Monthly Archives: August 2018

The Pre-Campbell Science Fiction Challenge

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John W. Campbell, Jr.

It  has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. With that in mind, I’m going to steal borrow an idea from Alexandru Constantin over at the Barbarian Book Club.  His challenge was to read three fantasy short stories published before The Lord of the Rings changed the landscape of fantasy.

I’m going to apply that idea to science fiction.

There can be little argument that when John W. Campbell, Jr. became editor of Astounding Stories (which later became Astounding Science Fiction) in 1938, he changed the field of science fiction forever.  Whether this was a good thing or a bad thing is certainly open to interpretation.  The accepted narrative for years has been that this was a completely good thing.  Campbell introduced scientific rigor and raised the literary standards by jettisoning many of the pulp tropes of mad scientists (usually with beautiful daughters for the hero to win) and scantily clad women being abducted by bug-eyed monsters.

Lately that narrative has been challenged.  Some writers have claimed that this wasn’t a good thing at all.  I’m not going to try to name them because I will invariably leave someone out and this isn’t intended to be a personal attack on anyone.  A few have even gone so far as to say Campbell ruined science fiction.

I’m not prepared to go that far.  I happen to like Campbellian science fiction, just as I like Tolkienesque fantasy.  I also happen to like science fiction from before Campbell, just as I like fantasy that predates Tolkien.  Much of the science fiction from the previous century hasn’t aged well, but that can be said of any genre.

But I do think these folks have a point.  Science fiction wasn’t the same after Campbell, and we lost some of  the energy and thrill that went with it.  Even Isaac Asimov, a Campbellian writer if there ever was one, admitted as much in his introduction to Before the Golden Age, his autobiographical anthology of pre-Campbellian science fiction.

With a tip of my space helmet to Alexandru Constantin, here’s what I’m proposing.

  • Read three short stories that are clearly science fiction.  The stories should be from before 1938, when Campbell took the reigns of Astounding.
  • Post a review on your blog, telling us why these stories should still be read.  Or not, as the case may be.  And post a link here in the comments so we can find your review.
  • You also need to tell us where you read them so anyone interested can track them down.

As I mentioned in my post at Adventures Fantastic last night, we’ve been told that the older stuff is racist, sexist, etc.  The pronouncement has also been made the science fiction has always been progressive.  I suggested a Schrodinger’s Cat explanation for how it can be both.  Here’s a chance to see what early science fiction was really like.

So that’s your assignment, class.  Get to it.

 

Running Dark

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Dark Run
Mike Brooks
Saga Press
Paperback $16.99
Ebook $7.99

This is space opera adventure the way it’s supposed to be done.

What’s that? Oh, you want details.

Okay.  Here’s the skinny.  Ichabod Drift is the captain of a tramp freighter, the Keiko, which does occasional side jobs, such as helping capture certain lawbreakers.  For a fee, of course.  When he and his crew aren’t breaking the law themselves, of course.  Or even when they are. Continue reading →

Richard Cowper’s Time Out of Mind

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Time Out of Mind
Richard Cowper

My local comic shop has a small selection of old paperbacks. I was poking around among them the other day.  There were several volumes by Richard Cowper (real name Colin Murray).  I’d seen copies in used book shops for decades but had never read one.

On something of a lark, I picked up Time Out of Mind.  With a gorgeous Don Maitz cover like that, how could I resist?  Plus it was only 175 pages.  Not anything I would end up investing a great deal of time on., so I was willing to give it a try.

It turned out to be a good investment.  Time Out of Mind was first published in the UK in 1973.  The US edition was published by Pocket Books in 1981.  The story shows its age in places.  The book opens in 1987, but most of the action takes place in the late 1990s.  Every now and then there’s a bit of outdated slang.  None of that was enough to put me off. Continue reading →

More Simak: “The Big Front Yard”

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The Big Front Yard
Clifford D. Simak
Open Road
Print $15.99 ($10.87 as of this writing)
Ebook $7.99 ($4.80 as of this writing)

“The Big Front Yard” was originally published in the October 1958 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.  It won the Hugo for Best Novelette the next year.  This is one of Simak’s best known and most reprinted stories.

Hiram Taine lives alone with his dog Towser in a house that’s been in his family for over a hundred years.  Located in a small village across the road from a wooded area, Hiram makes his living in the small town by repairing appliances and selling antiques.  When the story opens, Towser seems agitated about what Hiram at first thinks are mice under the floorboards.  They aren’t mice.  Hiram lets Towser out and tells him to leave the woodchuck across the road alone.  Only it turns out later that Towser isn’t trying to dig up a woodchuck.  What’s buried out in the woods is something much bigger, both in size and in importance. Continue reading →

Two Stories by Simak

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Grotto of the Dancing Deer
Clifford D. Simak
Open Road
ebook $4.99

Yesterday was Cliff Simak’s birthday.  I read the first two stories in this collection to honor his memory and his work.  Grotto of the Dancing Deer is volume four of The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak.  There is no print edition.  I’d read both of these stories years ago in the collection from Tachyon entitled Over the River and Through the Woods. Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, Clifford D. Simak

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Cifford D. Simak was born on this date, August 3, in 1904.  He passed away in April of 1988.

Simak was one of the great science fiction writers of the Twentieth Century.  Among his awards were three Hugos (“The Big Front Yard”, Way Station, “Grotto of the Dancing Deer”) and a Nebula (“Grotto of the Dancing Deer”).  He was the third SFWA Grandmaster after Robert Heinlein and Jack Williamson.  Simak, Fritz Leiber, and Frank Belknap Long were all awarded the inaugural Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.  Not too shabby.

Simak has frequently been called the pastoralist of science fiction.  Many of his works are set in rural areas of his home state of Wisconsin.  Robots, time travel, and the nature of God were often themes in his work.  Although he is best remembered as a science fiction author, Simak also wrote fantasy, westerns, and war stories.  A newspaper man by trade, Simak also wrote a handful of science books in the 60s and early 70s.

Unfortunately, as often happens these when a writer dies, his work soon fell out of print.  For years the only place to buy his work was in used books stores.  I’m glad to say that isn’t the case anymore.  Open Road is bringing back all of Simak’s work, including his complete short fiction.  Early Bird books often has electronic editions on sale for $1.99.  You have to act fast, though.  These sales only last 24 hours.

If you’ve not read Simak, you should give him a try.  I’ll be lifting a glass in his memory and reading one of his short stories