Author: Joachim Boaz

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCXXV (Walter Tevis, Katherine MacLean, Michael Frayn, and Jeffrey A. Carver)

/ Joachim Boaz / 35 Comments

My rough start to the semester proves hard to dispel. I’ll get back to my regular programming soon–I promise. In the meantime, I’ve collected some goodies!

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

1. The Man Who Fell to Earth, Walter Tevis (1963)

  • Jim Burns’ cover for the 1982 edition

From inside page: “He was not a man; yet he was very much like a man. He was six and a half feet tall, and some men are even taller than that; his hair was as white as that of an albino, yet his face was a light tan color, and his eyes a pale blue. His frame was improbably slight, his features delicate. There was an elfin quality to his face, a fine, boyish look to the wide intelligent eyes.

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Short Story Reviews: Sydney J. Van Scyoc’s “Shatter the Wall” (1962), “Bimmie Says” (1962), and “Pollony Undiverted” (1963)

/ Joachim Boaz / 20 Comments

Today I’ve reviewed the 29th story in my series on the science fictional media landscape of the future. In Sydney J. Van Scyoc’s debut “Shatter the Wall” (1962), a bedraggled wife attempts to prevent her daughter and husband from taking on the personas of a television family.

Previously: Henry Kuttner’s “Year Day” (1953)

Up Next: Edmond Hamilton’s “Requiem” (1962) and John Anthony West’s “George” (1961)

As I’d only previously read one of Van Scyoc’s novels more than a decade ago, I added her next two published short fictions to fit the parameters of my series on the first three published short fictions by female authors who are new(ish) to me. So far I’ve featured Phyllis Gotlieb (1926-2009), Josephine Saxton (1935-), Carol Emshwiller (1921-2019), Wilmar H. Shiras (1908-1990), Nancy Kress (1948-), Melisa Michaels (1946-2019), Lee Killough (1942-), Betsy Curtis (1917-2002), and Eleanor Arnason (1942-).

Sydney J. Van Scyoc (1939-2023) published eleven novels and around thirty short stories across her writing career (primarily 1962-1991). Her visions were rarely republished or anthologized. “A Visit to Cleveland General” (1968) might be her best-known short story as it appeared in Carr and Wollheim’s best of 1969 anthology. I have a positive impression of her work so far.

Have you read any of her work? If so, what were your thoughts?

  • Jack Gaughan’s cover for Galaxy, ed. Frederik Pohl (February 1962)

3/5 (Average)

“Shatter the Wall” first appeared in Galaxy, ed. Frederik Pohl (February 1962). You can read it online here.

According to Gary R. Edgerton in The Columbia History of American Television (2007), a debate emerged in the late 1950s about American materialism and its glorification on television. John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Affluent Society (1958) suggested that advertising created synthetic needs and damaging desires in American citizens. “Shatter the Wall” is all about synthetic needs and damaging desires.

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What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading? + Bimonthly Update No. V

/ Joachim Boaz / 61 Comments
  • A selection of SF volumes from my shelves

What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading this week?

Thanks again for all the great conversation. Make sure to check out the previous installment if you haven’t already. As before, I’ve included a bit about the books in the photograph, birthdays from the last two weeks, and brief ruminations on what I’ve been reading and writing.

Let me know what pre-1985 SF you’ve been reading!

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Book Review: The Gold at the Starbow’s End, Frederik Pohl (1972)

/ Joachim Boaz / 48 Comments
  • Peter Jones’ cover for the 1975 edition

3.75/5 (Collated rating: Good)

After Frederik Pohl (1919-2013) left his editorial position at Galaxy and If in 1969, he set his pen towards a productive vein of form in the 70s that would culminate in his Hugo and Nebula-winning Gateway (1977). The Gold at the Starbow’s End contains five short stories–including the first of his Heechee sequence–from this period. Two of the best stories, the titular “The Gold at the Starbow’s End” (1972) and “The Merchant of Venus” (1972), demonstrate Pohl’s characteristic blend of hyperbolic satire and delirious energy. There are no duds in this collection.

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Updates: New Books! No. CCCXXIV (Octavia E. Butler, Edgar Pangborn, Piers Anthony, Themed Anthology)

/ Joachim Boaz / 26 Comments

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

1. The Company of Glory, Edgar Pangborn (serialized 1974, novel 1975)

  • Vincent Di Fate’s cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: “BEHOLD DEMETRIOS! With the same rich imagination and dazzling insights that won him the International Fantasy award, Edgar Pangborn weaves a magical tapestry set far in man’s future.

It is a time when man, struggling to rise above the ashes of nuclear holocaust, has returned to the simpler values and lifestyles of medieval times. And in this society, Demetrios the storyteller is revered among men for his captivating tales of the Old Time, with its miraculous Telephones, and Jet Planes, and TV, and Automobiles. But Demetrios is also feared–for one storyteller with a head full of ancient truth can be dangerous.

So Demetrios is forced to flee, with six compatriots, and together they embark on a journey full of unexpected sorrows, and unimagined delights, a journey through realms of fantasy, philosophy, and rich human possibility, which the reader will be delighted and privileged to share.”

Initial Thoughts: After reveling in Pangborn’s masterpiece Davy (1964), I decided to acquire everything in the Tales of a Darkening World sequence I didn’t own already. According to Spider Robinson, the editor at Pyramid Books cut portions of the novel that was serialized in Galaxy… Inset image is from Robinson’s intro to Still I Persist in Wondering (1978).

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What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading? + Bimonthly Update No. IV

/ Joachim Boaz / 77 Comments
  • A selection of SF volumes from my shelves

What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading this week?

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the conversations and connections you all have made in the comments over the last two months of this column. Make sure to check out the previous installment if you haven’t already. As before, I’ve included a bit about the books in the photograph, birthdays from the last two weeks, and brief ruminations on what I’ve been reading and writing.

Let me know what pre-1985 SF you’ve been reading!

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Short Story Review: Kate Wilhelm’s “Planet Story” (1975) and Clark Ashton Smith’s “Master of the Asteroid” (1932)

/ Joachim Boaz / 8 Comments

The following review is the 27th and 28th installment of my series searching for “SF short stories that are critical in some capacity of space agencies, astronauts, and the culture which produced them.” Some stories I’ll review in this series might not fit. And that is okay. I relish the act of literary archaeology.

Kate Wilhelm’s “Planet Story” (1975) charts a planetary mystery that seems just out of reach of the cold, factual truth of scientific instruments. And Clark Ashton Smith’s “Master of the Asteroid” (1932) imagines the fragile minds of human explorers unable to grapple with the interplanetary gulf.

As always, feel free to join the conversation.

Previously: Philip K. Dick’s “The Precious Artifact” (1964) and Henry Slesar’s “Mr. Loneliness” (1957)

Up Next: Clifford D. Simak’s “Conditions of Employment” (1960).

  • Uncredited cover for the 1958 edition

4/5 (Good)

Clark Ashton Smith’s “Master of the Asteroid” first appeared in Wonder Stories, ed. Hugo Gernsback (October 1932). You can read it online here. I read it in the 1958 edition of Strange Ports of Call, ed. August Derleth (1948).

Cark Ashton Smith (1893-1961) is characterized as “one of the big three of Weird Tales, with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft.” His fiction was deeply influenced by his psychological afflictions, “including intense agoraphobia,” and nightmares. Due to the Great Depression and the declining health of his parents, Smith wrote more than a hundred short stories between 1929-1934. “Master of the Asteroid” (1932), produced in this productive moment, reads like an unnerving catalog of manias.

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Exploration Log 3: Interview with Adam Rowe, author of Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s (2023)

/ Joachim Boaz / 28 Comments

Today I have the third post in my Exploration Log series.

I would like to welcome Adam Rowe to Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations. He is the author of a brand new book–Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s (2023)–on 70s science fiction cover art with a foreword by artist Vincent Di Fate. You can follow Adam’s art account on Twitter and Tumblr. I also recommend subscribing to his free 70s SF art newsletter. You can buy Worlds Beyond Time on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. 

Adam Rowe is a writer who has been collecting retro science fiction art online since 2013. He covers technology at Tech.co and has been a Forbes contributor on publishing and the business of storytelling. He has also written for iO9, Popular Mechanics, Tor.com, and the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog. Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s (2023) is his first book.

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What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading? + Bimonthly Update No. III

/ Joachim Boaz / 57 Comments
  • A selection of SF volumes from my shelves

What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading this weekend?

Thank you all for making this fanzine column a success! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the conversations and connections you all have made in the comments. Make sure to check out the previous installment if you haven’t already. As before, I’ve included a bit about the books in the photograph, birthdays from the last two weeks, and brief ruminations on what I’ve been reading and writing.

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