Updates + Articles

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. LXXVIII (Wilhelm + Saxton + Wallace + Sturgeon)

/ Joachim Boaz / 17 Comments

Some fun recent purchases (online and used bookstores in Chicago)!  I saw the potential in Kate Wilhelm’s first collection of SF, The Mile-Long Spaceship (1963) so I tracked down a first edition of her second collection, The Downstairs Room and Other Speculative Fiction (1968) — I have high hopes.

I’ve found Josephine Saxton’s work hard to come by — her works were rarely reprinted.  The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith (1969) was a fascinating SF infused allegory so I splurged a bit and procured Vector for Seven: The Weltanschauung of Mrs. Amelia Mortimer and Friends (1970).

I am less interested in the other two purchases — The Sign of the Mute Medusa (1977) by Ian Wallace was a dollar at the thrift store and has a great domed city on the cover.  I had previously read his massively disappointing Croyd (1967).  And the Theodore Sturgeon volume, A Touch of Strange (1958), contains some of his best known short works — hopefully it’s rather more satisfying than A Way Home (1956).

1. The Downstairs Room and Other Speculative Fiction, Kate Wilhelm (1968) (MY REVIEW)

(Ron Walotsky’s cover for the 1970 edition) Continue reading →

Updates (New Resource): List of Immortality Themed SF (a call to contribute!)

/ Joachim Boaz / 22 Comments

This post is a call for readers to submit their favorite immortality themed science fiction NOT included on my list below (and even examples they did not care for so I can make this a more substantial resource).  I’ll make a page with all the information I receive for easy consultation soon (INDEX of similar pages/articles).

A while back I started gathering a list of titles — via SF Encyclopedia, other online resources, and my own shelves — on immortality themed SF.  I have always been intrigued by the social space (one plagued by violence and despair or buoyed by the hope of a better future) that the possibility of immortality might generate.

I would argue that the single best example of social effects that the possibility of immortality might create is Clifford D. Simak’s Why Call Them Back From Heaven? (1967).  In similar fashion, James Gunn’s The Immortals (1962) takes place in a world where immortals do exist, they skirt Continue reading →

Updates: A New Classic SF Review Blog to add to your list

/ Joachim Boaz / 33 Comments

MPorcius, a frequent and well-read commentator on my site, has started transferring his numerous amazon reviews and writing new reviews of classic SF (a substantial portion is pre-1980s) to his blog.  Please visit him and comment on his posts!

queue rant: I’ve noticed a surprising lack of frequently updated classic SF blogs online.  Yes, many bloggers occasionally dabble in the distant era of SF glory or publish yet another review of the obligatory masterpieces because they appear on a some “best of” list (Dune, The Left Hand of Darkness, etc).  However, few are devoted to the period and make it a point to write reviews of books that very few people will ever actually read due to their obscurity i.e. blogs that don’t sell out by churning out reviews of new Tor releases (I have declined their offer) or endless 4/5 or 5/5 starred let’s pat each other on the back reviews of self-published (and generally awful) ebooks Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. LXXVII (Cowper + Asimov + Clarke + Dickson)

/ Joachim Boaz / 19 Comments

Bargain bins yield some Clarke and Asimov classics I read when I was a teen but never owned….   I remember thinking at the time that Imperial Earth (1975) was one of Clarke’s best novels.  Dickson’s Dorsai! (1960) — I’ve never been a fan of military SF — is a classic I need to get around to reading.  And, my final find was Richard Cowper’s Time Out of Mind (1973).  I was surprisingly impressed with his lighthearted romp of a novel, Profundis (1979).

Thoughts on the books?

1. Time Out of Mind, Richard Cowper (1973)

(Don Maitz’s cover for the 1981 edition)

From the back cover: “As a young boy, Laurie Linton encountered a strange apparition: a ghostly man who urgently mouthed a message: KILL MAGOBION!  Years later, as members of the UN Narcotics Security Agency, Linton and the beautiful Carol Kennedy were assigned a special duty: investigation of a mysterious drug which endowed its addicts with superhuman powers. Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. LXXVI (Effinger + Morgan + deFord + Bishop)

/ Joachim Boaz / 20 Comments

A nice haul from the local used book store and various internet sources….  After Effinger’s masterpiece What Entropy Means to Me (1972) I was desperate to get my hands on another one of his novels (or short story collections — Relatives is not supposed to be as good but, perhaps it will prove the critics (well, namely John Clute) wrong.

Miriam Allen deFord was a prolific 50s short story writer.  Xenogenesis (1969) is the only published collection solely of her stories — thankfully it’s graced with a wonderful Richard Powers cover.

Despite the hideous cover, Michael Bishop’s first novel A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975) is generally considered quite good.  I’ve already read and reviewed Dan Morgan’s average but inventive SF thriller Inside (1971) but included it in this post anyway because I had yet to reach my four new acquisitions for a post.

Have you read any of these novels?  If so, what did you think?

1. Relatives, George Alec Effinger (1973)

(Uncredited cover for the 1976 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. LXXV (Heinlein + Sheckley + Anderson + Zebrowski)

/ Joachim Boaz / 3 Comments

A fun bunch of thrift store finds and gifts….  I’m most excited about Robert Sheckley’s novel Immortality, Inc. (1958) — not only is the cover gorgeous (the initials read LSG but I can’t figure out who the artist might be) but Sheckley is fast becoming a favorite of mine (for example, the short story collections Store of Infinity and The People Trap).

I know very little about George Zebrowski’s novels.  So, I’ll approach The Omega Point (1972) with a tad bit trepidation.  Has anyone read him?  If so, what do you think?

I’ve read Heinlein’s The Man Who Sold the Moon but I have a much later edition and sort of enjoy the standard pulp cover for the 1951 edition.

And another Anderson classic….

1. Immortality, Inc., Robert Sheckley (1958) (MY REVIEW)

(Uncredited — brilliant — cover for the 1959 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. LXXIV (Malzberg + Geston + Anthony + Barjavel)

/ Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments

Part 5 of 5 acquisitions posts covering my haul from Dawn Treader Books in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  I’ve saved some good ones for the end — namely, Mark S. Geston’s Out of the Mouth of the Dragon (1969).  I’ve previously reviewed his first novel — Lords of the Starship (1967) — which was a relentlessly dark vision that showed great promise.  Besides the work of Stanislaw Lem, I know very little about non-English language SF so I snatched up a copy of Rene Barjavel’s Future Times Three (1944).  According to some critics, his treatment of time travel proved profoundly influential.

The other two novels are somewhat bigger risks.  Brian N. Malzberg’s The Empty People (1969), written under his pseudonym K. M. O’Donnell, is one of his first SF novels and supposedly quite average.  And, Piers Anthony’s Macroscope (1969) strikes me as a rather bloated, pseudo-spiritual, New Wave extravaganza (but not in a good way) — we’ll just have to see.

Thoughts?

1. Out of the Mouth of the Dragon, Mark S. Geston (1969)

(John Schoenherr’s cover for the 1969 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. LXXIII (Aldiss + Nourse + Biggle, Jr. + Levy + Coleman)

/ Joachim Boaz / 18 Comments

Part 4 of 5 acquisition posts covering my haul from the marvelous SF bookstore Dawn Treader Books in Ann Arbor, Michigan (Part I, Part II, Part III).

Three of the five books have been on my to acquire list for long time.  I adore Brian Aldiss’ early work (Non-Stop is one of my favorite SF novels) so I snatched up Starswarm (1964) without a moment’s hesitation.  Lloyd Biggle, Jr. writes very unusual (not sure if it’s good) SF — The Light That Never Was (1972) certainly had potential despite its flaws.  Regardless, The World Menders (1971) is supposedly his best work (despite the egregious Freas cover it was “graced” with).  After reading some good reviews of some of Alan E. Nourse’s 1950s medical themed stories, I’ve been looking for a copy of the fix-up novel The Mercy Men (1955).  The remaining two novels in this post were in the 50 cent clearance section — both have stunning covers (Powers + Lehr) and are probably absolutely atrocious reads.

1. Starswarm, Brian Aldiss (1964) (MY REVIEW)

starswarm

(Uncredited cover for the 1964 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. LXXII (Sturgeon, Harness, Sheckley, Duke)

/ Joachim Boaz / 29 Comments

Part 3 of 5 acquisition posts covering my haul from Dawn Treader books in Ann Arbor, Michigan…. The only Sturgeon novel I’ve read was the masterpiece (and rightly so) More Than Human (1953) so I was thrilled when I found not one but three copies of Venus Plus X (1960).  Unfortunately, I was not able to scour the shelves closely enough to find a first edition and thus am stuck with Gray Marrow’s cover for the 1968 Pyramid Science Fiction edition.  But, I went ahead and posted the first edition art instead because it’s without doubt Victor Kalin’s best cover…..

Sheckley is brilliant so I snatched up another collection of his short stories without hesitation.

The two other authors are ones I have heard about but never read — Charles L. Harness and Madelaine Duke.  Duke’s novel was a complete risk due to the ridiculous sounding premise but I love reading works by unknown authors.  Harness is claimed by some to be one of the great authors whose neglect, in the words of John Clute in the SF encyclopedia entry on Harness, “is difficult to understand.”  His work sounds like my cup of tea….

Thoughts?  Has anyone read Charles L. Harness?

1. Venus Plus X, Theodore Sturgeon (1960) (MY REVIEW)

(Victor Kalin’s cover for the 1960 edition) Continue reading →