1980s

Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCXCIX (Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore, Jack Williamson, Jacob Transure, Star Anthology)

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

1. Ahead of Time, Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore (1953)

  • Richard Powers’ cover for the 1st paperback edition

From the inside page: “A brain in a box fights a criminal plot

A visitor from the future turns out to be peculiar even for his society

An eternal hillbilly family survives the centuries and gets into political trouble

A sick electronic calculator catches a psychosis from its operator

…these are some of the highly original and vividly written stories you will find in this selection of a master’s work.

Science fiction and fantasy grow constantly in popularity. Writing of this quality and imagination is the reason. Henry Kuttner demonstrates again in his book why more and more readers are becoming devotees of that intriguing fiction which is not content to stay in the world as we see it and know it, which takes us to the farthest reaches of space and time, to the farthest reaches of the human mind.”

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Book Review: Moon-Flash, Patricia A. McKillip (1984)

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  • Kinuko Y. Craft’s cover for the 1985 edition

3.5/5 (Good)

As Patricia A. McKillip (1948-2022) recently passed away (obituary), I decided to pick up one of her few science fiction novels. And I’m glad I did! Channeling (and reworking) the conceptual breakthrough-style premise of Clarke’s Against the Fall of Night (serialized 1948) and countless generation ship novels, Moon-Flash (1984) is an achingly beautiful coming-of-age story of a young woman who sets out to map the geography of her restrictive world.

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Book Review: After the Flood, P. C. Jersild (1982, trans. 1986)

/ Joachim Boaz / 14 Comments
  • David Gatti’s cover for the 1986 1st translated edition

4.75/5 (Near Masterpiece)

P. C. Jersild’s After the Flood (1982, trans. 1986), a relentlessly bleak and incisive analysis of humanity’s death drive after a nuclear event, hits harder than Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006). Possessed by a deceptively powerful prose, Jersild maps out the apocalyptic bodyscapes of this new and dying world with merciless strokes.

P.C. Jersild (1935-), a Swedish physician and author, wrote a handful of novels that can be classified as science fiction. According to SF Encyclopedia, he’s “a central figure in modern Swedish literature, both a favorite among critics and, with some of his novels, a major bestseller.” Until recently, as is typical for many mainstream authors, Jersild tried to distance himself from SF despite writing a range of works that are set in the future. Of these works, unfortunately only three have been translated into English–The Animal Doctor (1973, trans. 1975), A Living Soul (1980, trans. 1988), and After the Flood (1982, trans. 1986).

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Updates: Recent SF Purchases No. CCXCVI (Harry Harrison, Carole Nelson Douglas, Terry Bisson, Star Anthology)

/ Joachim Boaz / 29 Comments

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

1. Planet of the Damned, Harry Harrison (serialized 1961)

  • Uncredited cover for the 1962 edition

From the back cover: “Brion Brandd of the Galactic CRF had a problem. It was the planet Dis. Brion’s assignment was to salvage it.

Dis was a harsh, inhospitable, dangerous place and the Disans made it worse. They might have been a human once–but they were something else now.

The Disans had only one desire–kill! Kill everything, themselves, their planet, the universe if they could–

BRION HAD MINUTES TO STOP THEM–IF HE COULD FIND OUT HOW!”

Initial Thoughts: Smells like a variation of Harrison’s Deathworld (1960), which I never managed to review, from a year earlier. Which isn’t a good sign… Planet of the Damned was a finalist for the 1962 Hugo for Best Novel. It lost to Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land (1961).

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Book Review: Universe 12, ed. Terry Carr (1982) (Kim Stanley Robinson, Howard Waldrop, Nancy Kress, R. A. Lafferty, et al.)

/ Joachim Boaz / 15 Comments
  • Richard Courtney’s cover for the 1983 edition

3.5/5 (collated rating: Good)

My fifth sojourn to Terry Carr’s Universe series of original anthologies (17 volumes published between 1971-1987) embodies the reasons I gravitate towards the medium: I discover new authors, I reassess old opinions, and deepen my understanding of my favorites. Recommended for Nancy Kress’ rumination on a childhood wrecked by insanity; Kim Stanley Robinson’s character piece on Mars transforming; Howard Waldrop’s account of obsession in an apocalyptic past; and Bruce McAllister’s tale of an astronaut returning home and the lies we tell.

Recommended for fans of more introspective early 80s SF.

Brief Plot Summary/Analysis

“A Pursuit of Miracles” (1982), George Turner, 3/5 (Average): The Australian author and SF critic George Turner (1916-1997) published his first science fiction at 62! It’s never too late to start. A few years ago I read Turner’s first novel Beloved Son (1978) in the Ethical Culture trilogy. While the details have faded from memory as I never got around to writing a review, I remember how fascinated I was by the exploration of a post-Holocaust world by a returning expedition in the first half of the novel. The second half faded and grew increasingly ponderous and I’m not sure I finished….

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction and Fantasy Purchases No. CCXCII (Jack Vance, Craig Strete, Cherry Wilder, Giorgio De Maria)

/ Joachim Boaz / 31 Comments

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

1. The Brave Free Men, Jack Vance (magazine 1972)

  • Paul Lehr’s cover for the 1973 edition

From the back cover: “The Faceless Man was a prisoner in his own palace and his power over the people of Durdane was in the hands of another–the hands of Gestel Etzwane, a youth whose thirst for vengeance against the dreaded Roguskhoi would slacken only in oceans of their blood.

But to destroy the Roguskhoi, Gastel would have to unite a world that survived by its separateness. To do this was more than dangerous, but Gestel had little choice. He would return to the people control of their lives–and send them to fight to their death…”

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Future Media Short Story Review: Pat Cadigan’s “Rock On” (1984)

/ Joachim Boaz / 14 Comments

Today I’ve reviewed the twelfth story in my series on the science fictional media landscape of the future–and the first from the early 1980s. Pat Cadigan howls a ghastly punk scream into the vastness of the night.

Previously: Ann Warren Griffith’s “Captive Audience” (August 1953).

Up Next: Barry N. Malzberg’s “The Idea” (1971) (as K. M. O’Donnell).

  • Uncredited cover for the 1988 edition of Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology, ed. Bruce Sterling (1986)

3.75/5 (Good)

Pat Cadigan’s “Rock On” first appeared in Light Years and Dark: Science Fiction and Fantasy of and for Our Time, ed. Michael Bishop (1984). You can read it online here.

Whenever I delve into the nihilistic streets of cyberpunk, I enter the mental soundscape and acute estrangement imbued by the seminal 80s goth/post punk band The Cure: “scarred, your back was turned / Curled like an embryo” (“Cold” from Pornography, 1982). Robert Smith’s incantation of “a shallow grave / A monument to the ruined age” almost personifies cyberpunk’s fleeting but terrible power and apocalyptic conceptions of dark streets and conglomerates stamping out the last individuals finding their way across the net.

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCXCI (James White, Joan D. Vinge, D. G. Compton, Somtow Sucharitkul)

/ Joachim Boaz / 12 Comments

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

1. The Escape Orbit (variant title: Open Prison), James White (1964)

  • Jack Gaughan’s cover for the 1965 edition

From the back cover: “STRANDED ON A PLANET OF MONSTERS. When the survivors of the his starship were taken prisoner by the insec-creatures against whom Earth had fought a bitter war for nearly a century, Sector Marshal Warren expected to be impounded in a prison camp like those the Earthmen maintained. But the “Bugs” had a simpler method of dealing with prisoners–they dumped them on an uninhabited planet, without weapons or tools, and left them to fend for themselves against the planet’s environment and strange monsters. A “Bug” spaceship orbited above, guarding them.

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CCXC (Robert Silverberg, Octavia E. Butler, Walter M. Miller, Jr., Gérard Klein)

/ Joachim Boaz / 56 Comments

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

1. The Darfsteller and Other Stories, Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1982)

  • Peter Jones’ cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: “Walter M. Miller, Jr., wrote A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ, and changed the nature of science fiction, forever. Now, collected together for the first time are some of his most gripping masterpieces, including the Hugo Award-winning ‘The Darfsteller’ and ‘Crucifixius Etiam.'”

Contents: “The Darfsteller” (1955), “The Will” (1954), “Vengeance for Nikolai” (variant title: “The Song of marya”) (1957), “Crucifixus Etiam” (1953), “I, Dreamer” (1953), “The Lineman” (1957), “Big Joe and the Nth generation” (variant title: “It Takes a Thief”) (1952), “You Triflin’ Skunk” (1955).

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