Author Archives: Keith West

Heinlein’s Birthday

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Today, July 7, marks the 115th birthday of one of the most influential science fiction writers of the 20th Century. I’m talking, of course, about Robert A. Heinlein.

Last year (or was it early this year? times flies whether you’re having fun or not), I set out to read (or reread in most cases) the Heinlein juveniles in order of publication. The intention was to blog about them. I’d written the first post in this series a number of years ago, on The Rocketship Galileo, but life got in the way, and I never went past the first post.

I was trying to either reread or read for the first time a number of works by my favorite classic authors, and Heinlein was one of them. (Asimov, Anderson, Herbert, Varley, and Williamson were among the others.) I was partly successful.

Things have been hectic the last few months, but they should slow down by the end of the summer, and I’ll try to get started on some of the Heinlein juvenile posts. No promises at this point, though. I do want to give a quick shout-out to Heinlein, though. It was his novels in the libraries of the junior I attended in 7th grade and the middle school in 8th grade that really had an impact on me. Not all of them were juveniles, but many were.

Asimov’s Ugly Little Boy

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I’m going to revise this blog, which has been dormant for a while, and what better way to start than with an Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) story on his birthday. Asimov is one of the classic authors whose work I want to either reread or read for the first time this year.

I read quite a bit of Asimov when I was in middle school and high school and have dipped into his work from time to time since then. I read the Foundation and robot stories, several of the collections (Nightfall, The Bicentennial Man, The Early Asimov, and I think Buy Jupiter) and a couple of the early novels. There’s still a good bit of his work I haven’t read. Plus, it’s been so long since I read most of the above, it will almost be like coming to those works new. Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, Heinlein

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Today, July 7, is the birthday of Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988). He was one of the most influential science fiction writers of the previous century.

It’s become fashionable to hate on Heinlein these days. Many of his ideas aren’t currently in vogue, and he’s been called “racist as f***.”

I don’t agree with all of the positions he held, and there are some of his works I haven’t liked and one or two I’ve detested. But for the most part, I really got into his stuff. I certainly don’t agree with some of his critics. Continue reading →

Sheffield and Lawyers

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Today, June 25, is the birthday of Charles Sheffield (1935-2002). Sheffield combined hard science with a sense of wonder and an ability to create unique and fascinating characters. He was adept at both shorter and novel lengths.  It’s a shame that’s he’s falling into obscurity. Not all of his short fiction has been collected, and I would love for someone to publish a definitive collection.

In addition to writing some pretty serious stuff, he could also do humor. Today’s story being a good example. Continue reading →

Two by Leinster

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Today, June 16, is the birthday of Will F. Jenkins, better known as Murray Leinster (1896-1975). Once known as the Dean of Science Fiction, Leinster has faded into obscurity these days. Which is a shame, because he was a fine writer, at least at shorter lengths.

Today I want to look at two stories. Both can be found in First Contacts: The Essential Murray Leinster.

The first is “Sidewise in Time.” The Sidewise Award for best alternate history story is named after this story. Timelines begin to intermingle, causing all kinds of havoc. A math professor at a small backwater college calls them fault lines and has figures out how long they will continue. He takes a group of seven undergraduates (three men and four women, one of whom he wants for himself) on horseback to explore a sequoia forest outside of town. He’s planned this carefully, filing the saddle bags with food, weapons, and books they will need. He plans to find a timeline where they can take over and become rulers. He didn’t ask the students if they were interested in taking over a world.

This story blew my mind when I read it at the impressionable age of 12 or 13 in a book I checked out from the junior high library (Worlds of Maybe, edited by Robert Silverberg). This was at least the fourth time I’d read it. One of the things I like about it is that Leinster shows what other things are happening to different people who cross these faults, and he is able to establish characters in just a few paragraphs. The scene where a cohort of Roman soldiers march down a suburban street and behead the driver that honks at them has stayed with me for years, as has the part where a farmer standing in front of a jungle where his crops used to be is eaten when a mouth at the end of a long neck extends from the jungle.

“Sidewise in Time” is a classic that is very much worth reading. Will the professor end up with the undergraduate he wants? Will he end up with someone else? Read the story and find out.

The other story is “The Strange Case of John Kingman”. A psychiatrist at mental institution wants to try a new treatment. When he goes to examine the file on the patient he has selected, he’s in for a shock. The story is set in 1948, the year it was written, The patient was admitted in the late 1700’s. There are also some other things strange about the patient. He has six fingers. His body temperature is about 105. He has two hearts. And he can draw diagrams of things that are beyond the level of 1948 technology

This is a story about being too greedy for knowledge. It takes the idea of an alien stranded and does something different with it.

Leinster is worth reading. Check him out.

Living in Chad Oliver’s House

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Chad Oliver in the 1950’s.

Today, March 30, is the birthday of Chad Oliver (1928-1993). Oliver didn’t leave a large body of work. He pursued an academic career in anthropology. And it’s this back ground that made his best work stand out.

I met him briefly a year or three before his death at one of the first Armadillocons I attended. He was friendly and outgoing.

Today’s story is “Let me Live in a House”, which was first published in the March 1954 issue of Universe Science Fiction. It is currently available in Far From This Earth Selected Stories of Chad Oliver Volume 2. It is available in electronic form, and I think the NESFA hardcover edition is still in print.

In this story two couples are living next door to each other in cottages with green lawns and picket fences. On Ganymede.

They’re part of a project to show people can adapt to space exploration. The central character, Gordon, wants the project to succeed, but there is a lot of resistance on Earth to the idea of space travel .

Then an alien arrives. Or does he? I found the ending a little ambiguous. Did Gordon and the others crack up and imagine there was an alien? I think there was, but Oliver left just enough doubt in my mind.

I’ll be reading more of Chad Oliver in the future.

Piper’s “Police Operation”

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Today, March 23, marks the birth of H. Beam Piper (1904-1964). I’ve been a fan of Piper’s since I read his future history stories, of which the Fuzzy novels are a part, when I was in high school, way back in [REDACTED].

Piper drew heavily from history in much of his science fiction. It adds a great deal of depth to this future history. Reading his work was one of the things that helped kindle my interest in history.

I have a confession to make. While I’ve read most of Piper’s work, I’ve never read any of his Paratime stories. They’ve been on my radar. I just have never gotten to them. Continue reading →

James Gunn’s The Listeners

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The post the other day about James Gunn motivated me to read some of his work. I started with The Listeners. I had a copy in my office at work that I had picked up at a Friends of the Library sale. I quite enjoyed it.

The premise is that a program is begun that listens for signals from another solar system. I thought the way the signals were confirmed to be from an intelligent species was extremely clever.

This isn’t an adventure novel. Rather it’s one that tries to extrapolate one possible way a listening program might play out. (The Listeners was written before SETI began.) It’s a patch-up novel of a series of novelettes that were published in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It deals with how the people working on the project would be affected by it and how society, religion, and politics are impacted once a signal from another star system is identified. Funding cuts, petty jealousies, and political agendas are present in all their ugliness. In spite of the fact that portions of this novel were written over half a century ago, the whole thing felt fresh and contemporary. Even if historical events and technology have made some of the details obsolete, The Listeners is very much a book that has something to say to us today.

This is a thoughtful, hopeful, and in some ways depressing book, especially the last section. But it’s a good book. It was interesting to see Gunn’s speculations about a listening program. It’s not long. You can read it in an evening or two. Check it out.

Ron Goulart Has a Screw Loose

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Today, January 13, is the birthday of Ron Goulart (b. 1933). Beyond the occasional short story, Goulart hasn’t been very active in the field for quite some time, and that’s a shame. He seems to be focusing his energies on mysteries. I’ve not read much Goulart, but what i have read has been fun. He tends to have a somewhat whacky sense of humor.

Case in point, “What’s Become of Screwloose?” First published in the July-August 1970 issue of Worlds of If, this story has one of the most unusual openings of any story I’ve ever read.

Tom is a private detective working a missing persons case. He’s in the beach house owned by the missing woman, Mary, when the dishwasher attacks and tries to kill him. He manages to lure the dishwasher outside, where it breaks through the railing on the deck and falls into the ocean. The last he sees of it, the dishwasher is swimming out to sea.

“What’s Become of Screwloose?” was a fun little story involving a murder, a woman regaining her memory, and a sinister android tutor named Screwloose.

“What’s Become of Screwloose?” was the title story of a collection of the same name. I’ll be reading more of Goulart’s work in the future.

The Ebb and Flow of Empire: David Falkayn: Star Trader

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David Falkayn: Star Trader
Baen Books
ebook $6.99
Mass market paperback $7.99

This is volume 2 of the Technic Civilization Saga. The first four stories in the book are novellas: “Territory”, “The Trouble Twisters”, “Day of Burning”, and “The Master Key”. The first and fourth stories concern Nicholas van Rijn, but the middle two involve David Falkayn and his crew Chee Lan and Adzel. Chee Lan resembles a furry primate, while Adzel is a pacifist who looks like a dragon.

In “Territory”, van Rijn has to survive on an alien world when the aliens turn decidedly unfriendly.  In “The Master Key”, he solves a problem on an alien world without getting out of his chair. Falkayn and company find themselves in the middle of a power struggle when he rescues a damsel in distress.

“Day of Burning” is of particular interest here. Falkayn and his crew are trying to save as many inhabitants of a planet that will soon be victim of a nearby supernova. That planet is Merseia. Centuries later, Dominic Flandry will wish Falkayn hadn’t done such a good deed. The Merseians will become humanity’s greatest enemies.

Other than “Day of Burning”, there aren’t any standout stories in terms of long term historical impact in Anderson’s future history. Things are fairly stable as far as galactic government goes. That’s okay, though. All four stories are good, old-fashioned space adventures with well-constructed societies and alien cultures. They are a lot of fun and worth reading.

The rest of the book contains the novel Satan’s World and two shorter pieces. I’ll take a look at those soon.