pulp

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXXVI (Asimov + Farmer + Gotlieb + Morressy)

/ Joachim Boaz / 22 Comments

It has been so long since I have read Asimov…  Currents of Space (1952)—or Bradbury’s 1953 masterpiece Fahrenheit 451)—was the very first SF novel I ever read.  And I did not enjoy it.  In my later teens I read quite a few of Asimov’s works including the average The Gods Themselves (1972) in a Hugo-winning novel marathon that really got me into SF.  He has never blown me away.  But, I have a soft spot for the robot stories!

Gotlieb’s novel has simply the worst back cover blurb ever.  Suspicious.

I do like Philip José Farmer stories although I wish the inside blurb would not give away the entire plot of two of the seven stories.  I have never read the original “Riverworld” (1966) short story—perhaps it’s much better than the later novel version.

Thoughts?

1.  Eight Stories from The Rest of the Robots, Isaac Asimov (1966)

(Paul Lehr’s cover for the 1969 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXXV (Pangborn + Janifer + Anthology + Biggle, Jr.)

/ Joachim Boaz / 15 Comments

A very odd selection today…  Some Christmas gift card holdovers and one volume I purchased online.  Including Edgar Pangborn’s most famous novel, a bizarre anthology of future artistic visions (with stories by Ellison, Clarke, Effinger, Zelazny, Dickson, Kornbluth, et al.), a collection of Lloyd Biggle, Jr.’s SF stories on music, and a most likely horrible pulp slave planet rebellion type novel by Laurence M. Janifer.

Thoughts?

1. Davy, Edgar Pangborn (1964)

(Robert Foster’s cover for the 1965 edition) Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: The Skull, Part II

/ Joachim Boaz / 47 Comments

 FRFRTHFTRW1974

(Patrick Woodroffe’s cover for the 1974 edition of Four for the Future (1969), ed. Harry Harrison)

Here is Part II of my sequence on SF and Skulls (morbid I know): Part I.  We have a range of skeletal curios—from Charles Moll’s deconstructed representation of an astronaut in mental and physical decay to Patrick Woodroffe’s heart + skull renegade taxidermy-esque construction arrayed against a joyous psychedelic (blotter paper swirls?) Continue reading →

Book Review: The Marching Morons and Other Famous Science Fiction Stories, C. M. Kornbluth (1959)

/ Joachim Boaz / 26 Comments

thmrchngmb1959
(Uncredited cover for the 1959 edition)

3.5/5 (collated rating: Good)

C. M. Kornbluth has long been one of my favorite short story authors of the 50s due to his first collection The Explorers (1954).  The Marching Morons (1959) contains two novelettes and seven short stories including some of his most famous works: namely, “The Marching Morons” (1951) and my personal favorite of his oeuvre so far, “MS. Found in a Chinese Fortune Cookie” (1957).

Ultimately, this is a more uneven collection than The Explorers (1954).  Despite duds such as “I Never Ast No Favors” (1954), I still recommend the collection to fans of 50s SF and satirical masterworks such as Kornbluth’s co-authored Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Acquisitions No. CXXII (Vance + Silverberg + Cooper + Zelazny)

/ Joachim Boaz / 21 Comments

Part I of II. Thankful to have a fiancé who takes my massive, alphabetized, master list of used SF to acquire and wades through the dusty shelves of used book stores (while on a trip home to visit her family)…  Here are some gems.  More Zelazny (short story collection!), another Silverberg collection (he holds the crown for author most reviewed on Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations), an unknown quantity by Cooper, and the final novel I needed to round out the Alastor Cluster “trilogy” by Jack Vance.

Thoughts on the purchases?  Have you read any of them?

1. The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth and Other Stories, Roger Zelazny (1971)

(Jeff Jones’ cover for the 1974 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: 2014 in Review (Top 10 SF novels + Top 10 Short SF works + Other Categories)

/ Joachim Boaz / 30 Comments

I like lists!  I like reading lists!  Here’s my rundown of the best and worst of what I read in 2014.

This year I have tried something new—my first guest post series. My ten post Michael Bishop review series—reviews written by SF bloggers interested in classic SF and frequent readers of my site—hopefully introduced a lot of my frequent readers to one of my favorite (and criminally underrated) authors.  My second post series did not transpire solely on my site but stretched to others—what Gollancz Masterworks should include…  Thanks for all the wonderful contributions!

Feel free to list your best reads of the year.  Maybe I’ll add a few of them to my to read/to acquire list.

…and, if you tend to agree with at least some of my views on SF, read these!

  

Best SF novel

1. Ice, Anna Kavan (1967):  Easily the best novel I have read this year, Kavan weaves a Kafka-esque landscape will touches of J. G. Ballard.  Ice, caused by some manmade disaster, is slowly creeping over the world.  The unnamed narrator is torn between two forces: returning to his earlier research on jungle dwelling singing lemurs in the southern regions vs. tracking down a young woman about whom he has Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXX (Harness + Dickson + Haldeman + Brunner)

/ Joachim Boaz / 38 Comments

An intriguing range of SF novels…  A few thrift store pickups and a few sent by my father.  Excited about the John Haldeman fix-up novel All My Sins Remembered (1977).  Won’t read the Brunner for a long long time—but I’m a Brunner completists so I buy his books on sight if I don’t have a copy.

Still haven’t read anything by Charles L. Harness….  Not sure about this 80s rewrite of his late 40s serialized novel.  We shall see.

Thoughts?

1. All My Sins Remembered, John Haldeman (1977)

(Paul Stinson’s cover for the 1977 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXVIII (Anthologies: Again Dangerous Visions, Vol. 2, Orbit 8; Schmitz, Malzberg)

/ Joachim Boaz / 36 Comments

Nearing the end of my undocumented purchases… A great series of coves — including Richard Powers and Paul Lehr.  Again, Dangerous Visions Vol. 2 (1972) (did not realize it was in two volumes, but alas) and another Malzberg novel, The Last Transaction (1977) to add to my nearly complete collection of his solo written novels.

Thoughts?

1. The Eternal Frontiers, James H. Schmitz (1973)

(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1973 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXVI (Le Guin + MacApp + Farmer + Anthology)

/ Joachim Boaz / 9 Comments

In my youth I read Ursula Le Guin like a madman—somewhere in the intervening years I misplaced my copies of her short story collections.  So, while voyaging to a nearby city (with Half Price Books) I decided to snag one—The Compass Rose (1982) contains mostly 70s short stories.  Excited.

I have been presently impressed with *some* of Philip José Farmer’s work—namely, Strange Relations (1960)—-so I could not resist a “best of” collection.

I am perhaps most excited about David Gerrold’s edited collection Generation: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction (1972).  Contains a wide range (and almost equal ratio of male/female authors) of fascinating stories.

 I bought C. M. MacApp’s Secret of the Sunless World (1969) due to the title and the amazing Berkey cover.  Now that I sat down and transcribed the back cover I rather dissuaded from picking it up anytime soon…

1. The Book of Philip José Farmer, Philip José Farmer (revised 1982, 1973)

(James Warhola’s cover for the 1982 edition) Continue reading →