Reading Around in Old SF Magazines

Bit of Tapestry” by Cleve Cartmill
Great story. Webb Curtain finds himself caught up in events beyond his control with narrow escapes from death, local lynch mobs, and a mysterious briefcase among other plot threads. He finds unlikely allies in three elderly sisters.
I loved this story and read it slowly savouring it, never knowing how it would develop. The three old woman are obvious references to the three Fates and/or Norns of mythology, but they are cleverly rendered everyday. I’ve only read a few by this author but I’ll now look out for others with interest.


The Crossroads” by L. Ron Hubbard
Eben Morse is determined to find a buyer for his vegetables and sets out with horse and cart to the city. He’s never been there, but he knows the city is somewhere south. I've read very few pulp Hubbard, but he's better than I'd expected.
The Cartmill sounds great. I don't think I've read any of his work, but will look out for it now.

As to Hubbard, I think that until he wont bonkers/evil (delete to taste) and invented a bizarre religion to rip people off, he was a pretty good pulp writer. In the 1940's he was the fifth most prolific contributor to Astounding (after van Vogt, Kuttner, Moore and G.O. Smith), publishing 25 stories in that magazine in the decade (see here), but his output fell away dramatically in the '50's.
 
The Cartmill sounds great. I don't think I've read any of his work, but will look out for it now.
This is the only one of his so far that's stood out for me, but one good story makes all the difference when encountering the author again.
 
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Five UK edition Super Science Stories @1950. All are reprints of US or Canadian editions, and not all the stories on the covers appear inside.

I'm afraid almost all the stories are distinctly unmemorable (unlike the covers), not even for their badness, but nonetheless, I enjoyed reading them.

Here's what wikipedia has to say about Super Science Stories:


It seems a nineteen year old Frederik Pohl was the first editor, though almost all the stories in these issues come after his tenure.

And here's a list of the stories, courtesy of Phil Stephenson-Payne: if interested you can identify the issues by their covers


There were some points of interest:

I was particularly taken with a review by Frederik Pohl of George Orwell's 1984, and here it is in full:

With few exceptions, George Orwell’s new book, Nineteen Eighty-Four, is undoubtedly the most successful science-fiction novel of the past decade. With editorial approval in half of the country’s newspapers, distribution by a leading book club, an eight page accolade in Life and a vigorous advertising campaign, it has found its way into the homes of hundreds of thousands of persons, here and in England. More than any other single book, it is what a member of the general reading public will think of when he hears the term “science fiction”.
As a political tract, Nineteen Eighty-Four is powerfully effective, for Orwell’s future world of Thought Police, all seeing telescreens and elaborate propaganda devices is a completely believable horror. But, like the author’s earlier Animal Farm – a rudimentary allegory in which the animals revolt against their masters, only to be betrayed by their own kind – the book has no meaning and no substance of its own. Orwell has been hailed as a twentieth-century Jonathan Swift, but the difference between them is the difference between them is the difference between a campaign speech and Lincoln’s Gettysburg address; one is politics, the other is art.


Hmmm.

As regards the stories, very few linger in my memory.

I did like “Cham of the Hills" by Charles R. Tanner (1942) and was disappointed to find it was not part of a series. It should have been.
Cham is a hillman heading to the big city to join the army and earn some money, when he joins in a fight in an inn, siding with two mercenaries (Reminiscent of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser) who are being attacked. Action takes place in a land of ruined cities like Niarc (with a ruined Statue of Liberty) and Fidefya.

I always have a soft spot for Murray Leinster and there are two of his here:
“This Star Shall Be Free” : As an experiment, an expedition from Antares gives Tork, a Cro-Magnon, the means to attract and kill animals more easily.
“The Fear Planet”:There’s been rainfall in the Seco valley (where it never rains) and Steve Hansun hotfoots there to investigate. He finds a crashed spacecraft.

There's a low key Ray Bradbury, just two and a half pages long:
The Silence”: The planet Xoton has been biding its time before eliminating the human invaders.
What interested me was that despite its length, his name is featured prominently on cover even though the original publication date was 1944, well before he made it into paperback.

And “The Long Dawn” by Noel Loomis: I have a natural weakness for any story that has a friendly Tyrannosaurus Rex: Chark has opened the time vault. He has come from Jurassic times, along with his Tyrannosaur, Pterodactyl, and an injured woman and her child.

Other well-known authors include:
“The Black Sun Rises” by Henry Kuttner
“The Bounding Crown” by James Blish
“Child of Void” by Margaret St Clair
“Victory Unintentional” by Isaac Asimov

There may not be anything much that would be re-printed today, but it's a joy to handle these old magazines.
 
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Perhaps I should have said this before, but...well, it just didn't occur to me -- OK?

What I'm trying to lead up to is this: if anyone finds a story by Clifford D. Simak, or one by Gordon R. Dickson, in one of those old and obscure magazines -- particularly an outside-the-U.S. magazine, I'd like to know about it.

You see, in my work with Simak's short stories (which has resulted in my 14-volume "Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak") I've been frustrated to find that there have been several instances in which Cliff mentioned, in one of his journals, having sold a particular story -- but I haven't been able to find that story anywhere, whether in the magazine he mentioned having sold it to, or in any other magazine.

I think it possible that such stories might have been published elsewhere, perhaps under another title. One such story, for instance, was a third "Mr. Meek" story -- Cliff seldom wrote sequels, but he wrote two Meek stories which were published in PLANET STORIES (the first was "Mr. Meek, Musketeer," in 1943), and he mentioned in one of his journals that he had sold a third (entitled "Mr. Meek Drinks a Toast") in 1949 -- to SUPER SCIENCE... but I cannot find the story anywhere, and Cliff's journals were either not begun for some years, or were often left blank for long stretches -- particularly in the post-WWII years, when his children were born and his newspaper career was blossoming... (I will add that there is one fleeting mention in one of Cliff's journals which indicated that he was in some sort of contact with Fred Pohl in those early years -- surely an intriguing hint of possibilities...)

Moreover, I have already found one of his stories that was published in an anthology magazine (BUT NOT IN A SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE, making it a big surprise to most Simak fans!) (I'm talking about "Nine Lives," which you can find in vol. 7 of "Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak: A Death in the House.") (The original appearance was in AMERICAN SHORT STORIES MAGAZINE, Dec., 1957.)

(I'd probably be a user if anyone ever produces a COMPLETE index to all short fiction in magazines...)
 
The isfdb is pretty complete Dave. It certainly lists both Meek stories (actually both 1944 in Planet Stories), but there is no record of a third. I’ll keep my beady eye out, but I suspect it was accepted but never published. Cliff had no stories published in Super Science Stories in 1949.
 
The isfdb is pretty complete Dave. It certainly lists both Meek stories (actually both 1944 in Planet Stories), but there is no record of a third. I’ll keep my beady eye out, but I suspect it was accepted but never published. Cliff had no stories published in Super Science Stories in 1949.
Thank you, my friend -- and I apologize for misleading you: when I ascribed both of those "Meek" stories to 1943, I was actually referring to the year that Cliff had noted, in his journal, that he had finished them. Similarly, my mention of the third "Meek" story was from his 1949 journal -- so if that story was ever published, it may well have been after 1949...
 
Moreover, I have already found one of his stories that was published in an anthology magazine (BUT NOT IN A SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE, making it a big surprise to most Simak fans!) (I'm talking about "Nine Lives," which you can find in vol. 7 of "Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak: A Death in the House.") (The original appearance was in AMERICAN SHORT STORIES MAGAZINE, Dec., 1957.)
Ahh! "Nine Lives" the one story I never managed to track down.
Mind you, I did quite like the feeling that there was still one story left to read.
 
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Just two issues of this UK pulp of 1946/7


All stories are by the British writer N. Wesley Firth. Comparing the isfdb database with Phil Stephenson-Payne's (my personal favourite) re N. Wesley Firth, it seems that Phil's is better informed - see below:



Here are the stories: to amuse myself, I've included a flavour of the prose.

No 1: September 1946 Three stories, all by Firth, one under his own name, the other two under different pseudonyms.

“Fugitive on Venus” by Leslie Halward (aka N. Wesley Firth)
An escapee from a secure psychiatric establishment uses Professor Systrom’s transmitter to transport himself to Venus along with the Professor’s daughter. Naturally her fiancee has to follow in pursuit.
"The heavy iron gates clanged open and three pursuit cars loaded with guards roared out into the night. The siren continued to screech hideously, warning the solitary dwellers thereabouts that a dangerous man had escaped. For Grunton Penitentiary contained only one kind of inmate -the homicidal maniac!"

Mary Had a Little….” by N. Wesley Firth
Doc Chester has accidentally made an interdimensional portal. Unfortunately a small invisible creature comes through it that becomes attached to his daughter Mary.
"Yep, Mary was sure a peach as peaches go, and they don’t go any better than Mary".

Space Hobo’s Diary” by Rice Ackman (aka N. Wesley Firth)
Of course! That’s it! He’s Griffon, the space hobo… used to be an interplanetary spy in the Galactic Patrol until some Martians dropped him on Saturn without weapons, and he contracted the wasting disease of the purple lianas. Good man.”

No 2. February 1947 Just the one story

“The Green Dimension” by N. Wesley Firth
Arguing American couple, Anna and Alan Clayton, stumble on an eccentric scientist while on hunting safari in Africa.
"Anna said: “Well just what do you propose to do now my sweet? We’ve followed elephant spoor which you insisted was recent, but which Bawala told you was at least four days old, for three hours – we’re no nearer elephants than we ever were”.
 
Continuing my readings from...

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1971

fsf_jul-sep71.jpg


July 1971
Sweet Forest Maid - Gene Wolfe
This a short science fantasy, of a lonely young woman who packs up her dull life to go for a walk into the Klamath forest in northern California, to search for a female 'sasquatch'. It's very nicely done, and though very light on SF or fantasy, it is an engrossing little story and well written.

For a Foggy Night - Larry Niven
Niven usually writes very well, and is always eminently readable, but this short story is a bit daft. The idea here is that when the fog rolls into San Francisco, this is represents two of the near infinite parallel universes coming back together. A mathematician meets a stranger in a bar who explains this to him. It doesn't hang together at all as SF, and fails to convince.

August 1971
A Slight Miscalculation - Ben Bova

This is an amusing tale by Bova. A mathematician at a Californian research company thinks he's discovered a mathematical prediction model for earthquakes. The response of the mathematician himself, and his co-workers is quite droll, and overall it is well done, though it is one of those comedic stories that rely on a final line twist or joke. For those who like such stories, this would go down well.

The Pied Potter - A. Bertram Chandler
Starts quite brightly, with a scientist who has created a huge, overpopulated rat cage to model the ultimate effects of over-population on humankind. However, the experiment on the rats, and the end-result seem just a touch too silly to really work, and one wonders what the point of it was by the end. So, despite being an engaging read, it's ultimately a bit disappointing.

September 1971
Fit for a Dog - Howard L. Myers
This tale starts out with some promise, in a dystopian future where humankind lives under domes, and the outside is full of packs of dogs that can metabolise the thick smog and who prey on stray humans. Unfortunately, it ends with the an outrageously homophobic twist, and would offend many.

Underground - Kit Reed
I was unfamiliar with Kit Reed prior to reading this (showing my ignorance here), but I see she wrote fifteen or so novels, and many SF&F short stories right up to her death in 2017. This story was rather good. A negotiator runs away from his role in peace talks, and we catch up with him on a subway car, so loaded down with cheek-by-jowl travelers that it stops deep underground. Full of allegory or metaphor, this is quite deep stuff. The crammed bodies of the subway car suggest support from sheer herd numbers, rather than understanding or sympathy.
 
Kit Reed's wok is quite good. She's kind of on the border between mainstream and SF.
Yes, I got that impression, and it was a nice change after the moral car-crash that was the Myers story.

For those particularly interested, this is one she bought in the mid-70's, by the way:
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(sorry, I couldn't resist)
 
Continuing my readings from...

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1971

fsf_jul-sep71.jpg


July 1971
Sweet Forest Maid - Gene Wolfe
This a short science fantasy, of a lonely young woman who packs up her dull life to go for a walk into the Klamath forest in northern California, to search for a female 'sasquatch'. It's very nicely done, and though very light on SF or fantasy, it is an engrossing little story and well written.

For a Foggy Night - Larry Niven
Niven usually writes very well, and is always eminently readable, but this short story is a bit daft. The idea here is that when the fog rolls into San Francisco, this is represents two of the near infinite parallel universes coming back together. A mathematician meets a stranger in a bar who explains this to him. It doesn't hang together at all as SF, and fails to convince.

August 1971
A Slight Miscalculation - Ben Bova

This is an amusing tale by Bova. A mathematician at a Californian research company thinks he's discovered a mathematical prediction model for earthquakes. The response of the mathematician himself, and his co-workers is quite droll, and overall it is well done, though it is one of those comedic stories that rely on a final line twist or joke. For those who like such stories, this would go down well.

The Pied Potter - A. Bertram Chandler
Starts quite brightly, with a scientist who has created a huge, overpopulated rat cage to model the ultimate effects of over-population on humankind. However, the experiment on the rats, and the end-result seem just a touch too silly to really work, and one wonders what the point of it was by the end. So, despite being an engaging read, it's ultimately a bit disappointing.

September 1971
Fit for a Dog - Howard L. Myers
This tale starts out with some promise, in a dystopian future where humankind lives under domes, and the outside is full of packs of dogs that can metabolise the thick smog and who prey on stray humans. Unfortunately, it ends with the an outrageously homophobic twist, and would offend many.

Underground - Kit Reed
I was unfamiliar with Kit Reed prior to reading this (showing my ignorance here), but I see she wrote fifteen or so novels, and many SF&F short stories right up to her death in 2017. This story was rather good. A negotiator runs away from his role in peace talks, and we catch up with him on a subway car, so loaded down with cheek-by-jowl travelers that it stops deep underground. Full of allegory or metaphor, this is quite deep stuff. The crammed bodies of the subway car suggest support from sheer herd numbers, rather than understanding or sympathy.
Great reviews. Many thanks.
 
Concluding my readings of two stories per issue, from...

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1971

fsf_oct-dec71.jpg


October 1971
The Autumn Land - Clifford D. Simak

A few years ago I read this and was unsure how much I liked it, deciding I could be convinced it was either great or rather muddled. Upon a reread I've decided it is very good, though perhaps not great. A man travelling across country starts to see a 'thinness' in the landscape, before seeing a scene from the future of post-atomic decay. Startled by this he turns his car around to head for the town where he grew up, only to find that it is an 'autumn land' - never changing, and lost in a mythical past. The story is a clear allegory, suggesting that if we run from a future that frightens us, we'll only stand still, and that while we see the past through rose-tinted glasses, it is ultimately unreal. It's quite a compelling science fantasy, written well, and is very 'Simakian'.

The Smell of Death - Dennis Etchison
This starts with a lot of promise, but it ultimately takes us a little less far and to less interesting places than one might have hoped. The protagonist - who owns a service station and coffee house in the middle of nowhere - is an ex-astronaut who can smell death. He 'helps' folk who come through on the highway, but is riddled with guilt for his past actions. It's well done, with a good sense of psychological depth to it. I'm not that familiar with Etchison, as I read very little horror (which is his métier), but he's well regarded in that genre, with Stephen King calling him "one hell of a fiction writer" and Karl Edward Wagner proclaimed him "the finest writer of psychological horror this genre has ever produced."

November 1971
Only Who Can Make a Tree - Philip José Farmer

I don't come across many Farmer short stories (not once did he publish in Astounding/Analog, for instance) so I was interested to read this, given how much I've appreciated his novels. However, it is dreadful, so don't make my mistake and pick it up. Supposedly a ribald comedy, it is neither funny, nor engaging, but seems to have been written simply to annoy the reader. This was perhaps very 'new wave', but it hasn't aged well. I couldn't even really tell you what it was about, as I had to struggle though it in a daze and just flicked through the last few pages.

The Price of Pain Ease - Fritz Leiber
This is one of Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. These chronicle the long-running adventures of the titular 'sword and sorcery' heroes in tales Lieber wrote between 1939 and 1988. This particular story is collected in the second volume of the series, Swords and Death. While these stories are very popular, this didn't work for me especially. Unless fantasy is overtly written as comedy (such as in Discworld or Xanth), it needs to take itself seriously so the reader can immerse himself in the fantasy world. Sly winks to the reader (in the use of place names for instance) unhinges the world-building and lets the story down. Here we have the 'City of Ghouls', the 'Sea of Monsters' and the 'Parched Mountains' all referenced in one sentence, making the world seem like a parody. With too much going on that's just plain silly (without being comedy), and a title that's grammatically sinful, this failed for me.

December 1971
World Abounding - R. A. Lafferty

It's been said before (by me among others), but no-one writes like Lafferty. It's important to go into a Lafferty story with your mind on an even keel, as his writing will tilt it by about 30 degrees, and one doesn't want to topple over. This novelette is no exception in its surreal plot and unique style and ideas. A planetary exploration team travel to a planet called 'World Abounding', where every exploratory trip in the past has resulted in the visitors returning with the words 'You'd never believe it", and saying nothing else. It transpires the planet is a Gaia world, which induces pregnancy (with a 5 day gestation period) and rapid development of the resulting offspring. Further weirdness eventuates, as one might expect. I wish I understood everything Lafferty meant in his tales, but they always remain to some extent opaque. One can say here that he explores the value of experience, and the necessity of having an ambition to experience more, in providing value to our lives.

Causation - Barry N. Malzberg
Is very short, rather bleak, and not very good. An individual discusses with 'Network' the need to be more explicit in showing sex on TV, to assist the sexually-repressed during wartime. Or something like that. It's message is muddled, it goes out of its way to avoid clarity, and Malzberg throws in the odd homophobic and misogynistic jibe just to keep us on our toes. Avoid. It's a shame the read-through ended on a low, but not to worry; my rule of picking two stories per issue more or less randomly will throw up some forgotten gems, and some other tales best left forgotten; but the not knowing going in is part of the fun.

-----------
Overall F&SF for 1971 was great fun to read through, with some stellar stories to discover. Some stories were dreadful, representing some of the least appealing features of the era's 'new wave' as well as homophobic and misogynistic traits, but these were in the minority. It probably did confirm for me that I'm more of an Astounding/Analog man than I am a F&SF fan, however.
 
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Lovely reviews. Most enjoyable. Many thanks.

For me, the Autumn Land is classic Simak. Whatever that means. To be appreciated again and again.

In my late teens/early twenties I thought Farmer was brilliant, but subsequently I realised his output was more mixed.

In your comments on the Leiber, I like very much your thoughts regarding what fantasy works.

I haven't read the Lafferty. I find him remarkable, but best read as a contrast to other stories in anthologies.

Re F&SF: around twelve years ago I set out to re-introduce myself properly to SF by reading pre-1975 anthologies, and in the end read over 140, including all the better known 'Best of Year' before I moved on to collections and novels. The one exception was the F&SF annuals - I only read four of them before realising I didn't really enjoy them, and might read them one day if pushed, but not now.... This was a complete surprise. Despite that, I did enjoy "Decade of F&SF" edited by Mills, consisting of previously unanthologised stories (if I remember right).
 
Hugh wrote:

----Re F&SF: around twelve years ago I set out to re-introduce myself properly to SF by reading pre-1975 anthologies, and in the end read over 140, including all the better known 'Best of Year' before I moved on to collections and novels. The one exception was the F&SF annuals - I only read four of them before realising I didn't really enjoy them, and might read them one day if pushed, but not now.... This was a complete surprise. Despite that, I did enjoy "Decade of F&SF" edited by Mills, consisting of previously unanthologised stories (if I remember right).-----

Fascinating -- and impressive! If this were a recent activity, it might have been a neat topic for a Chronscast. But if you're like me, Hugh, a discussion about in-depth reading from a dozen years ago might be tricky.
 
These days I read to enjoy, not to remember. If I remember anything, that's a bonus.
 
In 1936 Astounding Stories was probably the best of the few SF magazines then published, though still a few years prior to SF's 'Golden Age', according to common fandom acceptance. In this year it was still being edited by F. Orlin Tremaine, now in his fourth year as editor. Nat Schachner, Raymond Z. Gallun and Clifton B. Kruse were stalwarts of the magazine, a few short years before the likes of Heinlein and Asimov started to write for it. Reading through the year, selecting one story from each issue, seemed like a good way to explore this pillar of the pulp era 'before the Golden Age'.

Astounding Stories, 1936

astound36_jan-mar.jpg


January 1936
Stranger from Fomalhaut - Clifton B. Kruse

Clifton Bryan Kruse (1905-2000) was the fourth most published author in Astounding in the 1930's behind only Nat Schachner, Raymond Z. Gallun and Harl Vincent. He wrote straightforward space opera, mostly for Astounding, during a writing career that only spanned 1933-1943. Indeed, publishing only two stories after 1938, he is an archetype of the 1930's authors who didn't survive Campbell's new 'golden age'. Stranger from Fomalhaut is the fifth standalone story in his "Flying Engineers" sequence that follow the solar system adventures of the crew of the the W-62 patrol ship. In this story, the intrepid crew travel to meet an inbound comet just beyond Pluto, only to find that it's an alien craft that hails from the star Fomalhaut. The tale is brightly told, and obeys what physical laws were known at the time. An enjoyable old tale, it doesn't try to do too much, except entertain.

February 1936
Buried Moon - Raymond Z. Gallun

This issue of Astounding starts the serialisation of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, which is of historical importance and interest, but doesn't meet the brief of exploring less well known pre-golden age short stories. Buried Moon is a novelette by the prolific author Raymund Z. Gallun (1911-1994), who published 38 stories in Astounding alone in the 1930's. While he continued to publish SF through the '40s and '50s, it was mostly for the likes of Startling, Planet Stories and Thrilling, as he perhaps no longer met Campbell's requirements for Astounding. In this brightly-told adventure, Gallun imagines the orbital decay of a small moon around the Earth in the distant past, resulting in it crashing into the Pacific Ocean. The moon enclosed an 'alien' species that evolved within it, now still extant under our feet, deep below the crust. An exploratory miner digs deep down in a kind of one-man mining vessel and encounters the hidden creatures. It may sound a bit 'Lovecraftian' but it's written in a much less wordy style, and is a very enjoyable romp, with some nice ideas for the time. This has never been anthologised it seems, so if it sounds fun, you'll need to read it in the original Astounding Stories. This is possible through various online archives, if you cannot find a copy of the 87 year old magazine!

March 1936
Entropy - Nat Schachner

Nat Schachner (1895-1955) was the most published author in Astounding in the 1930's and was also Isaac Asimov's favourite writer before the good doctor started publishing SF himself. Although an attorney, Schachner was a founder of the 'American Interplanetary Society', which pioneered liquid fuel rocketry in the United States in the early 1930s. This was no simple hobby project - it later became the 'American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics'! But I digress; in this novella, Schachner conceives of a way of reaching absolute zero temperature, through the interference of atomic vibration, to completely still atoms as a way to remove all heat. A clever concept, and a good set up lead to far-reaching consequences for the scientist and his beautiful assistant. Perhaps the reach of the tale goes too far ultimately (the tale covers trillions of years), but the big concepts, the boundless ideas and the verve and skill with which Schachner tells the tale make this a terrific novella overall.
 

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