Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. LXXIX (Haldeman + Chalker + Oliver + Anderson)

/ Joachim Boaz / 32 Comments

Some Chicago finds from Powell Books (Hyde Park)…  I own too many SF novels in my to read pile (I have close to 300 waiting to be read so I am going to try to put a stop on rampant — yes, they are cheap — purchases).

Last one of these for a while?  Should I take bets?

Some titles definitely not my normal fare — I’ve read Haldeman’s The Forever War (1975), Forever Peace (1999), and Forever Free (1999) but not a single one of his short stories so Infinite Dreams (1978) is a welcome addition to my collection.

Chad Oliver is one of the “second-tier” greats whom I’ve not read…. And Chalker falls in that category as well.  Poul Anderson’s The Byworlder (1971) is generally not considered one of his best but it did snag a Nebula award nomination.

Thoughts?

1. Infinite Dreams, Joe Haldeman (1978)

(Clyde Caldwell’s cover for the 1979 edition) Continue reading →

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 →

Book Review: At the Seventh Level, Suzette Haden Elgin (1972)

/ Joachim Boaz / 5 Comments

(George Barr’s cover for the 1972 edition)

3/5 (Average)

At the Seventh Level (1972) is part of a loose sequence of novels that feature Trigalactic Intelligence Service agent Coyote Jones and his voyages to various worlds. Although this sequence ostensibly has the trappings of SF space opera, Suzette Haden Elgin subverts the genre conventions so that the premise functions as a polemical feminist text with satirical underpinnings.  At the Seventh Level is an important installment in a long line of “women as slaves trapped in vast repressive patriarchy propped up by appeals to tradition and brute force” type novels which, some might argue, culminated in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985).  It is important to note that there were many novels on similar themes before Atwood’s acknowledged masterpiece hit Continue reading →

Book Review: A Way Home, Theodore Sturgeon (1956)

/ Joachim Boaz / 61 Comments

(Mel Hunter’s cover for the 1956 edition)

3/5 (collated rating: Average)

Although Theodore Sturgeon is generally considered a master of the SF short form, his collection A Way Home (1956) contains only two worthwhile stories — “Thunder and Roses” (1947) and “Bulkhead” (1955).  The rest I was either unable to finish or struggled to muddle through over the course of the last two or so weeks.  Fortunately,  the near masterpiece “Bulkhead” was almost worth the pain induced by the intelligent dog related subgenre of SF manifest in “Tiny and the Monster” (1947) or the cute accidentally destructive hurkle kittens of “The Hurkle Is a Happy Beast” (1949).

At this stage in my recent endeavor to brush up on the best of the 50s short story wordsmiths, I place Sturgeon below Robert Sheckley, Brian Aldiss, Philip K. Dick, Fritz Leiber, Miriam Allen deFord, Lester del Rey, Walter M. Miller, Jr., C. M. Kornbluth, and Frederik Pohl. (shocking to some, I know!).

However, before I make a more definitive conclusion I call on my readers to list what you consider his best short work Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Diagrammatic Wonders (alien sand art + planning invasions + and other more mysterious formulations), Part I

/ Joachim Boaz / 21 Comments

1-1957_04_fantasticuniverse_finlay

(Virgil Finlay’s cover for the April 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe, ed. Hans Stefan Santesson)

At first glance this is a miscellaneous collection of covers on diagrammatic wonders — the aliens (or “advanced” humans) on Virgil Finlay’s cover for the April 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe conjure an image of earth with colored sand, generals plot invasions via maps and other diagrams depicting troop movements….

While some of the covers are themselves diagrams (Christopher Zacharow’s cover for the 1985 edition of Ancient of Days (1985), Michael Bishop) others place their characters in opposition to each other as pieces Continue reading →

Book Review: And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (variant title: Beneath the Shattered Moons), Michael Bishop (1976)

/ Joachim Boaz / 6 Comments

(Jonathan Weld’s cover for the 1976 edition)

4/5 (Good)

Michael Bishop’s And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (variant title: Beneath the Shattered Moons) (1976) is a melancholic and allegorically inclined parable about a coming cataclysm that threatens a programmed and hierarchically rigid society (accomplished via genetic modification).  Bishop’s voice is an intensely humanistic once, futuristic technology is present but not a central concern…. The simple but effective plot is the perfect vehicle for his moralistic ruminations: a man forced into action, a world compelled — despite the external forces at play — to adapt.

 And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees is the first of Michael Bishop’s works I have read and I am definitely intrigued enough to place his supposedly superior Nebula-nominated first novel, Funeral for the Continue reading →

Book Review: Singularity Station, Brian N. Ball (1973)

/ Joachim Boaz / 18 Comments

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(Chris Foss’ cover for the 1973 edition)

4/5 (Good)

If one were to distill 70s space opera in a decanter filled with SF pulp the result would be Singularity Station (1973).  Combined with the dynamic Chris Foss cover — I’ve never enjoyed his work but it does embody the vigor and explosiveness of the novel — Brian N. Ball’s vision is an veritable adolescent SF wet dream filled with robots, cutting edge science (in this case, 60s speculation on the nature of black holes), a love interest (not the 30s/40s pulp versions) in distress, a mad scientist, and inventive spaceships and space stations.

70s pulp at its 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 →