Early Magazines in Your Collection (Astounding, Galaxy, etc.)

[Alex The G and T]

I'm no collector, but I've acquired a couple of oddments, here and there.
This one came while helping a friend's widow clear out their house. All Shadowboxed and stuff. (One of my few real life S&SF buddies. She insisted.)

I've never dared open it up.

January 1942.

 

[Alex The G and T]

Same guy, when he was still alive, gave me the Heinlein "Glory Road" serial from 1963.

 

[Bick]

"World of the Red Sun."
(I'm in a special position to know that, as you well know...)

Absolutely- as soon as I saw you had seen the thread, I knew you would get it. For those who don’t recognise the reference, the story Dave quotes is the first publication by Clifford Simak.

 

[Bick]

Well, despite how it might seem, we are more readers than collectors. (Yes, I have read every one of the issues.) So, it wouldn't really be rarity. The content is the most important, and, to some extent, the history of the publication.

It's nice to have the very first one (Fall 1949); note that the title was quickly changed.

Roger Zelazny's breakthrough story, which promoted him from "promising newcomer" to "master" (The only cover art for the magazine done by Hannes Bok)

The first appearance of the novel better known as Starship Troopers

Fantastic picks Victoria - those are all three great issues, and I’m envious of your ownership!

 

[Bick]

This one came while helping a friend's widow clear out their house. All Shadowboxed and stuff...

January 1942.

That’s a beauty. I think I would need to carefully open it myself and read it, and then put it back. The original Shadow over Innsmouth!!

 

[Bick]

Being untechnical, I'd need instruction on how to do that... (hint?)

When you open a new post, there’s a button you can choose for adding an image (on the same bar as bold and type size etc). You hit this and it opens a little window to drag an image to from your files or desktop. Easy!

 

[2DaveWixon]

Same guy, when he was still alive, gave me the Heinlein "Glory Road" serial from 1963.

View attachment 49645

I remember these!
I particularly remember how I had to struggle to keep from starting the book until I had all the parts!

 

[Extollager]

Here are the four "C. S. Lewis issues" of F&SF.

Feb. 1956: "The Shoddy Lands" story (& Chesley Bonestell cover!)
Jan. 1958: "Ministering Angels" story
June 1959: "An Expostulation (Against Too Many Writers of Science Fiction)" poem
July 1964: "The End of the Wine" poem

"The End of the Wine" was published posthumously (Lewis died in Nov. 1963). It appears with an interesting note. Poul Anderson quoted bits of the poem at Westercon and Ed Meskys, editor of the excellent fanzine Niekas, got permission from Lewis to reprint it there. (Anderson must have seen the poem as published in the British magazine Punch.) Lewis agreed. The F&SF editor saw the poem in Niekas and secured Lewis's permission to reprint. A month later, he had died. (See item III here if you are interested in more details on the F&SF material: Tolkien and Fantasy: Five Notes on C.S. Lewis)

 

[Extollager]

Here, by the way, is the Lewis poem, as printed in Niekas. It should read "Untamed is Europe, unnamed."

 

[Extollager]

Here's the Dec. 1953 issue of F&SF. By now no one will be surprised that it has a C. S. Lewis connection. Lewis read Zenna Henderson's story "Food to All Flesh" here and was much impressed by it, recalling it while talking about science fiction with Brian Aldiss and Kingsley Amis, but was unable to remember title or author.

You can read their conversation here (the reference to the Henderson story is on page 62):
Reining in the Rogue Royal of Arabia

 

[hitmouse]

OK I'll bite. Analog Jan 63. First of James Blish' Cities in Flight stories, Galaxy April 66 with The Last Castle by Jack Vance, Venture SF April 64 containing A Rose for Ecclesiastes by Roger Zelazny, Galaxy Aug 61 with The Moon Moth by JV, and Astounding Jan 60 with the first part of Deathworld by Harry Harrison. All bought for pennies in the late 70s when I was in my early teens.

 

[Extollager]

Continuing my theme of sf magazines with C. S. Lewis connections, we have the May 1953 issue of If, with Arthur C. Clarke's "Jupiter Five." It seems Clarke sent Lewis a copy & CSL read it. They had a brief correspondence about sf. The article on sf and religion in the April 1965 Amazing was by Sam Moskowitz.

 

[Extollager]

Here are a couple of issues of Fantastic (Feb., July 1962) from Cele Goldsmith's era. The Feb. issue contains a story by Leiber -- who more often than not doesn't write to my taste -- that impressed me. The highlight of the July issue isn't any of the stories or articles, but a letter from Michael Moorcock about Mervyn Peake, at a time before the US paperbacking of the Gormenghast books.

 

[Extollager]

The Moorcock letter on Peake:

 

[Extollager]

I often find the features -- the letters and book reviews -- in these old magazines to be more immediately interesting than the stories. I suppose that a lot of the best fiction gets published in book form, but, ah! what of those features?

 

[Extollager]

The F&SF issues presumably give positive reviews of LOTR?!

Oh yes.

 

[Extollager]

Continuing the theme of the features being of particular interest to me, here is the May 1966 F&SF and the August 1969 Fantastic. I wanted the F&SF especially for J. Vernon Shea's "H. P. Lovecraft: The House and the Shadows," and the Fantastic for its fanzine reprint, Bill Myers' "Tolkien and Temperaments." For you Vance fans, the Fantastic contains the second of two parts of Emphyrio, which I don't get the impression is usually one of the favorites of Vance fans.

 

[Extollager]

Hmm... I can't find the issue of Galaxy that has the double-page spread with the names of those sf writers who did, and those who didn't, support the Vietnam war at the time (1968, I think).

 

[Extollager]

here are the two issues of Astounding (August & Sept. 1958) serializing Poul Anderson's We Have Fed Our Sea, aka The Enemy Stars, one of my favorite sf novels.

 

[Bick]

here are the two issues of Astounding (August & Sept. 1958) serializing Poul Anderson's We Have Fed Our Sea, aka The Enemy Stars, one of my favorite sf novels.

Yes, The Enemy Stars is a good book, I enjoyed it also.