What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading? + Update No. VII

December 17, 2023December 19, 2023 / Joachim Boaz / 48 Comments

A selection of read works from my shelves

What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading this week?

I’ve settled on a monthly schedule for this column. Check out the previous installment!

If you’re new and curious about my rationale for the perimeters of my site, check out this recent interview and podcast. And follow me on Mastodon if you don’t already as I no longer post on my Twitter account.

And, most importantly, let me know what pre-1985 SF you’ve been reading!

The Photograph (with links to reviews and brief thoughts)

Judith Merril’s collection contains one of the feminist visions of the 50s — “Daughters of Earth” (1952). Reworking a standard pulp plot of alien contact, Merril recasts the encounter through multiple generations of women in one family. She adeptly inverts the Old Testament trope of tracing generations through fathers. Simultaneously, the story itself is a metatextual collection of rewritten family documents containing the lessons necessary for future daughters in the family. Brilliant and heady stuff.
Barry N. Malzberg’s The Men Inside (1973) remains one of his strangest works. A perverse (and Freudian) metafictional (and literary) retelling of Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby’s Fantastic Voyage replete with filmic flashbacks… For Malzberg fans only — if you’ve missed this one, track it down.
And now for something completely different: Murray Leinster’s S.O.S From Three Worlds (1967). I am unsure why I enjoy Leinster’s Med Service so much. Sometimes positivist stories about spacemen devoted to selfless service solving medical crises–and reigning in rampant unchecked capitalism–with their friendly tormals (think furry mobile petri dishes) bring a bit of warmth to my bitter heart.
I sneakily consumed Joe Haldeman’s masterpiece The Forever War (1975) while working my first job as an oil change cashier. In-between angry customers and running domestic incidents, I relished every moment of Haldeman’s defiant Vietnam War satire. As I’ve only reviewed Mindbridge (1976) on the site (I’ve read a bunch more), I’ve been meaning to return his work — maybe a resolution for 2024.

What am I writing about?

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCVII (Jack Williamson, William E. Cochrane, a Groff Conklin anthology, and an anthology of gay and lesbian SF)

September 17, 2022September 17, 2022 / Joachim Boaz / 28 Comments

Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. 6 Great Short Novels of Science Fiction, ed. Groff Conklin (1954)

Richard Powers’ cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: “THE BLAST: STUART CLOETE envisions New York City under atomic attack, and tells the story of the lone survivor.

COVENTRY: ROBERT HEINLEIN shows what happens to one of the last individualists, who request a sentence to purgatory.

THE OTHER WORLD: MURRAY LEINSTER reveals a savage, feudal civilization which lives off the sweat of slaves kidnapped from our world.

BARRIER: ANTHONY BOUCHER writers of a time traveler, and his strange encounters with the people who will come after us.

SURFACE TENSION: JAMES BLISH traces a race of microscopic men that works out its destiny under water on a planet somewhere far out of the galaxy.

MATURITY: THEODORE STURGEON depicts the agonizing plight of a super man born in our midst.

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Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCXCIX (Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore, Jack Williamson, Jacob Transure, Star Anthology)

June 17, 2022June 17, 2022 / Joachim Boaz / 13 Comments

Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. Ahead of Time, Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore (1953)

Richard Powers’ cover for the 1st paperback edition

From the inside page: “A brain in a box fights a criminal plot

A visitor from the future turns out to be peculiar even for his society

An eternal hillbilly family survives the centuries and gets into political trouble

A sick electronic calculator catches a psychosis from its operator

…these are some of the highly original and vividly written stories you will find in this selection of a master’s work.

Science fiction and fantasy grow constantly in popularity. Writing of this quality and imagination is the reason. Henry Kuttner demonstrates again in his book why more and more readers are becoming devotees of that intriguing fiction which is not content to stay in the world as we see it and know it, which takes us to the farthest reaches of space and time, to the farthest reaches of the human mind.”

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Updates: Recent Purchases No. CCLXXIX (James Tiptree, Jr., George Zebrowski, Murray Leinster, International Science Fiction Magazine)

August 29, 2021August 29, 2021 / Joachim Boaz / 19 Comments

Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. Macrolife, George Zebrowski (1979)

Rich Sternbach’s cover for the 1st edition

From the inside flap: “A novel of epic scope, Macrolife opens in the year 2021. The Bulero family owns one of Earth’s richest corporations. As the Buleros gather for a reunion at the family mansion, an industrial accident plunges the corporation into a crisis, which eventually brings the world around them to the brink of disaster. Vilified, the Buleros flee to a space colony where the young Richard Bulero gradually realizes that the only hope for humanity lies in macrolife—mobile, self-reproducing space habitats.

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Book Review: First Step Outward, ed. Robert Hoskins (1969) (Asimov, Silverberg, Sturgeon, Heinlein, et al.)

June 11, 2021June 24, 2021 / Joachim Boaz / 22 Comments

John Berkey’s cover for the 1st edition

3.25/5 (collated rating: Vaguely Good)

Published a few months before the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, Robert Hoskins’ anthology First Step Outward (1969) charts an imagined future history of humanity’s exploration of the galaxy. The stories, gathered from some of the big names of the day (Robert Heinlein, Robert Silverberg, Theodore Sturgeon, Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, etc.), are grouped as if part of the same future with headings such as “To the Planets” and “To the Stars.” As with most anthologies, this contains a range of gems (such as Sturgeon’s “The Man Who Lost the Sea”) and duds (Ross Rocklynne’s “Jaywalker”).

I’ve previously reviewed five of the thirteen stories in their own posts–linked for easy consultation.

Brief Plot Summary/Analysis

“Cold War” (1949), Kris Neville, 3/5 (Average): Previously reviewed in its own post here.

“Third Stage” (1963), Poul Anderson, 3.5/5 (Good): Previously reviewed in its own post here.

“Gentlemen, Be Seated!” (1948), Robert A. Heinlein, 2.75/5 (Vaguely Average): My first return to Robert A. Heinlein in around a decade is exactly like I thought it would be–thoroughly disappointing. Yes, yes, yes, I know this is far from what he was capable of. The number of reprints this misfire of a story receives mystifies (it appeared in the regularly reprinted The Green Hills of Earth and The Past Through Tomorrow).

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Book Review: S.O.S. From Three Worlds, Murray Leinster (1967)

November 22, 2020April 2, 2022 / Joachim Boaz / 3 Comments

Jack Gaughan’s cover for the 1st edition

4/5 (collated rating: Good)

In times of stress, positivist stories about spacemen devoted to selfless service solving medical crises with their friendly tormals (think furry mobile petri dishes) bring a bit of warmth to my bitter heart. While a medical mystery to be solved with logic and resolve forms the core of each story, Murray Leinster hints at the future history of this decentralized spacescape–a product of chaotic often business-driven expansion. As limited contact exists between distant colonies, The Interstellar Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCLIV (Melissa Scott, Murray Leinster, Ian MacMillan, Dick Morland)

July 30, 2020July 30, 2020 / Joachim Boaz / 28 Comments

As always which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. Blakely’s Ark, Ian MacMillan (1981)

Tom Hallman’s cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: THE CEPH… A parasitic virus. Invariably lethal. In two generations, it had reduced the population of America to 10 million people.

New Jersey is populated by roving gangs of children, savage and insane. New York City is a sealed-off Dome.

America is a wasteland. And Dave Blakely just may be the last whole man in the world.”

Initial Thoughts: I’ve been in a post-apocalyptic mood for the last year or more. I’ve started (and much to my surprise, enjoyed) my watch through of Survivors (1975-1977). And devoured Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow (1955).

This is Ian MacMillan’s only SF novel. And SF Encyclopedia describes rather than appraises it… As I often Continue reading →

Book Review: Doctor to the Stars, Murray Leinster (1964)

July 18, 2020November 22, 2020 / Joachim Boaz / 23 Comments

John Schoenherr’s cover for the 1964 edition

3.25/5 (Collated rating: Vaguely Good)

I am fascinated by medical-themed science fiction. While my tendencies gravitate towards the more meta-fictional/experimental takes of this theme, for example William Kotzwinkle’s Doctor Rat (1976) and Elizabeth Baines’ The Birth Machine (1983), I wanted expand my horizons by reading earlier incarnations of the subgenre.

Murray Leinster’s Doctor to the Stars (1964) gathers three stories published in the late 50s and early 60s in the Med Series sequence. As a whole, the stories are positivist, pro-peace, anti-big business, pro-science, and pro-service. Our hero Calhoun, Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CCVII (Moorcock + Pohl + Leinster + Morressy)

April 15, 2019July 18, 2020 / Joachim Boaz / 23 Comments

1. Frederik Pohl short stories? I’ve collected volumes and volumes and volumes for years—I suspect I should get around to reading one!

An effective Dean Ellis cover….

2. I acquired the second volume in Michael Moorcock’s Dancers at the End of Time sequence at my local used bookstore down the street. I read An Alien Heat (1972) in 2016.

3. A few days ago I reviewed John Morressy’s wonderful Frostworld and Dreamfire (1977) — I was intrigued enough that I tracked down another volume in the Del Whitby sequence—Under a Calculating Star (1975). I’ll have a review up in the next few days.

4. The second Murray Leinster Med Service collection I’ve acquired–as a huge fan of medical-themed SF…. I should put together a list.