Monthly Archives: December 2013

We Need More Hillbillies Like the Hogbens

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hbc_posterThe Hogben Chronicles
Henry Kuttner
edited by Pierce Watters and F. Paul Wilson
introduction by Neil Gaiman
Borderlands Press
Signed and numbered limited edition, $50
Leatherbound lettered and traycased edition (signed) $100
Poster of the dust jacket $10 (shown left)

 

If you’re a fan of Henry Kuttner and you missed out on the Kickstarter for this one, all I can say is sucks to be you, ahem, excuse me, read ’em and weep I mean, that’s too bad.  You could have had this volume (minus the signatures) for a song.

The stories in The Hogben Chronicles were in all probability written in collaboration with Kuttner’s wife C. L. Moore. Two of them (“Exit the Professor” and “See You Later”) were published as by Lewis Padgett, the best-known of their pen names. The only thing I can find wrong with them is that there are only five. Continue reading →

Merry Christmas

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Astounding ChristmasEmsh ChristmasGalaxy Christmasgalaxy Christmas Emsh

 

Merry Christmas to all, whatever race you belong to or planet you hail from.  I thought I would provide a few examples of Christmas as seen through the covers of some vintage science fiction magazines.

The Astounding is the January 1955 issue, with a cover by Frank Kelly Freas.  John W. Campbell Jr. published a number of Christmas covers during his tenure as editor.

Ed Emshwiller, who often signed his work Emsh, was the artist for the image in the upper right as well as the Galaxy cover from 1953.  The artist for the December 1960 Galaxy was Ross Rosenberger.  I’m not familiar with his work.  Galaxy ran a whole series of Christmas covers featuring the four-armed Santa in the 1950s.

I really like these covers because, like many sf magazine covers from the 1950s, they have a sense of whimsy about them.  In many ways they show contemporary scenes in a science fiction settings, such as the aliens spying on Santa and Santa receiving the alien carolers.

One of the memories I have about Christmas while in middle school and high school was the science fiction paperbacks I received as Christmas presents, many of them anthologies containing stories from these magazines.  The Christmas breaks were when I had plenty of time on my hands with no homework and could get a lot of reading done.

Have a Merry Christmas, everyone.

Different Christmas posts are up at Adventures Fantastic, Dispatches From the Lone Star Front, and Gumshoes, Gats, and Gams.