Category Archives: birthday

Being Faithful to Old Raymond Z. Gallun

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Raymond Z. Gallun

Raymond Z. Gallun (rhymes with “balloon”; his family was Dutch) was born on this date, January 22, in 1911.  Gallun passed away in 1994.)

This post is going to serve triple duty.  First, it’s a birthday post. Second, it’s going to be a 90th Anniversary of Astounding post. Third, it’s also a pre-Campbell SF post.

Gallun  is largely forgotten now, but he was pretty prolific from 1929 through the early fifties. If he is remembered at all, it’s for his story “Old Faithful”, which was first published in the December 1934 issue of Astounding. Continue reading →

Katherine MacLean and “The Trouble with You Earth People”

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Today, January 22, is the birthday of Katheirne MacLean (1925-2019). She was most active during the 1950s, although she continued to publish occasionally up through the late 1990s.

What’s that, you say? You didn’t know women wrote science fiction back in those days? I thought I’d dealt with that myth already.

I’ve not read much of her work, just a few stories in anthologies,mostly in high school or undergrad. She specialized in anthropological science fiction. Let’s look at one of her stories. Continue reading →

Algis Budrys Isn’t Bothering Gus

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“Nobody Bothers Gus”
First published in Astounding, November 1955 as by Paul Janvier

Algis Budrys was born on this date, January 9, in 1931. He passed away in 2008.

Budrys was was a prolific short story writer in the 1950’s, with many of his stories appearing in Astounding.  So this post is doing double duty as a birthday post and an Astounding/Analog 90th anniversary post. Continue reading →

Astounding/Analog 90th Anniversary: F. Orlin Tremaine

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Editor F. Orlin Tremaine was born on this date, January 7, 1899. He passed away at the age of 57 in 1956.  Tremaine worked at the Clayton pulp company, although he had no editorial duties with Astounding.  He left to pursue other publishing ventures which didn’t pan out and returned to Clayton in 1932. When Clayton went belly-up, Street and Smith bought the company. It was this time Tremaine was editing responsibilities for Astounding along with other titles. Tremaine edited Astounding from 1932 until late 1937, at which time he hired John W. Campbell, Jr to edit the magazine. Tremaine was promoted to Editorial Director.

Among the authors Tremaine published were H. P. Lovecraft (At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time), L. Sprague de Camp, Raymond Z. Gallun, Jack Williamson, Murray Leinster, and Eric Frank Russell. Oh, and some guy named Campbell.

Eric Frank Russell’s “Hobbyist”

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This is another post that’s going to do double duty as a birthday post and an Astounding anniversary post.  It’s also going to be out of order in respect to the ToC.

Eric Frank Russell was born on this date, January 6, in 1905. He passed away in 1978. Russell was British, and although he was well-known in the US during his lifetime, he has sadly slipped into obscurity these days.  None of his short fiction is in print in electronic format in the US.  Only the NESFA collection Major Ingredients is in print.  His novels are doing a little better, with several being available in print and electronic formats. Continue reading →

“Nightfall” and Isaac Asimov’s Centennial

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Today, January 2, marks the centennial of the birth of Isaac Asimov (1920-1992). I’m going to try to read/reread some of his major works this year. I read a lot of Asimov in middle school and high school, but I not much after I got my undergraduate degree.

Like him or hate him, there is no denying that Isaac Asimov was one of the most influential science fiction authors of the 20th Century.

I also am reading through The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology right now.   (See this post.) In addition to this being a birthday post, it will also be Part 2 of that read-through. Continue reading →

Alfred Bester on Time Travel

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Alfred Bester

Alfred Bester was born on this date, December 18, 1913. He passed away in 1987.  He’s best remembered for the novels The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man.  He started out writing short fiction and for comics, and along with his novels  his short fiction is some of the most innovative the field has seen.  See my review of “Fondly Fahrenheit” for an example.

Today I want to look at “The Men who Murdered Mohammed“, a time travel tale that has had a lasting impact on the field.  Told with wit and cheek, it’s the story of a brilliant scientist who comes home to discover his wife in the arms of another man. He wants revenge, so what does he do? Tell his secretary Maria to take a letter? No. Confront them then and there? No.  He builds a time machine and goes back to kill her grandfather before he married and had children. Continue reading →

Schmitz and Tubb

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Today, October 15, marks the birthdays of two writers of adventure oriented science fiction.

The first is James H. Schmitz (1911-1981).  Most, but not all, of Schmitz’s work is set in the Hub.  There are several recurring characters, including Telzey Amberdon, a telepathic young woman, and Trigger Argee, a special agent.  Both of these ladies appeared in solo stories as well as shared adventures.  These stories are a lot of fun.  There are also a number of stand alone stories set in the Hub that don’t have recurring characters.  Baen reprinted all (or almost all, there may have been one or two stories they couldn’t get the rights to) about 17 or 18 years ago.  Outside the Hub, Schmitz’s best known works are The Witches of Karres and the Agent of Vega stories.

One of Schmitz’s strengths are his ecosystems and his monsters.  They are some of the most intriguing I’ve seen in science fiction.  It’s been a number of years since I read Schmitz, but his work was always fun.  I need to revisit them when I get a minute (which won’t be before the semester is over).  The threats were serious, but his stories weren’t bleak or nihilistic like so much contemporary fiction is.  One thing that stood out was many of Schmitz’s protagonists had families, and this dynamic added to the depth of the characters and world-building.  His heroes and heroines weren’t all loners. They would be suitable to give to younger readers, as they don’t have any graphic sex or violence.

The other person born today that I want to recognize is E. C. Tubb (1919-2010).  Although he wrote other characters and series, he’s best known for the Dumarest of Terra series, which ran to over thirty volumes.  The premise is Earl Dumarest is seeking the planet of his birth, a mythical place called Earth. Each book involves him finding a bit more information.  There’s also a secretive organization trying to stop him. I’ve only read the first one, and that was longer than I want to admit in public.  I enjoyed it and have always intended to read more.  I’m not sure how some of the later books hold up.  I’ve heard various opinions on whether the series went too long.  I’m hoping to reread the first and work some of the others into the queue over the next year.

Saying “Farewell to the Master”

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“Farewell to the Master”
Harry Bates
The Day the Earth Stood Still

Harry Bates was the first editor of Astounding Stories of Super-Science, known as Analog today.  He was born on this date, October 9, in 1900.

Astounding Stories of Super-Science was the second science fiction pulp, intended as a competitor of Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories.  Bates is credited with infusing a sense of action and adventure into the field, in contrast to the stuffy, intellectual type of story favored by Gernsback.  I’m going to have to read some of those stories and report back. Continue reading →