Monthly Archives: July 2020

C. M. Kornbluth Educates Tigress McCardle

Cyril Kornbluth (1923-1958) was born on this date, July 23. He died of a heart attack. Had he lived, he probably would have become the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Kornbluth was extremely cynical, something that was quite obvious from his work. But he also had a great sense of humor. An excellent example is the story I read in honor of his birth, “The Education of Tigress McCardle”. It was first published in the July 1957 issue of Venture Science Fiction Magazine. I have no idea why it wasn’t included in The Best of C. M. Kornbluth. It is one of his best.

There are several things going on in this story. Some rube who talks like a hick has been elected president, and the Constitution has been changed to make him king. Meanwhile, a Chinese merchant on the West Coast has decided it’s time to revive the Yellow Peril and reinvents himself as the new Fu Manchu. He manages to get a parental licensing measure implemented and makes the king think it’s his idea.

This is all backstory. Continue reading →

Thoughts on Robert Sheckley

Robert Sheckley (1928-2005) was born on this date, July 16. Sheckley worked at all lengths, but he is probably best remembered for his short stories. They tended to be witty and satirical.

I’m not going to review a story because I’ve spent most of the day getting an online exam ready and trying to calm some nervous students. Not that I blame them. Summer classes move fast, this course is challenging in a normal semester, and the online format isn’t helping. I haven’t had time to read one.

In spite of that, I want to make note of the occasion. Sheckley was an important writer who deserves to be remembered.

I was fortunate enough to meet him the year he died. He was a guest at ConDFW in February of that year. This was only a few weeks before he traveled to the Ukraine and fell ill. After returning home, he died in December.

I remember sitting around a table in a small conference room where he read one of his stories. There couldn’t have been more than a dozen of us in the room. I was rather surprised there weren’t more people there. He’d recently had a story published in an anthology, which he was gracious enough to sign for me along with a couple of collections I had brought with me.

The Ebb and Flow of Empire” The Van Rijn Method Part 1

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I’ve been rereading Poul Anderson’s future history, beginning at the beginning. This series is sometimes call the Technic Future history. The name comes from the Polesotechnic League, which is the first interstellar government, although it’s more of a league of intergalactic traders and merchants. Baen has collected all the stories in order of internal chronology. The first volume is called The Van Rijn Method.

This series has to main subseries. The first concerns the trader Nicholas Van Rijn (rhymes with “line”) and his protege David Falkayn. The second subseries deals with Dominic Flandry, who is an agent trying to stave off the fall of the Galactic Empire, even though he knows it will be ultimately futile. Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, Heinlein

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Robert A. Heinlein

Today, July 7, is the birthday of Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988). It’s become fashionable to slam him now that he isn’t around to defend himself. It seems the words of Marc Antony still are true “The evil men do live after them; the good is oft interred with their bones” (Julius Caesar, Act III, scene 2, lines 3-4).

Granted there are some Heinlein works I have no intention of rereading or even reading in the first place, but there is no denying he cast a long shadow over the genre. When you still have detractors over thirty years after your death, you have had an impact. Continue reading →