Book Review: Blind Voices, Tom Reamy (1978)

June 25, 2016August 1, 2019 / Joachim Boaz / 18 Comments

(David Plourde’s cover for the 1978 edition)

4.25/5 (Very Good)

Tom Reamy’s Blind Voices (1978) was nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and BFSA awards and came in second in Locus voting for best novel in 1979. Posthumously released, Reamy died of a heart attack while writing in the fall of 1977 at 42. His take on small town America transformed by the arrival of a traveling circus and its array of wonders will stay with you for years to come. The science fiction elements (revealed more than halfway through the novel) interlace and add to the elegiac and constrained fantasy feel. The specter of sexuality and violence Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CLI (Wilhelm + Oliver + Coney + Anthology)

June 19, 2016June 19, 2016 / Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments

Prepare for a glut of “Recent Science Fiction Acquisition” posts!

From my recent travels and a gift from a friend (@SFPotpourri)….

Michael G. Coney is an odd bird. If you’re curious what I might mean, check out my reviews of Friends Come in Boxes (1973) and Hello Summer, Goodbye (variant title: Rax) (1975). In short, I had to procure a short story collection!

Chad Oliver, an early proponent of anthropological SF, intrigues yet frustrates—I need to read more than The Shores of Another Sea (1971) to come to a firm conclusion about his fiction.

And Kate Wilhelm, my views are firmly established — in the spring of last year I put together a Kate Wilhelm guest post series. Check it out! I’ve posted reviews for the following: her early collection (for fans of 50s SF only) The Mile-Long Spaceship (1963), her spectacular collection with numerous award-winning stories (for fans of experimental SF) The Downstairs Room and Other Speculative Fiction (1968), her solid SF + psychological horror novel Margaret and I (1971), and her even better novel Juniper Time (1979).

And New Dimensions IV (1974), an anthology edited by Silverberg—with a story from one of the unsung SF greats, David R. Bunch. I have discussed but not reviewed his collection Moderan (1972). I placed it on my top 10 SF works (pre-1980) for inclusion in the Gollancz Masterwork series list. And, has anyone read Felix C. Gotschalk? It contains two stories by this unknown (at least to me) author. An overall fantastic lineup (Malzberg, Lafferty, Dozois, Bunch, etc.)….

Thoughts? comments?

[does anyone know the artist for the Silverberg edited anthology?]

1. Monitor Found in Orbit, Michael G. Coney (1974)

(Kelly Freas’ cover for the 1974 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CL (Ballard + Lafferty + Aldiss + Budrys)

June 15, 2016March 6, 2017 / Joachim Boaz / 38 Comments

My first David Pelham cover graces a peerless Ballard collection. I’ve reviewed the following Ballard collections: Billenium (1962) and The Voices of Time and Other Stories (1962).

And Aldiss’ most radical work (Barefoot in the Head (1969) might be the other choice for this distinction)?

In the past Budrys has not intrigued in the slightest—The Falling Torch (1959) was a bland alien invasion novel with a contemporary political message and Michaelmas (1976) turned a promising premise into a naive vision of absolute power wielded for absolute good. But, short stories often give another avenue into an author’s oeuvre…

And more Lafferty—never pass them up in used bookstores, even if you do not appreciate his odd brand of SF, they are certainly worth a pretty penny…

Thoughts on this selection?

1. The Terminal Beach, J. G. Ballard (1964)

(David Pelham’s cover for the 1974 edition) Continue reading →

Book Review: An Exercise for Madmen, Barbara Paul (1978)

June 12, 2016June 12, 2016 / Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments

(Jack Gaughan’s cover for the 1978 edition)

2.5/5 (Bad)

Barbara Paul’s An Exercise for Madmen (1978), a retelling of Euripides’ The Bacchae, follows an established narrative pattern: Stranger enters community with dangerous knowledge. Community reacts with suspicion but soon the stranger, despite claims of goodwill, begins to wield greater and greater influence.

In this case, a priapic-Romance cover-“ideal” alien man named Zalmox (masculine to women, feminine to men) gets an entire community to have great sex with him and everyone else…. And he brings magical alien apples, apples that cure madness Continue reading →

Book Review: Living Way Out (variant title: Beyond Bedlam), Wyman Guin (1967)

June 6, 2016August 1, 2019 / Joachim Boaz / 15 Comments

(Jim Burns’ cover for the 1973 edition)

3.75/5 (collated rating: Good)

Wyman Guin produced eight short stories and one novel between 1950 and 1973 [see his entry on SF encyclopedia]. A pharmacologist/advertising executive by profession, his SF output demonstrates a mature satirical bent touching on topics of sociology, psychology, and psychiatry. Best known for the often anthologized “Beyond Bedlam” (1951), the collection is worth tracking down for “A Man of the Renaissance” (1964), “Volpla” (1956), “The Delegate from Guapanga” (1964), and “Trigger Tide” (1950) as well. It is a shame that he did not write more.

Highly recommended for fans of social Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: A Spotlight on David McCall Johnston

May 26, 2016October 25, 2020 / Joachim Boaz / 12 Comments

(Cover for the 1971 edition of New Writings in SF 6 (variant title: New Writings in S-F 6) (1965), ed. John Carnell)

The American artist David McCall Johnston (b. 1940) produced a mere handful of SF covers. They are striking and somewhat minimalist in comparison to his famous fantasy covers (Orlando Furiosos, Moorcock’s The Chronicles of Corum sequence, etc). I have included all of his SF covers (that I know of) with a selection of fantasy covers (that do not intrigue me as much as the SF ones). My favorites: the 1971 edition of New Writings in SF 6, 1971 edition of New Writings in SF 7, and the 1971 Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXLVII (Women of Wonder Anthology + Eklund + Watson + Franke)

May 24, 2016 / Joachim Boaz / 39 Comments

(Inside illustration by Vincent Di Fate for the 1973 edition of The Orchid Cage (1961), Herbert W. Franke)

Part II of my SF acquisitions from Dawn Treader Books in Ann Arbor, MI– Part I. In my attempt to acquire more foreign SF (still haven’t managed to read that much of it—but the mood will strike eventually), I found a nice copy with a wonderful interior illustration and cover by Vincent Di Fate of one of Herbert W. Franke’s novels.

Also, another Ian Watson novel—I’ve read the Jonah Kit (1975) but never got around to reviewing it as well as his collection (must read for fans of 70s SF) The Very Slow Time Machine (1979). Jesse over at Speculiction raves about his other Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXLVI (Holdstock + Howard + Guin + Anthology with Zelazny, Pohl, Dick, Aldiss, et al.)

May 16, 2016July 6, 2016 / Joachim Boaz / 33 Comments

An eclectic range of books from my annual pilgrimage to Ann Arbor, MI. Unfortunately, the anthology series I was most excited about—Best of New Worlds and Orbit—were lacking from the shelves of Dawn Treader Books….

….but!

World’s Best Science Fiction: 1967 (1967) contains stories famous stories by Philip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny (2xs), R.A. Lafferty, Michael Moorcock, Frederick Pohl, Brian W. Aldiss, and lesser known stories by Dannie Plachta, Paul Ash, Bob Shaw, A. A. Walde….

Also, I also procured a 1967 Nebula-nominated novel by Hayden Howard, more Richard Holdstock, and a collection containing the famous short story “Beyond Bedlam” (1951). Over the next few weeks I’ll post the rest of my acquisitions.

Thoughts/comments?

1. The Eskimo Invasion, Hayden Howard (1967)

(Stephen Miller’s (?) cover for the 1967 edition) Continue reading →

Update: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXLV (Platt + Cowper + Gawron + Pfeil)

April 25, 2016April 25, 2016 / Joachim Boaz / 23 Comments

An eclectic collection of 70s SF…. Two virtually unknown authors (Gawron + Pfeil) and two authors slightly better known by SF fans (Platt + Cowper).

I’ve not been impressed with Platt in the past—for example, maybe you all remember my review for Garbage World (1966) or Planet of the Voles (1971)? But, nothing peeks my interest more than future urbanization gone amok… [2theD’s review: here].

Richard Cowper’s work intrigues but I often find it on the slight side. See my reviews of The Custodian and Other Stories (1976) and Profundus (1979). The book I procured below is considered his most famous although the premise does little to inspire….

Donald J. Pfeil wrote three novels (SF encyclopedia is somewhat dismissive of all three) and remains best known for editing the short-lived Vertex magazine: according to SF encyclopedia, “in quality [Vertex] was the strongest of the new sf magazines from the first half of the 1970s.” Unfortunately, it ran into financial problems and folded after only a few years…. Might be worth collecting!

Thoughts? Comments?

1. An Apology for Rain, Jean Mark Gawron (1974)