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james_davis_nicollList courtesy of Andrew Wheeler
Twelve books offered, of which I have read four.
1958
January THE DOOR INTO SUMMER by Robert A. Heinlein
At one time this was one of my favourite Heinlein novels but every time I read this tale of a time-displaced engineer the more I dislike the protagonist. There are still aspects of this book I enjoy, from the robots to the musings about how the world changed between 1970 and 2000.
[For example, when I reread this in the early aughts, it was the skeevy Middle Aged Guy Hits on Eleven Year Old that creeped me out but since then also I've come to suspect the portrait of Belle Darkin as an older woman might be intended as another Take That at ex-wife Leslyn. If so, class act, Mr. Heinlein, although if anger at an ex distracts you from the grade sixers, I guess that's a net good]
February DOOMSDAY MORNING by C.L. Moore
I really should read more C.L. Moore.
{and I have, but not this]
March THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION STORIES AND NOVELS, 9th Series edited by
T.E. Dikty
The Science Fiction Year (T.E. Ditky)
2066: Election Day (Michael Shaara)
The Mile-Long Spaceship (Kate Wilhelm)
The Last Victory (Tom Godwin)
Call Me Joe (Poul Anderson)
Didn't He Ramble (Chad Oliver)
The Queen's Messenger (John J. McGuire)
The Other People (Leigh Brackett)
Into Your Tent I'll Creep (Eric Frank Russell)
Nor Dust Corrupt (James V. McConnell)
Nightsound (Algis Budrys)
The Tunesmith (Lloyd Biggle Jr.)
Hunting Machine (Carol Emshwiller)
The Science Fiction Book Index (Earl Kemp)
That's the Michael Shaara of historical novel fame, btw. I think his son is a writer as well.
Call Me Joe might be called an Andersonian variation on Simak's Desertion.
I am morally certain I have read both the Russell and the Biggle but years of careless treatment of my cranium have erased all memory of them, as well as a considerable amount of my sense of balance (despite which I seem to be the one who gets sent up ladders to swap lightbulbs).
[And getting hit in the face with a flight of stairs didn't help any]
April THE MIND CAGE by A.E. Van Vogt
Yet another Van Vogt I was mercifully spared.
May THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, 7th Series edited by
Anthony Boucher
Introduction (Anthony Boucher)
The Wines of Earth (Idris Seabright)
In Memorium Fletcher Pratt (James Blish)
Adjustment (Ward Moore)
The Cage (A. Bertram Chandler)
Mr. Stilwell's Stage (Avram Davidson)
Venture to the Moon (Arthur C. Clarke)
Expedition (Fredric Brown)
Lyric for Atom Splitters (Doris Pitkin Buck)
Rescue (G.C. Edmondson)
A Horror Story Shorter By One Letter Than the Shortest Horror Story
Ever Written (Ron Smith)
Between the Thunder and the Sun (Chad Oliver)
A Loint of Paw (Isaac Asimov)
The Wild Wood (Mildred Clingerman)
Dodger Fan (Will Stanton)
Goddess in Granite (Robert F. Young)
YEs, But (Anthony Brode)
MS Found in a Chinese Fortune Cookie (C.M. Kornbluth)
Journeys End (Poul Anderson)
Full Circle (Doris C. Pinkney)
The Big Trek (Fritz Leiber)
Unfortunately the only one I remember is the Asimov and I will be taking steps to rectify that. It's minor Asimov.
[The Cage was adapted a couple of times for radio. In it, castaway humans who have lost all their technological items need to convince aliens that humans are intelligent and not merely animals]
June NO BLADE OF GRASS by John Christopher
Smashing the world in interesting ways was a bit of a British specialty of the 1950s and John Christopher was one of the masters. In this aptly named tale, vital food crops and related species die, with undesirable knock-on effects.
July THE BLACK CLOUD by Fred Hoyle
One of Hoyle's better SF novels, this begins in the form of a disaster novel as a giant interstellar molecular cloud enters the Solar System, wreaking havoc on the Terrestrial ecosystems by blocking and reflecting sunlight from the Earth. Against a backdrop of mass death and extinction events, humans discover that the Black Cloud is intelligent and after some communication problems, learn something of the true history of the universe (Oddly similar to Hoyle's own models).
I bitterly regret losing my copy.
{I found a new one]
August THE MAN WHO COULDN'T SLEEP by Charles Eric Maine
Unknown to me.
September THE LINCOLN HUNTERS by Wilson Tucker
This I have, thanks to a 1970s reprint. Abraham Lincoln once made a speech so stirring nobody thought to write it down and this details the attempts of people from our future to learn what was in the speech, giving Tucker the chance to compare and contrast the US of the 1860s with that of the future.
October A TOUCH OF STRANGE by Theodore Sturgeon
Have I mentioned I am the only SF fan in the world not to be a raving Sturgeon fan? In any case, I've never read this.
November SPACEPOWER by Donald Cos and Michael Stoike
Nor this.
December THE THIRD GALAXY READER edited by H.L. Gold
Program Notes (Horace L. Gold)
Limiting Factor (Theodore R. Cogswell)
Protection (Roert Sheckley)
The Vilbar Party (Evelyn E. Smith)
End as a World (Floyd L. Wallace)
Time in the Round (Fritz Leiber)
Help! I am Doctor Morris Goldpepper (Avram Davidson)
A Wind is Rising (Finn O'Donnevan)
Ideas Die Hard (Isaac Asimov)
Dead Ringer (Lester del Rey)
The Haunted Corpse (Fred Pohl)
The Model of a Judge (William Morrison)
Man in the Jar (Damon Knight)
Volpa (Wyman Guin)
Honerable Opponent (Clifford D. Simak)
The Game of Rat and Dragon (Cordwainer Smith).
I wonder if the time is right for a Cogswell revival?
Most of these (aside from the Smith) I no longer remember. I wish I had copies of these anthologies to refresh my memory. Note that while Evelyn E. Smith's name may be similar to E.E. Smith's, their fiction only resemble each other's in the sense that both used English.
Twelve books offered, of which I have read four.
1958
January THE DOOR INTO SUMMER by Robert A. Heinlein
At one time this was one of my favourite Heinlein novels but every time I read this tale of a time-displaced engineer the more I dislike the protagonist. There are still aspects of this book I enjoy, from the robots to the musings about how the world changed between 1970 and 2000.
[For example, when I reread this in the early aughts, it was the skeevy Middle Aged Guy Hits on Eleven Year Old that creeped me out but since then also I've come to suspect the portrait of Belle Darkin as an older woman might be intended as another Take That at ex-wife Leslyn. If so, class act, Mr. Heinlein, although if anger at an ex distracts you from the grade sixers, I guess that's a net good]
February DOOMSDAY MORNING by C.L. Moore
I really should read more C.L. Moore.
{and I have, but not this]
March THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION STORIES AND NOVELS, 9th Series edited by
T.E. Dikty
The Science Fiction Year (T.E. Ditky)
2066: Election Day (Michael Shaara)
The Mile-Long Spaceship (Kate Wilhelm)
The Last Victory (Tom Godwin)
Call Me Joe (Poul Anderson)
Didn't He Ramble (Chad Oliver)
The Queen's Messenger (John J. McGuire)
The Other People (Leigh Brackett)
Into Your Tent I'll Creep (Eric Frank Russell)
Nor Dust Corrupt (James V. McConnell)
Nightsound (Algis Budrys)
The Tunesmith (Lloyd Biggle Jr.)
Hunting Machine (Carol Emshwiller)
The Science Fiction Book Index (Earl Kemp)
That's the Michael Shaara of historical novel fame, btw. I think his son is a writer as well.
Call Me Joe might be called an Andersonian variation on Simak's Desertion.
I am morally certain I have read both the Russell and the Biggle but years of careless treatment of my cranium have erased all memory of them, as well as a considerable amount of my sense of balance (despite which I seem to be the one who gets sent up ladders to swap lightbulbs).
[And getting hit in the face with a flight of stairs didn't help any]
April THE MIND CAGE by A.E. Van Vogt
Yet another Van Vogt I was mercifully spared.
May THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, 7th Series edited by
Anthony Boucher
Introduction (Anthony Boucher)
The Wines of Earth (Idris Seabright)
In Memorium Fletcher Pratt (James Blish)
Adjustment (Ward Moore)
The Cage (A. Bertram Chandler)
Mr. Stilwell's Stage (Avram Davidson)
Venture to the Moon (Arthur C. Clarke)
Expedition (Fredric Brown)
Lyric for Atom Splitters (Doris Pitkin Buck)
Rescue (G.C. Edmondson)
A Horror Story Shorter By One Letter Than the Shortest Horror Story
Ever Written (Ron Smith)
Between the Thunder and the Sun (Chad Oliver)
A Loint of Paw (Isaac Asimov)
The Wild Wood (Mildred Clingerman)
Dodger Fan (Will Stanton)
Goddess in Granite (Robert F. Young)
YEs, But (Anthony Brode)
MS Found in a Chinese Fortune Cookie (C.M. Kornbluth)
Journeys End (Poul Anderson)
Full Circle (Doris C. Pinkney)
The Big Trek (Fritz Leiber)
Unfortunately the only one I remember is the Asimov and I will be taking steps to rectify that. It's minor Asimov.
[The Cage was adapted a couple of times for radio. In it, castaway humans who have lost all their technological items need to convince aliens that humans are intelligent and not merely animals]
June NO BLADE OF GRASS by John Christopher
Smashing the world in interesting ways was a bit of a British specialty of the 1950s and John Christopher was one of the masters. In this aptly named tale, vital food crops and related species die, with undesirable knock-on effects.
July THE BLACK CLOUD by Fred Hoyle
One of Hoyle's better SF novels, this begins in the form of a disaster novel as a giant interstellar molecular cloud enters the Solar System, wreaking havoc on the Terrestrial ecosystems by blocking and reflecting sunlight from the Earth. Against a backdrop of mass death and extinction events, humans discover that the Black Cloud is intelligent and after some communication problems, learn something of the true history of the universe (Oddly similar to Hoyle's own models).
I bitterly regret losing my copy.
{I found a new one]
August THE MAN WHO COULDN'T SLEEP by Charles Eric Maine
Unknown to me.
September THE LINCOLN HUNTERS by Wilson Tucker
This I have, thanks to a 1970s reprint. Abraham Lincoln once made a speech so stirring nobody thought to write it down and this details the attempts of people from our future to learn what was in the speech, giving Tucker the chance to compare and contrast the US of the 1860s with that of the future.
October A TOUCH OF STRANGE by Theodore Sturgeon
Have I mentioned I am the only SF fan in the world not to be a raving Sturgeon fan? In any case, I've never read this.
November SPACEPOWER by Donald Cos and Michael Stoike
Nor this.
December THE THIRD GALAXY READER edited by H.L. Gold
Program Notes (Horace L. Gold)
Limiting Factor (Theodore R. Cogswell)
Protection (Roert Sheckley)
The Vilbar Party (Evelyn E. Smith)
End as a World (Floyd L. Wallace)
Time in the Round (Fritz Leiber)
Help! I am Doctor Morris Goldpepper (Avram Davidson)
A Wind is Rising (Finn O'Donnevan)
Ideas Die Hard (Isaac Asimov)
Dead Ringer (Lester del Rey)
The Haunted Corpse (Fred Pohl)
The Model of a Judge (William Morrison)
Man in the Jar (Damon Knight)
Volpa (Wyman Guin)
Honerable Opponent (Clifford D. Simak)
The Game of Rat and Dragon (Cordwainer Smith).
I wonder if the time is right for a Cogswell revival?
Most of these (aside from the Smith) I no longer remember. I wish I had copies of these anthologies to refresh my memory. Note that while Evelyn E. Smith's name may be similar to E.E. Smith's, their fiction only resemble each other's in the sense that both used English.
