Not This August by C. M. Kornbluth

[james_davis_nicoll]

Not This August by C. M. Kornbluth

Comments

Possible reason for Pohl rewrite

[rpresser]

Pohl wrote a novel, Black Star Rising (1985), that had a similar background: China conquers the USA (and indeed the world). But the Yanks have escaped to another planet ...

So I'm not saying Pohl explicitly wanted to adopt Not This August and write a sequel, but maybe there was a confluence of research that made it easy to take on this project too.

Re: Possible reason for Pohl rewrite

[james_davis_nicoll]

I thought it was less a case of China conquering the world than them being the only ones not wiped out by the US/SU exchange.

Re: Possible reason for Pohl rewrite

[ba_munronoe]

They and India inherit the wreckage.

Possible reason for Pohl rewrite

[rpresser]

You're probably right; it's been a long time since I've read it. [EDIT] and the dates don't match up anyway; BSR was published four years later. Perhaps the inspiration went the other way.

Re: Possible reason for Pohl rewrite

[chrysostom]

Would Black Star Rising qualify for Reds Under the Bed? I remember it as being a rather odd book.

[beamjockey]

This edition is an entry in the Jim Baen Presents imprint, which consisted largely of reprinted SF novels from earlier decades.

ISFDB suggests this version came out in December of 1981. Ronald Reagan had won the U.S. presidential election about one year earlier, fanning the flames of anti-Communism along the campaign trail.

Might Jim Baen have decided that the political climate was favorable to bring back a flag-draped novel of Cold War paranoia? Would one year have been enough time to get it into the bookstores and bus stations?

Would these considerations bring Baen to ask for a revision, rather than simply Presenting "a pretty good near-future novel written in 1955?"

Now I am curious to read Pohl's foreword and afterword.

[(Anonymous)]

The political climate for a "Soviet Menace" fiction market in 1981 didn't depend on a Reagan win. It would have been there regardless.

Remember, the Soviet Union had recently invaded Afghanistan. In response, the Carter administration re-instated the Selective Service system, in case a full-scale military draft were necessary.

Two things to remember about the era:
One, a militarily aggressive Soviet menace wasn't a paranoid's dream, it was a deadly reality.
Two, Carter wasn't a milquetoast pacifist, but was as anti-Soviet-tyranny as was Reagan. The distinction was in their methods, not their goals.

-rp

[(Anonymous)]

"He did. Suddenly the United States seemed to have been gripped by a terrible hunger for trained men. It was as if—as if they were being drained off the normal labor supply. He said as much. "

Hunh. Massive drainage of resources and personnel for a secret project turns up in Brin's "Senses Three and Six" published in 1986 (in that story, much of the 1970s USAn economic malaise is due to a secret anti-extraterrestrial program).

[bunsen_h]

If only Kornbluth had succeeded in conquering...

Ahem,

[(Anonymous)]

"Far More Powerful Than 1984"?

Really?

Robert Carnegie

Re: Ahem,

[magedragonfire]

It's about red-blooded Americans, not that silly foppish British stuff!

The Star Weekly

[(Anonymous)]

With regard to your last note:

When I started getting SF collections from the library circa 196x, my Mother also read them. She commented that many of the stories were familiar, though she'd never seen an SF magazine.

It seems that as a teenager she read them in a magazine which "came with the paper on Saturdays". She identified it as the "Star Weekly" which, if this is correct, must have reprinted SF stories in the 30s or 40s.

Asimov makes a point in his memoirs of noting the money he made from writing in those early days, but neither in his recollections, nor in those of Pohl, Del Rey, De Camp or Knight is there any mention of money from these reprints.

Asimov says somewhere that Campbell was good about passing on supplementary income, though it was not legally required. So even he may have been in the dark on this.

William Hyde

[chrysostom]

I always found this a very evocative title. Heinlein's "Beyond This Horizon" strikes the same chord.

[al_zorra]

Returned we are, except mirror reverse, of JEHoover's Masters of Deceit and The Enemy Within. I couldn't have imagined this even 2 years ago! And they're not even hiding it because the most right wing who used to be Russia-commie terrified voters are all for it!

Still, really, not in your interest guys, this xtian dominion in collusion with white supremacy and the international plutocratic klepto oligarchy.

[(Anonymous)]

Very well done artwork. About as subtle as a kick in the head, but well done.

[(Anonymous)]

I remember reading this. It was one of many reading experiences that contributed to my present reluctance to start reading dystopic future novels of any sort.

Riderius