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

/ Joachim Boaz / 83 Comments
  • A selection of read science fiction novels from my shelves

What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading or planning to read this month?

Here’s May’s installment of this column.

As I am currently exploring the north-of-the-Arctic Circle reaches of Norway, why not segue way into this post by re-ruminating on the only Norwegian SF novel I’ve read: Knut Faldbakken’s spectacular Twilight Country (1974, trans. Joan Tate, 1993). I wish I’d thought to bring the sequel — Sweetwater (1976, trans. Joan Tate, 1994). Twilight Country, my second favorite SF novel read of 2021, contains one of the great depictions of a decaying metropolis. It is a densely metaphoric story of survival within its crumbling edifices. The masterstroke of Faldbakken’s novel is the portrayal of the Dump, a border zone containing the cast off fragments of human existence, as a place of recreation. Our characters run to the Dump to escape, to make their lives anew. They’re deeply flawed figures. There’s a tangible sense of organic transformation within the transients who inhabit this liminal zone. Sweetwater and The Dump act as a closed system. One decays into the other. One creates the other. Not recommended unless you like your SF dark and moody like me!

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Short Story Review: Robert Abernathy’s “Single Combat” (1955)

/ Joachim Boaz / 18 Comments

In January, I inaugurated a new review series on the urban landscape in science fiction. I finally present the second post! And it’s a good one. I am joined by Anthony Hayes, a frequent contributor and creator of wonderful conversations over the last few years on the site (as antyphayes). I recommend you check out his website The Sinister Science. In addition to ruminations on science fiction–often through the lens of his academic PhD research in the Situationist International, “as well as other related left-communist and post-situationist writings,” he creates fascinating collages that interweave comic books, textual play, and historical images.

We chose Robert Abernathy’s deceptively complex parable of urban alienation “Single Combat” (1955) as our inaugural story. It first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Anthony Boucher (January 1955). You can read it online here.

Previously: Michael Bishop’s “The Windows in Dante’s Hell” (1973), Barrington J. Bayley’s “Exit from City 5” (1971), and A. J. Deutsch’s “A Subway Named Mobius” (1950).

Up Next: TBD

  • Nick Solovioff’s cover for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Anthony Boucher (January 1955)

Anthony Paul Hayes’ Rumination

Urban alienation writ large: Robert Abernathy’s “Single Combat”’ (1955)

Having planted an explosive device in a forgotten corner of an unnamed, North American city, the similarly unnamed protagonist flees. However, in fleeing the protagonist comes to realise what they had hitherto only suspected: that the city has become a living, conscious thing, and like all such things is willing to fight for its survival.my

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCXXXIV (Robert Silverberg, Best SF of 1979, C. L. Moore, George Hay)

/ Joachim Boaz / 31 Comments

Spring semester in the books! It’s now time to read (and go on vacation).

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

1. Invaders from Earth and To Worlds Beyond, Robert Silverberg (1980)

  • Chris Foss’ cover for the 1st edition.

From the back cover: “The Ganymedians had a rich, peace culture, peaceful culture extending back hundreds of thousands of years in human time. But the soil of their Jovian moon held uncountable riches in the form of the nuclear fuels Earth so desperately needed. It was a pattern that had been repeated many times in humanity’s bloody history; in Asia, in Africa, in the American West–but the nations of mankind were not ready to make the same mistake again. So when the Corporation decided it wanted those fissionables whether the Ganymedians wanted to give them up or not, they knew they had a job of selling of their hands, to swing the weight of public opinion behind them. And that was a job for Ted Kennedy, ad-man supreme. Kennedy’s record showed he could sell the public on just about anything. Even genocide.”

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Short Book Reviews: Clifford D. Simak’s They Walked Like Men (1962) and Jacques Sternberg’s Sexualis ’95 (1965, trans. 1967)

/ Joachim Boaz / 14 Comments

Note: My read but “waiting to be reviewed pile” is growing. Short rumination/tangents are a way to get through the stack before my memory and will fades. My website partially serves as a record of what I have read and a memory apparatus for future projects. Stay tuned for more detailed and analytical reviews.

1. They Walked Like Men, Clifford D. Simak (1962)

  • Richard Powers’ cover for the 1963 edition

3/5 (Average)

In a confrontation with maleficent alien land prospectors in Clifford D. Simak’s They Walked Like Men (1962), the main character ruminates that “it was almost if [we] were acting out an old morality play, with the basic sins of mankind enlarged a millionfold to prove a point by exaggeration” (113). Simak’s moment of meta-commentary on his own narrative and tonal choices gives shape to odd conjuration of juvenile comedy and apocalyptic extrapolation of capitalism unleased.

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

/ Joachim Boaz / 72 Comments
  • A selection of read volumes from my site

What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading or planning to read this month?

Here’s April’s installment of this column.

First, a bit about Isaac Asimov’s Foundation (1951) from M. Keith Booker’s Monsters, Mushroom Clouds, and the Cold War: American Science Fiction and the Roots of Postmodernism, 1946-1964 (2001), my current history of science fiction read:

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Short Story Reviews: Clifford D. Simak’s “Masquerade” (1941) and “Tools” (1942)

/ Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments

Today I’ve selected two early Clifford D. Simak “apprentice” stories–“Masquerade” (1941) and “Tools” (1942)–deeply critical of the American business ethic.1 Collectively they posit a future in which colonization goes hand-in-hand with the exploitation of resources, workers, and threatens the alien intelligences they encounter.2

Welcome to a future of capitalistic vastation!

  • Hubert Rodger’s cover for Astounding, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. (March 1941)

3/5 (Average)

“Masquerade” first appeared in Astounding, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. (March 1941). You can read it online here.

In the surprisingly bleak “Masquerade” (1941), metamorphic aliens on Mercury’s radiation-blasted surface parrot human actions. Beneath their clownish behavior is a plot, a plot to takedown an Earth corporation. The story begins with a disquieting sequence in the bleak expanse outside a sunlight harvesting power station on the surface of Mercury: “the Roman candles, snatching their shapes from Creepy’s mind, had assumed the form of Terrestrial hillbillies and were cavorting the measures of a square dance” (57). The Candles, “kicking up the dust, shuffling and hopping and flapping their arms” (58), are the mysterious natives of Mercury. In classic Simak fashion, there’s a method to their apparent comic madness.3

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCXXXIII (Keith Laumer, Vernor Vinge, Mack Reynolds, Daphne du Maurier)

/ Joachim Boaz / 20 Comments

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

1. It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad Galaxy, Keith Laumer (1968)

  • Richard Powers’ cover for the 1st edition

Back cover: “This frenetic collection of science fiction stories–often disturbing, always entertaining–comes from outstanding and unpredictable SF author Keith Laumer.

Tingle your imagination: In ‘The Planet Wreckers,’ Jack Waverly goes to bed an ordinary mortal and wakes up a movie star. But the trouble is, his life is the price.

Tired of being a 97-pound weakling? “The Body Builders” has the answer for you: Just buy yourself the Body Beautiful.

Exorcise your hostility! A Certain Powers plans to obliterate “the greatest menace in the world today”–coast-to-coast television, better known as ‘The Big Show.'” [I think the last description is not for a story in the collection. Laumer always had a story title “The Big Show” that appeared in 1968. Maybe they were planning on including it in this collection but substitute something else at the last minute?]

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Generation Ship Short Story Review: Fred Saberhagen’s “Birthdays” (1976)

/ Joachim Boaz / 15 Comments

This is the 19th post in my series of vintage generation ship short fiction reviews. I am not entirely sure Fred Saberhagen’s vision exactly fits the definition of a generation ship but it’s so fascinating that I had to share it with you all!

As a reminder for anyone stopping by, all of the stories I’ll review in the series are available online via the link below in the review. And, if you want to work through the reviews from the series from the beginning, here’s my first post from 2019 on Chad Oliver’s “The Wind Blows Free” (1957).

You are welcome to read and discuss along with me as I explore humanity’s visions of generational voyage. And thanks go out to all who have joined already. I also have compiled an extensive index of generation ship SF if you wish to track down my earlier reviews on the topic and any that you might want to read on your own.

Previously: Barrington J. Bayley’s “Exit from City 5” (1971).

Next Up: Poul Anderson’s “The Troublemakers” (1953)

  • Stephen Fabian’s cover for the March 1976 issue of Galaxy

4.25/5 (Very Good)

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Short Story Reviews: Robert Bloch’s “Daybroke” (1958) and “The Head” (1976)

/ Joachim Boaz / 23 Comments

After watching the first episode of the new Fallout (2024) adaptation a few nights ago (I like it!), I impulsively decided to push aside all my unfinished reviews and write about two more nuclear gloom tales. I selected two by Robert Bloch (1917-1994), best known as the author of Psycho (1959), whose SF output I’ve only recently started to explore. Both stories are slick satires that use the nuclear scenario to poke holes in the stories we weave about American exceptionalism and progress.

Let’s get to the nightmares!

  • Richard Powers’ cover for Star, ed. Frederik Pohl (1958)

3.25/5 (Above Average)

“Daybroke” first appeared in the only issue of Star, ed. Frederik Pohl (1958). You can read it online here.

Robert Bloch’s “Daybroke” attempts to convey an encyclopedic glimpse of post-apocalyptic destruction in order to satirize an America that allowed the usage of a nuclear weapon. Despite its appealing structure, the story lacks the prose necessary to sear and burn–the last sentence, well, that you’ll remember.

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