avant-garde

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Nuclear Explosions + Mushroom Clouds

/ Joachim Boaz / 13 Comments

(Ed Valigursky’s cover for the 1957 edition of Doomsday Eve (1957). Robert Moore Williams)

The nuclear scare produced some of the best dystopic visions ever put to paper — the devastation would be utter, complete, and the radiation, oh what fun science fiction authors and filmakers had with the effects of radiation.  A red spectrum! Mutations! Hybrid bug people!  Godzilla!  Women with two heads!  An endless assortments of monsters…  I’ve selected a wide range of covers depicting the actual nuclear explosion — not the after effects.  Families gaze from caves in dispair, watching the bomb incinerate their world.  People run helter-skelter away from the explosion.  Or, artists take a more stylized approach to the explosion — figures are cast upward amongst the wreckage of buildings. Continue reading →

Book Review: Guernica Night, Barry N. Malzberg (1975)

/ Joachim Boaz / 7 Comments

(Tim White’s cover for the 1979 edition)

4.25/5 (Good)

Nominated for the 1976 Nebula Award for Best Novel

“Here we are in Disney Land/Disney World; clutching the strange hands of those with whom we came, we move slowly through the ropes under the chanting of the attendants, swatting insects of habitation, toward the exhibit of the martyred President.  The martyred President has become a manikin activated by machinery, tubes and wiring; he delivers selected portions of his famous addresses, stumbling back and forth […] (1)”

Guernica Night (1975) is the third of Barry N. Malzberg’s books I’ve read after Conversations (1975) and In the Enclosure (1973).  Although lacking the Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Disembodied Brains, Part I

/ Joachim Boaz / 5 Comments

(Gerard Quinn’s cover for the December 1956 issue of New Worlds)

Disembodied brains — in large metal womb-like containers, floating in space or levitating in the air (you know, implying PSYCHIC POWER), pulsating in glass chambers, planets with brain-like undulations, pasted in the sky (GOD!, surprise) above the Garden of Eden replete with mechanical contrivances among the flowers and butterflies and naked people… The possibilities are endless, and more often than not, taken in rather absurd directions.

I’ve cobbled together a large variety of images from pulp magazines to covers from the late 70s.  My favorites include Valigrusky’s Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. XXX (Christopher + Benford + Shaw + Frank + et al.)

/ Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments

My second batch of books from my youthful haunt (Austin, TX) is equally as varied and intriguing as the first.  I’m most interested in Pat Frank’s famous late 50s classic Alas, Babylon. Yes, a sci-fi fan like me should have read it a LONG time ago.  John Christopher’s The Long Winter (1962) should also prove a worthwhile read — an ice age hits Earth and the English main characters flee to Africa.  Shaw’s Orbitsville (1975) is the the vein of Larry Niven’s more famous Ringworld (1970) and Arthur C. Clarke’s classic Rendezvous with Rama (1972) — explorers encountering unusual alien worlds (in this case, a dyson sphere).

As always, a few stunning covers…  My favorite of the bunch is John Schoenherr’s cover for Mark Phillips’ Brain Twister (1962)…

Enjoy!  If you’ve read any of the novels few free to comment.  I’ve not read any of Benford, Frank, Mark Phillips (pseudonym for Laurence Janifer and Randall Garrett) or Platt’s works before.

1. In The Ocean of Night, Gregory Benford (1977)

(Larry Kresek’s cover for the 1977 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: My Top 15 Science Fiction Novels from the 1960s

/ Joachim Boaz / 205 Comments

Everyone loves lists!

The 60s produced some of my favorite science fiction works.  Many authors moved away from the technologic naivete of pulp sci-fi and predicted less than positive futures (overpopulation, natural disaster, etc) and attempted to instill a more literary quality to their works.  I’ve cobbled together a top eleven list — I have probably forgotten a slew of amazing works that I read years ago.  Also, I read majority of them before I created my blog and hence do not have reviews — I’ve included a blurb for those without reviews.  I’ve linked those that do.  And, as I have promised before, a review of J. G. Ballard’s masterful The Drowned World (1962) is on the way!

EDIT: Over the course of reading the comments and glancing over my bookshelves I’ve discovered how much I’d forgotten had been written in the 60s (Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, etc).  As a result, I’ll put together a more comprehensive top 20 or so in the near future.

EDIT: 06/26/2015: Because my post is receiving a substantial number of new visitors, I’ve decided to add a few novels I’ve read since I made the initial list three years ago.  Instead of a top 11 it’s now a top 15 in no particular order.

New additions:

Anna Kavan’s Ice (1967) — REVIEW LINK

Robert Sheckley’s Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962) — REVIEW LINK

Josephine Saxton’s The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith (1969) — REVIEW LINK

Naomi Mitchison’s Memoirs of a Spacewoman (1962) — REVIEW LINK

~

Feel free to list your top 11!

Original list:

1. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner (1968) — is by far the best of the overpopulated world genre (for additional works consult my index).  Brunner chronicles a dystopian future society in obsessive and awe-inspiring detail with shreds of newspapers, advertising jingles, quotations from invented books, and even current (60s) events.  Be warned: low on plot, heavy on world building, experimental structure…

(Steele Savage’s cover f Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. XXVI (Malzberg + Wells + Gunn +Pohl)

/ Joachim Boaz / 12 Comments

A nice (varied) selection of finds….

I’ve continued to be on the lookout for Malzberg’s novels and, due to the proliferation of comments by my readers about what is his best, I’ve acquiesced and picked up a copy of his acknowledged masterpiece, Beyond Apollo (1972).  I suspect it will be as good as In The Enclosure (1973).

If there is any area (besides sci-fi from the 21st century) that I haven’t read a good portion of the classics, it’s works from around the turn of the century.  I have read a large swathe of Verne’s works and from beginning of the 20th century  all of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter series — but, only a few of H. G. Wells’ oeuvre (The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine).  So, when I came across a 60s edition of The First Men in the Moon (1901) with a nostalgic looking cover I snatched it up!

The two short story collections are unknown commodities: Frederick Pohl’s In The Problem Pit (1976) and James Gunn’s Station in Space (1958).  I’ve never heard of Gunn and sort of dislike what I’ve read of Pohl so far.  Regardless, both works have intriguing covers!

Enjoy!

1. Beyond Apollo, Barry Malzberg (1972)

(Don Maitz’ cover for Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. XXV (Silverberg + Dickson + Bester + et al.)

/ Joachim Boaz / 4 Comments

I have a substantial backlog of purchases from my “productive” book hunting Spring Break in Texas….

I’ve read Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man (1952), which I loved, and The Stars My Destination (1956), which I mostly enjoyed, however I’ve rarely seen his short story collections in used book stores.  I snatched up the gorgeous covered The Dark Side of the Earth (1956).  I suspect Bester is even better at short stories than his novel length works….

The Time of the Great Freeze (1964) is considered one of Robert Silverberg’s best pulp works.  On indirect advise of my friend Michael Dalke at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature, I’ve procured more of Gordon R. Dickson’s short works…  Thankfully, he hasn’t reviewed the collection The Star Road (1973) yet (I think) — we have a “rivalry.”  Haha.

I’ve already reviewed the short story collection edited by Donald Wollheim, The End of the World (1956) (MY REVIEW), and highly recommend it. A few of the stories are duds but two are in my top 5 short work list.  Philip K. Dick’s ‘Impostor’ (1953) alone is reason enough to track down the volume.

1. The Dark Side of the Earth (1964), Alfred Bester (MY REVIEW)

(Uncredited cover for the 1964 edition) Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Art: Doomed Cities Part III (the attack of the metal missile casings, monks among ruins)

/ Joachim Boaz / 11 Comments

(Rod Turner’s cover for the 1952 edition of The G-Bomb (1952), Vargo Statten (i.e. John Russell Fearn)

Make sure to check out Part I and Part II if you haven’t.  Some of the doomed cities are stunning!

Of all the 50s pulp covers, Rod Turner’s series for Vargo Statten’s novels (John Russell Fearn) has become one of my favorites (above).  Although they adhere to every possible cliché, the pure exuberance of delivery is addicting — the books themselves are supposed to be pure drivel.

Enjoy monks among ruins, spaceships hovering above the fragments of past cities, hordes emerging from the wrecked husks of our august metropolises, the attack Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: The Art of Robert Foster, Part II

/ Joachim Boaz / 34 Comments

(Robert Foster’s cover for the 1971 edition of The Dakota Project (1968), Jack Beeching)

Unfortunately, science fiction covers from the 60s/70s are not always credited — Robert Foster’s covers are no exception.  Originally I assumed that Foster had only produced a handful (see my first post on his work, Part I), but after searching under Bob Foster and identifying covers by sight I’ve cobbled together another varied/intriguing/unusual collection of his work.

His work are often characterized by fascinating collaged, geared, industrial machinery paired with nudes and semi-nudes Continue reading →