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james_davis_nicollList courtesy of Andrew Wheeler.
Unfortunately the vast extent of my ignorance about SF begins to be revealed with this year's offering. Of the twelve books offered, I have read perhaps three of them and heard of another two.
[And it has not improved much in the decade since I wrote the original text]
1954
Jan. COSTIGAN'S NEEDLE, Jerry Sohl
I have never read this one but Clute speaks kindly of it and of Sohl, calling him a professional craftsman. Apparently it features the colonization of an alternate Earth.
Feb. THE LIGHTS IN THE SKY ARE STARS, Fredric Brown
Cribbing from Clute this is about 'Mankind at the turn of the 21st century and on the verge of star travel'. I myself have not read it and should not comment but in general Brown rewards reading. I note that it is included in NESFA Press' Martians and Madness.
March BORN LEADER, J. T. McIntosh
Another J.T. McIntosh and since I have read nothing by him, another book I can not comment on in an informed manner. Apparently it pits two sets of colonists from ruined Earth against each other. One side is authoritarian and one is libertarian. I wonder which one prevails?
April WILD TALENT, Wilson Tucker
Another Tucker I missed.
May THE CAVES OF STEEL, Isaac Asimov
This is the first story about the detective pair of Lija Baley and the robot R Daneel. Baley, native of a relatively backward Earth, and Daneel, construct of the advanced Spacers, must solve the murder of a prominent Spacer and in so doing illuminate some aspects of this future society.
I reread this a few years ago and although I was stuck by how underpopulated this overpopulated Earth was (Not tremendously more populated than today, although about four times the population at the time the book was originally written). I think it stands up fairly well.
June MISSION OF GRAVITY, Hal Clement
This is an example of the sort of book Clement does best, the examination of an interesting world by rational observers. In this case the setting is the odd planet of Mesklin, high mass and with an impressive angular momentum, which causes the net gravity to vary from merely uncomfortable to humans at the equator to rapidly fatal at the poles. Happily the world has natives and it is through their eyes that we see this world.
Recommended and available with the connected stories from both NESFA (Variations on a Theme by Sir Isaac Newton) and from Orb (Heavy Planet), if I am not mistaken.
[Unfortunately "Clement does" is now "Clement did"]
July A MIRROR FOR OBSERVERS, Edgar Pangborn
I need an Ota of my very own.
[I have no idea what I meant by that]
If memory serves, this is about a young human genius and the Martians who seek to use him for various ends, malign and benign. This is the other Pangborn I bounce off of every time I try to read it and once again I have no coherent reason why. Everything else by Pangborn is very readable.
I think this won the International Fantasy Award.
[What's up with all the "I think" and such? Did I not have access to the web back then? But I was snurching TOCs so I must have]
Aug. THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, ed. Boucher & McComas
As best I can tell, this included the following stories:
Introduction (Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas)
Huge Beast (Cleve Cartmill)
John the Revelator (Oliver La Farge)
Elephas Frumti (L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt)
The Gift of God (L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt)
The Friendly Demon (Daniel Defoe)
Old Man Henderson (Kris Neville)
The Threepenny-Piece (James Stephens)
No-Sided Professor (Martin Gardner)
The Listening Child (Idris Seabright)
Dress of White Silk (Richard Matheson)
The Mathematical Voodoo (H. Nearing, Jr.)
Hub (Philip MacDonald)
Built Up Logically (Howard Schoenfeld)
The Rat That Could Speak (Charles Dickens)
Narapoia (Alan Nelson)
Postpaid to Paradise (Robert Arthur)
In the Days of Our Fathers (Winona McClintic)
Barney (Will Stanton)
The Collector (H.F. Heard)
Fearsome Fable (Bruce Elliot)
Mere English can not convey how ignorant I am about the stories in this collection. I think it is a clean sweep and I have read none of them, not even "Narapoia".
[Although somewhere I picked up what "Narapoia" is about, a man convinced people are conspiring to do him good]
Sept. THE ALTERED EGO, Jerry Sohl
And yet more ignorance from me.
Oct. ONE IN THREE HUNDRED, J. T. McIntosh
And even more. How depressing.
[Earth is doomed, DOOOOOOOOMED! And only one in three hundred can be saved by sending them to another world. Still have not read it, though]
Nov. ASSIGNMENT IN TOMORROW, ed. Frederik Pohl
An anthology containing the following, I believe:
Introduction (Fred Pohl)
Mr Costello, Hero (Theodore Sturgeon)
Angels in the Jets (Jerome Bixby)
The Adventurer (C.M. Kornbluth)
Subterfuge (Ray Bradbury)
Helen O'Loy (Lester del Rey)
5,271,009 (Alfred Bester)
The Big Trip Up Yonder (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.)
We Don't Want Any Trouble (James H. Schmitz)
The Peddler's Nose (Jack Williamson)
The Frightened Tree (Algis Budrys)
A Matter of Form (Horace Gold)
Back to Julie (Richard Wilson)
She Who Laughs (Peter Phillips)
Official Record (Fletcher Pratt)
Hall of Mirrors (Fredrick Brown)
Mother (Philip Jose Farmer)
I could have sworn I owned this but in restrospect I suspect I was thinking of an anthology edited by Robert A. Heinlein,Tomorrow, the Stars. As it happens, I have only read and remembered three of these stories: "Helen O'Loy, a sappy story about a robot, "5,271,009", one of Bester's better short stories as I recall and if I am remembering correctly "Mother", about a boy trapped in another organism, a story that really creeped me out as a kid when I first ran into it (I think in a Silverberg edited anthology).
[As it happens, Heinlein's name was on Tomorrow, the Stars but the full roster of editors consisted of Judith Merril, Frederik Pohl, Truman Talley, Walter Bradbury and Robert A. Heinlein.
"Helen O'Loy" got no better on a re-listen]
Dec. SATELLITE E ONE, Jeffery Lloyd Castle
And to end a perfect year, I don't know this one from Adam either, author -or- book.
[And I still have not read this nor even seen a copy]
Unfortunately the vast extent of my ignorance about SF begins to be revealed with this year's offering. Of the twelve books offered, I have read perhaps three of them and heard of another two.
[And it has not improved much in the decade since I wrote the original text]
1954
Jan. COSTIGAN'S NEEDLE, Jerry Sohl
I have never read this one but Clute speaks kindly of it and of Sohl, calling him a professional craftsman. Apparently it features the colonization of an alternate Earth.
Feb. THE LIGHTS IN THE SKY ARE STARS, Fredric Brown
Cribbing from Clute this is about 'Mankind at the turn of the 21st century and on the verge of star travel'. I myself have not read it and should not comment but in general Brown rewards reading. I note that it is included in NESFA Press' Martians and Madness.
March BORN LEADER, J. T. McIntosh
Another J.T. McIntosh and since I have read nothing by him, another book I can not comment on in an informed manner. Apparently it pits two sets of colonists from ruined Earth against each other. One side is authoritarian and one is libertarian. I wonder which one prevails?
April WILD TALENT, Wilson Tucker
Another Tucker I missed.
May THE CAVES OF STEEL, Isaac Asimov
This is the first story about the detective pair of Lija Baley and the robot R Daneel. Baley, native of a relatively backward Earth, and Daneel, construct of the advanced Spacers, must solve the murder of a prominent Spacer and in so doing illuminate some aspects of this future society.
I reread this a few years ago and although I was stuck by how underpopulated this overpopulated Earth was (Not tremendously more populated than today, although about four times the population at the time the book was originally written). I think it stands up fairly well.
June MISSION OF GRAVITY, Hal Clement
This is an example of the sort of book Clement does best, the examination of an interesting world by rational observers. In this case the setting is the odd planet of Mesklin, high mass and with an impressive angular momentum, which causes the net gravity to vary from merely uncomfortable to humans at the equator to rapidly fatal at the poles. Happily the world has natives and it is through their eyes that we see this world.
Recommended and available with the connected stories from both NESFA (Variations on a Theme by Sir Isaac Newton) and from Orb (Heavy Planet), if I am not mistaken.
[Unfortunately "Clement does" is now "Clement did"]
July A MIRROR FOR OBSERVERS, Edgar Pangborn
I need an Ota of my very own.
[I have no idea what I meant by that]
If memory serves, this is about a young human genius and the Martians who seek to use him for various ends, malign and benign. This is the other Pangborn I bounce off of every time I try to read it and once again I have no coherent reason why. Everything else by Pangborn is very readable.
I think this won the International Fantasy Award.
[What's up with all the "I think" and such? Did I not have access to the web back then? But I was snurching TOCs so I must have]
Aug. THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, ed. Boucher & McComas
As best I can tell, this included the following stories:
Introduction (Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas)
Huge Beast (Cleve Cartmill)
John the Revelator (Oliver La Farge)
Elephas Frumti (L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt)
The Gift of God (L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt)
The Friendly Demon (Daniel Defoe)
Old Man Henderson (Kris Neville)
The Threepenny-Piece (James Stephens)
No-Sided Professor (Martin Gardner)
The Listening Child (Idris Seabright)
Dress of White Silk (Richard Matheson)
The Mathematical Voodoo (H. Nearing, Jr.)
Hub (Philip MacDonald)
Built Up Logically (Howard Schoenfeld)
The Rat That Could Speak (Charles Dickens)
Narapoia (Alan Nelson)
Postpaid to Paradise (Robert Arthur)
In the Days of Our Fathers (Winona McClintic)
Barney (Will Stanton)
The Collector (H.F. Heard)
Fearsome Fable (Bruce Elliot)
Mere English can not convey how ignorant I am about the stories in this collection. I think it is a clean sweep and I have read none of them, not even "Narapoia".
[Although somewhere I picked up what "Narapoia" is about, a man convinced people are conspiring to do him good]
Sept. THE ALTERED EGO, Jerry Sohl
And yet more ignorance from me.
Oct. ONE IN THREE HUNDRED, J. T. McIntosh
And even more. How depressing.
[Earth is doomed, DOOOOOOOOMED! And only one in three hundred can be saved by sending them to another world. Still have not read it, though]
Nov. ASSIGNMENT IN TOMORROW, ed. Frederik Pohl
An anthology containing the following, I believe:
Introduction (Fred Pohl)
Mr Costello, Hero (Theodore Sturgeon)
Angels in the Jets (Jerome Bixby)
The Adventurer (C.M. Kornbluth)
Subterfuge (Ray Bradbury)
Helen O'Loy (Lester del Rey)
5,271,009 (Alfred Bester)
The Big Trip Up Yonder (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.)
We Don't Want Any Trouble (James H. Schmitz)
The Peddler's Nose (Jack Williamson)
The Frightened Tree (Algis Budrys)
A Matter of Form (Horace Gold)
Back to Julie (Richard Wilson)
She Who Laughs (Peter Phillips)
Official Record (Fletcher Pratt)
Hall of Mirrors (Fredrick Brown)
Mother (Philip Jose Farmer)
I could have sworn I owned this but in restrospect I suspect I was thinking of an anthology edited by Robert A. Heinlein,Tomorrow, the Stars. As it happens, I have only read and remembered three of these stories: "Helen O'Loy, a sappy story about a robot, "5,271,009", one of Bester's better short stories as I recall and if I am remembering correctly "Mother", about a boy trapped in another organism, a story that really creeped me out as a kid when I first ran into it (I think in a Silverberg edited anthology).
[As it happens, Heinlein's name was on Tomorrow, the Stars but the full roster of editors consisted of Judith Merril, Frederik Pohl, Truman Talley, Walter Bradbury and Robert A. Heinlein.
"Helen O'Loy" got no better on a re-listen]
Dec. SATELLITE E ONE, Jeffery Lloyd Castle
And to end a perfect year, I don't know this one from Adam either, author -or- book.
[And I still have not read this nor even seen a copy]
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no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 08:36 pm (UTC)I found myself going back and looking for stuff every couple years, seeing if it has shown up on the internet yet. I'd say everything I've been wanting to see is around now, but I'll get reminded of something even more obscure and find it's not.. yet.