aliens

Book Review: The Mile-Long Spaceship (variant title: Andover and the Android), Kate Wilhelm (1963)

/ Joachim Boaz / 11 Comments

(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1963 edition)

3/5 (collated rating: Average)

Kate Wilhelm, famous for her Hugo-winning masterwork Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1976), started her writing career with more modest works.  The Mile-Long Spaceship (1963) collects some of her earliest short stories from the late 50s and a few written for the collection in the early 60s — Clone, her first novel, co-written with Theodore L. Thomas would come out in 1965.  However, her best sci-fi was published in the late 60s to the mid-70s.  Before then her work tended to be straight-forward with an occasional interesting idea or poignant scene but generally unremarkable….

Three stories are worth reading in this collection: an early work of feminist science  Continue reading →

Book Review: A Martian Odyssey and Other Classics of Science Fiction, Stanley G. Weinbaum (1962)

/ Joachim Boaz / 35 Comments

(Robert E. Schulz’s cover for the 1966 edition)

3/5 (collated rating: Average)

After reading Joanna Russ’ nihilistic downer (but brilliant nevertheless) We Who Are About To… (1976) I needed to decompress with some 30s pulp.  I’m generally not a fan of pulp unless it attempts to integrate social science fiction elements or creates a vibrant/otherworldly sense of wonder.  Thankfully, this collection of Stanley G. Wienbaum’s stories contains one of the most influential pulp science fiction shorts due to its descriptions of aliens — ‘A Martian Odyssey’ (1934).

For anyone interested in the history of the genre and 30s pulp, Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: The Composite Cover (illustrating a multiplicity of scenes, stories, thematic elements)

/ Joachim Boaz / 24 Comments

Screen shot 2013-01-27 at 5.27.06 PM

(Ed Emshwiller’s cover for the 1954 edition of Murder in Space (1944), David V. Reed)

Ed Emshwiller’s cover for the 1954 edition of Murder in Space (1944) perfectly embodies the composite cover comprised of sequences from the narrative.  Our hero (or villain) plots the murder in the foreground (guns, books, furrowed brow), commits the murder in the background, his love interest looks over his left shoulder (she’s constantly on his mind), and some random astroids/planets (let’s call them space rocks), a spaceship, and a strange piece of technology alert us to the science fiction aspect of the narrative…  The uncredited cover for the 1955 edition of The Altered Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions N. XLVI (Reed + Pratt + Brown + anthology)

/ Joachim Boaz / 20 Comments

Finally getting near the end of the pile of science fiction novels procured during my latest journey to Texas (a few were in clearance dollar bins) + gifts from 2theD.  I know very little about any of the authors (any info would be read with relish) — and I even bought a book from the early 1980s!  I know, shocker, but it has to do with drowned cities…. one of my favorite themes…. although it’ll never equal the uterine joys of Ballard’s magisterial The Drowned World (1962).

1. Under the City of Angels, Jerry Earl Brown (1981)

(Lou Feck’s cover for the 1981 edition) Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Easter Island Heads

/ Joachim Boaz / 13 Comments

(Ray Kalfus’ cover for the May 1963 issue of Amazing Stories)

The Easter Island heads have long been explained away by conspiracy theorists as the work of aliens!  Apparently there are a few short stories and novels that derive not only their cover art but entire stories from such hilariously awful material…. Regardless, the covers are giggle inducing, and in the case of the uncredited cover for William Tenn’s Of All Possible Worlds (1955) rather striking.  I’ve included one cover from the 40s, an Arkham house novel that might be more “horror” than “sci-fi.”  Regardless, the idea that the Easter Island heads evoke dread, is well, laughable.

If you know of any others please let me know — I could only round up these five Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions N. XLIV (Anderson + Brunner + Bova + Budrys)

/ Joachim Boaz / 6 Comments

My Austin, TX haul….

Two classics I’ve yet to read: Budrys’ Who? (1958) and Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero (1970)…  The second in a trilogy by John Brunner, The Avengers of Carrig (1969) — the first, Polymath (first published in 1963 but expanded in 1974) was a readable Brunner pulp.

I’ve never enjoyed Bova’s novels, but I impulsively picked up As on a Darkling Plain (1972), perhaps influenced by the Ellis’ cover.

1. Who?, Algis Budrys (1958)

(Robert V. Engel’s cover for the 1958 edition) Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Spacewomen of the Future (fixing spaceships + fighting aliens + charging across barren landscapes)

/ Joachim Boaz / 30 Comments

(Don Sibley’s cover for the November 1950 issue of Galaxy)

When we conjure the image of a 40s/50s science fiction pulp heroine we often imagine a character who has to be rescued by men from aliens, shrieks and clings to any man nearby, and is always in a state of undress.  I’ve included one cover, for the sake of comparison, that I find to be an exemplar of this type of sexist (and racist) depiction below (Alex Schomburg’s cover for the January 1954 issue of Future Science Fiction): white woman wrapped in only a towel stalked by an evil alien obviously painted with African-American facial characteristics (heavy on the sexual predation vibe) — the reader is supposed to buy into the racial stereotypes and thus be titillated by the fear she must feel.

I’ve selected a wide range of mostly pulp magazine covers depicting spacewomen of the future (I’ve loosely decided that this means women in space, in spacesuits) that tend to buck the trend Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions XXXV (Malzberg + Compton + Silverberg)

/ Joachim Boaz / 7 Comments

Books and short story collections from three of my favorite science fiction authors — Barry N. Malzberg, D. G. Compton, and Robert Silverberg…  A review of Malzberg’s masterpiece Revelations (1972) — almost as good as Beyond Apollo (1972) — is forthcoming.

I’ve recently discovered Marx Books — an online bookstore run by a retired professor (at Texas Tech University) and avid science fiction collector.  His collection is substantial and most importantly, he only bills you for the exact shipping (not sure if he ships internationally).  So, no $3.99 a book as Amazon does!  Instead, $3 shipping total for seven books!  Because Malzberg novels, and his short story collections, are so hard to find in used book stores it’s always nice to know I can pick up a copy quite cheaply online.

Another Richard Powers cover for my collection….

1. Revelations, Barry N. Malzberg (1972) (MY REVIEW)

(Uncredited cover for the 1972 edition)

From the back cover of the 1977 edition: “REVELATIONS is Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Alien Friends

/ Joachim Boaz / 14 Comments

(H. W. Wesso’s June 1941 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories)

In science fiction aliens are usually evil and generally end up dead — killed by our human heroes via pseudo-videogames (Ender’s Game), guns of endless variety, nuclear weapons detonated on their home worlds, horrific  diseases (Deep Space Nine), tossed into the vacuum of space, tossed into wormholes, etc etc.  They are rarely “humanized” — their families, societies, and history ignored by their human enemies — they are often depicted as “true” evil.  I’ve included the above cover, shooting aliens under the American flag (it is a wartime 40s issue so such overt jingoism is explainable), in order to highlight the attitude towards space fauna which we are all familiar with.

Sometimes “friendship” is feigned.  C. M. Kornbluth’s short story ‘Friend To Man’ (1951) (in this collection) is a disturbing example — the maternal feeling felt by the alien towards our antihero is just a ploy to lure him into her den where she implants him with eggs, which Continue reading →