Author: Joachim Boaz

Book Review: Frostworld and Dreamfire, John Morressy (1977)

/ Joachim Boaz / 12 Comments

(David Wilhelmsen’s cover for the 1977 edition)

4.25/5 (Very Good)

John Morressy’s moving SF epic Frostworld and Dreamfire (1977) is set in the Del Whitby sequence (1972-1983) of novels which explore conflict and colonialism (humans and humanoid aliens) within the loose human Sternverein polity.  Conceptually the sequence, which does not have to be read in order, fascinates: the first three novels–Starbrat (1972), Nail Down the Stars (1973), and Under a Calculating Star (1975)–analyze the same conflict from three different perspectives (SF Encyclopedia entry). Continue reading →

Updates: New Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CCVI (Norton + Hodder-Williams + Zimpel + New Dimensions Anthology)

/ Joachim Boaz / 13 Comments

1. Andre Norton wrote the breezy sort of juvenile SF that appealed to me more than a decade ago (late teens)–every now and then I pick one up. I reviewed Norton’s Sargasso of Space (1955) back in 2012.

I’ve always enjoyed this Ed Valigursky cover!

2. The risky purchase! I can find very little about this book online. And it’s Lloyd Zimpel’s only SF novel. As with so many 70s novels, it posits a war between the races….

3. The strangest back cover blurb ever? I’ve not read any of Christopher Hodder-Williams’ SF. Have you? Apparently he wrote quite a few novels (bibliography).

Ian Sales put the novel on his British SF Masterpieces list but didn’t appear to agree with the placement (review).

4. A further volume in the New Dimension series of original anthologies edited by Robert Silverberg…. I purchased this one in part because it was one of Marta Randall’s earliest short stories. I reviewed Randall’s solid A City in the North (1976) recently.

Also, it has TWO Michael Bishop short stories (he’s one of my favorite SF authors) — my first guest post series covered his SF visions.

Do you have a favorite cover? Thoughts on a particular work? An illuminating tangent? As always, I look forward to your comments!

~

1. Key Out of Time, Andre Norton (1963)

(Ed Valigursky’s cover for the 1964 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: Vonda N. McIntyre (August 28, 1948 – April 1, 2019)

/ Joachim Boaz / 20 Comments

Vonda N. McIntyre (August 28, 1948 – April 1, 2019) passed away yesterday from pancreatic cancer. McIntyre, best known for her Hugo and Nebula-winning SF novel Dreamsnake (1978) and her Star Trek Novels and film adaptations (1981-2004) (bibliography), published her first SF story “Breaking Point” in in the February 1970 issue of Venture Science Fiction Magazine. John Clute in SF Encyclopedia describes her two best-known SF novels: Continue reading →

Book Review: The Road to Corlay, Richard Cowper (1978)

/ Joachim Boaz / 11 Comments

(Gary Viskupic’s cover for the 1979 edition)

3.75/5 (Good)

Nominated for the 1980 Nebula Award for Best Novel

Richard Cowper’s The Road to Corlay (1978) charts the ethereal pastoral wanderings and religious musings of the followers of The White Bird of Kinship, an anti-institutional pseudo-Christian religion at odds with the oppressive Church Militant that holds sway over what remains of Europe. Continue reading →

Book Review: Secret Rendezvous, Kobo Abe (1977, trans. 1979)

/ Joachim Boaz / 15 Comments

(Tadanoi Yokoo’s cover for the 1979 edition)

5/5 (Masterpiece)

In Kobo Abe’s Secret Rendezvous (1977, trans. 1979) the hospital stretches like a recumbent body, leaking fluids through its membranes and undefined in its expansiveness, across the urban landscape. Within its labyrinthine interior, humans (agents of “disease”) animate various functions of the hospital for their own purposes–some sinister, some scientific, some sinisterly scientific. The hospital body lurches and vibrates with the sounds of its doctors and orderlies as they rewire the building’s organs and nerves in order to experiment on themselves and their patients. Within this veritable entity lacking a functional guiding agent, a harrowing, existential, and surreal Freudian mystery unfolds. Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Interior Art: Monday Maps and Diagrams (Science Fiction) 3/25/19: A French edition of Mark S. Geston’s Lords of the Starship (1967) and Out of the Mouth of the Dragon (1969)

/ Joachim Boaz / 6 Comments

Today’s installment of Monday Maps and Diagrams returns to the worlds of Mark S. Geston. In 1980 French publisher OPTA released the first two volumes of Geston’s The Wars series, Lords of the Starship (1967) and Out of the Mouth of the Dragon (1969), in a handsome volume with a striking interior map by Claude Fritsch. The series charts the slow climb out of a Dark Age, where the landscape is littered with unusual mutants and the relics of past technologically superior empires and peoples…. I find the map and cover try to evoke more “medieval” imagery than the actual novels (I mean, even in the first one, the technology exists to “construct” a spaceship).

Enjoy! And, as always, comments are welcome and appreciated!

My review of Lords of the Starship (1967).

Citation: Claude Fritsch’s interior map (above) and cover art (below) for the 1st French OPTA edition of Les seigneurs du navire-étoile / Hors de la bouche du dragon (1980). Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Crashed Spaceships, Part III

/ Joachim Boaz / 21 Comments

(Detail from Alan Daniels’ cover for the 1980 German edition of Open Prison (1964), James White)

The crashed spaceship — a wrecked hulk spinning in the emptiness of space, shattered metal struts strewn across an alien landscape…. I find few SF scenarios more nostalgic than this one as a younger me was obsessed with books about the societies formed from the survivors of such cataclysms (Anne McCaffrey’s Acorna Universe sequence, of dubious quality now, was a cornerstone of my youth).

I have selected a range of fascinating covers which add to a series I made in 2012 (Part I) and 2013 (Part II). My favorite of the bunch is Tibor Csernus’ cover for the 1973 French edition of Clifford D. Simak’s Time and Again (1951) due to the verdant and wet landscape the spaceship finds itself in. My second favorite is Dean Ellis’ “descriptive” cover for the 1974 edition of Alan Dean Foster Icerigger (1974). It doesn’t try to be surreal but rather depicts a scene straight from novel. I usually prefer when the artist takes a more unusual approach but in this case Ellis narrows in on the wonder of the premise. Continue reading →

Short Story Reviews: Four Stories from New Worlds Science Fiction (April 1964), ed. John Carnell

/ Joachim Boaz / 10 Comments

To mix things up a bit I decided to review four stories in John Carnell’s last issue of New Worlds Science Fiction (April 1964) before he handed over the reins of the dying publication to Michael Moorcock, who would elevate it to New Wave greatness. Other than the James White serial Open Prison, which I plan on reading in book form when I procure a copy, three of the four authors reviewed below owed much of their careers to John Carnell, and would see few stories in print after his departure (see the individual story reviews for details). Only Barrington J. Bayley, writing as P. F. Woods, would see continued publication (and growing popularity) in New Worlds under Moorcock.

Of the stories I recommend reading William Spencer’s rumination on overpopulation and urban life,  “Megapolitan Underground.” The others are worthwhile only for die-hard fans of Carnell’s New Worlds and other editorial projects. Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CCV (Farmer + Simak + Effinger + New Dimensions Anthology)

/ Joachim Boaz / 10 Comments

1. I recently read and reviewed enthusiastically New Dimensions 3, ed. Robert Silverberg (1973). Inspired, I procured quite a few more in the series… Here is number 1. Looks like an absolutely spectacular lineup — Le Guin, Ellison, Malzberg, Lafferty, etc.

2. One always needs more Clifford D. Simak, right?

3. Huge fan of George Alec Effinger’s novels and short stories. Here’s what I’ve reviewed so far…. Heroics (1979), Irrational Numbers (1976), and What Entropy Means to Me (1972).

4.  Philip José Farmer, despite multiple masterpieces, churned out a lot of crud… I expect this will fall in that category.

Note: The hi-res scans are of my personal copies — click to enlarge.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Enjoy!

~

1. New Dimensions 1, ed. Robert Silverberg (1971)

(Uncredited cover for the 1973 edition) Continue reading →