What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading or planning to read this month? Here’s the September installment of this column. I am a few days late with this post. We’ll pretend it appeared in October!

I’ve been reading the little scholarship on H. Beam Piper (1904-1964) in order to more adeptly understand his political views when I tackle his various union-related stories for my series. I was struck by the extreme poverty, impact of a memorable cover, and dependence on a responsive agent that he found himself mired in after he lost his railroad guard job and had to rely on writing. He kept himself alive by selling off his gun collection that he had accumulated over the years and eating pigeons his shot on his porch. While he doesn’t seem to have been the best with the little money that came his way, often blowing the majority of a paycheck from Campbell, Jr. on expensive suits, it’s shocking what he had to do to survive between story acceptances. Piper seems to have committed suicide in part due to his financial hardships.

Despite the fact that I can’t wholeheartedly recommend John F. Carr’s H. Beam Piper: A Biography (2008) or Typrewriter Killer (2015) as large sections take the form of haphazardly strung together journal entries with little larger historical analysis, I found Carr’s often unnervingly voyeuristic look into his life lay bare the financial realities of publishing SF, even in a moment when magazines paid well. Unfortunately, Carr leaves comments like Piper’s 1961 letter in which he states “John [Cambell, Jr.] is almost as big a fascist sonofabitch as I am — but he wants a couple of points hammered home a bit harder” un-analyzed.

And let me know what pre-1985 science fiction you’ve been reading!