1980s

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCLXXVI (Philip José Farmer, Barbara Paul, Knut Faldbakken, and Ward Moore)

/ Joachim Boaz / 14 Comments

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

1. Father to the Stars, Philip José Farmer (1981)

  • Janny Wurtz’ cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: “John Carmody has no ethics, no morals and no conscience. Until he takes the Chance on Dante’s Joy, living through seven nights of wildest fantasies come true, he can’t even imagine why anyone would want a conscience. But Dante’s Joy is a truly strange place–and the phone calls from his murdered wife are only the beginning of his strange experiences.

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCLXXIV (Suzette Haden Elgin, Paul Cook, Herbert W. Franke, Charles Eric Maine)

/ Joachim Boaz / 7 Comments

    As always, which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

    1. Furthest, Suzette Haden Elgin (1971) (MY REVIEW)

    • Diane and Leo Dillon’s cover for the 1st edition

    From the back cover: “Coyote Jones, agent for the Tri-Galactic Intelligence Service, had been sent to a planet so unimaginably distant from the rest of the Federation that it bore the descriptive name Furthest. His mission: to find out why the total body of data about Furthest showed the world’s inhabitants to be absolutely average down to the last decimal place. That data had to be false.

    Jones was permitted to live on the planet, but the natives were so wary of him that he could uncover nothing—until he chanced into a personal crisis faced by his young Furthest assistant. The boy’s sister had been sentenced to Erasure, and he wanted Coyote Jones to take the fugitive girl in and hide her.

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    Updates: Recent SFF Purchases No. CCLXXIII (Avram Davidson, Joan D. Vinge, William Tenn, and Michael Kurland)

    / Joachim Boaz / 18 Comments

    As always, which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

    1. The Island Under the Earth, Avram Davidson (1969)

    • Diane and Leo Dillon’s cover for the 1st edition

    From the inside page: “In THE ISLAND UNDER THE EARTH, a master fantasist has created his most fabulous land of imagination, peopled with humans and not-humans who speak with characteristically different voices and pursue goals and philosophies that set them inevitably against one another.

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    Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Johann Peter Reuter’s Surreal Forms Arrayed Across the Plains

    / Joachim Boaz / 12 Comments
    • Reuter’s cover for the 1979 German edition of Philip José Farmer of To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)

    German painter and graphic designer Johann Peter Reuter (1949-) created fourteen credited covers for German SF presses between 1977-1984.  I have identified a potential fifteenth cover included below–the 1977 edition of Isaac Asimov’s Second Foundation (1953)–that I believe fits his style and date range. From the information gleaned from his homepage, Reuter’s SF output occurred in the first few years as a freelance artist after studying art in Dortmund. He started as a figurative painter before evolving to non-figurative forms (brief artist blurb).

    If you’re interested in his non-SF art, check out his fascinating series of paintings from 2004 on the visualization of the mass.

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    Recent Science Fiction and Fantasy Purchases No. CCLXVII (Daniel F. Galouye, Gordon Eklund, Lisa Tuttle, George R. R. Martin, and Andrew Sinclair)

    / Joachim Boaz / 44 Comments

    As always, which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

    1. Windhaven, George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle (1981)

    Vincent Di Fate’s cover for the 1st edition

    From the inside flap: “The planet Windhaven was settled by humans after the crash of a colony starship. Survivors discovered that people could actually fly on this world, aided by the light gravity and dense atmosphere, and using wings made from a virtually indestructible metal fabric that had once been part of the starship. On this planet of small islands, monster-infected seas Continue reading →

    Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCLXVII (Ben Bova, Margaret O’Donnell, Dennis Schmidt, and a themed anthology on gentle invaders)

    / Joachim Boaz / 18 Comments

    As always, which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

    1. Millennium: A Novel About People and Politics in the Year 1999, Ben Bova (1976)

    Fred Marcellino’s cover for the 1st edition

    From the inside flap: “We are thrust into the terrifying world of the future in this chilling novel about people and politics in the year 1999. The Earth’s population has soared to eight billion. The two major powers are on the brink of nuclear war as they vie for control of the planet’s dwindling supply of natural resources.

    Meanwhile, a few hundred kilometers above the Earth’s surface, on their respective Moon colonies, the United States Continue reading →

    Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCLXVI (Pamela Sargent, Warren Miller, Robert Thurston, and a Themed Anthology on Deep Space)

    / Joachim Boaz / 45 Comments

    As always, which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

    Preliminary Note: I’ve made two big changes to the site. My revamped review index now contains every single short story and novel I’ve reviewed on the site listed by author. In the past, you had to sift through the anthologies to find short stories. Hopefully this is easier to navigate [you better say yes — it took me more than eight hours — hah]. Let me know if it is a useful change.

    I’ve also updated the site template to make it easier to navigate on a mobile device. I still like my old template but this seems functionally identical and visually similar.

    Now to the science fiction!

    1. Deep Space, ed. Robert Silverberg (1973)

    John Berkey’s cover for the 1976 edition

    From the back cover: “Beyond the rim of the solar system, past the orbit of Pluto, far into uncharted space, a man in a life hutch is held prisoner by a deranged robot. A galactic agent learns that there is a cosmic reason for his distasteful, dangerous job. A man discovers he is the only human being not controlled by an analogue—an invisible guardian. And the planet Centaurus holds Continue reading →

    Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Italian Tanith Lee Covers by Allison (aka Mariella Anderlini)

    / Joachim Boaz / 12 Comments

    Allison’s cover for the 1978 Italian edition of Tanith Lee’s Volkhavaar (1977)

    Mariella Anderlini (aka Allison) (d. 1992) was a behemoth of Italian SF art (note 1). Her covers graced entire years of science fiction editions for various Italian presses—for example, she illustrated the complete Slan. Il Meglio della Fantascienza series for Libra Editrice. Her work was ubiquitous and fantastic.

    Over the years, loose cover art post sequences emerge from the back catalog of my site (both conscious and unconscious)–and one topic I return to regularly are SF covers by Italian women. Female Italian cover artists in the decades I am most interested in (50s-mid-80s), made up a far larger percentage Continue reading →

    Updates: My 2020 in Review (Best SF Novels, Best SF Short Fiction, and Bonus Categories)

    / Joachim Boaz / 91 Comments

    I’m not sure what I can add about the general sentiment of 2020. It was awful in every way. Here’s to a better 2021.

    Reading and writing for the site—and participating in all the SF discussions it’s generated over the year—was a necessary and greatly appreciated salve. Thank you everyone!

    I also have one (hopefully more) review coming out in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (the Curiosities column) in the spring. I’ve not included my reviews of those esoteric SF novels in this particular post.

    Without further ado, here are my favorite novels and short stories I read in 2020 (with bonus categories). Tempted to track any of them down?

    And feel free to list your favorite vintage (or non-vintage) SF reads of the year. As always, I look forward to reading your comments.

    My Top 10 Science Fiction Novels (click titles for my review)

    Tim White’s cover for the 1983 edition

    1. Electric Forest, Tanith Lee (1979), 5/5 (Masterpiece): Tanith Lee spins a gauzy, sinister, and terrifying tale of manipulative resurrection. A brilliant inventor projects the mind of a grotesque social outcast into a new transcendent Continue reading →