Book Review: The Second Trip, Robert Silverberg (serialized: 1971)

March 3, 2013April 23, 2022 / Joachim Boaz / 10 Comments

(Uncredited cover for the 1973 edition)

4.5/5 (Very Good)

Robert Silverberg’s late 60s and early 70s science fiction novels were often well-wrought ruminations on acute social alienation. For example, in Dying Inside (1972) a man slowly loses his telepathic abilities and thus, a core component of his identity. In The Man in the Maze (1969), a man rendered incapable of interacting with other humans, goes into self-imposed exile. In Thorns (1967), two manipulated/modified souls (a man surgically altered by aliens and a young girl who’s the virgin mother of hundreds of children), find strange solace in each other’s company. In The World Inside (1971), our heroes feel disconnected from the unusual world they’ve grown up in — and rebel in their own ways.

The Second Trip (1971) subverts this theme. Instead, our hero desperately attempts to re-integrate himself into society (as his persona has been designed to do), to come to grips with his laboratory Continue reading →

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

February 18, 2013July 14, 2021 / Joachim Boaz / 22 Comments

(Vincent di Fate’s cover for the 1975 edition of The Other Side of Tomorrow (1973), ed. Roger Elwood)

My second composite cover post — here’s a link to Part I if you missed it. I’ve included a few covers by Vincent di Fate who has always been one of my favorite illustrators of the 1970s. His cover for The Other Side of Tomorrow (1973) is top-notch. A conglomerations of screens are placed on a barren stylized landscape where two figures gaze intently at them. Each screen shows a different scene, a space station, spaceships, a boy’s contemplative face, an old man — and, a ringed planet looms in the background. Whether or not the screens illustrate individual stories in the collection is unclear — regardless, the composite nature of the illustration is Continue reading →

Book Review: We Who Are About To…, Joanna Russ (1976)

February 16, 2013June 20, 2019 / Joachim Boaz / 31 Comments

(The hideous uncredited cover for the 1977 edition)

5/5 (Masterpiece: *caveats below*)

We Who Are About To… (1976) is the third of Joanna Russ’ science fiction novels I’ve read over the past few years. For some reason I was unable gather the courage to review The Female Man (1975) and might have been too enthusiastic about And Chaos Died (1970). We Who Are About To… is superior to both (although, not as historically important for the genre as The Female Man). This is in part because Russ refines her prose — it is vivid, scathing, and rather minimalist in comparison to her previous compositions — and creates the perfect hellish microcosm for her ruminations on the nature of history, societal expectation, memory, and death.

Highly recommended for fans of feminist + literary Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. LVIII (Tiptree, Jr. + Shaw + Bamber + Rossiter)

February 13, 2013February 25, 2013 / Joachim Boaz / 11 Comments

An eclectic grab bag of books… The last remaining gifts from 2thD… And a few from bookstores I’ve visited over the past few months. Two are complete mysteries — Bamber’s The Sea is Boiling Hot (1971) and Rossiter’s Tetrasomy Two (1974) — both author’s only published sci-fi novel. I don’t have high hopes — although, the premise of the former is fantastic — domed cities and over pollution!

My second collection of Tiptree shorts — was impressed with a handful of stories in her most famous collection Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home (1973). I find her work hit or miss… Unfortunately, there are some books that I can never convince myself to review. Although published in the 80s, Byte Beautiful (1985) contains mostly 70s stories so it is firmly within my era….

And Shaw, well, Shaw is Shaw — utterly average but always (at least so far) suprisingly satisfying…

1. The Sea is Boiling Hot, George Bamber (1971) (MY REVIEW)

(Jack Gaughan’s cover for the Continue reading →

Book Review: The Falling Astronauts, Barry N. Malzberg (1971)

January 26, 2013January 26, 2013 / Joachim Boaz / 25 Comments

(Davis Meltzer’s cover for the 1971 edition)

4.25/5 (Good)

The Falling Astronauts (1971) (from now on FA) is the first in Barry N. Malzberg’s thematic trilogy on the American space program. Although not as engaging or experimental as the other two masterpieces in the sequence — Beyond Apollo (1972) and Revelations (1972), FA is highly readable and a notable work in Malzberg’s extensive corpus. FA attempts to debunk the so-called cult (in part propagated by the media) of the astronaut (and his ideal family) and in so doing questions the ultimate purpose of the space Continue reading →

SF Article: Barry N. Malzberg (b.1939): Metafiction and the Demystification of the Cult of the Astronaut

January 14, 2013July 2, 2017 / Joachim Boaz / 10 Comments

This was my recent guest post on Little Red Reviewer.

For those who didn’t see it I decided to post it here….

——-

Barry N. Malzberg (b. 1939): Metafiction and the Demystification of the Cult of the Astronaut

In the World Book Encyclopedia Science Service publication The United States Astronauts and their Families: A Pictorial Presentation (1965), each astronaut is allotted a two-page spread replete with staged photos of their family life and hobbies. Otis L. Wiese, the editor of the volume, proclaims grandiosely “Man’s reach for the world of space is born of his insatiable curiosity about the unknown… his indomitable drive for accomplishment… his instinctive response to a challenge. Astronauts-Husbands-Fathers: these men are the men featured here but it’s essentially as family men that we portray them” (i).

The photographs are fascinating. Roger B. Chaffee’s wife Martha teaches him lunar geography (22), L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. sits at the helm of his speedboat Bluebonnet which is capable of reaching 80 knots (28), in another photo him and his family spend time with their German shepherd (29), Donn F. Eisele teaches his daughter “the finer points of marksmanship” (35), while Alan B. Shepard, Jr. plays piano tunes for his daughters (61) and in the facing image shakes hands with John F. Kennedy (61).

Their families illustrate the epitome of the American family: the ultra-masculine man with his cars and boats, the supportive wife facilitating Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. XLVIV (Crowley + Strete + McAllister + Bond)

December 31, 2012May 6, 2013 / Joachim Boaz / 8 Comments

Christmas presents!

Intriguing literary sci-fi by Craig Strete and John Crowley…

Works of unknown quality, Bruce McAllister’s Humanity Prime (1971) and Nelson Bond’s collection No Time Like the Future (1954)…

And one of my favorite Powers’ covers.

1. Humanity Prime, Bruce McAllister (1971)

(David Meltzer’s cover for the 1971 edition) Continue reading →

Book Review: What Entropy Means to Me, George Alec Effinger (1972)

December 13, 2012January 10, 2021 / Joachim Boaz / 29 Comments

(Stanislaw Hernandez’s cover for the 1973 edition)

5/5 (Masterpiece) (*caveats below*)

Nominated for the 1973 Nebula Award (lost to Asimov’s disappointing The Gods Themselves)

“She was Our Mother, so she cried. She used to sit out there, under that micha tree, all day as we worked cursing in her fields. She sat there during the freezing nights, and we pretended that we could see her through the windows in the house, by the light of the moons and the hard, fast stars. She sat there before most of us were born; she sat there until she died. And all the time she shed her tears. She was Our Mother, so she cried” (11)

What Entropy Means to Me (1972) is one of the more satisfying products of the New Wave science fiction movement of the 60s and 70s that I’ve read. I place it in the pantheon of Malzberg’s Revelations (1972), Samuel Delany’s Nova (1968), and Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar (1968). Effinger revels, and I mean gloriously revels, in metafictional Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Visualizing Time

October 26, 2012October 26, 2012 / Joachim Boaz / 12 Comments

(Hubert Rogers’ cover for the January 1951 issue of Astounding Science Fiction)

In Hubert Rogers’ fascinating cover (titled ‘Achievement’) for the January 1951 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, mankind appears pulled upward, as if against their will, towards an undefined future goal. Rogers’ cover encapsulates David Hume’s notion of historical time relentlessly moving towards improvement — improvement as something measurable and observable by the historian, and anyone who studies history. Obviously, this historiographical framework has long been debunked (although it crops up in virtually all of my undergraduate students’ work in intro level courses) — it favors Western conceptions of progress, dismisses the achievements of non-European Continue reading →