Category Archives: Astounding Science Fiction

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: “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 →

Retro Hugos: “The Wedge” by Issac Asimov

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“The Wedge” was originally published in the October 1944 issue of Astounding.  It’s a Foundation story and was reprinted as “The Traders” when the stories were collected in book form. It was published after “The Big and the Little” but placed before that story (as “The Merchant Princes”).

I thought this was a fairly weak story. A trader gets an emergency message instructing him to go to a particular planet where another trader has gotten himself in trouble with the local potentate.

The trader who is in trouble is actually an agent of the Foundation, and the protagonist knows this. The Foundation has been trying to gain influence and power two ways. With missionaries of the religion the Foundation has set up and through agents who act as traders.

The agent in trouble has violated a ban on nuclear power.  Many of the star systems have reverted to a pre-atomic level of technology since the Empire pulled back from the edge of the galaxy.

The trader uses entrapment to bring about a a change in the policy by blackmailing his main opponent. The story was worked out logically and held my interest, but it is the weakest of the Retro Hugo stories I’ve read so far.

Retro Hugos: “Trog” by Murray Leinster

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Today, June 16, is the birthday of Murray Leinster (1896-1975).  I was going to cover the novellas on the Retro Hugo ballot after I read the short stories, but with Leinster’s birthday today, I’m going to cover this one.

Leinster was a prolific author in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. He won the Hugo Award in 1956 for “Exploration Team”. At his best, Leinster had few peers. He was the author of such classics as “First Contact” and “Sidewise in Time”, for which the Sidewise Award is named. He anticipated the internet in “A Logic Named Joe”. I wonder if Al Gore read that one before he invented the internet.

“Trog” appeared in the June 1944 issue of Astounding. It has never been reprinted. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “No Woman Born” by C. L. Moore

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This is the second to last Retro Hugo post on the novelette category and the last of the stories.  I’ll do a summary post on the novelettes before moving on to the short stories.

“No Woman Born” was first published in the December 1944 issue of Astounding. It is the story of a dancer and singer named Deidre who has been badly burned  in a fire. The story opens a year later, when everyone thinks she is dead.

Only she isn’t dead. Her brain has been transplanted in a robot body by a man named Maltzer. Her press agent, Harris, is the only other person in on it. Her new body is human in shape, but instead of having joints, her limbs are flexible metal rings. This allows her to move in a much more sinuous way than she could before the fire. Entirely new dance forms are possible with her new body. She can also modulate her voice so that it sounds exactly the way it did, husky and distinct. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “The Big and the Little”

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“The Big and the Little” was originally published in the August 1944 issue of Astounding. This is a Foundation story. It was published before “The Wedge” (10/44) but was placed after it when the stories were collected in book form.

There is a bit more substance to this story than there is to “The Wedge”, which I’ll review when I get to the short story nominees. A trader who was born on Smyrno (rather than Terminus, the location of the Foundation) is given the task of investigating the disappearance of ships in the Republic of Korell.

Spoilers Ahead Continue reading →

Campbell and Wilhelm

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Today I want to look at two writers who did much to advance the field of science fiction. John W. Campbell, Jr. (1910-1971) is best remembered as an editor, but before he became an editor, he was first a writer.  Kate Wilhelm was one of the strongest female voices in science fiction. Her work should not be forgotten. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “When the Bow Breaks” by Lewis Padgett

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Anyone who hangs out around here for any length of time and doesn’t know that Lewis Padgett is one the the pen names used by Henry Kuttner and his wife C. L. Moore clearly hasn’t been paying attention.  Written under the Lewis Padgett by-line, “When the Bough Breaks” was first published in the November 1944 issue of Astounding.

The spring before I started high school, my parents gave permission for me to join the Science Fiction Book Club. So I had a source of hardcover science fiction and fantasy to read that summer.  This was in the days before science fiction was regularly published in hardcover. Most books were mass market paperbacks.

At the time, the SFBC offered a number of titles from Ballantine’s Best of series. This was a way I could discover new writers, and I took full advantage of it.  I mean, if these writers weren’t good, why was there a volume entitled The Best of followed by their names? I was making money mowing lawns, so I had the funds to afford to buy some books. I was already familiar with the series because I had found The Best of Jack Williamson at a flea market about eighteen months earlier, and I bought every one the SFBC offered at the time.  (For some reason, they never offered The Best of C. L. Moore while I was a member, although they had published such a volume a year or three earlier.) Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “City” by Clifford D. Simak

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Published in the May 1944 issue of Astounding, “City” launched the series that was later collected in book form under that title.  Although I read it last year in The Ghost of a Model T, I reread it for this series.

The story takes place in what would have been considered the relatively near future, although it would certainly be considered our past. It’s set in 1990.

Cities have mostly been abandoned, with the bulk of the population moving out to country estates. Most neighborhoods have been abandoned, with only a few holdouts of the originals residents remaining. Farming is all done by hydroponics now. So the farmers have moved into the abandoned houses. They live a subsistence life by hunting, small gardening, and scavenging. Continue reading →