Monthly Archives: April 2020

Happy Birthday, Larry Niven

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Larry Niven was born on this date, April 30, in 1938.  I’m doing it again, breaking my pattern of focusing on dead writers to do a birthday post on one who is still alive.

Niven has written some of the milestones of the field, particularly Ringworld. Today I want to take a quick look at a short story that takes place early in the Known Space series, a future history of which Ringworld is a part.

One of the things Niven focused on in his early writings was organlegging, the illegal harvesting and transplanting of human organs. In Niven’s future, the death penalty is expanded to encompass all manner of trivial crimes, in the interest of saving a life. Continue reading →

Jack Williamson’s “Dead Star Station”

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Jack Williamson

Jack Williamson (1908-2006) was one of the greatest science fiction writers of the 20th Century, and I would argue he was at least as important as Heinlein or Asimov.  The reason Williamson might not be as well known as he should be is because he was quieter than the other two.  His ideas, though, they were the things other writers built upon.

The Williamson Lectureship was postponed  until later in the year.  It would have taken place the first weekend of this month (April).  If it’s been canceled, I don’t want to know right now.

But I digress. Jack Williamson was born on this date, April 29.  He was one of the first science fiction writers I ever read.  I picked up stripped copy of The Best of Jack Williamson at a flea market bookstore for a quarter, not realizing at the time that the book had technically been stolen.  I was in 7th grade.  I won’t say what year that was.  (I can too remember the year! It was the winter of…ha, I see what you did there.) I’ll just say that the paperback was still in print at the time.  I’ve since upgraded my copy to one, well,… several, actually, with a cover. Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, Jack McDevitt

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Today, April 14, is Jack McDevitt’s birthday.  He’s 85 today.  I normally reserve these birthday posts for writers, artists, and editors who are no longer with us.  But I make the occasional exception. Mr. McDevitt is one of those.  He’s among the few authors I always buy in hardcover from trade publishers.

I’ve had t he privilege of meeting him at least three different times, although not recently. He is a consummate gentleman. Jack is open, friendly, and easy to talk to.

He writes science fiction in what would probably be considered the classic vein. There’s a reason he’s a multiple award winner.  If you haven’t read him, I suggest you do yourself a favor and do so.  Start with A Talent for War (the Alex Benedict series), or The Engines of God (the Academy/ Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchison series), or some of the short stories, the most recent collection being A Voice in the Night.

Happy birthday, Jack!

Kuttner’s “Endowment Policy”

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Henry Kuttner

Henry Kuttner (1915-1958) was born today, April 7.  He, both alone and in collaboration with his wife C. L. Moore, was one of the most prolific authors of the 1940s. One of the things he excelled at was time travel.  Over the next week or two I’m going to be looking at some of his time travel stories.  The one today is available in an ebook, but some of the others won’t be as easy to obtain.

Before going further, I want to address one thing, and that’s who wrote what in Kuttner and Moore’s collaborations.  By Moore’s own admission, they tended to work seamlessly together.  She said that at times the only way they could tell who had written what was by a few variations in how they spelled certain words.  So anything written with either by-line after their marriage in 1940 was to a lesser or greater degree a collaboration.  Often their work was published under pseudonyms, the two most common being Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O’Donnell.  I looked at one of their science-fantasy works over at Adventures Fantastic. Continue reading →

Weinbaum’s “The Mad Moon”

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Stanley G. Weinbaum

Stanley G. Weinbaum (1902-1935) had a brief career as a science fiction writer before his untimely death, but he had an influence that has lasted decades. He was born today, April 4.  It’s been a couple of years since I looked at any of his work.

Weinbaum set many of his stories in a solar system where most of the moons and planets supported life.  That wasn’t anything unusual at the time.  Weinbaum had stories published from 1935-1938.  What was unusual was that Weinbaum’s aliens were often truly alien, such as Tweel from “A Martian Odyssey”, his most famous story.  The stereotypical monsters weren’t his thing.

One of the things that made much of Weinbaum’s work stand out was a sense of humor.  For example, “The Mad Moon”. Continue reading →