paperbacks

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. XLVII (Merril + Sheckley + Stableford + Anderson)

/ Joachim Boaz / 2 Comments

Three short story collections and one novel from my Texan hunting grounds.  I enjoyed Merril’s short story collection Daughters of Earth (1968) so I quickly snatched up another…  I’ve been disappointed with Brian M. Stableford before but multiple fellow readers have claimed that The Halcyon Drift (1972) is worth reading.  We shall see…  And one can never have too many Sheckley and Anderson short stories…

1. Out of Bounds, Judith Merril (1960)

(John Schoenherr’s cover for the 1963 edition) Continue reading →

Book Review: Needle in a Timestack, Robert Silverberg (1966)

/ Joachim Boaz / 23 Comments

(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1966 edition)

*Review for the 1966 edition.  The 1979 and 1985 editions were revised.*

collated rating: 3/5 (Average)

Needle in a Timestack (1966) is an uneven collection of ten short stories from the late 50s and early 60s by Robert Silverberg.  By the late 60s and early 70s Silverberg was producing his masterpieces.  However, earlier in his career he wrote mostly pulp novels and short stories.  A few in this collection tackle, in varying degrees of success, social science fiction themes: the media, war propaganda, colonialism, unusual criminal punishment, the suburban lifestyle etc.  Many of these Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Pyramids (spaceships + future earthscapes + alien temples)

/ Joachim Boaz / 64 Comments

THPRMDSFRM1971

(Jack Faragasso’s cover for the 1971 edition of The Pyramids from Space (1970), Jack Bertin and Peter B. Germano)

This post is in a series on the interaction between television/film and science fiction cover art (The Statue of Liberty on Pre-1968 Magazine and Novel Covers and Cosmic Fetuses + Other Uterine Spaces).  In the former, the scene at the end of Planet of the Apes (1968) drew directly on pre-existing pulp science fiction art tropes.  In the later, Kubrick’s baby in a balloon scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) inspired many artists to reproduce the image of the cosmic fetus.  There isn’t a direct line of influence in this post between these covers and Stargate (1994) and its sequels.  I simply seek to illustrate that there has always been an obsession, verging into the sci-fi genre, with re-interpreting Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions N. XLVI (Reed + Pratt + Brown + anthology)

/ Joachim Boaz / 20 Comments

Finally getting near the end of the pile of science fiction novels procured during my latest journey to Texas (a few were in clearance dollar bins) + gifts from 2theD.  I know very little about any of the authors (any info would be read with relish) — and I even bought a book from the early 1980s!  I know, shocker, but it has to do with drowned cities…. one of my favorite themes…. although it’ll never equal the uterine joys of Ballard’s magisterial The Drowned World (1962).

1. Under the City of Angels, Jerry Earl Brown (1981)

(Lou Feck’s cover for the 1981 edition) Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Cosmic Fetuses + Other Uterine Spaces (+ levitating baby parts)

/ Joachim Boaz / 9 Comments

Screen shot 2012-10-24 at 9.22.09 AM

(Paul Lehr’s cover for the 1970 edition of The Eyes of Heisenberg (1966), Frank Herbert)

Stanley Kubrick’s iconic baby in a balloon image at the end of his film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) spawned a handful of intriguing cosmic fetus science fiction covers.  Even the famous artist Paul Lehr crafted perhaps the most artistically interesting version for Frank Herbert’s novel, The Eyes of Heisenberg.  Other artists, for example the uncredited creator of The Adam Experiment‘s cover, render incredibly hokey + spooky rip-offs.  Because I’ve found only a few on this particular theme I’ve included a variety of other baby related covers — hovering baby heads in space, mini-holograms of babies, adult men Continue reading →

Book Review: Slave Ship, Frederik Pohl (1956)

/ Joachim Boaz / 8 Comments

(Robert Foster’s cover for the 1969 edition)

2.75/5 (Bad)

Robert Foster’s salacious cover for the 1969 edition of Slave Ship (1956) implies a sort of John Norman-esque — of Gor “fame” — sexist slave girl sci-fi fantasy with collars and all.  Don’t worry, I bought the novel knowing full well that the “slaves” were not nubile young women but dogs + cats + chimps + seals drafted into the war effort.  But a naked seal on a leash won’t sell many books… At least Foster’s outlandish fabrication and manipulation of Pohl’s vision includes a hapless chimpanzee strapped into a mechanical device!  In case you’re fourteen years old and find Foster’s cover all dusty in some abandoned seldom seen corner of a used book store be warned Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions N. XLV (Heinlein + Farmer + Shaw + Lanier)

/ Joachim Boaz / 8 Comments

My San Antonio, TX haul….

I’ve read multiple of Shaw’s books in the past — they are often intriguing on the conceptual level but fall apart during delivery (Ground Zero Man, One Million Tomorrows)….  But, the back cover of Shadow of Heaven (1969) was intriguing enough to grab a copy.

The multiple Farmer novels I’ve read (most of the Riverworld series and Traitor to the Living) were trash.  But, I’m willing to give him another go — against my better judgement.

Heinlein is overrated but readable and Stephen Lanier’s Hiero’s Journey (1973) is supposed to be an intriguing post-apocalyptical tale….

1. Shadow of the Heaven, Bob Shaw (1969)

(George Underwood’s cover Continue reading →

Book Review: The Garments of Caean, Barrington J. Bayley (1976)

/ Joachim Boaz / 4 Comments

(H. R. Van Dongen’s cover for the 1980 edition)

3.75/5 (Good)

Barrington J. Bayley’s novels — I’ve reviewed Collision Course (1973), Empire of Two Worlds (1972), The Fall of Chronopolis (1974), The Pillars of Eternity (1982), and Star Winds (1978) — are characterized by extremely inventive concepts, generally poor characterization, and an uncanny lightness combined with a dose of visceral brutality.  In the works of his I’ve read so far he never leaves the galactic empire/space opera format and is utterly uninterested in extrapolating potential or possible future technology.

Along with Doris Piserchia’s The Billion Days of Earth (1976) and Lloyd Biggle, Jr.’s The Light That Never Was (1972), The Garments of Caean is one of the most off-the-wall strange space operas Continue reading →

Book Review: The Wall Around the World, Theodore R. Cogswell (1962)

/ Joachim Boaz / 8 Comments

(John Schoenherr’s cover for the 1962 edition)

collated rating: 2.25/5 (Bad)

In my quest to bring to light the esoteric, the worthwhile yet forgotten, and to re-examine unjustly maligned works of science fiction I’m unfortunately more likely find incredibly average works than if I were to stick to the more well-trod path.  Theodore Cogswell’s short stories attempt unsuccessfully to wed clichéd fantasy + horror elements — à la vampires, werewolves, broomsticks and all that drek — with science fiction staples, including alien invasions and alien visitations.  I suspect there was, and still is, a market for such hybridity.  I don’t have to mention the conveyor belt chunking out vampire/zombie excreta all over our modern bookstore shelves… (I apologize to anyone who’s offended or implicated by that statement).  Almost all of Cogswell’s stories are lighthearted (besides ‘The Burning’), replete with heavy doses of whimsy, and in the few readable stories, some vibrancy.

Not my type of science fiction or fantasy.

Continue reading →