Nostr notes by Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations

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

2026-06-24T15:09:57Z

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

What pre-1985 science fiction adventures have you started this summer? Any great reads? Disappointing ones? Intriguing discoveries? Here’s the [April installment ](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2026/04/04/what-pre-1985-science-fiction-are-you-reading-update-no-xxviii/ )of this column.<li><figure><img width="1024" height="703" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>A selection of read volumes from my shelves</figcaption></figure></li>

In a conversation on [Blueksy](https://bsky.app/profile/joachimboaz.bsky.social ), someone asked for my history of science fiction recommendations (including a few general surveys). I scoured my shelves and came up with an all-too-large pile (with some notable volumes I wanted to include but could not find) of favorite histories of science fiction. See photo below. I tried to include monographs that were not studies of single authors.

As I am a historian by training and trade who holds on to some of my disciplinary ticks and hangups, I also included works by trained academics with two major exceptions 1) Mike Ashley’s multi-volume study of science fiction magazines (but no other recent works exist and they’re really good for the nuts and bolts of genre magazines) and 2) Alec Nevala-Lee’s approachable and well-researched group biography * *Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction** (2018). Both should be read.<li><figure><img width="1000" height="750" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>A photo of a few of my history of science fiction recommendations</figcaption></figure></li>

I deliberately avoided works by science fiction authors like Damon Knight, Brian W. Aldiss, and Frederik Pohl. They’re great sources and I own and have read many of them but…. they are not histories by trained scholars. I do not mean for this to come off as elitist. Rather, my personal remit for my list—I needed to winnow down the hundreds and hundreds I own–was deliberately narrow! I read and use sources widely. Remember, these are my favorites — they might not be the *best *but they got me thinking and reading and writing. And that’s what we all should be doing, reading what makes us happy.

Before we get to the the curated birthdays and brief thoughts on the science fiction volumes above, let me know what pre-1985 SF you’re currently reading or planning to read! You’re also welcome to list your favorite histories of the genre.

**The Photograph (with links to reviews and brief thoughts)**<li>Samuel R. Delany and Howard V. Chaykin’s <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2019/07/08/short-book-reviews-samuel-r-delany-and-howard-v-chaykins-empire-1978-kate-wilhelmscity-of-cain1974-charles-sheffields-sight-of-proteus1978/">Empire (1978)</a>;. I love the art! The story? One of Delany’s weakest outings. It’s a shame.</li><li>Robert Holdstock’s <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2014/11/01/book-review-eye-among-the-blind-robert-holdstock-1976/">Eye Among the Blind </a><a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2014/11/01/book-review-eye-among-the-blind-robert-holdstock-1976/">(1976)</a>;. His anthropologically inclined first novel contains “kerns of his later genius” according to my 2014. Most details have faded. That can’t be said to his far superior <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2021/12/28/short-book-reviews-octavia-butlers-dawn-1987-robert-holdstocks-where-time-winds-blow-1981-and-phillipe-curvals-brave-old-world-1976-trans-1981/">Where Time Winds Blow (1981)</a>. If you only know Holdstock for Mythago Wood (1984), definitely check out his earlier more overt science fictional works. That said, I really need to read Mythago Wood! </li><li>Kate Wilhelm’s <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2016/10/14/book-review-abyss-kate-wilhelm-1971/">Abyss (1971)</a> is a underrated outing (two novellas) by a master near the top of her game. I particularly enjoyed “The Plastic Abyss” (1971): As the human drama (the entrenched patterns and fritctions of society’s expected social roles) swirls at the forefront, the SF premise generates the unease—in this case an attempt to secure funding for an experimental absorptive material onto which life-like images can be projected. </li><li>Philip K. Dick’s Our Friends From Frolix 8 (1970). One of many PKD novels that have clumped together into a terrifying indistinguishable distillation of his unease and what makes him great. This is too say, I read a lot of PKD early in my SF reading career and can’t remember which details relate to which books! </li>

**What am I writing about?**

The merciful appearance of summer break early this month — and a summer with little planned travel — has allowed me to get back into the flow of writing reviews and working on larger projects. Since the April installment of this series, I’ve read reviewed and written about the following: [Exploration Log 14: Anti-Racism in Chandler Davis’ “Stereotypes Are Dangerous” (1950)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2026/06/21/exploration-log-14-anti-racism-in-chandler-davis-stereotypes-are-dangerous-1950/ ), two posts on Clifford D. Simak: [“Madness from Mars” (1939) and “Hermit of Mars” (1939)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2026/06/14/short-fiction-review-clifford-d-simaks-madness-from-mars-1939-and-hermit-of-mars-1939/ ) and his collection [*The Worlds of Clifford Simak* (1960)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2026/06/08/book-review-clifford-d-simaks-the-worlds-of-clifford-simak-1960/ ), [Polly Toynbee’s *Leftovers* (1966) and Lewis Gibbs’ *Late Final* (1951)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2026/05/25/short-book-reviews-polly-toynbees-leftovers-1966-and-lewis-gibbs-late-final-1951/ ), [Richard Wilson’s “Strike” (1953)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2026/04/17/short-story-review-richard-wilsons-strike-1953/ ), and [Knut Faldbakken’s *Sweetwater* (1976, trans. Joan Tate, 1994)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2026/05/18/book-review-knut-faldbakkens-sweetwater-1976-trans-joan-tate-1994/ ), which appeared originally in the first issue of Rachel S. Cordasco’s magazine *[Small Planet: The SF in Translation Magazine](https://www.sfintranslation.com/?p=16928 )*.

The summer has allowed me to return to my article (and accompanying historical research) on Edward A. Johnson’s *Light Ahead for the Negro *(1904). First major summer step? I finished Richard A. Paschal’s *Jim Crow in North Carolina: The Legislative Program from 1865-1920 *(2021) to integrate into my article! I will spend as much as the afternoon as possible at my favorite coffee shop *trying *to eek out a few more pages or to reacquaint myself with my 200+ electronic newspaper clippings I’ve collected.

I’m also working on my review of SF in translation for the second issue of *Small Planet: The SF in Translation Magazine*. I’ll keep the author and book secret until it appears in the first few weeks of August. As for non fiction for the site, I’m working on a few early Clifford D. Simak fanzine articles for my Exploration Log series.

**What am I reading?**

This is a rare moment for reasons connected to my before-mentioned article that I do not have a science fiction work already lined up to read. It’s a radically attempt to FINISH writing projects that have acted as anchors to other writing and reading. That said, no worries blog friends — I have plenty of half-finished reviews waiting in the wings. Stay tuned.<li><figure><img width="768" height="1024" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Photo of Steve Batterson’s The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis: McCarthyism, Communism, and the Myth of Academic Freedom (2023) on my history shelf with other books</figcaption></figure></li>

On the non-fiction front: I have been eying Steve Batterson’s *The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis: McCarthyism, Communism, and the Myth of Academic Freedom *(2023) after writing about [Chandler Davis’ amazing fanzine article “Stereotypes Are Dangerous” (1950)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2026/06/21/exploration-log-14-anti-racism-in-chandler-davis-stereotypes-are-dangerous-1950/ ) for my Exploration Log series.

**A Curated List of SF Birthdays from the Last Two Weeks** [names link to The Internet Speculative Fiction Database for bibliographical info]

June 10th: Artist [Don Maitz](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?421 ) (1953-).

June 11th: [Josephine Saxton](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1557 ) (1935-2023). I recommend [*The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith* (1969)](https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2012/11/04/book-review-the-hieros-gamos-of-sam-and-an-smith-josephine-saxton-1969/ ). She was a unique and underrated voice of the New Wave. I also covered her[ first three published ](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2022/07/29/short-fiction-reviews-josephine-saxtons-the-wall-1965-ne-deja-vu-pas-1967-and-nothing-much-to-relate-1967/ )short stories.

June 12th: [Frank K. Kelly](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1773 ) (1914-2010). I wrote about an example of his dark 30s pulp here: [“Famine on Mars” (1934)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/03/26/science-fiction-in-dialogue-with-the-great-depression-frank-k-kellys-famine-on-mars-1934/ ).

June 12th: [Henry Slesar](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?690 ) (1927-2002).

June 13th: Artist [Ralph McQuarrie](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?7866 ) (1929-2012). Best known for his Star Wars art. He also created SF covers.<li><figure><img width="624" height="1024" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>James Gurney’s cover for William Greenleaf’s <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2020/12/31/short-book-reviews-m-john-harrisons-a-storm-of-wings-1980-algis-budrys-some-will-not-die-1961-rev-1978-and-william-greenleafs-the-tartarus-incident-1983/">The Tartarus Incident </a>(1983)</figcaption></figure></li>

June 14th: Artist [James Gurney](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1829 ) (1958-). Best known for *Dinotopia *(1992) (and the sequels). Another very influential book in my childhood. He also created a SF covers.

June 14th: [Stephen Tall](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?608 ) (1908-1981).

June 14th: [Ruthven Todd](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?84105 ) (1914-1978). I recently acquired his marginally SF work *The Lost Traveller *(1943). I’ll feature it in a purchase post eventually.

June 14th: [Laurence Yep](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?708 ) (1948-). A complete unknown to me. I acquired one of his novels recently:* Seademons *(1977) .

June 14th: Artist [Peter Goodfellow](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?25963 ) (1950-2022). One of my favorite British SF artists. <li><figure><img width="620" height="1024" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Mitchell Hooks’ cover for the 1962 1st edition</figcaption></figure></li>

June 15th: [J. F. Bone](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1107 ) (1916-2006). Best known for his novel *The Lani People *(1962). One of many novels with humanoid cat women. Blargh.

June 15th: Artist [Neal Adams](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1757 ) (1941-2022). Best known for his Tarzan covers.

June 15th: [Brian Jacques](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?297 ) (1939-2011). I’ve mentioned my love his Jacques’ *Redwall *sequence in previous year installments of the birthday list. If there’s a single author responsible for my adoration for reading and maps, it’s him.

June 17th: [Wallace Wood](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?915 ) (1927-1981).

June 17th: [John Hersey](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?5666 ) (1914-1993). Best known for his non-fiction work *Hiroshima *(1946), Hersey also wrote three SFF volumes. I read and enjoyed his overpopulation themed novel *[*My Petition for More Space*](https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2015/12/19/short-book-reviews-if-all-else-fails-craig-strete-1980-my-petition-for-more-space-john-hersey-1974-and-all-judgement-fled-james-white-serialized-1967/ )*[ (1974)](https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2015/12/19/short-book-reviews-if-all-else-fails-craig-strete-1980-my-petition-for-more-space-john-hersey-1974-and-all-judgement-fled-james-white-serialized-1967/ ). I acquired his satire of the National Defense Education Act (1968) novel *The Child Buyer *(1960).

June 17th: [Garen Drussaï](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?13503 ) (1916-2009). She wrote five science fiction stories in the mid-50s, including her “consumer hell” story “Woman’s Work” (1956) that I must finally get around to reading.

June 17th: [Dean Ing](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1428 ) (1931-2020).<li><figure><img width="674" height="1023" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>The Brothers Quay cover for the 1st edition of Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly (1977) </figcaption></figure></li>

June 17th: [Tim ](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?65151 )and [Steve ](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?65161 )Quay (1947-) (The Brothers Quay). Before their brilliant short films, they created a handful of covers early in their career! I found their 1st edition cover of PKD’s *A Scanner Darkly *(1977) the best.

June 18th: Artist [Jody A. Lee](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?25820 ) (1958-).

June 18th: [Roger Ebert](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?14590 ) (1942-2013). Ebert, a famous film-reviewer, also published two science fiction short stories in 1972.

June 19th: [Mark Adlard](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?126 ) (1932-). I reviewed the first volume–[*Interface* (1971)](https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/book-review-interface-mark-adlard-1971/ )–in his *Tcity *trilogy back in 2015.

June 19th: [Brian Ball](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?92633 ) (1932-2020). A slick pulp-SF author, if that is your thing. I reviewed [*Singularity Station* (1973)](https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/book-review-singularity-station-brian-n-ball-1973/ ) in 2013.<li><figure><img width="665" height="1024" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Peter Goodfellow’s cover for the 1977 UK edition of Grimus (1975)</figcaption></figure></li>

June 19th: [Salman Rushdie](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?287 ) (1947-). I have my eyes on his first SF novel *Grimus *(1975) (above).

June 20th: [Pamela Zoline](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?11115 ) (1941-). I love the rightly celebrated [“The Heat Death of the Universe”](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2015/02/24/book-review-best-sf-stories-from-new-worlds-3-1968/ ) (1967) and wish she wrote more than the handful of short stories.

June 21st: [Cleve Cartmill](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?457 ) (1908-1964). Best known for the controversy over “Deadline” (1944) “which described an atomic bomb a year before one was ever dropped, which the government attempted to suppress.” Should I read it? I imagine it is historically important but a poor story. Did he write anything else worth reading?

June 21st: [David J. Skal](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?2383 ) (1952-2024). I’ve only read Skal’s short story [“Chains” ](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2024/01/28/short-story-reviews-howard-waldrops-mary-margaret-road-grader-1976-david-j-skals-chains-1971-and-tom-purdoms-courting-time-1966/ )(1971).

June 22nd: [Lima de Freitas](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?168402 ) (1927-1998). One of my top 5 science fiction artists — I love his line work. For a few examples I gathered, see [this thread on Bluesky.](https://bsky.app/profile/joachimboaz.bsky.social/post/3mourjylo422p ) I also posted about his work on my site: [The Futuristic Cities of Lima de Freitas](https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2016/08/31/adventures-in-science-fiction-cover-art-the-futuristic-cities-of-lima-de-freitas-part-i/ ).

June 22nd: [Octavia E. Butler](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?186 ) (1947-2006). I’ve reviewed *[Clay’s Ark ](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/?s=octavia+e.+butler )*(1984), [*Dawn *(1987)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2021/12/28/short-book-reviews-octavia-butlers-dawn-1987-robert-holdstocks-where-time-winds-blow-1981-and-phillipe-curvals-brave-old-world-1976-trans-1981/ ) and [*Mind of My Mind *(1977)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2023/10/07/short-book-reviews-octavia-e-butlers-mind-of-my-mind-1977-and-susan-coopers-mandrake-1964/ ). *[Clay’s Ark ](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/?s=octavia+e.+butler )*(1984) is really really good. Covered it last year.

June 23rd: [Michael Shaara](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1260 ) (1928-1988). His collection *Soldier Boy *(1982) judges me from the shelf. I’ve been meaning to read it since 2015! <li><figure><img width="1024" height="782" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Paul Orban’s interior art for <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2024/01/07/short-story-review-michael-bishops-the-windows-in-dantes-hell-1973-barrington-j-bayleys-exit-from-city-5-1971-and-a-j-deutschs-a-subway-named-mobius-1953/">A. J. Deutsch’s “A Subway Named Mobius” (1950)</a> in Astounding Science Fiction, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. (December 1950)</figcaption></figure></li>

June 23rd: Artist [Paul Orban](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?26385 ) (1896-1974). I enjoy his style of interior art — the variety of lines and shading.

June 23rd: Artist [Alan Craddock](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?26010 ) (1956-). I do not enjoy his style of cover art! <li><figure><img width="821" height="1024" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Alan Craddock’s cover art for the 1985 Orbit edition of David Gerrold’s A Day for Damnation (1984)</figcaption></figure></li>

For book reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/science-fiction-book-reviews-by-author/ )

For cover art posts consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/egregious-science-fiction-cover-art/ )

For TV and film reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/films-reviewed-by-director-2/ )

#1930s #1950s #1960s #1970s #1980s #avantGarde #bookReview #bookReviews #books #fiction #HowardVChaykin #KateWilhelm #philipKDick #RobertHoldstock #SamuelRDelany #sciFi #scienceFiction

## Book Review: William Tenn’s Time in Advance (1958) ...

2026-02-08T18:48:47Z

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Book Review: William Tenn’s Time in Advance (1958)

<li><figure><img width="604" height="1024" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Mitchell Hooks’ cover for the 1st edition</figcaption></figure></li>
3.5/5 (collated rating: Good)

Over the years, I’ve slowly made my way through a substantial portion of William Tenn’s output: I’ve reviewed his only SF novel *[Of Men and Monsters](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2013/09/10/book-review-of-men-and-monsters-william-tenn-1968/ ) *(1968), two short story collections–*[The Human Angle](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2013/10/10/book-review-the-human-angle-william-tenn-1956/ ) *(1956) and *[Of All Possible Worlds ](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2021/01/17/book-review-of-all-possible-worlds-william-tenn-1955/ )*(1955), and three additional short stories [“Bernie the Faust” (1963)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2016/08/23/book-review-new-writings-in-sf-4-ed-john-carnell-1965-asimov-roberts-tenn-kapp-etchison-morgan/ ), [“Eastward Ho!” (1958)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2023/03/04/short-story-reviews-william-tenns-generation-of-noah-1951-and-eastward-ho-1958/ ), and [“Generation of Noah” (1951)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2023/03/04/short-story-reviews-william-tenns-generation-of-noah-1951-and-eastward-ho-1958/ ). I’ve found him an effective satirist with a penchant for often self-defeating twist endings. At his best, Tenn challenges grand narratives of American progress and exceptionalism, 50s consumerist culture and gender roles, and renders an absurdist spin on Cold War conflict. I imagine his reluctance to write novels relegates his often brilliant ouvre to the fringes of contemporary interest in 50s SF.

*Time in Advance *(1958) contains four solid but unspectacular visions. I recommend the collection only for fans of his work. If you are new to Tenn’s brand of intelligent satire, check out [“Down Among the Dead Men”](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2021/01/17/book-review-of-all-possible-worlds-william-tenn-1955/ ) (1954), [“Eastward Ho!” (1958)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2023/03/04/short-story-reviews-william-tenns-generation-of-noah-1951-and-eastward-ho-1958/ ), [“The Liberation of Earth”](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2021/01/17/book-review-of-all-possible-worlds-william-tenn-1955/ ) (1953), and [“The Servant Problem”](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2013/10/10/book-review-the-human-angle-william-tenn-1956/ ) (1955) first.

Brief Plot Summary/Analysis<li><figure><img width="1024" height="877" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>H. R. Van Dongen’s interior art for William Tenn’s “Firewater” in Astounding Science Fiction, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. (February 1952)</figcaption></figure></li>

**“Firewater” (1952)**, 4/5 (Good): First appeared in *Astounding Science Fiction, *ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. (February 1952). You can read it online [here](https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v48n06_1952-02_MadMaxAU/page/n1/mode/2up ).

Easily the best story in the collection, “Firewater” puts an original and fascinating spin on the first contact tale that’s simultaneously in dialogue with the American past. In the years after first contact, blinking light-like aliens are allotted “reservations” in the world’s deserts. In possession of far superior technology, a few brave humans attempt to interact with the alien presences, whom they assume feel far superior to the humans around them. Most humans who interact with the aliens go insane yet receive, in return for a transaction that isn’t entirely clear, unusual powers. A few business men choose to bring in the insane emissaries of the aliens and conduct exchanges for alien technology. Algernon Hebster, motivated entirely by profit, runs a not entirely legal business, Hebster Securities, gleaning details from the linguistic chaos of the transformed humans. He uses the fragments he uncovers to create new fashions and gadgets for the American suburban life.

One day he’s approached by the UM Special Investigating Commission with a deal. Hebster’s unique skills are needed to confront a growing far-right movement called Humanity First that seeks to destroy Hebster and evict the aliens from earth. If he doesn’t help, his own business will be investigated and potentially destroyed. Both sides spy on each other. Hebster finds himself in a meeting with the leader of Humanity First, who expounds his own fascist delusions. He must take actions into his own hands. Can conflict be avoided? Are the aliens as superior as they assume? Or are both sides possessed by a psychological *block *unique to their species? As with the superior [“Eastward Ho!” (1958)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2023/03/04/short-story-reviews-william-tenns-generation-of-noah-1951-and-eastward-ho-1958/ ), Tenn places his future world in dialogue with American narratives of the past–in particular Native American history. I’d love to explore these historiographic and narratological parallels in more detail in a longer-form article.

Recommended for fans of unique first contact stories.<li><figure><img width="676" height="476" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Dick Francis’ interior art for William Tenn’s Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (August 1956)</figcaption></figure></li>

**“Time in Advance” (1956)**, 3.5/5 (Good): First appeared in *Galaxy Science Fiction*, ed. H. L. Gold (August 1956). You can read it online [here](https://archive.org/details/Galaxy_v12n04_1956-08/mode/2up ).

Imagine a future in which colonization on alien worlds creates a desperate need for almost sacrificial labor. No one wants to volunteer. However, planets must be conquered and massive bugs and monsters rooted out and slaughtered before humanity can lay down outposts in the far beyond. Somehow companies in charge of colonizations manage to push a law that would allow men to serve hard labor for crime. In addition, if you’re itching to murder someone you can sign up for punishment *before *you commit the crime. To incentive volunteers, you’ll receive half the sentence. If you murder someone and then are convicted, you’ll serve a full sentence. If you survive, you’ll be able to return to Earth *already* having served a shortened sentence for a crime you have yet to commit.

Two men return from their service making the stars fit for humanity’s inevitable expansion. Both survived, traumatized, and both served long enough to murder anyone they might wish. Both signed up because they wished to commit violence. The media descends in droves desperate for the ultimate scoop: who are YOU going to murder? The story follows Nicholas Crandall. He originally signed up for his punishment in advance as he wanted to murder his business partner who stole his invention. However, when he returns a whole series of people reach out confessing their sins and breaches of trust thinking they might be the target of his murderous ire. Will he murder his original target? Or someone else?

“Time in Advance” contains an outrageous and non-sensical premise for sure. Tenn posits a gentle satire of humanity’s quest for the stars. The story shifts with the focus on Crandall’s life, one spent in a similar quest for financial gain. He was oblivious to the actions of those around him. Had he lived a life worth living? Was he blind to what gave value and worth in the present? Both men find themselves mired in an entirely different existential state as their narratives of purpose come tumbling down.

Somewhat recommended. <li><figure><img width="676" height="464" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Robert Engle’s interior art for William Tenn’s “The Sickness” in Infinity Science Fiction, ed. Larry T. Shaw (November 1955) </figcaption></figure></li>

**“The Sickness” (1955)**, 3.5/5 (Good): First appeared in *Infinity Science Fiction*, ed. Larry T. Shaw (November 1955) You can read it online [here](https://archive.org/details/infinity-v-01-n-01-1955-11 ).

The era: the paranoid depths of the Cold War. Physical conflict seems inevitable: “Something had to be done, and done fast” (83). The last-gasp cooperative idea to generate detente? A multi-ethnic expedition, lead by the non-aligned India, sets off to explore the desert reaches of Mars. Both the Americans and Soviets implant a secret service member into the astronaut ranks with plans to *take over* if needed. In order to facilitate cooperation in the face of the omnipresent paranoia of secret ploys and plots, the astronauts must learn the language of the other superpower. American astronauts must speak Russian to each other, even in private. Soviets must converse in English. As the expeditions approaches its conclusion, the Russian Belov discovers well-preserved ruins on Mars. A sinister sickness begins to infiltrate the expedition’s best attempts at quarantine and control.

I read this initially for my series on subversive takes on space travel. It’s paranoid. It’s a fascinating manifestation of contemporary fears. Unfortunately, Tenn is wedded to “twist” ending that weakens and diminishes all the effective setup work. Rather than an expedition that falls victim to the paranoid whirlwinds on Earth’s surface or realizes the value of an alternative, Tenn settles on a third far less interesting reveal. I find Tenn’s obsessive hunt for endings with sufficient twist, especially the tacked on sort, diminishes narratological impetus and thematic cohesion.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this one. The rating comes from the setup and intriguing suggestion that the un-aligned Third World might be valuable players in a more peaceful future. I found the other elements disappointing. <li><figure><img width="1000" height="473" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Virgil Finlay’s interior art for William Tenn’s “Time Waits for Winthrop” in Galaxy Science Fiction (August 1957)</figcaption></figure></li>

**“Winthrop Was Stubborn” (1957)**, 3/5 (Average): First appeared in *Galaxy Science Fiction,* ed. H. L. Gold (August 1957). You can read it online [here](https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1957-08/mode/2up ).

A group of common Americans, a cross-section of society, is selected for an experimental voyage into the future. There’s a problem. Winthrop, the oldest of the bunch, wants to stay in the 25th century. The others find the constantly shifting hallways and furniture, unusual rituals, discombobulating personal transportation, food consumption as symphonic appreciation, fantastical technology, and unusual future denizens *too *different and shocking. Winthrop, a product of the Great Depression, reminds his fellow travelers of his “lousy job and lousy life” (106). He was the kid left by his parents in the breadlines as they hunted for work. And when the Depression ended, he could only find menial jobs that never granted security or a moment of peace. Winthrop enjoys the post-scarcity 25th century. He enjoys relaxation. He’s finally able travel and participate in new experiences of every imaginable nature with his daily cares lavishly provided for. His fellow travelers beg him to return. They all need to jointly return at the assigned time else they won’t be able to return at all.

As with “The Sickness,” I found this story’s “twist” ending deeply unsatisfying. It entirely dodges and diminishes the conundrum, the generational issues and desires brought up by Winthrop’s *need *to stay in the future, Tenn lays out. Is there no way past generational divides? Can we really never bridge differences? Spectacular art by Finlay aside, this is not Tenn at his best.

Not recommended.

For book reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/science-fiction-book-reviews-by-author/ )

For cover art posts consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/egregious-science-fiction-cover-art/ )

For TV and film reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/films-reviewed-by-director-2/ )

#1950s #bookReviews #books #fiction #history #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction #technology #WilliamTenn

## My 2025 in Review (Best Science Fiction Novels and Short ...

2026-01-02T18:33:07Z

##

My 2025 in Review (Best Science Fiction Novels and Short Fiction, Reading Initiatives, and Bonus Categories)

<li><figure><img width="1024" height="465" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Graphic created by my father</figcaption></figure></li>
Here’s to happy reading in 2026! I hope you had a successful reading year. Whether you are a lurker, occasional visitor, a regular commenter, a follower on [Bluesky ](https://bsky.app/profile/joachimboaz.bsky.social )or [Mastodon](https://wandering.shop/@SFRuminations ), thank you for your continued support. As I say year after year, It’s hard to express how important (and encouraging) the discussions that occur in the comments, social media, and via email are to me. I’m so thankful for the lovely and supportive community of readers, writers, and discussion partners that stop by.

**What were your favorite vintage SF reads–published pre-1985–of 2025? **Let me know in the comments.

Throughout the later part of the year I’ve dropped hints about a research project. Perceptive readers might have parsed together the contours of the research: late 19th/early 20th century, utopian, African American, the American South, radical politics… It’s taking longer than expected. I’ve read a good ten monographs, five dissertations, countless articles. I’ve written twenty pages. I hoped to have it posted by early in this year. Alas. It’s coming together–slowly. Stay tuned.

Without further ado, here are my favorite novels (I only read a few) and short stories (I read a ton of those) I read in 2025 with bonus categories. I made sure to link my longer reviews where applicable if you want a deeper dive.

Check out my [2024](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/01/05/my-2024-in-review-best-science-fiction-novels-and-short-fiction-articles-podcasts-reading-initiatives-and-bonus-categories/ ), [2023](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2024/01/01/my-2023-in-review-best-sf-novels-best-sf-short-fiction-and-bonus-categories/ ), [2022](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2023/01/01/updates-my-2022-in-review-best-sf-novels-best-sf-short-fiction-and-bonus-categories/ ), and [2021](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2022/01/01/updates-my-2021-in-review-best-sf-novels-best-sf-short-fiction-and-bonus-categories/ ) rundowns if you haven’t already. I have archived all my annual rundowns on my [article index page](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/sci-fi-article-index/ ) if you wanted to peruse earlier years.

**My Top 5 Science Fiction Novels of 2025**<li><figure><img width="614" height="1024" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Alan Gutierrez’s cover for the 1985 edition</figcaption></figure></li>

1. Octavia E. Butler’s *Clay’s Ark* (1984), 4.5/5 (Very Good). [Full review. ](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/10/18/book-review-octavia-e-butlers-clays-ark-1984/ )

Octavia E. Butler’s *Clay’s Ark* is the final published volume of her *Patternist *sequence (1976-1984). It is the third novel according to the internal chronology of the series. *Clay’s Ark* is, without doubt, the most horrifyingly bleak science fiction novel I have ever read. It’s stark. It’s sinister. It’s at turns deeply affective before descending into extreme violence and displaced morality. The moral conundrum that underpins the central *problem*, the spread of an extraterrestrial disease, unfurls with an unnerving *alien *logic. Butler’s characters are trapped by the demands of the alien microbes, scarred by the pervasive sense that their humanity is slipping away, and consumed by the fear of starting an epidemic. A true confrontation of the moment cannot lead to anything other than suicide or the first steps towards an apocalyptic transformation.<li><figure><img width="636" height="1023" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Mark Weber’s cover for the 1st edition</figcaption></figure></li>

2. Kim Stanley Robinson’s *Icehenge* (1984), 4.5/5 (Very Good). [Full review](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/12/22/short-book-reviews-kim-stanley-robinsons-icehenge-1984-and-peter-vansittarts-the-game-and-the-ground-1956/ ).

Kim Stanley Robinson’s *Icehenge*, a fix-up from two previously published stories “To Leave a Mark” (1982) and “On the North Pole of Pluto” (1980), tells three interconnected tales that all connect to a mysterious monolith left on Pluto (the titular Icehenge). By design *Icehenge *instead follows the action after the action: men and women attempting to figure out their own place in a world characterizes by lifespans that stretch hundreds and hundreds of years. And its this brilliant interconnection between self-conception and the operations of history that Robinson succeeds and casts his spell. The story is well-told, polished, and filled with fascinating details (technological and sociological).<li><figure><img width="611" height="1024" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Peter Jones’ cover for the 1978 UK edition</figcaption></figure></li>

3. Joe Haldeman’s *All My Sins Remembered *(1977), 4/5 (Good). [Full review. ](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/09/13/short-book-reviews-joe-haldemans-all-my-sins-remembered-1977-and-burt-coles-subi-the-volcano-1957/ )

The vast Confederación is comprised of radically distinct worlds ruled by the entire spectrum of political systems with both alien and non-alien inhabitants. There are few rules: don’t take advantage of indigenous populations and don’t wage wars on neighboring planets. At 22, the naive Otto McGavin, an Anglo-Buddhist, joins the Confederación as an agent to protect the rights of humans and non-humans. But there’s a twist. Under deep hypnosis a construct of Otto McGavin will be created for each mission. He’ll take on the identity–under a sheath of plasticine flesh–of whatever person he needs to be depending on the task. The story follows Otto on three missions over many years. The interlocking segments convey the deep trauma Otto must confront before he’s immersed in another persona and sent on another mission. His idealism clashes with the violence he must perpetuate. His sense of self conflicts with the violent actions of his “constructs.” The looming sense of dread and despair must finally have its reckoning.<li><figure><img width="587" height="1023" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Uncredited cover for the 1983 edition</figcaption></figure></li>

4. Zoë Fairbairns’ *Benefits* (1979), 3.75/5 (Good). Full [review.](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/07/24/book-review-zoe-fairbairns-benefits-1979/ )

Zoë Fairbairns charts the struggles of the British women’s liberation movement in a dystopic near future. An anti-feminist fringe political party called FAMILY comes to power, simultaneously proclaiming family values while systematically dismantling the welfare state. *Benefits *effectively eviscerates governmental doublespeak and champions the need to organize and educate in order to fight against patriarchal forces and messianic movements that promise to solve all our ills.<li><figure><img width="624" height="1023" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Colin Hay’s cover for the 1976 edition</figcaption></figure></li>

5. Edgar Pangborn’s *[The Company of Glory](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/06/01/short-book-reviews-edgar-pangborns-the-company-of-glory-1974-novelized-1975-and-harold-meads-marys-country-1957/ ) *(1975), 3.5/5 (Good). Full [review](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/06/01/short-book-reviews-edgar-pangborns-the-company-of-glory-1974-novelized-1975-and-harold-meads-marys-country-1957/ ).

Edgar Pangborn is an unsung SF hero in my book. At his best, he’s a deeply humanistic writer interested in moments of effective metafictional play on the nature of narrative. *The Company of Glory *(serialized 1974, 1975) is the third novel in the *Tales of Darkening World *sequence. It forms a prequel to Pangborn’s masterpiece *[Davy](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2023/07/29/book-review-davy-edgar-pangborn-1964/ ) *(1964). As with *Davy*, *The Company of Glory *attempts to create multiple interlocking layers of narrative, stories within the stories, quotations from various diaries, and the interjections of the overarching narrator of the entire collection of texts who remains anonymous until the final pages. Unfortunately, *The Company of Glory *is a deeply flawed novel. Recommended only for Pangborn’s fans. Read *Davy *first if you’re new to his work.

**My Top 20 Science Fiction Short Stories Reads of 2025** (**click titles for my full review)**

1. Philip K. Dick’s [“Foster, You’re Dead” (1955), ](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/03/09/book-review-star-science-fiction-stories-no-3-ed-frederik-pohl-1955/ )5/5 (Masterpiece): I featured on a podcast about this story. When the episode is posted, I’ll make sure to link it. Mike Foster spends his school days practicing survival skills–digging, making knives, weaving baskets–in case of a nuclear attack. The kids snicker at him as he walks past. They don’t own a fallout shelter at home. His father refuses to pay into the NATS (National Security fund). If a bomb hit, Mike wouldn’t even be granted access to the school shelter. He’s possessed by a deep, perpetual, encompassing trauma.

2. Fritz Leiber’s [“Coming Attraction” (1950)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/07/02/magazine-review-galaxy-science-fiction-ed-h-l-gold-november-1950-brown-asimov-boucher-leiber-knight-simak/ ), 5/5 (Masterpiece): A rare reread! Leiber imagines an America transformed after a limited nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The physical landscape mirrors the psychological scars of New York’s inhabitants. Perverse new forms of TV entertainment, in particular male wrestlers pitted against masked women, transfix all audiences.

3. Jack Dann’s [“A Quiet Revolution for Death” (1978)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/08/24/book-review-jack-danns-timetipping-1980/ ), 5/5 (Masterpiece): Roger and his family head out of the city for a picnic in a vast cemetery. Roger dreams that he is an angel of God guiding mankind through the realm. Visiting the cemetery is an act of devotion. While other kids plug themselves into feelies, Bennie is a fanatic disciple of his father’s pseudo-philosophy of embracing the macabre. Sandra, Roger’s wife, plays along. The kids see through her dislike of the cemetery and the burial rituals happening around them.

4. Izumi Suzuki’s[“Terminal Boredom” (1984, trans. by Daniel Joseph 2021)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/11/15/short-story-review-izumi-suzukis-terminal-boredom-1984-trans-by-daniel-joseph-2021/ ), 4.5/5 (Very Good): A nameless young female main character recounts her interactions her one-time boyfriend. HE wants to reconnect with his mother, who abandoned his family. HE joins a staged show called *The Psychoanalysis Room* in an attempt to convince his mother to take “pity and come and find” him. She also has a dysfunctional family. Her mother, a TV executive, struggles/refuses to connect to her daughter. Like some manifestation of the modern *hikikomori*, they often refuse to communicate with others, eat as a group or eat at all for days on end, or leave their dwellings for the sun and vista of the aboveground. Both find solace and escape in the vacuities and artifice of television.

5. Philip K. Dick’s [“Explorers We” (1959)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/01/18/short-fiction-reviews-philip-k-dicks-explorers-we-1959-and-james-tiptree-jr-s-painwise-1972/ ), 4.5/5 (Very Good): Six astronauts return to earth from a voyage to Mars. But they are not treated as heroes. Instead people flee. I found “Explorers We” a well-crafted existential terror. The story plays with narrative expectation and hints at a cosmic enormity that will, at least in this iteration, remain unknown.

6. James Tiptree, Jr.’s [“Painwise” (1972)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/01/18/short-fiction-reviews-philip-k-dicks-explorers-we-1959-and-james-tiptree-jr-s-painwise-1972/ ), 4.5/5 (Very Good): An explorer who feels no pain is hurled mercilessly from planet to plant where is he tortured, experimented upon, and broken again, and again, and again. His sense of time dissipates. Space becomes a hellscape that he cannot escape. And each time he’s lifted back to his scout ship where a mechanical boditech stitches him back together.

7. Jack Dann’s [“The Dybbuk Dolls” (1975)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/08/24/book-review-jack-danns-timetipping-1980/ ), 4.5/5 (Very Good): Chaim Lewis works at a sex shop down below in the Undercity, one of many identical spheres, one mile in diameter, buried one thousand feet below the ground. As Chaim finishes up his shift in the dingy shop, a group of visitors ask about his hook-ins and 21st century pornos. Eventually one of them asks him about his alien sex doll collection. And when he returns to the room with the dolls, he discovers they’ve all been unpacked and they imprint themselves on his mind! Cue a descent into the bizarre…

8. Jack Williamson’s [“Guinevere for Everybody” (1955)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/03/09/book-review-star-science-fiction-stories-no-3-ed-frederik-pohl-1955/ ), 4.5/5 (Very Good): An artificially created Guinevere stands “chained” in a “vending machine” tempting sleepy passengers in an airport with her plaintive calls. I did not know Williamson had this type of vision in him! The surprise of the year!

9. George H. Smith’s [“The Last Days of L. A.” (1959)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/10/04/short-fiction-reviews-george-h-smiths-the-last-days-of-l-a-1959-and-in-the-imagicon-1966/ ), 4/5 (Good): A nameless character (“you”) wakes from a recurring dream: “the dream that has haunted the whole world since that day in 1945.” A dream of apocalyptic annihilation, in infinite variations. A narrative repetition takes form: Nuclear nightmare. The waking moment. The aimless quest for understanding. Communing with other lost souls. The retreat to the bottle. Fragments of the news suggest a world unraveling.

10. Theodore Sturgeon’s [“The Stars Are the Styx” (1950)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/06/08/magazine-review-galaxy-science-fiction-ed-h-l-gold-october-1950-simak-sturgeon-maclean-matheson-leiber-brown-asimov/ ), 4/5 (Good): The premise: Humans created Curbstone, an artificial satellite around Earth, to facilitate the ultimate scientific achievement–near instantaneous transportation across the galaxy. How? Individual spaceships, with a solitary crew person or couple, will be hurled out from Curbstone at various points across the space time continuum. The story revolves around the aging (and rotund) Senior Release Officer on Curbstone, who certifies, counsels, and guides the strange collection of humans who gather at the station willing to take such a risk.

11. Richard Matheson’s [“Dance of the Dead” (1955)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/03/09/book-review-star-science-fiction-stories-no-3-ed-frederik-pohl-1955/ ), 4/5 (Good): In a drug and alcohol drenched near-future, a group of young adults take a break-neck road drip and stray from the path set out by parents and small town community. Manifesting the SPEED of the car, Matheson’s prose resonates with pulse and hum, snippets of song and signage, slang and youthful lust. It’s frantic. It’s *zappy*. It’s vibrant. Recommended for fans of the more linguistically experimental (and bleak) of 50s visions.

12. Jack Dann’s [“Rags” (1973),](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/08/24/book-review-jack-danns-timetipping-1980/ ) 4/5 (Good): Joanna wanders the streets without seeing a single person. Everything she sees—from garbage cans to parked cars–seem in be various states of decay (“dented, rusted, and discolored”). She teaches herself a new way to walk to avoid the “invisible beings” that flit around her (6). She remembers a past sickness. Deaths in the family. She makes new rules of movement and perception as an act of preservation. And suddenly she *sees *The Purple Cat.

13. Jack Dann’s [“Fragmentary Blue” (variant title: “There are no Bannisters”) (1973),](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/08/24/book-review-jack-danns-timetipping-1980/ ) 4/5 (Good): he elderly dwell underground in large domed cities. It’s a commercial and media-inundated world — tiny machines grant “feeling” as you watch commercials. Professor Fleitman, who “could not rationalize having an orgasm over a cigarette advertisement,” presents a new idea to galvanize the elderly to Entertainment Committee. Rather than a feelie or a movie he wants to put on a circus.

14. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s [“Wanderers and Travellers” (1963, trans. 1966)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/08/17/short-story-review-arkady-and-boris-strugatskys-wanderers-and-travellers-1963-trans-1966/ ), 4/5 (Good): Stanisław Ivanovich spends his days submerged in lakes and rivers tagging septopods, a new octopus-like species discovered on Earth. His daughter, Marsha, assists from above. When he emerges from a lake, Marsha is deep in conversation with Leonid Andreevich Gorbovsky, an astroarchaeologist implied to be on leave from an expedition. The two scientists–IIvanovich, with his eyes on earthly mystery, and Gorbovsky, untangling the traces of potential intelligences across the cosmos–and Marsha engage in a series of discussions about the nature of the universe.

15. John Wyndham’s[ “The Man From Beyond” (variant title: “The Man from Earth”) (1934)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/08/09/short-fiction-review-john-wyndhams-the-man-from-beyond-variant-title-the-man-from-earth-1934/ ), 3.5/5 (Good): Somewhere on the Venusian surface the Valley of Dur, with its amalgamation of gasses, traps unsuspecting denizens who wander into its depths. In the city of Takon, Venusians, six-limbed creatures with silvery hair, ogle the strange beasts extricated and caged and exhibited from the Valley. The child, transfixed by the man’s noises and scrawls, pushes his stylus and pad under the bars. And Morgan Gratz, stranded astronaut and self-confessed murderer, draws for the child the respective locations of their planets.

16. Katherine MacLean’s [“Contagion” (1950)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/06/08/magazine-review-galaxy-science-fiction-ed-h-l-gold-october-1950-simak-sturgeon-maclean-matheson-leiber-brown-asimov/ ), 3.5/5 (Good) is a contact with an alien planet tale that’s legitimately *odd*. A hunting party looking for specimens of alien life in order to dissect, sets off from the spaceship *Explorer *across an alien planet called Minos. Reasonably, the crew is obsessed with a minute medical analysis of flora and fauna. The hunting party encounters a majestically shaped human who spins a crazy tale of adaptation and disease.

17. Cherry Wilder’s [“The Ark of James Carlyle” (1974)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/05/19/short-fiction-reviews-cherry-wilders-the-ark-of-james-carlyle-1974-the-phobos-transcripts-1975-and-way-out-west-1975/ ), 3.5/5 (Good): Carlyle spends his tour of duty in a hut with a wood platform on small landmass surrounded by an “oily purple sea” on an alien planet. A crisis hits — and he suddenly learns the reason for the singular trees that grow in the center of each island.

18. E. C. Tubb’s[“Without Bugles” (1952)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/04/13/short-story-reviews-e-c-tubbs-without-bugles-1952-home-is-the-hero-1952-and-pistol-point-1953/ ), 3.5/5 (Good): A naive journalist struggles to confront her heroic idealism, regurgitated through the media, in her attempt to save the Mars colony afflicted with a futuristic case of the black lung.

19. Frank K. Kelly’s [“Famine on Mars” (1934)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/03/26/science-fiction-in-dialogue-with-the-great-depression-frank-k-kellys-famine-on-mars-1934/ ), 3.5/5 (Good): President Herbert Hoover infamously proclaimed on the eve of the Great Depression that “given the chance to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, we shall soon with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.” “Famine on Mars,” published five years into the Great Depression, evokes similar paradigmatic shifts between propagandistic proclamation and harsh reality. Kelly spins a nightmare account of a famine on Mars and a plan to save the starving legions.

20. Gerald Kersh’s [“Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo?” (1953)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/03/09/book-review-star-science-fiction-stories-no-3-ed-frederik-pohl-1955/ ), 3.5/5 (Good): Kersh imagines a literary version of himself returning to New York City from WWII interacting with a fantastical manifestation of a Wound Man on board the Cunard White Star liner *Queen Mary*. Corporal Cuckoo, the “Wound Man” in question, regals the narrator (Kersh) with the history of his scarred and mutilated form that mysteriously heals from every injury.

**Reading Initiatives**

I have continued, resurrected, and created new science fiction short story reading series over the course of the year. Most of the stories I’ve picked for the series are available in some fashion online via links to Internet Archive in each review. I’ve included installments from 2024 in each series below. Feel free to read along with me! And thanks for all the great conversation.

*Galaxy Science Fiction *Read-through (started 2025)<li><a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/06/08/magazine-review-galaxy-science-fiction-ed-h-l-gold-october-1950-simak-sturgeon-maclean-matheson-leiber-brown-asimov/">Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (October 1950)</a></li><li><a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/07/02/magazine-review-galaxy-science-fiction-ed-h-l-gold-november-1950-brown-asimov-boucher-leiber-knight-simak/">Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (November 1950) </a></li>

Organized Labor and Unions in Science Fiction (started in 2024)<li>Mack Reynolds’<a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/02/08/short-book-reviews-margot-bennetts-the-long-way-back-1954-and-mack-reynolds-the-earth-war-1964/"> The Earth War (1964)</a></li><li>Zoë Fairbairns’<a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/07/24/book-review-zoe-fairbairns-benefits-1979/"> Benefits (1979)</a></li>;

The First Three Published Short Fictions by Female Authors (continued from 2021)<li><a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/05/19/short-fiction-reviews-cherry-wilders-the-ark-of-james-carlyle-1974-the-phobos-transcripts-1975-and-way-out-west-1975/">Cherry Wilder (1930-2002)</a></li>

Translated Short Stories in Translation (with [Rachel S. Cordasco](https://www.sfintranslation.com/ )) (started in 2024)<li><a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/08/17/short-story-review-arkady-and-boris-strugatskys-wanderers-and-travellers-1963-trans-1966/">Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s “Wanderers and Travellers” (1963, trans. 1966)</a></li><li> <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/11/15/short-story-review-izumi-suzukis-terminal-boredom-1984-trans-by-daniel-joseph-2021/">Izumi Suzuki’s “Terminal Boredom” (1984, trans. by Daniel Joseph 2021)</a></li>

The Media Landscape of the Future (started in 2022)<li>George H. Smith’s <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/10/04/short-fiction-reviews-george-h-smiths-the-last-days-of-l-a-1959-and-in-the-imagicon-1966/">“In the Imagicon” (1966)</a></li><li>Izumi Suzuki’s <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/11/15/short-story-review-izumi-suzukis-terminal-boredom-1984-trans-by-daniel-joseph-2021/">“Terminal Boredom” (1984)</a></li><li>Jack Dann’s<a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/08/24/book-review-jack-danns-timetipping-1980/">; “Fragmentary Blue” (variant title: “There are no Bannisters”) (1973)</a></li>

The Search for the Depressed Astronaut (continued from 2020)<li>Philip K. Dick’s <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/01/18/short-fiction-reviews-philip-k-dicks-explorers-we-1959-and-james-tiptree-jr-s-painwise-1972/">“Explorers We” </a>(1959) </li><li>James Tiptree, Jr.’s <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/01/18/short-fiction-reviews-philip-k-dicks-explorers-we-1959-and-james-tiptree-jr-s-painwise-1972/">“Painwise”</a> (1972)</li><li>E. C. Tubb’s <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/04/13/short-story-reviews-e-c-tubbs-without-bugles-1952-home-is-the-hero-1952-and-pistol-point-1953/">“Without Bugles” (1952)</a></li><li>E. C. Tubb’s <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/04/13/short-story-reviews-e-c-tubbs-without-bugles-1952-home-is-the-hero-1952-and-pistol-point-1953/">“Home is the Hero” (1952)</a></li><li>E. C. Tubb’s <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/04/13/short-story-reviews-e-c-tubbs-without-bugles-1952-home-is-the-hero-1952-and-pistol-point-1953/">“Pistol Point” (1953)</a></li><li>John Wyndham’s <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/08/09/short-fiction-review-john-wyndhams-the-man-from-beyond-variant-title-the-man-from-earth-1934/">“The Man From Beyond” (variant title: “The Man from Earth”) (1934)</a></li>

Generation Ship Short Stories (continued from 2019)<li><a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/07/11/book-review-george-hays-the-flight-of-the-hesper-1952/">George Hay’s Flight of the “Hesper” (1952)</a></li>

Exploration Logs (continued from 2022)<li><a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/01/06/exploration-log-7-interview-with-jordan-s-carroll-author-of-speculative-whiteness-science-fiction-and-the-alt-right-2024/">Exploration Log 7: Interview with Jordan S. Carroll, author of Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right (2024)</a></li><li><a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/02/15/exploration-log-8-pat-m-kuras-and-rob-schmieders-when-it-changed-lesbians-gay-men-and-science-fiction-fandom-1980/">Exploration Log 8: Pat M. Kuras and Rob Schmieder’s “When It Changed: Lesbians, Gay Men, and Science Fiction Fandom” (1980)</a></li><li><a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/04/27/exploration-log-9-three-more-interviews-with-clifford-d-simak-1904-1988/">Exploration Log 9: Three More Interviews with Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988)</a></li><li><a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/06/23/exploration-log-10-interview-with-jaroslav-olsa-jr-author-of-dreaming-of-autonomous-vehicles-miloslav-miles-j-breuer-czech-american-writer-and-the-birth-of-science-fiction-2025/">Exploration Log 10: Interview with Jaroslav Olša, Jr., author of Dreaming of Autonomous Vehicles: Miloslav (Miles) J. Breuer: Czech-American Writer and the Birth of Science Fiction (2025)</a></li><li><a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/07/21/exploration-log-11-interview-with-chukwunonso-ezeiyoke-author-of-nigerian-speculative-fiction-the-evolution-2025/">Exploration Log 11: Interview with Chukwunonso Ezeiyoke, author of Nigerian Speculative Fiction: The Evolution (2025)</a></li>

**My Top 4 History Reads of 2025**

[]( )A large portion of my history reading this year pushed my general interest in labor history and leftist politics backwards into the 19th century. Unusual for me I know! Often I write about what I *can *write about not what I *plan *on writing about. A brief caveat worth repeating: I’m a PhD-wielding historian and have a high tolerance for academic texts. That said, I’d classify everything in my list as on the approachable side of things if you know the broad strokes of American history.

1. Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp’s *Setting Down the Sacred Past: African-American Race Histories *(2010): This filled a complete hole in my knowledge. While I had encountered history-centric militant abolitionist texts written by black authors, I did not know how they fitted into the larger historiographic project of the era. As my PhD looked at universal histories in the medieval period, I’m a sucker for all kinds of histories of historiography! This is a good one.

2. Deborah Beckel’s *Radical Reform: Interracial Politics in Post-Emancipation North Carolina* (2011): I read this one for my research project on a black utopian author. Beckel’s brilliant monograph looks at the race and politics in North Carolina after the end of Reconstruction–a “fusion” government of Republicans and Populists managed to take power (temporarily) from the white supremacist Democratic *status quo* in the 1890s. Depressing. Fascinating. I’m waiting for an alt-history that uses the 1898 election in North Carolina as a jonbar hinge — hah!

3. Edward K. Spann’s *Brotherly Tomorrows: Movements for A Cooperative Society in America* (1989): While an older monograph, Spann’s work is a fantastic survey of the fascinating range of radical social idealism-inspired communities that proliferated across America. I’m obsessed by left-wing ideologies that permeate the rural world and movements for working-class utopianism. Spann will inspire you to track down newer monographs on the social movements he surveys.

4. Jordan S. Carroll’s *Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right *(2025): Rightly won the Hugo! I [interviewed Carroll](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/01/06/exploration-log-7-interview-with-jordan-s-carroll-author-of-speculative-whiteness-science-fiction-and-the-alt-right-2024/ ) in January. In the book, he examines the ways the alt-right uses classic science fiction imagery and authors to mainstream fascism and advocate for the overthrow of the state. This is a short monograph designed to encourage thought. Highly recommended.

**Goals for 2026**

1. Keep reading and writing.

2. Read more reviews by other bloggers.

3. Cover more SF in translation.

For cover art posts consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/egregious-science-fiction-cover-art/ )

For book reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/science-fiction-book-reviews-by-author/ )

For TV and film reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/films-reviewed-by-director-2/ )

#1950s #1960s #1970s #ArkadyAndBorisStrugatsky #bookReview #bookReviews #books #CherryWilder #ECTubb #EdgarPangborn #fiction #FrankKKelly #fritzLeiber #GeorgeHSmith #GeraldKersh #IzumiSuzuki #JackDann #JackWilliamson #JamesTiptreeJr #JoeHaldeman #JohnWyndham #KatherineMacLean #KimStanleyRobinson #OctaviaEButler #philipKDick #RichardMatheson #sciFi #scienceFiction #TheodoreSturgeon #ZoeFairbairns

## Book Review: Star Science Fiction Stories No. 3, ed. Frederik ...

2025-03-09T23:07:48Z

##

Book Review: Star Science Fiction Stories No. 3, ed. Frederik Pohl (1955)<li class="coblocks-gallery--item"><figure class="coblocks-gallery--figure"><img data-attachment-id="34444" data-permalink="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/03/09/book-review-star-science-fiction-stories-no-3-ed-frederik-pohl-1955/star-science-fiction-stories-no-3/"; data-orig-file="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/star-science-fiction-stories-no.-3.jpg"; data-orig-size="1227,2101" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="star science fiction stories no. 3" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file=" ; data-large-file=" ; loading="lazy" width="598" height="1023" src=" ; alt="" data-id="34444" class="wp-image-34444 has-shadow-none" srcset=" 598w, 1196w, 88w, 175w, 768w" sizes="(max-width: 598px) 100vw, 598px"><figcaption class="coblocks-gallery--caption">Richard Powers’ cover for the 1955 edition</figcaption></figure></li>
3.5/5 (collated rating: Good)

Ballantine Books’ illustrious science fictional program started with a bang–*Star Science Fiction Stories. *According to Mike Ashley’s *Transformations: The Story of Science-Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970 *Frederik Pohl’s anthology series of original (mostly) stories was “intended as both a showcase of Ballantine’s authors and a lure to new writers.” Paying better rates than magazines, the *Star* series foreshadowed the explosion of original anthologies that would provide a sustained challenge to the eminence held in the 50s by the magazine.

I’ve selected the third volume of the six-volume series.<a href="#29f2a853-6237-4a75-858e-f1c650fa9868" id="29f2a853-6237-4a75-858e-f1c650fa9868-link">1</a> It contains an illustrative cross-section of 50s science fiction. Philip K. Dick’s “Foster, You’re Dead” (1955), Richard Matheson’s “Dance of the Dead” (1955), and Jack Williamson’s “Guinevere for Everybody” (1955) are not to be missed.

Recommended.

Brief Plot Summaries/Analysis

**“It’s Such a Beautiful Day” (1955)**, Isaac Asimov, 3.5/5 (Good): The anthology starts off with an effective Isaac Asimov satire of the suburban experience. The creation of suburbia in the 1950s (and subsequent mass white flight) generated increased commutes between home and urban work. The home became a bunker to protect the American family from any threat (fallout shelters, a community away from diversity and interaction with “the other,” etc.).<a href="#ecabe309-2d71-4d6c-9a33-81a9803d5ae1" id="ecabe309-2d71-4d6c-9a33-81a9803d5ae1-link">2</a>

Asimov speculates that new, almost instantaneous, transportation portals will isolate the family completely from the external world. A minor glitch in the transportation system instills a change in the young Richard Hanshaw, Jr. He isn’t as willing to trust the portal — and decides to trek to school *by foot*. His teacher calls mother in shock and suggests psychological treatment. An intriguing, and gentle, satire on American conceptions of normalcy, the new-fangled post-War emergence of psychology as a therapeutic practice, and the suburban experience.<a href="#1ef4c192-235a-4ed4-be2d-df0dedc90f32" id="1ef4c192-235a-4ed4-be2d-df0dedc90f32-link">3</a>

**“The Strawberry Window” (1955)**, Ray Bradbury, 3/5 (Average): The story follows a family on Mars. The father, Will, spends his day constructing the settlement town. He’s possessed by the dream of Mars and humanity’s conquest of the stars: “It’s not just us come to Mars, it’s the race, the whole darn human race, depending on how we make out in our lifetime. This thing is so big I want to laugh, I’m so scared stiff of it” (31). His long-suffering wife Carrie yearns for the small sounds and big memories that anchor her to Earth. And so Will comes up with a compromise, an expensive compromise.

Ultimately, this is beautiful polish to a banal, almost jingoistic, defense of humanity’s supposed destiny to expand and conquer: “There’s nothing better than Man with a capital M in my book” (32). I am far more interested in the more subversive and quietly critical moments of Bradbury’s other Mars stories. This one is simplistic propaganda of conquest. Despite the enjoyable thematic core (the effects of leaving Earth) and polished telling, I’d classify “The Strawberry Window” amongst his most disappointing and forced. For superior Bradbury that I’ve covered, check out [“The Highway” (1950)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2023/06/15/short-story-reviews-ray-bradburys-the-highway-1950-and-leslie-a-croutchs-the-day-the-bomb-fell-1950/#comment-59704 ) and [“The Pedestrian” (1951)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2022/01/28/future-media-short-story-review-ray-bradburys-the-pedestrian-1951/ ).

**“The Deep Range” (1955)**, Arthur C. Clarke, 3/5 (Average): One of the reasons I feel a special attraction to 50s SF is its interest in the working-class experience of the future. Of course, for the reader of the present futuristic trappings suggest a certain glorification of what would be a new form of the mundane daily grind. The heroic blue-collar stories in James Gunn’s fix-up [*Station in Space* (1958)](https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/book-review-station-in-space-james-gunn-1958/ ) come to mind. In Clarke’s “The Deep Range” humanity farms the seas. Instead of terrestrial herds of sheep or cows, shepherds in submersibles with dolphin assistants protect herds of meat-yielding whales from predatory sharks.

An effective slice-of-working class experience set in an evocative locale. It’s an immersive little story that draws on Clarke’s own interest in scuba diving and underwater adventure. Regardless, I remain uninterested in returning to Clarke’s work in anything more than an anthologized tale here and there.

**“Alien” (1955)**, Lester del Rey, 3/5 (Average): Due to an comically improbable collision at sea, Larry Cross and his alcoholic crewmate Al Simmonds find themselves stranded on an island with an alien which “could swim out of a sunken ship at the bottom of the sea” (51). Al Simmonds is injured and Cross must keep the man alive and figure out the alien’s intentions. A classic SF problem story in which man must figure out a modus operandi in a bizarre new scenario. It’s polished. It’s solid. It’s predictable.

**“Foster, You’re Dead” (1955)**, Philip K. Dick, 5/5 (Masterpiece): Mike Foster spends his school days practicing survival skills–digging, making knives, weaving baskets–in case of a nuclear attack. The kids snicker at him as he walks past. They don’t own a fallout shelter at home. His father refuses to pay into the NATS (National Security fund). If a bomb hit, Mike wouldn’t even be granted access to the school shelter. He’s possessed by a deep, perpetual, encompassing trauma.<a href="#6a9e77c2-6744-4913-b9ff-e4f0deabaf03" id="6a9e77c2-6744-4913-b9ff-e4f0deabaf03-link">4</a> His walk home is nightmarish. Mechanical newspaper machines shout excitedly about “war, death, amazing new weapons” (67). The public shelter beckons with its neon lights but he has no money in his pocket for entry. And the store with the new shelter model mocks with its advertisements: “a powered heating and refrigeration system” and “self-servicing air-purification network” with “three decontamination stages for food and water” (68). Reluctant to yet again confront his father about their lack of shelter, he gazes at the new model and talks to the salesmen. He imagines that every evening he’d sleep in its encapsulating embrace, womb-like.

One of the absolute best fallout shelter themed SF stories I’ve ever read. It’s a fascinating collision of crisp prose, commentary on the arms race, and an evisceration of the complicity of commercialism in Cold War terror. Joins William Tenn’s [“Generation of Noah” (1951)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2023/03/04/short-story-reviews-william-tenns-generation-of-noah-1951-and-eastward-ho-1958/ ), Daniel Galouye’s [*Dark Universe* (1961)](https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/book-review-dark-universe-daniel-f-galouye-1961/ ), Modecai Roshwald’s [*Level 7* ](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2013/01/05/book-review-level-7-mordecai-roshwald-1959/ )(1959), and Fritz Leiber’s [“The Moon Is Green”](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2022/12/29/short-story-reviews-fritz-leibers-the-moon-is-green-1952-and-sonya-dormans-go-go-go-said-the-bird-1967/ ) (1952) amongst the best on the theme.

**“Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo?” (1953)**, Gerald Kersh, 3.5/5 (Good): In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries surgical diagrams called [“Wound Men”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wound_Man ) crop up in medical miscellanies in Europe. These illustrations–the human form hacked, slashed, smashed, cut, pierced, bloated–served as an annotated table of contents to guide the reader through various injuries and diseases. Kersh imagines a literary version of himself returning to New York City from WWII interacting with a fantastical manifestation of a Wound Man on board the Cunard White Star liner *Queen Mary*. Corporal Cuckoo, the “Wound Man” in question, regals the narrator (Kersh) with the history of his scarred and mutilated form that mysteriously heals from every injury.

The reader becomes immersed in a historical military narrative that begins in the early 16th century. There’s a bizarre sense of horror and fantastical displacement. Like some crushed and deformed specimen, Cuckoo becomes an encyclopedic, and culminative, glimpse of humanity’s relentless obsession with death and violence.

Interesting and memorable. I’ll keep on the lookout for more of Kersh’s SFF.

**“Dance of the Dead” (1955)**, Richard Matheson, 4/5 (Good): My third favorite story in the anthology transplants the standard narrative of a young adult straying from the path set out by parents and small town community onto a break-neck road trip in a drug and alcohol drenched near-future. Len, Bud, Barbara, and Peggy race their car towards St. Louis. Bud tries to get Barb to take snuggle–“act of promiscuous love-play; usage evolved during W.W. III” (114)–and take drugs: “Have a jab, Bab” (115). In the kaleidoscope of the new and relentless peer pressure the lessons her mother taught her slowly erode. All her inhibitions come crashing down when the quartet see the transcendent nightmare that is the titular dance of the dead.

Manifesting the SPEED of the car, Matheson’s prose resonates with pulse and hum, snippets of song and signage, slang and youthful lust: “At a hundred miles an hour let me DREAM my DREAMS!” (115). It’s frantic. It’s *zappy*. It’s vibrant. Recommended for fans of the more linguistically experimental (and bleak) of 50s visions.

**“Any More at Home Like You?” (1955)**, Chad Oliver, 2.75/5 (Below Average): Dangerously close to joke story territory (what I classify stories that rely on a silly last page twist designed to generate a chuckle), Oliver re-imagines the classic flying saucer story. A young “man” named Keith crashes his advanced spacecraft in the swanky Bel-Air neighborhood of LA. He seems friendly. Friendly residents take him in. He meets with politicians. He gives a canned speech at the UN. But what’s the secret behind his sudden appearance? Does he really represent a massive Galactic Civilization as he claims? When the pieces all fit together, there’s a gentle sense to it all mixed in with a little, rather silly, “snip” at humanity’s claims to galactic centrality.

If you’re new to Oliver, I recommend tracking downs his two generation ship short stories–[“Stardust” (1952)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2021/07/24/generation-spaceship-short-story-review-chad-olivers-stardust-1952/ ) and [“The Wind Blows Free” (1957)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2019/11/18/generation-spaceship-short-story-review-chad-olivers-the-wind-blows-free-1957/ ). This one was not for me.

**“The Devil on Salvation Bluff” (1955)**, Jack Vance, 3.25/5 (Above Average): As my last Vance review came in 2021–*[The Languages of Pao](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2021/12/05/short-book-reviews-jack-vances-the-languages-of-pao-1958-john-shirleys-transmaniacon-1979-and-kit-reeds-fort-privilege-1985/ ) *(1958), I looked forward to this anthology as a way to return to his fiction. “The Devil on Salvation Bluff” imagines a religious colony (everyone calls each other “Brother” or “Sister”) on a planet named Glory without clear scientific or societal patterns. If anything, disorder, irregularity, and chaos *is *the pattern. Regardless, the community attempts to impose an almost monastic order on their lives. The colonists brings with them a massive clock, build communities in precise patterns, and carve up the landscape with linear canals and irrigation.

In classic missionary fashion, the colonists attempt to impose their religion and regularity on the humanoid inhabitants of Glory, nicknamed Flits, that spend their days indulging in their passions, seemingly random rituals, and goat herding. Using salt as a bribe, they momentarily convince the Flits to settle in a new village created by the colonists. After Brother Raymond and Sister Mary kidnap the chief of the Flits to identify the psychosis they think might underline their impulsive, random, and occasionally destructive actions, the true psychological *truth *of the planet emerges. Vance suggests that dogmatic religion must *shift *and change to adapt to the moment.

Fits in with an intriguing cluster of often brilliant 50s stories exploring the clash of Earth religion and the SFnal new–Ray Bradbury’s “The Man” (1949), Arthur C. Clarke’s [“The Star” (1955)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2021/01/26/book-review-infinity-one-ed-robert-hoskins-1970-poul-anderson-anne-mccaffrey-gene-wolfe-robert-silverberg-miriam-allen-deford-et-al/ ), James Blish’s *A Case of Conscience *(novella 1953, novelized 1958), Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s *A Canticle for Leibowitz* (stories 1955-1957, novelized 1959), etc.

Somewhat recommended.

**“Guinevere for Everybody” (1955),** Jack Williamson, 4.5/5 (Very Good): An artificially created Guinevere stands “chained” in a “vending machine” tempting sleepy passengers in an airport with her plaintive calls (169). “You like me, huh?” she asks strangers as they pass (170). “Won’t you by me?” she cajoles (170). The implication is clear. The reason for her sudden appearance in train stations, and others of her model, far less so. Chimberley represents General Cybernetics, a company building “managerial computers” to replace human workers (171). Chimberley attempts the origins of “THE VITAL APPLIANCE!” with her all too human sex appeal, and disturbing tendency to spout advertisements for other products (170). He, little more than a cypher manifesting the displacement of the mechanical age, feels drawn to her as “his best friends were digital computers” (171). He discerns that she is a recent product created, produced, and distributed by one of these vast managerial computers. Giddy with excitement he sees her as “something human management would never have had the brains or the vision to accomplish” (172). He purchases her from the vending machine and sets off to find the producing facility. But a line has been crossed, and another.

This story bothered me (in a good way) far more than it should. Williamson integrates little comments about how the mechanical (think AI unleashed on the US government) ignores the human experience. And how Chimberley, alone, adrift, insular, feels fulfilled by a programmed device that is but a fragment of a capitalistic assault on the consumer. This disturbed satirical gem took me by surprise. I will be on the lookout for more 50s Williamson short stories.

**Notes**<li id="29f2a853-6237-4a75-858e-f1c650fa9868">Eight if we count the one-volume Star Science Fiction Magazine (1958) and Star Short Novels (1954). <a href="#29f2a853-6237-4a75-858e-f1c650fa9868-link">↩︎</a></li><li id="ecabe309-2d71-4d6c-9a33-81a9803d5ae1">There is a ton of scholarship on both of these ideas that I have referenced in various reviews in the past. Here is a short list! Elaine Tyler May’s Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (1988, rev. 2017); Thomas Bishop’s Every Home a Fortress: Cold War Fatherhood and the Family Fallout Shelter (2020); Laura McEnaney’s Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties (2000); and Robert A. Beauregard’s When America Became Suburban (2006). <a href="#ecabe309-2d71-4d6c-9a33-81a9803d5ae1-link">↩︎</a></li><li id="1ef4c192-235a-4ed4-be2d-df0dedc90f32">For “normalcy” see Anna G. Creadick’s Perfectly Average: The Pursuit of Normality in Postwar America (2010); For the growth of psychology as medical practice in the post-War moment see Ellen Herman’s The Romance of American Psychology: Political Culture in the Age of Experts (1995). <a href="#1ef4c192-235a-4ed4-be2d-df0dedc90f32-link">↩︎</a></li><li id="6a9e77c2-6744-4913-b9ff-e4f0deabaf03">I am reminded of studies of childhood trauma conducted on the students o<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abo_Elementary_School">f Abo Elementary, New Mexico</a>, a school built underground as a fallout shelter. <a href="#6a9e77c2-6744-4913-b9ff-e4f0deabaf03-link">↩︎</a></li>

For cover art posts consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/egregious-science-fiction-cover-art/ )

For book reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/science-fiction-book-reviews-by-author/ )

For TV and film reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/films-reviewed-by-director-2/ )

#1950s #arthurCClarke #avantGarde #bookReview #bookReviews2 #books #chadOliver #fiction #frederikPohl #geraldKesh #isaacAsimov #jackVance #jackWilliamson #lesterDelRey #philipKDick #rayBradbury #richardMatheson #sciFi #scienceFiction #writing

## Short Story Reviews: Philip K. Dick’s “Stand-By” ...

2024-10-13T18:54:26Z

##

Short Story Reviews: Philip K. Dick’s “Stand-By” (variant title: “Top Stand-By Job”) (1963), Milton Lesser’s “Do It Yourself” (1957), and H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire’s “Hunter Patrol” (1959)

For a large portion of the year, I’ve been collecting evidence on unions in post-WWII to very early 60s American science fiction.<a href="#cf7b57b1-8dac-4027-8c2e-f6264f804ac8">1</a> To be clear, I am not on the hunt for *the best* by these authors. This project is about stories that reference unions. I will read *all *the stories I can by American SF authors on the topic during this timeframe for this project in order to understand how authors responded to the historical moment in which they lived. Exciting!

**A Bit of Historical Context**

During the Great Depression, there was broad consensus among leftist thinkers that the labor movement would lead to radical change. The Second World War and the economic recovery shattered that consensus.<a href="#7f756c45-b16d-4182-8804-2f19ac59f6a5">2</a> The unions themselves underwent substantial transformation in this period. American corporate powers and their conservative congressional allies unleashed a “propaganda campaign” against the labor movement.<a href="#d2693387-8ba8-46ac-8c01-bf15f8d8ce12">3</a> This culminated in the contentious passage of the Taft-Hartley Act (1947), which weakened the ability of unions to strike. Over the course of the 1950s, automobile manufacturers and their unions pioneered a new relationship—adopted by other industries—in which companies agreed to grant wage increases, health care, and retirement plans in return for union support of long-term contracts. Increasingly, the political and social transformation of capitalism became secondary to preserving their organizations and maintaining a harmonious relationship with industry.<a href="#6603e3e4-8271-4304-a9a1-27fb2b375396">4</a>

Before World World II, anti-capitalist intellectuals imagined the labor movement as the American Proletariat which would, at any moment, transform the capitalist system. After WWII, they struggled to grapple with an economic system they had expected to collapse and the lack of interest in socialism within American unions.<a href="#19a7249d-4783-46a1-9dad-68de7c7fe8ee">5</a> C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) argued labor had been co-opted by state power.<a href="#122e0d0c-d73b-4ffd-bc3e-6e8361067972">6</a> Those that continued to support elements of the labor movement, such as Sidney Lens (1912-1986), struggled to rationalize labor’s part in the militarization of Cold War America.<a href="#6b3daaf8-17fd-45e2-ad68-2f17661701e3">7</a> The one-time Trotskyist, Seymour Martin Lipset (1922-2006), argued that while the labor-movement fell short of representing the “class-based aims of a unified working class” it continued to play a roll in “prohibiting antidemocratic mass movements” by offering workers a role in a “mediating institution.”<a href="#0e555fed-9a7f-41cd-8ccc-57210aba233e">8</a> Most involved in the 60s New Left abandoned labor completely as a force for change and grouped unions as part of the liberal establishment, irrelevant in the construction of a new radicalism.<a href="#34f9b073-fb61-4d0b-a54f-f466d7780b80">9</a> As in, trade unions “focused on material gains, not fundamental social change.”<a href="#627d376f-405a-4082-90c9-115da51dfdfc">10</a>

Science fiction written in the post-WWII world likewise reflected outright criticism, deep ambivalence, and confusion over the role of the labor movement. Philip K. Dick’s “Stand-By” (1963) satirizes unions and the media in a post-scarcity world but tentatively suggests conflict between both *might* lead to the overthrow of a ruling computer and the eventual reemergence of democracy. Milton Lesser’s “Do It Yourself” (1957), one of only a handful unabashedly positive accounts on unions in the 50s, imagines a post-apocalyptic future in which the American individualist ethos reigns supreme. While banned and publicly ridiculed, a union secretly sends out agents to facilitate the rebuilding project. And in H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire’s “Hunter Patrol” (1959), a ragtag group of disaffected, including a union man (an object of jest), attempt to recruit a soldier from earlier in time to overthrow a dictator. More than a few 50s authors, like Robert Silverberg (whom I’ll feature in a later post) and Clifford D. Simak, read and engaged with contemporary writers on the labor movement.<a href="#c00972bb-f8f0-4593-a940-e5527df55ae6">11</a>

Let’s get to the stories!<li><figure><img width="727" height="1024" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Lloyd Birmingham’s cover art for Amazing, ed. Cele Goldsmith (October 1963)</figcaption></figure></li>

2.75/5 (Bad)

Philip K. Dick’s “Stand-By” first appeared in *Amazing Stories*, ed. Cele Goldsmith (October 1963). You can read it online[ here](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/SF/AS/AS_1963_10.pdf ).

Unicephalon 40-D, a vast computer, rules humanity. As it calls citizens “comrades,” I assume Dick intends the computer to be read as a manifestation of totalitarian Communism. The computer’s stand-by human president in case it goes offline, Old Gus Schatz, dies. The Government Civil Servants’ Union appoints Max Fischer to take over. Obese with a weak heart, dependent on union funds, glued to his TV set, and without much independent thought, Max attempts to resist the appointment. The union assures him that it’ll be a dull task and an opportunity to take on whatever time-wasting hobby he so desires. Anyway, he doesn’t have a choice. The previous stand-in collected old car magazines (a reference to the glory days of industrial unionism) and the man before him made a massive rubber band ball now housed in the Smithsonian.

Unfortunately for Max there’s an alien invasion that knocks out Unicephalon 40-D. And Max, unelected, must take on the presidency. In predictable fashion, he immediately dismisses his cabinet and advisors, appoints his relatives to positions of power, and acts like a dictator. Only the actions of a news clown (he wears a red wig) named Jim-Jam Briskin, attempts to challenge his authority.

As with Simak’s [“Worlds Without End” ](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2024/02/10/book-review-clifford-d-simaks-worlds-without-end-1964/ )(1956), “Stand-By” presents unions as a victorious interest group in a larger, dystopian, political game after the fall of democracy. Both works extrapolate from the anti-union sentiment that grew over the course of the 50s. Mainstream news promoted the 1955 merger of the AFL (American Federation of Labor) and CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) as a “danger to the public.”<a href="#ffcb629b-90a5-4143-af70-4f6a7f3b01ae">12</a> Despite labor’s willingness to work within the existing political system in alliance with the Democrats, business leaders and Republican politicians feared the emergence of a monolithic union. During President Eisenhower’s administration, the McClellan Committee, in a series of sensational televised hearings between 1957 and 1960, heightened the public’s concern with corruption and “antidemocratic” practices in organized labor.<a href="#ae62f5dc-ae40-426f-b88e-0807fbc04000">13</a> Dick presents Max as the corrupt do-nothing union man who rose from poverty and pretends to have class.

While it’s not entirely clear how the future unfolds in Dick’s vision, it appears the Government Civil Servants’ Union attempted to maintain their influence with a strike after the ascent of Unicephalon 40-D. PKD not only levels a critique at the union man who no longer even needs to work yet collects a check but also the entire system in which everyone seems perfectly okay with a mechanical dictator. The jumbled designators of time-past, “presidency,” “elections,” “car magazines,” etc. all suggest the misguided motives of the labor movement who went along with Unicephalon’s takeover. Dick’s message is clear: unions promote the least worthy individuals and are inherently anti-democratic.

As a story, “Stand-By” is far from Philip K. Dick’s best. It doesn’t have any interesting surreal images, fascinating twists, or memorable turns of phrase. That said, I haven’t read the two sequels–“What’ll We Do with Ragland Park?” (1963) and “Cantata 140” (1963). “Cantata 140” forms the first part of Dick’s *The Crack in Space *(1964), which I’m almost positive I read before I started my website.

Avoid “Stand-By” unless you’re interested in organized labor in science fiction (me!) or a PKD completist. <li><figure><img width="831" height="992" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>George Schelling’s interior art for Philip K. Dick’s “Stand-By” in Amazing Stories, ed. Cele Goldsmith (October 1963)</figcaption></figure></li><li><figure><img width="704" height="1024" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Ed Emshwiller’s cover for Science Fiction Quarterly, ed. Robert W. Lowndes (November 1957)</figcaption></figure></li>

3.5/5 (Good)

Milton Lesser’s “Do It Yourself” first appeared in *Science Fiction Quarterly*, ed. Robert W. Lowndes (November 1957). You can read it online [here](https://archive.org/details/ScienceFictionQuarterlyV05N03195711/mode/2up ).

In a post-apocalyptical future, Long Island City (across from Manhattan) is a wasteland. In the “dregs of the old industrial society,” scavengers “who hadn’t yet been absorbed by the new rural America” attempt to live a fragment of the pre-bomb life (96). In the wreckage of the old U.N. building, now “the East Manhattan Home Workshop center” (96), a union prints DIY plans and sends out agents to assist those trying to make it on their own. Farther out on Long Island, rural farmers attempt to create a new life. However, behind the facade of DIY projects, workshops, and farmers, they still rely on scavenging. The catch? They can’t let their neighbors know. It must look like everyone is self-sufficient! McPeek is one of the union agents and the story follows his interaction with the Crawford farm. The patriarch of the family proclaims “I’ve got some farm now […] Maybe in the spring I’ll even find the time to plant some crops” (101). While the patriarch makes his plans, McPeek actually gets to work making a latrine, constructing a barn for livestock, making storm windows, fixing tractors, and getting the farm ready for planting. He must avoid vigilantes who raid the countryside attempting to root out anything that might symbolize the old order.

Lesser’s “Do It Yourself” works on multiple levels: 1) the unintended consequences of the Cold War rhetoric of American individualism vs. collective action. 2) A more specific satire of the explosion of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) craze in the 1950s. and 3) A pointed acknowledgement of the value of unions in a moment in which there was growing anti-union sentiment (see the Dick review for more details).

The DIY craze reached a “fever pitch” in the 1950s with traveling road shows and conventions, handyman magazines, and front-cover stories in *Time Magazine*.<a href="#41309a42-e46e-44a7-900a-9a46db610171">14</a> SF often took this craze to humorous extremes, for example Clifford D. Simak’s robot strike in “How-2” (1954) comes to mind. The implications of Lesser’s take are far more disturbing. Lesser extrapolates that a WWIII leads to a economic depression in which the isolated and depressed attempted to do things for themselves. They interpreted “capital and industry” as artificial contrivances to “keep a man in debt” (102). Thus unions, now banned, secretly attempt to appeal to this individualistic ethos to get people creating new things again (instead of scavenging) on farms instead of factories (102). Unfortunately, the average person is more likely to make grandiose plans than implement them. Lesser argues that America’s fixation on individualism means that even in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, meaningful attempts to assist and mobilize workers will be met with outright violence. The union of idealist handymen, even banned, will continue to fight for tangible benefits for the next generation.

An odd and strangely intriguing post-apocalyptic rumination… This is the first Lesser story I’ve read. Somewhat recommended.<li><figure><img width="676" height="943" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Ed Valigursky’s cover for Amazing Science Fiction Stories, ed. Cele Goldsmith (May 1959)</figcaption></figure></li>

2/5 (Bad)

H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire’s “Hunter Patrol” first appeared in *Amazing Science Fiction Stories*, ed. Cele Goldsmith (May 1959). You can read it online [here](https://archive.org/details/Amazing_Stories_v33n05_1959-05_cape1736/page/n19/mode/2up?view=theater ).

A SF time-travel centric thriller with a few moments of debate over politics, “Hunter Patrol” plunges the reader into the *media res*. The story follows the soldier Benson on a raid, his last patrol until rotation home, deep into Pan-Soviet territory (the Cold War rages hot). He’s yanked from his time 50 years into the future by a strange group of disaffected plotting to overthrow a dictator. It appears that Cold War exhausted all sides (“the Soviet Bloc was broken up”) and left large portion of the US a nuclear wasteland, and St. Louis, now the location of the U.N., emerges as the World Capitol (25). The Guide rules the U.N. as a dictatorship. Through brainwashing, The Guide prevents his citizens from practicing violence (diabolical eugenics related executions excluded). Thus Benson, free of brainwashing and always up for a fight, is recruited to assassinate The Guide. There’s a catch, previous soldiers yanked from the past have all failed. And the nature of their failure isn’t entirely clear. As the narrative shifts dramatically from time to time a far more bizarre picture of sinister future technology and soda drinks (yes!) emerges.<a href="#fef00f44-6941-4f71-9a62-ee84cbca965f">15</a> You know, time travel makes everything a paradox…. And everyone LOVES soda.

Where are the unions? H. Beam Piper (1904-1964) frequently featured unions in his stories, often with a very negative eye.<a href="#bf5664f0-593f-44f9-b424-031d5878e5cc">16</a> I’ll write a post about his visions in the future. In “Hunter Patrol,” they are a tertiary concern in a wider satire of Cold War interventionalism and American commercialism. The rebels deliberately represent a variety of contemporary political and moral views–collectively they all desire to overthrow The Guide. One, Carl, is a member of a large “Union of all unions. Every working man in North America, Europe, Australia and South Africa belongs to it” (27). There’s a problem, “The Guide has us all hog-tied” and won’t let them strike preventing “closed-shop contracts to stick” and pay raises (27).<a href="#adc94976-d9d4-4b37-ad2d-60af61e630f1">17</a> Carl’s view, as with others in the story, is played for laughs as he clearly is not a poor worker. In another instance, Carl appears to adhere to a Marxist interpretation of class-struggle in his depiction of the fragmentation of the Soviet Bloc. His view is dismissed by Anthony, “capitalistic dictatorships he means […], let’s not confuse this with any class-struggle stuff” (25).

Regardless of the ambivalence towards organized labor, Piper and McGuire are overtly critical of big business and the sinister methods (brainwashing, chemicals, et.) it might use to acquire profit. As I’ve mentioned in other reviews, during the early Cold War Americans depicted Communism as denying inherent human freedoms of choice and enslaving the mind. After the Korean War, the terror of Communist brainwashing collided with fears of the detrimental effects of consumer culture and advertising. Perhaps Americans were also susceptible to commercial brainwashing deployed to convince the American family to conform and buy the latest products and models. “Hunter Patrol” is the perfect example of this paranoid lens turning inward.<a href="#742b16bc-6c29-4cc7-b08c-85b84d08fb25">18</a>

I am firmly aware that this is probably one of the worst H. Beam Piper short stories I could have picked up. That’s okay. I’m gathering evidence. If it’s from the 50s or early 60s and talks about unions I’ll read it!

Not recommended unless you’re an H. Beam Piper completist.

**Notes**<li>I’ve gathered the titles of all the SF stories I’ve identified about unions and organized labor in footnote 1 <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2024/02/10/book-review-clifford-d-simaks-worlds-without-end-1964/">here</a>;. <a href="#cf7b57b1-8dac-4027-8c2e-f6264f804ac8-link">↩︎</a></li><li>Jeffrey W. Coker’s Confronting American Labor: The New Left Dilemma (2002), 51. <a href="#7f756c45-b16d-4182-8804-2f19ac59f6a5-link">↩︎</a></li><li>See Elizabeth A. Fones-Wolf’s Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945-1960 (1994). She describes both a local and a national campaign. <a href="#d2693387-8ba8-46ac-8c01-bf15f8d8ce12-link">↩︎</a></li><li>I adapted this paragraph from my recent article “’We Must Start Over Again and Find Some Other Way of Life’: The Role of Organized Labor in the 1940s and ’50s Science Fiction of Clifford D. Simak.” You can read the entire article <a href="https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2024/09/13/exploration-log-5-we-must-start-over-again-and-find-some-other-way-of-life-the-role-of-organized-labor-in-the-1940s-and-50s-science-fiction-of-clifford-d-simak/">here</a>;. The summary comes from Ch. 19, “Retrenchment, Cold War, and Consolidation, 1946-1955,” of Melvyn Dubofsky and Joseph A. McCartin’s Labor in America: A History, 9th edition (2017), 303-320 <a href="#6603e3e4-8271-4304-a9a1-27fb2b375396-link">↩︎</a></li><li>Coker, 187; See also local level attempts to instill anti-union “American” values in Fones-Wolf’s Selling Free Enterprise; also, Melvyn Dubofsky and Joseph A. McCartin describe in Ch. 19 the alliance between the Democratic party and labor and the resulting purge of labor’s radical left wing. <a href="#19a7249d-4783-46a1-9dad-68de7c7fe8ee-link">↩︎</a></li><li>Coker discusses C. Wright Mills in Ch. 3 and 4 of Confronting American Labor, 65-100. See also Ch. 3 in Daniel Geary’s Radical Ambition: C. Wright Mills, the Left, and American Social Thought (2009), 74-105 and Ken Mattson’s Intellectuals in Action: The Origins of the New Left and Radical Liberalism, 1945-1970 (2002), 52-56 for Mills’ evolving views.  <a href="#122e0d0c-d73b-4ffd-bc3e-6e8361067972-link">↩︎</a></li><li>Coker traces Sidney Lens’ views in Ch. 5 and 6 of Confronting American Labor, 103-139. <a href="#6b3daaf8-17fd-45e2-ad68-2f17661701e3-link">↩︎</a></li><li>Coker, 51. <a href="#0e555fed-9a7f-41cd-8ccc-57210aba233e-link">↩︎</a></li><li>Coker, 58. <a href="#34f9b073-fb61-4d0b-a54f-f466d7780b80-link">↩︎</a></li><li>Coker, 186. <a href="#627d376f-405a-4082-90c9-115da51dfdfc-link">↩︎</a></li><li>I am confident that Silverberg read articles in The Nation by Harvey Swados (1920-1972) (stay tuned!). I make the argument that Simak either read C. Wright Mills’ The New Men of Power (1948) or a review of it. <a href="#c00972bb-f8f0-4593-a940-e5527df55ae6-link">↩︎</a></li><li>See Dubofsky and McCartin, 314-320. <a href="#ffcb629b-90a5-4143-af70-4f6a7f3b01ae-link">↩︎</a></li><li>Fones-Wolf’s Selling Free Enterprise, 266-270 explores the impact of the McClellan Committee. <a href="#ae62f5dc-ae40-426f-b88e-0807fbc04000-link">↩︎</a></li><li>I snagged my information on the craze from this <a href="https://makeitmidcentury.com/the-rise-of-the-do-it-yourself-movement-in-the-1950s/">wonderful survey article</a>. It contains a bibliography that I am keen to read; See the August 2nd, 1954 issue. <a href="#41309a42-e46e-44a7-900a-9a46db610171-link">↩︎</a></li><li>A bit of soda-related trivia, Coke Cans first appeared in 1955! Coincidence? Hah. <a href="#fef00f44-6941-4f71-9a62-ee84cbca965f-link">↩︎</a></li><li>In addition to “Hunter Patrol” (1959), I’ve identified the following (I assume there are more): “The Mercenaries” (1950), “Day of the Moron” (1951), “The Null-ABC” (1953), and “The Edge of the Knife” (1957). <a href="#bf5664f0-593f-44f9-b424-031d5878e5cc-link">↩︎</a></li><li>Closed-shops require the hiring of only union members. They were declared illegal under the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 yet, while not written into contracts, were still used by employers who depended on unions for hiring: <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/closed-shop">Source</a>;. <a href="#adc94976-d9d4-4b37-ad2d-60af61e630f1-link">↩︎</a></li><li>See Matthew W. Dunne’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cold-War-State-Mind-Brainwashing/dp/1625340419/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2U2226C252QM1&keywords=A+Cold+War+State+of+Mind%3A+Brainwashing+and+Postwar+American+Society&qid=1689223841&sprefix=a+cold+war+state+of+mind+brainwashing+and+postwar+american+society%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-1">A Cold War State of Mind: Brainwashing and Postwar American Society</a> (2013) and Charles R. Acland’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Swift-Viewing-Popular-Subliminal-Influence-ebook/dp/B006ZHN9TQ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LC2CRGUS49NR&keywords=Swift+Viewing%3A+The+Popular+Life+of+Subliminal+Influence&qid=1689223851&sprefix=swift+viewing+the+popular+life+of+subliminal+influence+%2Caps%2C110&sr=8-1">Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence </a>(2012). <a href="#742b16bc-6c29-4cc7-b08c-85b84d08fb25-link">↩︎</a></li>

For book reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/science-fiction-book-reviews-by-author/ )

For cover art posts consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/egregious-science-fiction-cover-art/ )

For TV and film reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/films-reviewed-by-director-2/ )

#1950s #1960s #bookReviews #HBeamPiper #JohnJMcGuire #MiltonLesser #philipKDick #sciFi #scienceFiction

## Short Fiction Reviews: Josephine Saxton’s “The Wall” ...

2022-07-29T04:45:00Z

##

Short Fiction Reviews: Josephine Saxton’s “The Wall” (1965), “Ne Déjà Vu Pas” (1967), and “Nothing Much to Relate” (1967)

In the past year or so I’ve put together an informal series on the first three published short fictions by female authors who are new(ish) to me and/or whose most famous SF novels fall mostly outside the post-WWII to mid-1980s focus of my reading adventures. So far I’ve featured [Carol Emshwiller](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2021/04/10/short-story-reviews-carol-emshwillers-this-thing-called-love-1955-love-me-again-1956-the-piece-thing-1956/ ) (1921-2019), [Nancy Kress](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2022/02/26/short-story-reviews-nancy-kress-the-earth-dwellers-1976-a-delicate-shade-of-kipney-1978-and-and-whether-pigs-have-wings-1979/ ) (1948-), [Melisa Michaels](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2021/11/24/short-story-reviews-melisa-michaels-in-the-country-of-the-blind-no-one-can-see-1979-i-have-a-winter-reason-1981-and-i-am-large-i-contain-multitudes-1982/ ) (1946-2019), [Lee Killough](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2022/01/09/short-story-reviews-lee-killoughs-caveat-emptor-1970-caravan-1972-and-sentience-1973/ ) (1942-), and [Eleanor Arnason ](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2022/03/21/short-fiction-reviews-eleanor-arnasons-a-clear-day-in-the-motor-city-1973-ace-167-1974-and-the-warlord-of-saturns-moons-1974/ )(1942). I do not expect *transformative *or *brilliant* things from first stories. Rather, it’s a way to get a sense of subject matter and concerns that first motivated authors to put pen to paper.

Today I’ve selected Josephine Saxton (1935-), an author whom I’ve long known about–I reviewed [*The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith *(1969)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2012/11/04/book-review-the-hieros-gamos-of-sam-and-an-smith-josephine-saxton-1969/ ) back in 2012–but never read any more of her work. Due to Rich Horton’s [review](http://rrhorton.blogspot.com/2022/07/from-height-of-new-wave-vector-for.html ) of Saxton’s *Vector for Seven *(1970), my interest in an important voice of the English New Wave movement suddenly rekindled. Her 60s and 70s stories appeared in many of the influential New Wave (and adjacent) anthologies–including Judith Merril’s *England Swings SF *(1969), Harlan Ellison’s* Again, Dangerous Visions *(1972), Robert Silverberg’s *New Dimensions 1 *(1971), Samuel R. Delany and Marilyn Hacker’s *Quark/3 *(1971), and Damon Knight’s *Orbit 9 *(1971).

In her first three stories, Saxton deploys sculpted landscapes as metaphysical traps that allegorize the internal struggles of her characters. In the language of the New Wave, inner space manifests as a nightmarish landscape that one must try to traverse. Her prose, even in her weakest tales, is measured and poetic. See [SF Encyclopedia ](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/saxton_josephine )for discussion of her later fiction.

Let me know which Josephine Saxton fictions–perhaps from much later in her career–resonate with you.<li><figure><img width="525" height="873" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Keith Roberts’ cover for Science Fantasy, ed. Kyril Bonfiglioli (November 1965)</figcaption></figure></li>

4/5 (Good)

“The Wall” first appeared *Science Fantasy*, ed. Kyril Bonfiglioli (November 1965). You can read it online [here](https://archive.org/details/Science_Fantasy_78v24_1965-11/mode/2up?view=theater ). It also appeared in Saxton’s collection *The Power of Time *(1985), which is where I read it.

“The Wall” is an auspicious beginning to an illustrious career! Set in a sculpted valley like a shallow bowl that places the human struggle in heightened relief, “The Wall” imagines a landscape split into two halves by “some change in the light, in the atmosphere, in the colours of air and the earth” (97). At closer look, a wall filled with “lumps of glittering faceted hardness” (97) bifurcates the world. Metal rapiers prevent passage over the barrier. But at a single point a small hole pierces through the wall and on either side of the hole lived a man and a woman. He hunts for rabbits and keeps his fingernails “specklessly white” (98). She, a mother in “another life,” carries her the accoutrements of her beauty regime in a bamboo beach bag (99). Very much in love, the couple spend their hours talking through the hole, and, while physically taxing, manage to stretch their hands through the crevasse and *touch*.

But the can be no physical consummation of their passion. They know the wall cannot be breached. And so they decide to set off to find a new life. As they walk away from the wall up the sides of the valley they can see each other’s identical movements. Each encounter a lover and each give in to their passions. And each feels shame. And each returns to the hole. And those desperately in love will do desperate things. And the cycle resets.

There’s a poetic simplicity to it all. Like Calvino’s adept descriptions of imaginary places in *Invisible Cities *(1972), Saxton’s sculpted world, as if a stage, allows a concise morality play to unfold. It lays bare the powerful pull that only over the wall can real happiness lie. <li><figure><img width="604" height="1023" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Ron Walotsky’s cover for the 1970 edition</figcaption></figure></li>

3/5 (Average)

“Ne Déjà Vu Pas” first appeared in *England Swings SF*, ed. Judith Merril (1968). If you have an Internet Archive account, you can read it online [here](https://archive.org/details/englandswingssfs00merr/mode/2up?q=%22Ne+D%C3%A9j%C3%A0+Vu+Pas%22+josephine+saxton ). As Rich Horton [points out](http://rrhorton.blogspot.com/2022/07/from-height-of-new-wave-vector-for.html ), *England Swings SF *was Judith Merril’s “attempt to showcase the [English New Wave movement] for American readers.”

“Ne Déjà Vu Pas” is the most overtly New Wave story of the three (unsurprising as it featured in Merril’s anthology). Replete with typographical experimentation (sentences placed entirely backwards), Saxton imagines a nightmarish “net of an insulating strip” in between the positive and negative half of the universe that does not experience time (33). The space pilot Kitten, “female, young, and full of curiosity,” in her relentless search for new experiences sets of to go anywhere but “where I have been before” finds herself trapped in the net (31). Whenever someone enters the liminal zone the other version of yourself in the other half of the universe is pulled into the net. Kitten, for some reason no longer female, cannot tolerate the other version of herself pulled into the zone. She spends her days increasingly delusional, imagining that they might be the origin of God.

I did not find “Ne Déjà Vu Pas” entirely successful. Unlike “The Wall,” Saxton does not effectively convey the strange liminal zone Kitten finds herself trapped within. There are some intriguing scenes observing those aging backwards in the negative universe. The social commentary–the aimless trapped in the ultimate aimless world–is more of an afterthought. <li><figure><img width="718" height="1024" src=" ; alt=""><figcaption>Gray Morrow’s cover for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Edward L. Ferman (November 1967)</figcaption></figure></li>

2.75/5 (Below Average)

“Nothing Much to Relate” first appeared in *The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction*, ed. Edward L. Ferman (November 1967). You can read it [here](https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v033n05_1967-11_PDF/mode/2up?q=%22Nothing+Much+to+Relate%22+Josephine+Saxton&view=theater ). It was not collected elsewhere.

I’m a sucker for science fiction that aims a piercing eye towards the experiences of housewives and the domestic existence. I am fascinated by fantastical transformation of the daily interaction with home and family. Like the maniacal badgering of the sentient home-keeping computer in Clifford D. Simak’s [*The Werewolf Principle* ](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2020/02/08/book-review-the-werewolf-principle-clifford-d-simak-1967/ )(1967), science fictional extrapolations bring the uncanny into the everyday life. I also have multiple interrelated reasons related to the power of historical narratives. At the most basic level, propaganda in the 50s and 60s proclaimed the white single-family home as a triumphant symbol of capitalist success. Nothing encapsulates this view more than Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev’s hilarious (and terrifying) 1959 [“Kitchen Debate”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Debate ) at the American National Exhibition in Moscow. And science fiction became an arena for the dissection of the *experience *of 50s and 60s life.

And one experience often ignored was that of the housewife. Betty Friedan dissected the widespread unhappiness of post-WWII white women in the monumental [*The Feminine Mystique *(1963)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feminine_Mystique ). And, in a handful of cases, science fiction from the era embodied many of her arguments: Pamela Zoline’s [“The Heat Death of the Universe”](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2015/02/24/book-review-best-sf-stories-from-new-worlds-3-1968/ ) (1967), Carol Emshwiller’s [“Love Me Again”](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2021/04/10/short-story-reviews-carol-emshwillers-this-thing-called-love-1955-love-me-again-1956-the-piece-thing-1956/#more-23411 ) (1956) and [“Adapted”](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2021/07/21/short-story-reviews-carol-emshwillers-day-at-the-beach-1959-puritan-planet-1960-and-adapted-1961/ ) (1961), Ann Warren Griffith’s [“Captive Audience”](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2022/03/13/future-media-short-story-reviews-ann-warren-griffiths-captive-audience-1953/ ) (1953), Kate Wilhelm’s [“The Downstairs Room”](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2013/12/23/book-review-the-downstairs-room-and-other-speculative-fiction-kate-wilhelm-1968/ ) (1968), and Josephine Saxton’s “Nothing Much to Relate” (1967) come to mind.

“Nothing Much to Relate,” told with a deliberately uncanny lightness, describes the life of Liz, housewife with a new child, who discovers a mysterious pile of “automatic” writing which she apparently wrote during a séance. She is desperate for any type of escape from her domestic existence characterized by the incisive criticism of her husband wants her to take up swimming to lose weight (she points out that she can’t swim with a baby in her arms) and the responsibilities of keeping house. The ghost that reached out to her was that of a young man, obsessed with alternative ways to live and Eastern mysticism, that discovered a “real” secret. Liz’s friend Rosalind chalks the tale up to post-natal depression or sneaking psychiatric drugs prescribed by her psychiatrist husband. But even Rosalind, newly pregnant and also stuck at home, suggests she “better go round to the address you got, and investigate” (69).

In this instance, I am far more interested in the historical context of “Nothing Much to Relate” than the story itself which is far from Saxton’s best. There are some solid elements: the commentary on life was told with a hilarious snark and incision and the repackaging of Eastern mysticism as exotic suburban escape and solace reminded me of contemporary obsessions with Reiki (“holistic”) healing and Yoga.

For book reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/science-fiction-book-reviews-by-author/ )

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#1960s #JosephineSaxton #sciFi #scienceFiction

## Book Review: The Heirs of Babylon, Glen Cook (1972) Detail ...

2020-07-28T02:23:25Z

##

Book Review: The Heirs of Babylon, Glen Cook (1972)

Detail from Dean Ellis’ (?) cover for the the 1st edition

3/5 (Average)

Glen Cook’s first novel, *The Heirs of Babylon* (1972), is one of a handful of science fiction works in his [extensive catalog](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?20 ). He’s best known for two fantasy sequences, *Chronicles of the Black Company* and *Dread Empire.* Operating in standard post-apocalyptic territory (wrecked landscapes created by nuclear and chemical warfare), Cook weaves a disturbing tale of the power of militaristic fantasies and traditions. While suffering from diminishing narrative impetus as the ancient warship *Jäger* steams towards its inevitable end, *The Heirs of Babylon *transpires within a well-wrought Earth hellscape with a deeply flawed main character caught up in a ritual of war he cannot (or chooses not to) escape.

Brief Plot Summary/Analysis

**The World**: The year is 2193 and The Political Office in Gibraltar “rules” over a series of fragmented states that eek out their existence at the edges of Europe and the Americas. The resistance resides in Scandinavia, “spared the might bombs” (12). Kurt lives in the “quasi-medieval” society in the “bones of the fallen German” (12), one of a handful of states along the Baltic Sea coast that make up the Littoral. These states were occupied by the “Descendants of the Germans, Poles, Danes, Lithuanians, and Latvians” who lived in small, scattered settlements. Every generation the call goes out for the Meeting, the gathering of all available fleets, for the battle to end all battles against the enemy. Every year the technology of war diminishes. Kurt’s city of Kiel prepares the *Jäger**,* a 250-year-old American warship from WWII, repurposed by numerous nations in her long history. The men of Kiel, excited by the *idea *of battle, grow increasingly terrified at the *real *prospect of war.

**The Story**: “The fatherland. The best part. We’re maggots feeding on its corpse. We steal from the dead, create nothing new, waste what little we have on this endless madness—I’ll not damn our baby to it! Not just to give the Littoral another sailor to die at the next Meeting” (12). Before his departure for The Meeting on board the *Jäger*, Karen, Kurt’s wife, reveals two secrets–she’s pregnant and fleeing to Telemark, the city of the resistance. Kurt, who has the opportunity to accompany Karen, decides to follow his father and grandfathers footsteps.

Caught up in the machinery of war and the forces of tradition, Kurt attempts to keep the *Jäger *from running aground. The crew encounter wrecks and attempt to navigate shoals with charts in other languages. The majority of the story focuses on the daily events on this ship. In a strange sequence of events, Kurt becomes the confidant of Beck, *Jäger*‘s sinister Political Office. Disturbing events transpire on board–a murderer is on the loose. What are his motives? Is he an agent of the resistance?

Eventually *Jäger *reaches Gibraltar and waits for the accumulation of ships from the surviving navies of the Allies. In an effort to learn English to read the superior charts, Kurt meets the elderly Fitzhugh. From his teacher Kurt learns about the reality/ritual of the war–in distinctive Orwellian fashion. A new history of the conflict emerges…. one tradition sidesteps. But the voyage to Australia awaits…

Final Thoughts

For me, the most appealing element of *The Heirs of Babylon *will frustrated the majority of readers: the main character, Kurt, despite his revealed knowledge of the workings of the world, refuses to act. While those around him do—Karen flees to Telemark with his child, assassins attempt to murder Beck, crews rebel against their leaders and refuse to complete the journey to the Last Meeting, and Fitzhugh dispenses knowledge right under the nose of the The Political Office—Kurt rather follow the path set out for him. Cook suggests that the forces of tradition and heritage can anchor us to distinctive paths—and some cannot break free even if the fetid inner machinations of destruction are laid bare. Kurt identifies what is wrong with the world, is sympathetic to the aims of the resistances, and holds no allegiance to the Political Office yet cannot rouse himself to action. And despises himself for it.

The type of main character creates a narrative itself suffers from a lack of *impetus*. Exciting events and conspiracies occur yet Kurt tends to observe rather than participate. An engaging mystery within the crumbling *Jager *(who is the secret Political Office agent), yet Cook allows bodies to pile up too long. The mystery peters out as fewer and fewer suspects remain.

In a way it all plays into Cook’s thematic core—the inevitability of martial conflict, the lives it will consume, and how youth who go along with their orders generation after generation. *The Heirs of Babylon *is a study in inaction, the passive consumption of the dictates from above, even when the lies are for all to see.

Somewhat recommended for fans of 70s post-apocalyptic fiction.

[]( )Dean Ellis’ (?) cover for the 1st edition

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#1970s #bookReviews #GlenCook #paperbacks #postApocalyptic #sciFi #scienceFiction

## Book Review: The Iron Dream, Norman Spinrad (1972) ...

2013-05-18T17:10:50Z

##

Book Review: The Iron Dream, Norman Spinrad (1972)

[]( )

(Uncredited cover for the 1972 edition)

4.75/5 (Very Good)

Nominated for the 1973 Nebula Award

Simply put, Norman Spinrad’s *The Iron Dream* (1972) is a fantastic alternate history novel. However, unlike a standard “what if this happened instead and now let’s write a traditional narrative” alternate history, *The Iron Dream* is organized around a powerful metafictional conceit which explicitly serves to satirize pulp science fiction and fantasy and condemn its lurid nature and Spinrad would argue, racist inclinations.

The premise is straightforward: after the Great War (WWI) Hitler comes to the United States (and thus WWII never happens) and becomes a science fiction illustrator. Eventually he starts writing science fiction and articles in fanzines. However, he’s considered by the establishment to be little more than a hack writer and lives the rest of his life in squalor. It is only after he dies (from symptoms related to syphilis) that he receives any critical success. What you read is Hitler’s 1954 posthumous Hugo-winning novel (which he wrote in six weeks), *The Lord of the Swastika*, along with a short pseudo-scholarly “afterward to the second edition” by Homer Whipple (246). The novel within the novel follows Feric Jaggar’s rise to power in a post-apocalyptical future — a series of events that mirrors the historical Hitler’s own rise to power in our timeline.

Remember, you are reading what Hitler would write *if* he wrote a science fiction novel.

Spinrad himself points out: “To make damn sure that even the historically naive and entirely unselfaware reader got the point [that it in no way endorses fascism], I appended a phony critical analysis of *Lord of the Swastika*, in which the psychopathology of Hitler’s saga was spelled out by a tendentious pedant in words of one syllable. Almost everyone got the point…” (*Science Fiction in the real world*, Norman Spinrad, 158). The fact that some people might confuse his point shows the effectiveness of Spinrad’s satirical aim — Hitler’s novel and pulp SF/F contain many similarities. As with the majority of pulp science fiction/fantasy, *The Lord of the Swastika *spews out over-the-top action, battles and more battles, the most cringe-worthy purple-prose, scene after scene filled with priapic imagery, endless fetishization of uniforms and weapons, effusive (and disturbing) rants about genetic purity, and contains no female characters.

By following the story line that countless SF/F novels have followed, Hitler’s *The Lord of the Swastika* demonstrates (via hyperbole of course — as all good satire) how these tendencies manifest themselves in both genres. Spinrad’s pseudo-scholarly afterward is also a fantastic work of satire. Homer Whipple, its author, cannot rationalize the sheer horror that is* The Lord of the Swastika* with the cavalcades of critical and public praise it has received. Whipple claims that: “Of course, such a man [Feric Jagger] could gain power only in the extravagant fancies of a pathological science-fiction novel. For Feric Jagger is essentially a monster: a narcissistic psychopath with paranoid obsessions” (256). Whipple dismisses the ideological implications of the novel as simply an imaginative fantasm — not a dangerous work espousing dangerous ideology. Also, the events in* The Lord of the Swastika *in no way matches up to Whipple’s alternate timeline. So, his analysis flails around trying to piece together the chief players and countries and what they stand for. But of course, we all know that Hitler did indeed kill millions and millions and millions and plunged the world into war….

Highly recommended for fans of satirical, metafictional, and New Wave science fiction.

Brief Plot Summary/Analysis

From the pseudo-scholarly afterward to Hitler’s novel:

> “> *Lord of the Swastika*> is at least schematically a typical pulp sword-and-sorcery novel. The Hero (Jagger) receives the phallic weapon as a symbol of his rightful supremacy and then triumphantly fights his way through a series of gory battles to final victory. Aside from the political allegory and the more obsessional consistency and intensity of the phallic symbolism which distinguishes > *Lord of the Swastika*> from a host of similar science-fantasy novels” (from Homer Whipple’s afterward, 249).

Because* The Lord of the Swastika —* Hitler’s novel within the *The Iron Dream* — was conceived in an alternate timeline where Hitler immigrate to the United States after WWI and never started WWII, the narrative is a “fever dream” (256) of what he imagined/wanted to happen. Feric Jagger, Hitler’s supremely brutal and psychopathic protagonist, comes to power in a way closely resembling how Hitler actually rose to power in Germany. Of course, Spinrad recounts the historical similarities via the terminology, future world, and narrative common in the pulp sword-and-sorcery genre. Specific historical facts, like Hitler’s vegetarianism, are recast in this future world: “Meat was, of course, the traditional staple in Heldon as elsewhere, and upon occasion Feric indulged himself with this questionable fare […] Nevertheless, he knew full well that progress up the food chain from vegetable matter to meat concentrated the level of radioactive contamination of foodstuffs, and he therefore eschewed flesh as much as possible. His genetic purity was not his to squander on the indulgence of his appetite; in a higher sense it was the common property of the community of true men and demanded to be guarded as a racial trust” (33).

In this post-apocalyptical future created by nuclear weapons and filled with mutants created by the radiation, Heldor (a stand in for Germany) considers itself the bastion of the”genetically pure.” Jagger, born in a nearby region, desires above all else to be labeled a Trueman and a citizen of Heldor. He soon discovers that the Heldor government does not actively root out, exile or sterilize Dominators (who supposedly use their telepathic powers to control others) and various other mutants. *The Lord of the Swastika* is prone to long rants about genetic purity, “swarming on the streets of Gormond was a mongrel horde of Blueskins, dwarfs, Eggheads, Parrotfaces, Toadmen, countless other varieties of pure mutants and mongrelized crosses and human-mutant hybrids; a random collection of bits and pieces of dozens of different species cobbled together piecemeal and dressed for the most part in reeking rags” (31).

Soon Feric encounters the Black Avengers (perhaps referring to Nazis who hunted with Göring as his lodge in the Schorfheide Forest), a group of motorcycle-riding woodsmen who go around murdering mutants. Feric proves himself in drinking games and hand-to-hand combat and wins the “the Great Truncheon of Stal Held, the lost sceptre of royal power, the Steel Commander” (69). The Black Avengers become The Sons of the Swastika (the SS). With the ultimate phallic weapon always dangling at his side in meetings or waved erect over the enemy, Feric manages to convince all in Heldor to exile or sterilize the genetically impure. It is in the account of Feric’s invasion of Zind (a stand in for Communist Russia) that the narrative departs from the crude historical outline of WWII — obviously, since Hitler was unsuccessful in his campaign against Stalin. The outcome in Hitler’s dream must have a positive outcome… Involving, in this case, a plan to “fecundate the stars” (245).

A terrifying work of satire… I will never read pulp SF/F in the same way…

[]( )

(Bob Habberfield’s cover for the 1974 edition)

[]( )

(Rowena Morrill’s cover for the 1982 edition)

[]( )(DP Fact and Fiction’s cover for the 1999 edition)

For more book reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/science-fiction-book-reviews-by-author/ )

#1970s #avantGarde #bookReviews #NormanSpinrad #postApocalyptic #satire #sciFi #scienceFiction #technology

## Book Review: A Martian Odyssey and Other Classics of Science ...

2013-02-20T17:55:30Z

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Book Review: A Martian Odyssey and Other Classics of Science Fiction, Stanley G. Weinbaum (1962)

(Robert E. Schulz’s cover for the 1966 edition)

3/5 (collated rating: Average)

After reading Joanna Russ’ nihilistic downer (but brilliant nevertheless) [*We Who Are About To…* ](https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/book-review-we-who-are-about-to-joanna-russ-1976/ )(1976) I needed to decompress with some 30s pulp. I’m generally not a fan of pulp unless it attempts to integrate social science fiction elements or creates a vibrant/otherworldly sense of wonder. Thankfully, this collection of Stanley G. Wienbaum’s stories contains one of the most influential pulp science fiction shorts due to its descriptions of aliens — ‘A Martian Odyssey’ (1934).

For anyone interested in the history of the genre and 30s pulp, Weinbaum’s work is a must read…

Plot Summary/Analysis

‘A Martian Odyssey’ (1934) (31 pages) 4.75/5 (Very Good): First appeared in the July 1934 issue of *Wonder Stories*. A science fiction classic! ‘A Martian Odyssey’ was a profoundly influential story notable for its touching alien human friendship and fascinating descriptions of unusual aliens. In the 21st century mankind has landed on Mars via atomic powered spaceships. Jarvis sets out across the Martian landscape in a rocket to take photographs of the famed canals. Unfortunately, his rocket crashes and he is forced to set out on foot back to *Ares’s *landing area* *where the rest of the multi-national crew (French, German, etc) is waiting. He makes friends with an alien named Tweel whom he rescues from a disturbing creature that lures its prey by taking on the appearance of loved ones. Despite the fact that Tweel can jump hundreds of feet at a time and is only able to communicate with Jarvis beyond simplistic phrases, he stays by his side braving the unusual wilderness together. They encounter headless telepathic aliens and strange silicon creatures that create pyramids with their waste. Highly recommended.

‘The Adaptive Ultimate’ (1935) (28 pages) 2/5 (Bad): First appeared in the November 1935 issue of* Astounding Stories*. A silly tale about a mysterious healing serum derived from pulverized fruit flies. It causes the body to quickly adapt against diseases, and, the uncanny ability to get out of difficult situations. However, it causes the patient to care only for itself. A scientist injects a tuberculosis ridden woman with the serum. She heals quickly but soon wants to become the ruler of the world! Unfortunately, he’s fallen in love with her…

‘The Lotus Eaters’ (1935) (34 pages) 3.5/5 (Good): First appeared in the April 1935 issue of *Astounding Stories*. The second best in the collection… On Venus, a husband and wife team of explorers explore the dark side of the planet. They encounter a series of strange beings — including a vegetable intelligence. As with ‘A Martian Odyssey’ the creature is highly original for the 30s. Although highly sentient, it thinks in a distinctly different way than humans. Perhaps the most appealing aspect of the story is Patricia, the female character — she is as courageous as Hammond, her husband (although she does say she’s scared multiple times) and possesses all the scientific knowledge.

‘Proteus Island’ (1936) (41 pages) 2.5/5 (Bad): First appeared in the August 1936 issue of *Astounding Stories*. Our intrepid biologist hero arrives at a mysterious — taboo according to the natives — island in Polynesia. His native guides desert him on the island and he’s forced to confront its mysteries himself. First, all the animals on the island seem to be different/unusual. Also, he encounters a white girl, who seems remarkably feline. Although the mystery is quite interesting, Weinbaum fails to conjure the wonder present in ‘The Lotus Eaters’ and ‘A Martian Odyssey.’

‘The Brink of Infinity’ (1936) (14 pages) 2/5 (Bad): First appeared in the December 1936 issue of *Thrilling Wonder Stories*. An unremarkable story of a mathematician who is captured by a cripple who wants revenge. The cripple conjures a mathematical riddle and places the mathematician in a cell — he has to answer the riddle by asking of a limited number of questions or else he dies. I have the feeling that a mathematician would have guessed the answer much more quickly — and, Weinbaum fills up pages with lectures on basic mathematical concepts, concepts as simple as breathing for a mathematician….

(Frank R. Paul’s cover for the July 1934 issue of *Wonder Stories*)

(Howard V. Brown’s cover for the December 1936 issue of *Thrilling Wonder Stories*)

For more book reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/science-fiction-book-reviews-by-author/ )

#1930s #1960s #aliens #bookReviews #pulp #sciFi #scienceFiction #ShortStories #spaceships #technology

## Book Review: The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith, Josephine ...

2012-11-04T21:16:43Z

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Book Review: The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith, Josephine Saxton (1969)

[]( )(Jack Faragasso’s cover for the 1970 edition)

4.5/5 (Very Good)

*The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith* (1969) is an experimental (but approachable) science fiction fable set in a world which, at least on the surface, is very much like our own. The buildings remain, food dispensers still dispense food, and undisturbed store shelves are fully stocked. However, the majority of the animals have disappeared and people are almost all gone. Cannibalism is hinted at. A few other individuals flit on the outskirts of the narrative, phantom-like, unsubstantial in their physicality. Are they hallucinations, or external viewers of the spectacle who intrude when needed before vanishing with no evidence of their arrival?

Josephine Saxton deftly utilizes the coming of age narrative, the quest (more character related than goal oriented), and a fabulist’s eye towards metaphor to weave together a touching and alluring tale. The ending (warning: discussed in more depth below) at first glance is too elusive, too unresolved. But on second thought, the ramifications of the slight reveal are so beautiful.

*The Hieros Gamos* is the first of Josephine Saxton’s works I’ve read and I’ll be on the lookout for her novels *Vector for Seven* (1970), *Group Feast* (1971) and her short story collection *The Power of Time* (1985) among others.

Brief Plot Summary/Analysis (some spoilers)

The narrative begins with “the boy” who wanders aimlessly without shoes around the town of Thingy. The environment is so absent of life that the mere sound of a bird “excited him until he had tears running down his face” (7). He discovers a hollow where a dying woman lays alone in the final throes of birth: “the belly of the woman was a soft mound of wrinkled skin, with a fan of black hair, all wet with red blood, and her legs lay wide, striped red, and between them lay a tiny baby, wet and streaked with blood and shining moisture […]” (12).

The boy is simultaneously repelled yet intrigued by the girl child. He realizes that if he decides to take care of her he will be forced to depart, at least for a while, from his aimless solitary wanderings. He decides to care for the child. He slowly learns how to keep her clean, how to procure cans of milk, how to keep her from getting cold, how to convey her effectively while he wanders…

The boy himself is an intriguing/peculiar character. In a land mostly absent of other life, he is preoccupied with unusual longings to “bathe and decorate himself” (25). He carries around a bottle of almond shampoo (29), decorates his fingernails (32) and spends lengthy periods of time looking for clothes in empty department stores (31). Because he feels the drive to move from place to place his own body, becomes the site of intense ritual. For example, disruption of ritual, when he catches himself biting his nails, is looked at with horror and revulsion (39).

At certain moments in the narrative the boy and the small girl come across inscriptions on monuments, graffiti in bathroom stalls, spray painted signs that force them to consider certain emotions. For example, his carefree existence is further interrupted by an inscription that reads, “To the memory of those brave men of the town of Thingy, who gave their lives in the First World War” (35). He is so overcome with grief that he is forced to consider more carefully the young child in his care — and immediately after this insight, he comes across Universal Stores, Inc. A gigantic department store with all the necessities for the child.

Eventually he decides to cease in his wanderings, stay in the store, and nurture the child (58). After a mysterious visitor leaves him a pile of books, the boy spends his time reading vociferously. The child amuses herself soundlessly with toys for the boy has yet to teach her to speak. His need to wander is transfered from the external world to the imaginative world of books. The list is multi-varied (one can’t help but speculate they are books found on Saxton’s own shelves): “the writings of Nietzsche, the Pilgrim’s Progress, the books of Charles Fort, three volmes of the Mathnawi, the published works of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff, Nicholl, Bennet, Collin, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, The Secret of the Golden Flower, the Upanishads, C. G. Jung, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, James Blish, William Blake, and a most remarkable poet called Dalo Makinen” (64). This list is revealing. Ouspensky and Gurdjieff are proponents of higher states of existence — a potential way to interpret the world our characters dwell in. Likewise, Jung’s collective unconscious (a theme Saxton returns to frequently in her work) could be the mental state in which the ritual unfolds. This list has the potential to be mined for other interpretations.

After years go by, the two finally decided that they must leave the store, the fertile ground of childhood. And once again, they begin to wander. A sequence of memorable scenes usher their development: Graffiti in lavatories, naming games, self-naming, The Osborne Palace hotel, the slow realization of sexuality, and the culmination [s] of the ritual. And they return to Thingy, and the place where the skeleton of the girl’s mother lays, undisturbed…

Final Thoughts (*spoilers*)

The name of the book, *The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith*, combined with the final sequence imbues the boy and the girl’s wanderings with added meaning. I recommend NOT looking up the Greek term “hieros gamos” before you finish. I found the most intriguing aspect of the work the appearance and disappearance of other people. Each, for example the woman who leaves the pile of books for the boy in the store, is a catalyst for an important emotion or unrealized concept. Combined with the textual messages they come across, the reader becomes aware of a voyeuristic quality of looking in on the development of these two characters The uncanny artificiality of the world — completely intact but mostly lacking in people/animals — and how objects appear and disappear all add to the feeling that their lives are part of a complex ritual. The cyclicality is striking as well — most notably, their return to the skeleton of the girl’s mother for another birth.

The power of ritual is a central theme — the boy is obsessed with ritualistically adorning/caring for his body; the girl’s arrival threatens to unbalance this ritual, and eventually the girl is slowly integrated into his ritual of wandering. One of the more gorgeous sequences in the entire work depicts the birthday ritual: The boy is resigned to the fact that the girl will eventually leave, she packs her things, begins to walk away, he calls for her to come back, they embrace, she says she will stay, “Well, I will, just this one year, just this one” (100).

I recommend Saxton’s *The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith *for fans of restrained, fabulist, and well-written science fiction. The prose strikingly conveys with simple phrases and words the landscape, the development of character, and the landscape they traverse. My only complaint is the Saxton’s interest in psychoanalysis provides a series of interpretations that explain away a large portion of the ambiguity of the surreal world. A delightful fable nevertheless…

For more reviews consult the [INDEX](https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/science-fiction-book-reviews-by-author/ )

#1960s #bookReviews #experimental #fable #sciFi #scienceFiction