is a real mixed bag; the best of them are very good, it unfortunately opens with the two worst stories in the batch. He has a recurring motif of AI-driven surveillance/manipulation that feels uncomfortably prescient. One story was apparently repurposed for the opening of his 1979 novel, Greencomber (at least, I recognized things when I pulled it off the shelf to check … I’m not sure how radically it was revised, or where he took it (yet)).
Thank you for the suggestion Jim. I’ll put it on the list! Sounds intriguing.
As I age, I bounce off Vance more and more. I like my SF a bit more directly topical on issues of the day. Of course, his choice to write his style is deliberate, and thus relevant to his contemporary views, but…
The only pre-1985 SF I’ve read in a while is a juvenile — perhaps really middle-grade — book, Miss Pickerell and the Geiger Counter, by Ellen MacGregor, from 1953. It’s the second in a long series of books — four by MacGregor, the other 11 or so written by Dora Pantell after MacGregor’s untimely death in 1954. The books are all about middle school level science, but only sometimes real SF, as with the first book, Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars. Not really recommended for adults.
John Kessel is an excellent writer (and someone I know personally, from numerous conversations at conventions and stuff) — and some of his stuff is pre-1985! “Another Orphan” is great, “Not Responsible! Part it and Lock It” is very good, and “The Pure Product” (1986, so surely written in 1985!) is searing stuff, a darker variation on the already dark enough idea form “Vintage Season”. John’s first novel, co-written with James Patrick Kelly, Freedom Beach (1985) is also worth reading, wild weird stuff.
I just finished Brian Aldiss’s “The Moment of Eclipse,” reading it for the 1971 BSFA Award. It’s quite strange and, by turns, alarming and disturbing. About half the stories were quite good; the rest mostly passable.
Yeah, I’ve covered a vast variety of his short fictions over the years — I have so many more to read.
The first scifi I can remember loving would be one of Heinlein’s Juveniles. My dad was the big Tolkien-head in the family and he was reading me the Hobbit from infancy, but later on it was my mom who really got me into SF. I think Red Planet was the first one, either that or Have Space Suit Will Travel sometime in primary school. I’ve mostly soured on Heinlein from my teenage peak of loving him, but his 50s adventure, boy scouty SF keeps a special place in my heart.
As for what I’m reading now, I recently finished John Crowley’s Beasts (1976). I absolutely loved it. Crowley’s distant, abstracted yet deeply poetic style fit in so well with its exploration of humanity and its push-pull relationship to nature and non-human intelligence.
I also read a bunch of his juveniles in my late teens.
Beasts is great. Here’s my review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2013/05/06/book-review-beasts-john-crowley-1976/
I think the first SF novel I read was To Your Scattered Bodies Go. An uncle had a copy lying around and I thought it looked interesting. I can still remember bits and pieces.
In terms of what I’ve been reading within your date parameters:
The Ganymede Takeover
Apparently there are traces of the sequel to The Man in the High Castle in this novel – the notion of which in itself is a slightly PKDickian concept – the character of Joan suggests some truth in this. Aside from that there is enough in here to keep PKD fans engaged and at least a couple of incidences – a hotel room that communicates; a scene where two Ganymedians start talking about WW1 aircraft, are hilarious. I’d prioritise many PKD novels ahead of this one but it’s well worth a look if you ever stumble across a cheap copy.
The Two-Timers Bob Shaw
You reviewed it and gave it quite a thrashing. Time travel, but not as we usually know it. There are no haunting echoes drifting down the passages of time. It suffers a bit from distracting sections involving characters completely unrelated to the plot, but the central characters, plus the cop, help move things along enough. Like Other Days it’s bitty and doesn’t quite cohere into something wholly satisfying but there’s more than enough in there to keep one engaged and reading. Faint echoes of this novel are to be found, perhaps, in Priest’s The Prestige. The highly regarded Wreath of Stars next for me on the Shaw front.
The artworks on each cover are always truly fantastic. I have a collection I’ve picked up since a kid. Unfortunately never got around to actually reading any, always have dreams of doing so in retirement LOL. But I love the artwork and am always amazed how many incredible books you find Joachim. I’d been away for a while but so good to see you are still filling the world with these incredible artworks and sci-fi media. Massive kudos… All the best… Mikey
Thank you for the kind words. Let me know if you end up picking up any older SF!
I just read and thoroughly enjoyed Bob Shaw’s debut Night Walk (1967), and wrote a review of it on a flight back from China.
A few weeks ago I picked up three books by Ian Watson: The Embedding (1973), The Jonah Kit (1975), and Alien Embassy (1977). I’ve heard very positive comments about Watson, especially his early novels – I’ve seen that you are fond of him also. I’ve now made a start on his debut.
Writing on an airplane? Yeah, I can’t do that! hah. I’ll take a look. As for Watson, I’ve read but never managed to review The Embedding and The Jonah Kit. I enjoyed both.