My 2023 in Review (Best SF Novels, Best SF Short Fiction, and Bonus Categories)

January 1, 2024January 15, 2024 / Joachim Boaz / 26 Comments

Here’s to a happy 2024! I hope you had a successful reading year. Maybe you pulled down some dusty tome that you’ve wanted to dive into for a decade. I’d like to imagine you finally picked up a book I raved about in years past that you acquired with great anticipation but never opened. Whether you are a lurker, occasional visitor, or a regular commenter, thank you for your continued support and wonderful conversation.

What were your favorite vintage SF reads–published pre-1985–of 2023? Let me know in the comments.

Continuing a trend, I read only a handful of novels this year. Instead, my obsessions focused on my science short story review initiatives (listed below), collections, and histories of the science fiction genre. Without further ado, here are my favorite novels and short stories I read in 2023 with bonus categories. I made sure to link my longer reviews where applicable if you want a deeper dive into the rich seam of science fictional gems.

Check out last year’s rundown if you haven’t already for more spectacular reads. I have archived all my annual rundowns on my article index page if you wanted to peruse earlier years.

My Top 5 Science Fiction Novels of 2022

Boris Vallejo’s cover for the 1976 edition

1. Edgar Pangborn’s Davy (1964), 5/5 (Masterpiece): Nominated for the 1965 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Full review.

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Short Fiction Reviews: Russell Bates’ “Hello, Walls and Fences” (1973), “Rite of Encounter” (1973), and “Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined…:” (1977)

December 28, 2023December 28, 2023 / Joachim Boaz / 13 Comments

"There is a world of experience and culture that is exclusively Amerindian that has never been told. That I have set out to try to relate what I can of this world is audacious, perhaps. But there was simply no way I could have done otherwise, even if I had consciously tried" -- Russell Bates' intro to "Rite of Encounter" (May 1973)

With this post I complete my micro-series covering the short fiction of Kiowa author Russell Bates (1941-2018), one of a handful of Native American science fiction authors active in the 1970s. In Part I, I provided a short biography and what I could find about his writing career including contributing to Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974), and reviewed his first three short stories.

In this post, I’ll cover his three remaining published non-franchise science fiction stories. He also wrote “The Patient Parasites” anthologized in Star Trek: The New Voyages 2, ed. Myrna Culbreath and Sondra Marshak (1978) that I won’t feature. Unfortunately, his submission–“Search Cycle: Beginning and Ending 1. The Last Quest; 2. Fifth and Last Horseman”–to Harlan Ellison’s infamous Last Dangerous Visions, slated for 1973, still has not seen the light of day.

“Hello, Walls and Fences” (1973) and “Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined…:” (1977) also serve as the 32nd and 33rd story in my media landscapes of the future series.

Previously: Edmond Hamilton’s “Requiem” (1962) and John Anthony West’s “George” (1961)

Up Next: TBD

Ron Walotsky’s cover for the 1st edition

3.75/5 (Good)

“Hello, Walls and Fences” first appeared in Infinity Five, ed. Robert Hoskins (1973). You can read it online here.

A bleak allegory of the societal forces that compel the creative to sell their souls, “Hello, Walls and Fences” follows a nameless narrator attempting to find work from a mysterious tycoon named Thornton, who spends his days on a technologically advanced estate playing wickets and eating cheese. The work itself isn’t entirely clear: it might concern computer programing for massive one-time military “hologrammers” that Thornton places across his oasis (70).

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Short Story Reviews: Russell Bates’ “Legion” (1971), “Get With the Program” (1972), and “A Modest Proposal” (1973)

June 9, 2023June 10, 2023 / Joachim Boaz / 1 Comment

Welcome fellow vintage science fiction fans!

This is Part I of II in a series covering the short fiction of Russell Bates (1941-2018), one of a handful of Native American science fiction authors active in the 1970s [1]. I first came across his name while investigating all the authors featured in Craig Strete’s Native American fanzine Red Planet Earth (6 issues in 1974) [2]. I’ve managed to piece together the following information about his SF career.

Born in Lawton, Oklahoma (I’ve also seen Anadarko, OK implied as a birthplace), Bates was an enrolled member of the Kiowa tribe. After he finished high school, he entered the U.S. Air Force. While injured after an explosion at a missile assembly building, he was encouraged to take up a hobby. He began writing science fiction stories–including Star Trek fanfiction (discussed in more detail below) [4].

Interested in honing his craft, Bates attended the famous Clarion workshop in 1969, and his first story, “Legion” (1971), hit print two years later [4]. He published six science fiction short stories between 1971-1977. A seventh–“Search Cycle: Beginning and Ending 1. The Last Quest; 2. Fifth and Last Horseman”–was scheduled to appear in Harlan Ellison’s infamous Last Dangerous Visions, originally slated for 1973. It hasn’t been published elsewhere.

Bates decided to try his luck in Hollywood. He joined a Writer’s Guild program for minorities with the assistance of D. C. Fontana. Initially unsuccessful, his rejected Star Trek story attempt later appeared in The New Voyages 2 (1978). He kept the American Indian crew member Walking Bear that later appeared in his only co-written Star Trek credit ST: The Animated Series’ “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth” (1974). It is for this episode that Bates is probably best known as it is the only episode of the two original Star Trek series that won an Emmy Award. Unfortunately, despite quite a few sales to the motion picture industry, few of his stories saw the screen after his early Star Trek credit [5].

Without further tangents, lets turn to his first three science fiction short stories–each a rumination on violence and trauma–to hit print.