Author Archives: Keith West

Retro Hugos: “Invaders From the Stars” by Ross Rocklynne

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Ross Rocklynne was a fairly prolific author during the late 1930 and 1940s. These days he’s pretty much forgotten. So I was a little surprised to see “Invaders From the Stars” on the Retro Hugo ballot. After I read it, I further puzzled.

“Invaders From the Stars” was published in the January 1944 issue of Amazing Stories. Amazing has a reputation from this period of being a second tier pulp, with lots of purple prose and inferior writing.

“Invaders From the Stars” doesn’t help change that, although it’s not that bad. I just don’t think it’s nearly was well-written as any of the other stories on the Retro Hugo ballot. Given that the three remaining novellas are by Brackett, Kuttner, and Van Vogt, I don’t think that’s going to change.

The story isn’t bad, and the prose isn’t that purple. But this isn’t Rocklynne at his best. Here’s the setup. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “Killdozer!” by Theodore Sturgeon

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“Killdozer!” was first published in the November 1944 issue of Astounding.  There are two versions of this novella. It was revised when it was reprinted in Sturgeon’s collection Aliens 4.  The revised version is currently available in Killdozer!: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon Volume 3 and in Selected Stories. I’m not sure if the original is currently available. I don’t know what the differences are, and I’m not going to compare the two versions.

I originally read “Killdozer!” in Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 6.  I think it’s the original version. Asimov and Greenberg tended to reprint the original versions of any stories that had undergone later revision.  That was what I reread it in for this post. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: Final Thoughts on the Short Stories

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So just to recap, here is the shortlist in the short story category for the Retro Hugos:

  • “The Wedge”, Isaac Asimov (Astounding Science Fiction 10/44)
  • “I, Rocket”, Ray Bradbury (Amazing Stories 5/44)
  • “And the Gods Laughed”, Fredric Brown (Planet Stories Spring ’44)
  • “Desertion”, Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science Fiction 11/44)
  • “Huddling Place”, Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science Fiction 7/44)
  • “Far Centaurus”, A.E. van Vogt (Astounding Science Fiction 1/44)

Links are to the posts of the individual stories. While I enjoyed all of these stories and will probably reread them at some future date, I didn’t find them all equally good. This is simply my not so humble opinion; your mileage may vary.

“The Wedge” was the weakest of the stories here. In part, I think, that’s because it’s part of a bigger story arc. I suspect it’s on the final ballot in part due to the reputation of the Foundation series and the author. Ditto for the Bradbury minus the series angle. I could say the same about the two Simak stories as the Asimov except that these are in my mind the two strongest tales on the list.

As for the Brown and Van Vogt entries, they are both examples of their author’s best work at this length. I tend to favor the Brown a bit over the Van Vogt, but that might be because it was one of only two stories (the other being “I, Rocket”) that I hadn’t read before and was therefore fresher.

As for which which of the Simak I think was the strongest, that’s a tough call. I would probably go with “Huddling Place”, although I can easily convince myself that “Desertion” is the better of the two. Some I’m going to compromise and declare a tie.

And just a sidenote of possible interest.  DAW books began publishing a series of anthologies in somewhere around 1980 (I’m too lazy to look it up) entitled Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories. Each volume collected what Asimov , with the assistance of Martin H. Greenberg, considered the best stories of the year.  The first volume covered 1939, and the series ran for 24 volumes, with a 25th published by NESFA Press and edited by Robert Silverberg after Asimov’s death. The sixth volume covers 1944, the year of the current Retro Hugos.

That volume contains 13 stories, Eight of them are on the Retro Hugo ballot. One which isn’t is Leigh Brackett’s “The Veil of Astellar”, which should be on the novelette ballot. Don’t get me started. After the Retro Hugos have been awarded, I will probably reread the rest of the stories. I read this book in high school, and I don’t remember some of the stories.

I’ll start on the novellas I haven’t already covered in the next post. The story will be “Killdozer!” by Theodore Sturgeon. That story was revised for book publication, so I’m reading it in, you guessed it, The Great SF Stories 6,

Retro Hugos: “Desertion” by Clifford D. Simak

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This is the last post for the short story nominees on this year’s Retro Hugo ballot. “Desertion” was first published in the November 1944 issue of Astounding. It was later incorporated into City.  It is currently available in that book (in a slightly revised form) and in Earth for Inspiration in its original form.

“Desertion” is the fourth story in the City series.  I’ve looked at the first and second as they are both on the final ballot for the Retro Hugos. The third, “Census”, isn’t on the ballot, but I’ll talk about it when I review City later in the year.

“Desertion” is a brief story that packs a punch. Just so you know, there will be spoilers. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “Huddling Place” by Clifford D. Simak

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I honestly haven’t been ignoring these Retro Hugo posts.  I’ve just been swamped. Trying to coordinate labs for four different courses plus teach a lecture, all in online format, is a bit time consuming. I’ve been making videos of myself lecturing to empty rooms or collecting data for labs and posting the videos to YouTube. (No, I won’t provide links.) I read this story over a week ago. I’ve just been too brain dead to get it written. Since Worldcon is in two weeks, I doubt I’ll get all of the nominees read. But I’m going to give it the ol’ college try.

“Huddling Place” is the second story that made up the mosaic novel City. It was first published in the July 1944 issue of Astounding. It is currently available in City or No Life of Their Own.

The tale concerns Jerome A. Webster, now the patriarch of the Webster family following the death of his father. There’s not much of a family left. Just he and his son. A once proud and successful line is dying, with only their faithful robot servants to remember their achievements within a few more years.

Jerome has noticed something. Agoraphobia or something very much like it is starting to spread among mankind. It seems to hit people around middle age, a desire to stay home and not venture out. Continue reading →

Cave’s “Black Gargoyle”

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Pulpster Hugh B. Cave (1910-2004)  was born on this date, July 11. Cave wrote for a variety of pulps in the 1930s, including Black Mask and Weird Tales. He was prolific enough that he used multiple pen names, the most famous being Justin Case. He was a war correspondent during WWII. After the war he bought a coffee plantation in Jamaica. During this period his writing shifted from the pulps, which were fast on their way out, to writing for the slicks, primarily what would be called “women’s fiction” today and was considered romance at the time.

Karl Edward Wagner’s Carcosa published some of Cave’s stories from the horror and fantasy in Murgunstrumm and Others in the 1970’s. This opened the door to him returning to weird fiction. Cave was experiencing something of a renaissance in the early 2000’s, with collections of his pulp stories from Fedogan and Bremer and Ash-Tree Press, among others, in addition to a steady output of novels. He passed away shortly after his autobiography, Cave of a Thousand Tales, was published.

For his birthday, I read “The Black Gargoyle”. It was the cover story for the March 1934 issue of Weird Tales.   It is available in the collection of the same name. Continue reading →

Belated Birthday Wishes for Glen Cook

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Glen Cook

I’m not sure how I missed it, but yesterday, July 9, was the birthday of Glen Cook (b. 1944). His books include the Black Company series, the Dread Empire Series, and the Garrett, PI series.

Back when Conestoga was an active convention, and held at a time of year I could attend, he was always there. He had a booth in the dealer’s room, right on the left as you walked in the door. He was always friendly and approachable and ready to sign some books. I ended up with signed copies of most everything that was in print at the time.  Talking with him, buying books from him, and listening to what he had to say on panels was one of the highlights of the convention each year.

His series of novels about the Black Company, a band of mercenaries caught in a war between two evil sorcerers, was one of the first grimdark fantasies. I loved it. In fact, I’m reading one of the later ones, She Is the Darkness, right now.

If you’ve not read Cook, you should really give him a try. Start with, what else, The Black Company.

W. C. Morrow

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W. C. Morrow (1854-1923) was born on this date, July 7.  At one time a protege of Ambrose Bierce, Morrow wrote a handful of horror stories. The one he is best remembered for is “His Unconquerable Enemy”.

I remember the first time I read it: sitting in the middle of a gravel road out in the country.

Perhaps I should explain that. Continue reading →

A Pair by Price

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E. Hoffman Price

Pulpster E. Hoffman Price (1898-1998) was born on this date, July 3. Hoffman wrote in multiple genres. Wildside Press has published multiple Megapacks of his work. We’ll look at two stories from The 11th Golden Age of Weird Fiction Megapack: E. Hoffman Price.

Before I get to the stories, I want to gloat for a bit. Price was one of the authors published by Carcosa Press back in the 1970s.  Far Lands, Other Days was one of four published before Carcosa folded.

L. Sprague de Camp moved to Plano, a suburb of Dallas, a few years before he died. Upon his death, many of his books ended up in a the flagship location of Half Price Books. This was a big deal that was promoted by the bookstore.

Of course I went.  Most of the really desirable items were locked under glass, such as volumes inscribed to de Camp by people like Heinlein. Others, books that de Camp had owned, many with a signed bookplate, were on a set of shelves. Among them was a copy of Far Lands, Other Days. I had been wanting a copy and grabbed it.

After I got it home (I paid for it.), I was looking through it a bit more carefully than I had in the store and saw something I’d missed. The employee who had processed and priced the book had missed it, too. Understandable since it wasn’t on the title page. But there was a full page inscription to de Camp signed by Price. Continue reading →