1970s

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

/ Joachim Boaz / 68 Comments
  • A selection of SF volumes from my shelves

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

After the success of the previous installment, I’ve decided to make this a bimonthly post (“column”) for my site (“fanzine”). 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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Updates: New Books! No. CCCXXIII (Brian W. Aldiss, Anthology of Chinese SF, Linda Steele, and Alan Brennert)

/ Joachim Boaz / 17 Comments

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

1. The Saliva Tree and Other Strange Growths, Brian W. Aldiss (1966)

  • Les Edwards’ cover for the 1979 edition

Contents: “The Saliva Tree” (1965), “Danger: Religion!” (1962), “The Source” (1965), “The Lonely Habit” (1962), “One Role with Relish” (1966), “Legends of Smith’s Burst” (1959), “Day of the Doomed King” (1965), “Paternal Care” (1966), “Girl and Robot with Flowers” (1965)

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Book Review: Mission: Manstop, Kris Neville (1971)

/ Joachim Boaz / 27 Comments
  • Andy Zito’s cover for the 1st edition

3.25/5 (Collated Rating: Above Average)

The career of Kris Neville (1925-1980) can be divided broadly into two parts. In his most productive period (1949-1957), Neville’s SF appeared in all the major magazines of the day, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in particular. Afterwards, while he continued to publish short stories at a far reduced clip until his death, he wrote a handful of fix-up novels between 1964-1970. This trajectory neatly maps onto the restriction of magazine markets in the late 50s and the growing importance of the SF novel.

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCXXII (John Brunner, Leigh Kennedy, Poul Anderson, Salman Rushdie)

/ Joachim Boaz / 18 Comments

I’ve returned from my expedition abroad. It’s time to get back to writing about science fiction! But first, there are always new books that have accumulated at my doorstep…

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

1. The Productions of Time, John Brunner (serialized 1966)

  • Don Maitz’s cover for the 1977 edition

From the back cover: “Murray Douglas had been a theatrical star until he’d hit the bottle once too often. But now he had broken the habit, and, handsome and fit, was ready for a comeback. The most challenging opening available was an avant-garde play where the actors themselves would make up the drama as they went along.

But out at an isolated country estate where the rehearsals were going on, Murray found himself trapped on a real-life day-and-night stage in which nothing was as it seemed, in which inexplicable devices monitored everything and eerie lures attracted each actor’s psychological weakness.

Who then was the real sponsor of this terrifying play–and to what alien audience was it to be presented?

By the Hugo-winning author of STAND ON ZANZIBAR, this is the first unabridged American edition of this John Brunner classic.”

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCXXI (Connie Willis, John Varley, David F. Bischoff, Dennis R. Bailey, Wilson Tucker)

/ Joachim Boaz / 11 Comments

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

1. The City in the Sea, Wilson Tucker (1951)

  • Ed Emshwiller’s cover for the 1952 edition

From the inside flap: “Who knows whether the strange events of this story might not one day occur?

This is the story of an expedition—a strange and exciting expedition of one man and an army of women.

He had come into the land of the women suddenly—and without warning. Tall, bronzed, muscular, he stood out among their pale skins and meek spirits. And when they learned of the land from which he had come–the land they hadn’t even known existed—they had to follow him to it.

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Short Story Reviews: Russell Bates’ “Legion” (1971), “Get With the Program” (1972), and “A Modest Proposal” (1973)

/ Joachim Boaz / 3 Comments

Welcome fellow vintage science fiction fans!

This is Part I of II in a series covering the short fiction of Russell Bates (1941-2018), one of a handful of Native American science fiction authors active in the 1970s [1]. I first came across his name while investigating all the authors featured in Craig Strete’s Native American fanzine Red Planet Earth (6 issues in 1974) [2]. I’ve managed to piece together the following information about his SF career.

Born in Lawton, Oklahoma (I’ve also seen Anadarko, OK implied as a birthplace), Bates was an enrolled member of the Kiowa tribe. After he finished high school, he entered the U.S. Air Force. While injured after an explosion at a missile assembly building, he was encouraged to take up a hobby. He began writing science fiction stories–including Star Trek fanfiction (discussed in more detail below) [4].

Interested in honing his craft, Bates attended the famous Clarion workshop in 1969, and his first story, “Legion” (1971), hit print two years later [4]. He published six science fiction short stories between 1971-1977. A seventh–“Search Cycle: Beginning and Ending 1. The Last Quest; 2. Fifth and Last Horseman”–was scheduled to appear in Harlan Ellison’s infamous Last Dangerous Visions, originally slated for 1973. It hasn’t been published elsewhere.

Bates decided to try his luck in Hollywood. He joined a Writer’s Guild program for minorities with the assistance of D. C. Fontana. Initially unsuccessful, his rejected Star Trek story attempt later appeared in The New Voyages 2 (1978). He kept the American Indian crew member Walking Bear that later appeared in his only co-written Star Trek credit ST: The Animated Series’ “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth” (1974). It is for this episode that Bates is probably best known as it is the only episode of the two original Star Trek series that won an Emmy Award. Unfortunately, despite quite a few sales to the motion picture industry, few of his stories saw the screen after his early Star Trek credit [5].

Without further tangents, lets turn to his first three science fiction short stories–each a rumination on violence and trauma–to hit print.

  • Jim Steranko’s cover for Infinity Two, ed. Robert Hoskins (1971)
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