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Book Review: The Killer Thing, Kate Wilhelm (1967)

/ Joachim Boaz / 27 Comments
  • Paul Lehr’s cover for the 1969 edition

4/5 (Good)

On the last page of the March 1968 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, readers encountered an anti-Vietnam War petition, signed by science fiction authors, and organized by Kate Wilhelm and Judith Merril [1]. Both organizers incorrectly assumed that 95 percent of the field would sign due to the “global and anti-racist view” they believed guided SF [2]. Yet, on page 44 of the same issue, a pro-war petition organized by Robert Heinlein and Jack Williamson appeared with slightly less signatories. The June 1968 issue of Galaxy placed both lists next to each other for added effect.

Much ink has been spilt on the division lines between New Wave and Old Guard demonstrated by the two opposing advertisements [3] and in analysis of the canonical anti-Vietnam War science fiction novels, such as Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War (1975), partially compiled from stories that appeared as early as 1973, and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest (1972), written in 1968. Far less attention has been given to the Vietnam-inspired fiction of Kate Wilhelm, one of the organizers of the petition. Only her short story “The Village” (1973) receives occasional mention–it transposes a My Lai-esque massacre to the US. Little attention has been given to her third novel The Killer Thing (1967), written at a far earlier stage of the conflict [4].

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Updates: Holiday Purchases! No. CCCXXIX (George Alec Effinger, Margot Bennett, anthology on Nuclear War, and Michael Conner)

/ Joachim Boaz / 40 Comments

Time for more holiday finds!

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

1. When Gravity Fails, George Alec Effinger (1986)

  • Jim Burns’ cover for the 1988 edition

From the back cover: “In a decadent world of cheap pleasures and easy death, Marîd Audran has kept his independence and his identity the hard way. Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he is available …for a price.

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Updates: Holiday Purchases! No. CCCXXVIII (Robert Silverberg, S. P. Somtow, Janet Asimov, and a World’s Best Anthology)

/ Joachim Boaz / 21 Comments

Happy holidays. I hope you’ve been able to squeeze in a bit of science fiction reading.

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

1. Those Who Watch, Robert Silverberg (1967)

  • Gene Szafran’s cover for the 1971 edition

From the back cover: “CRASH LANDING FROM THE STARS.

Only three humans would ever know that the blinding flash in the sky on that night in 1982 was an exploding flying saucer. Only they would learn the truth about THOSE WHO WATCH–about the alien beings who came into this world in a crash landing from the stars. THOSE WHO WATCH is the strange, seductive novel of three accidental colonists from outer space whose chance encounter with Earth triggers interplanetary conflict. It is also the most unusual love story ever written.”

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

/ Joachim Boaz / 61 Comments
  • A selection of SF volumes from my shelves

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

Thanks again for all the great conversation. Make sure to check out the previous installment if you haven’t already. As before, I’ve included a bit about the books in the photograph, birthdays from the last two weeks, and brief ruminations on what I’ve been reading and writing.

Let me know what pre-1985 SF you’ve been reading!

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Book Review: The Gold at the Starbow’s End, Frederik Pohl (1972)

/ Joachim Boaz / 48 Comments
  • Peter Jones’ cover for the 1975 edition

3.75/5 (Collated rating: Good)

After Frederik Pohl (1919-2013) left his editorial position at Galaxy and If in 1969, he set his pen towards a productive vein of form in the 70s that would culminate in his Hugo and Nebula-winning Gateway (1977). The Gold at the Starbow’s End contains five short stories–including the first of his Heechee sequence–from this period. Two of the best stories, the titular “The Gold at the Starbow’s End” (1972) and “The Merchant of Venus” (1972), demonstrate Pohl’s characteristic blend of hyperbolic satire and delirious energy. There are no duds in this collection.

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

/ Joachim Boaz / 77 Comments
  • A selection of SF volumes from my shelves

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

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the conversations and connections you all have made in the comments over the last two months of this column. Make sure to check out the previous installment if you haven’t already. As before, I’ve included a bit about the books in the photograph, birthdays from the last two weeks, and brief ruminations on what I’ve been reading and writing.

Let me know what pre-1985 SF you’ve been reading!

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

/ Joachim Boaz / 57 Comments
  • A selection of SF volumes from my shelves

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

Thank you all for making this fanzine column a success! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the conversations and connections you all have made in the comments. Make sure to check out the previous installment if you haven’t already. As before, I’ve included a bit about the books in the photograph, birthdays from the last two weeks, and brief ruminations on what I’ve been reading and writing.

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Book Review: Mission: Manstop, Kris Neville (1971)

/ Joachim Boaz / 27 Comments
  • Andy Zito’s cover for the 1st edition

3.25/5 (Collated Rating: Above Average)

The career of Kris Neville (1925-1980) can be divided broadly into two parts. In his most productive period (1949-1957), Neville’s SF appeared in all the major magazines of the day, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in particular. Afterwards, while he continued to publish short stories at a far reduced clip until his death, he wrote a handful of fix-up novels between 1964-1970. This trajectory neatly maps onto the restriction of magazine markets in the late 50s and the growing importance of the SF novel.

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Short Story Reviews: Philip K. Dick’s “The Infinites” (1953) and James Causey’s “Competition” (1955)

/ Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments

The following reviews are the 23rd and 24th installments of my series searching for SF short stories that are critical in some capacity of space agencies, astronauts, and the culture which produced them. Some stories I’ll review in this series might not fit. Many are far from the best. And that is okay. I relish the act of literary archaeology.

I’ve paired two 1950s stories, by Philip K. Dick and the far lesser-known James Causey, that explore the inability to understand the universe outside our Earth. Explorers find themselves at each others throats caught up in paranoid delusions of grandeur.

Previously: George R. R. Martin’s “The Second Kind of Loneliness” (1972) and Tom Godwin’s “The Nothing Equation” (1957)

Up Next: Philip K. Dick’s “Precious Artifact” (1964) and Henry Slesar’s “Mr. Loneliness” (1957)

  • Allen Andersons’ cover for Planet Stories, ed. Jack O’Sullivan (May 1953)

3.5/5 (Good)

Philip K. Dick’s “The Infinites” first appeared in Planet Stories, ed. Jack O’Sullivan (May 1953). You can read it online here.

A preliminary note: I dislike writing about Philip K. Dick. As I mentioned in my 2021 review of “A Little Something for Us Tempunauts” (1974) for this series, “I find it far more enjoyable and liberating to write about lesser-known authors.” Or at least those whose works and lives are less encyclopedically covered by fans and academics alike. There are and will be far superior takes on this story. I don’t have the will or focus. And that’s okay. I rather focus my obsessive eye on others. To be clear, I love Philip K. Dick. Along with C. J. Cherryh, Frank Herbert, and Stanislaw Lem, he was one of the authors of my early twenties–right before I started this website.

A few observations on “The Infinites” (1953)….

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