What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading or planning to read this month? Here’s the March installment of this column.
Recently I came across John Boston and Damien Broderick’s three-volume series examining each and every story and non-fiction article in the pre-Michael Moorcock New Worlds and Science Fantasy/SF Impulse magazines in the UK. John Boston is a valued member of my site’s community — frequently stopping by in the comment sections. I thought for this mini-editorial I’d list a handful of active community members with websites, books, and worthwhile SF-related fanzine articles. I, of course, could be missing a few. Community matters more than you might think. I enjoy the discussion. I enjoy reading reviews that others write — even if it’s on science fiction that might not be within my more narrow focus (the historian in me). I always want to learn and share what’s worth reading and/or historically interesting. Thank you one and all.
The following reviews are the 33rd, 34th, and 35th installments of my series searching for “SF short stories that are critical in some capacity of space agencies, astronauts, and the culture which produced them.” Some stories I’ll review in this series might not fit. And that is okay. I relish the act of literary archaeology.
For this post I’ve selected three short stories about the horrific conditions on a colonized Mars by E. C. Tubb (1919-2010) that appeared in the British SF magazine New Worlds. Along with three additional tales, they were fixed-up as the novel Alien Dust (1955).1 I “blame” the “Friend of the Site” John Boston for my renewed interest in Tubb’s bleak stories. I recently acquired Boston’s three-volume commentary on pre-Moorcock New Worlds and Science Fantasy.2 Boston correctly describes Tubb’s earlier stories as preoccupied with the “domestic lives of spacefarers” in often overwritten and maudlin strokes.3 Regardless, I found the topics he explored worth my time. I’d only previously read his later short story “The Seekers” (1965) and The Space-Born (variant title: Star Ship) (1955). Considering his hard-boiled sensibilities, I imagine a substantial slice of his fiction would fit this series.4
Gerard Quinn’s cover for New Worlds, # 13, ed. John Carnell (January 1952)
3.5/5 (Good)
“Without Bugles” first appeared in New Worlds, # 13, ed. John Carnell (January 1952): You can read it online here.
As with most E. C. Tubb stories, “Without Bugles” starts with a punch: “The man writhed on the narrow cot, and fought for his life” (52). The man in question is one of many colonists on Mars afflicted with a futuristic black lung–“an industrial disease. Silicosis they called it once”–caused by radioactive dust (54). The origin of the radioactivity isn’t clear. Dust cannot be avoided on Mars. It seeps through all seals. It gathers in corners. It bypasses masks. Into the colony of the dead and dying and those that tend them, Anders, the Secretary for Extra-Planetary Affairs, and Pat Easton, a vivacious and idealistic reporter for Trans-World Communications arrive on an infrequent rocket. The purpose of the commission? Anders gets straight to the point: “Congress has poured billions of dollars into this project. When are you going to start paying it back?” (56). Pat proposes the fate of the colony can be swayed by a positive depiction of the heroic colonists.
Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) confides in the introduction to his travel memoir Puzzled America (1935) that the Great Depression was inescapable: “I was a writer of tales. It might be that I should have remained just that, but there is difficulty. There are, everywhere in America, these people now out of work. There are women and children hungry and others without enough clothes.”1 Edgar Albion Lyons, in the author’s note to his science fiction novel The Chosen Race: A Novel Based on the Depression and Machine Age (1936), echoes this sentiment: “The following chapters were written during the months of 1932 when the words ‘Depression’ and ‘Unemployment’ were on everyone’s lips.”2 Magazine science fiction, with its eye towards the marvelous technological future, likewise could not escape contemporary economic, political, and societal convulsions.3 Science, “in the form of a hypothesized device or theory,” enabled exciting adventures but also the exploration of “diverse and dire social implications.”4
On May 9th, 1934, a massive two-day dust storm caused by severe drought and human-made factors, removed massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil. The Dust Bowl unleashed its fury. The dust clouds reached Chicago and cities in the east, blotted out the Statue of Liberty and the United States Capitol. Red snow fell in New England.5 In the September 1934 issue of Astounding, a twenty-year-old Frank K. Kelly published “Famine on Mars” (1934) about a desperate attempt to assist Martians dying of thirst and starvation after a drought. In Kelly’s vision, The Combine, Earth’s government, deliberately caused the genocide and refuses to provide assistance.6
M. Marchioni’s interior art for “Famine on Mars” (1934)
Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?
1. Tom O’Bedlam, Robert Silverberg (1985)
Jim Burns’ cover for the 1986 edition
From the back cover: “MESSIAH OR MADMAN? It is 2103 and Tom O’Bedlam, madman, prophet, and visionary, wanders through California, dwelling place of the last humans on a continent decimated by radioactive dust. Tom, caught up in a living vision of distant worlds ruled by godlike beings, is the herald of a new age, a herald no one wants to hear until others too begin to dream of salvation beyond the stars. Yet while many dream, only tom has the power to make the wondrous visions real, to give people the ultimate escape they desire. Across the universe they must go… if Tom is humanity’s last hope–and not its final destroyer.”
Ballantine Books’ illustrious science fictional program started with a bang–Star Science Fiction Stories. According to Mike Ashley’s Transformations: The Story of Science-Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970 Frederik Pohl’s anthology series of original (mostly) stories was “intended as both a showcase of Ballantine’s authors and a lure to new writers.” Paying better rates than magazines, the Star series foreshadowed the explosion of original anthologies that would provide a sustained challenge to the eminence held in the 50s by the magazine.
I’ve selected the third volume of the six-volume series.1 It contains an illustrative cross-section of 50s science fiction. Philip K. Dick’s “Foster, You’re Dead” (1955), Richard Matheson’s “Dance of the Dead” (1955), and Jack Williamson’s “Guinevere for Everybody” (1955) are not to be missed.
Note: My read but “waiting to be reviewed pile” is growing. Short rumination/tangents/impressions are a way to get through the stack before my memory and will fades. My website partially serves as a record of what I have read and a memory apparatus for future projects. Stay tuned for more detailed and analytical reviews.
1. Margo Bennett’s The Long Way Back (1954)
Uncredited cover for the 1955 edition
3.25/5 (Above Average)
I’m always on the lookout for lesser-known SF works by female authors. And Margot Bennett’s The Long Way Back (1954) certainly fits the bill. Bennett (1912-1980), a Scottish-born screenwriter and author of primarily crime and thriller novels, lead a fascinating life before her writing career. During the Spanish Civil War, she volunteered for Spanish Medical Aid, and was shot in both legs. Afterwards, she continued to participate in various left-wing political causes such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
The Long Way Back manifests, with satirical strokes, her critical stance on nuclear war and British colonialism. In a future collectivized Africa ruled by a calculating machine that grades the population, Grame, a “mechanical-repetitive worker” (7), dreams of a career in physics. Instead, the machine shuffles him off on an ill-fated expedition to the ruined remains of Britain post “Big Bang” (nuclear blast). On the way he falls in love with the leader of the expedition, Valya, who serves as a virginal Bride of the State (24). After their sea plane lands, they are beset by a bizarre range of mutations–ferocious dogs, micro-horses, etc. Eventually they discover a tribe of hairless white survivors holed up in primitive caves. Grame teaches the brightest arithmetic. Valya sets about measuring and applying pseudo-scientific theories to understand white society, religion, and conception of the world i.e. parroting all the pseudo-science and racist theories posed by British explorers of Africa. As they attempt to find a lost city, Hep, the third surviving member of the expedition, imagines the potential exploitation and colonization Africa might implement—“Yellow America” is on the rise and resources will be needed. History threatens to re-cycle through the horrors of the past in more ways than one.
The following reviews are the 31st and 32nd installments of my series searching for “SF short stories that are critical in some capacity of space agencies, astronauts, and the culture which produced them.” Some stories I’ll review in this series might not fit. And that is okay. I relish the act of literary archaeology.
Philip K. Dick’s “Explorers We” (1959) reframes the triumphant astronaut’s return home as the ultimate horror.
James Tiptree, Jr.’s “Painwise” (1972) imagines the hallucinogenic journey of a post-human explorer severed from the experience of physical pain.
A brief note before we dive into the greater morass of things: This series grew from my relentless fascination with the science fiction of Barry N. Malzberg (1939-2024), who passed away last month. Malzberg wrote countless incisive visions that reworked America’s cultic obsession with the ultra-masculine astronaut and his adoring crowds. As I am chronically unable to write a topical post in the moment, I direct you towards “Friend of the Site” Rich Horton’s obituary in Black Gate. If you are new to his fiction, I proffer my reviews of Revelations (1972), Beyond Apollo (1972), The Men Inside (1973), and The Gamesman (1975). The former two are relevant to this series.
Ed Emshwiller’s cover for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Robert P. Mills (January 1959)
4.5/5 (Very Good)
Philip K. Dick’s “Explorers We” first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Robert P. Mills (January 1959). You can read it online here.
Here’s to a happy reading in 2025! I hope you had a successful reading year. Whether you are a lurker, occasional visitor, a regular commenter, a follower on Bluesky or Mastodon, thank you for your continued support. It’s hard to express how important (and encouraging) the discussions that occur in the comments, social media, and via email are to me. This was the third year running of record-breaking numbers of viewers and views in the 13-year history of my site. What were your favorite vintage SF reads–published pre-1985–of 2024? Let me know in the comments.
What a way to finish 2024! Future Powers, ed. Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois (1976) is a well-crafted thematic anthology with seven original stories and two older classics. Other than R. A. Lafferty’s average contribution, all the tales effectively engage with the theme of the complexities of future control both in everyday and the macropolitical contexts.
A few tantalizing fragments: Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Diary of the Rose” (1976) explores the operations of dystopic control through the eyes of a neophyte doctor (“scopist”); Damon Knight ruminates on the nature and treatment of the psychopath in “The Country of the Kind” (1956); and A. K. Jorgensson’s “Coming-of-Age-Day” (1965) takes the reader through all the unnerving and confusing moments of a child in a strange future attempting to understand the nature of sex.
Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations 