Category Archives: birthday

Frank Herbert vs. Isaac Asimov

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Frank Herbert

Today (October 8) marks the birth of Frank Herbert (1920-1986).  Herbert wrote a number of novels and short stories, but he will always be known as the author of Dune.  Dune was originally serialized in Analog (formerly Astounding) starting in December 1963.  It was published in book form in 1965.  The original publisher was Chilton.  You know, the one that does the auto manuals.

Dune is set in a galactic empire, which is of course ruled by an Emperor.  Herbert wrote a number of sequels, and his son Brian has coauthored additional sequels and prequels with Kevin J. Anderson.

John W. Campbell, Jr.

Herbert wasn’t the first, nor was he the last, to use a galactic empire in a work of science fiction.  One of the most prominent people to do the same was Isaac Asimov (who also wasn’t the first).  Asimov started his Foundation series in the pages of Astounding roughly two decades earlier.  It’s interesting to note that John W. Campbell was the editor for the original appearances of both series.  I’m not going to go there in this post, because that sounds like a Ph.D. dissertation in Literature.

While comparisons have been made between the Dune series and Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Asimov intentionally patterned the Foundation stories after Gibbon’s work.  Several novels were set in the same universe before the time of the Foundation. Asimov would later go on to write additional novels in the last decade of his life and tie the series in with his robot stories, both the short stories concerning Susan Calvin and the detective novels starring Elijah Bailey and R. Daneel Olivaw.  There were also a few sequels coauthored and/or authored by other writers.

Isaac Asimov

Both Asimov and Herbert have been dead for a number of years.  The influence of these two works has been tremendous.  If you go into any bookstore today, most of the books by Asimov will be from the Foundation series, and most of the books by Herbert will be from the Dune series.  Few, if any, of the titles you find by these authors will be outside these series.

Dune seems to be the more popular of the two at the moment, in part because new Dune titles are regularly being published, and also because there’s another film in the works.  Foundation seems to be languishing a bit in comparison.

I read all the Foundation books Asimov wrote, although not all the galactic empire novels and none of the sequels.  I’ve only read the original Dune.  Dune Messiah and Children of Dune are in the TBR pile.  I intend to reread Dune later this year; I first read it about 15 years ago.  I read the original Foundation Trilogy…much longer ago than that, like in high school.

So I’m toying with the idea of reading the first three Dune books and the original Foundation Trilogy.  This will be over the next year or three.  I’ve got some other things to get through first.  It will be interesting to see how they have stood the test of time from when I was younger.

As for what prompted this idea, well, that’s the topic of an upcoming post.

 

A Look at Wollheim (Don, That is)

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Donald A. Wollheim was born on this date, October 1, in 1914.  Although he wrote some fiction for the pulps, his greatest impact was as an editor, first at Avon, then Ace, and finally under his own label at DAW books.

Wollheim was responsible for bringing Edgar Rice Burroughs back into print, publishing Tolkien in paperback, and played a significant role in the emergence of mass market paperbacks and paperback anthologies.

He did like pulp, and DAW’s line until the time of his death reflected that.  He published early work by such authors as C. J. Cherryh, Jo Clayton, and Brian Stableford.  He also published some things that were rather controversial, such as John Norman’s Gor books.

Below is a sampling of some of the titles he published.

Simak’s “All the Traps of Earth”

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“All the Traps of Earth”
Clifford D. Simak
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1960
Currently available in I am Crying All Inside: The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak Volume One and Space Pioneers edited by Hank Davis and Christopher Ruocchio

Today, August 3, would have been Clifford D. Simak’s 115th birthday.  Simak (1904-1988) wrote some of the best science fiction of the 20th Century.  One of the themes he returned to, and it’s a theme in this story, is robots and their role in society.

When people talk about robots in science fiction, the name of Isaac Asimov naturally comes up.  Simak might be mentioned if the people talking are well-read.  Between the two, I prefer Simak’s robots to Asimov’s, although I very much enjoy Asimov’s robots.  The difference, I think, is that Asimov’s robots tend to be cold and calculating, while Simak’s are more, well, human.  Case in point, “All the Traps of Earth”. Continue reading →

Remembering Charles Sheffield

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Charles Sheffield was born in England on this day, June 25, in 1935.  He passed away in 2002.  Sheffield was one of my favorite writers when I was in high school, college, and graduate school.  A scientist, Sheffield wrote science fiction of the “hard science” variety, but with characters who were living, breathing human beings.  They weren’t from Central Casting.  He began his writing career after the death of his first wife in the late 70’s.  By this time he was laready living in the United States.

Sheffield was adept at both long and short forms.  He wrote several series, as well as stand-alone novels, such as Godspeed, which has been described as the book we would have gotten had Robert Heinlein written Treasure Island.  Most of his novels are still in print through Baen.

I wish someone would put together a retrospective of his work.  Today is going to be hectic, but I’ll try to read a short piece by him and raise a glass to memory this evening.

Remembering Murray Leinster

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Will F. Jenkins, better known by his pseudonym Murray Leintster, was born this day (June 16) in 1896.  He passed away on June 8, 1975, just eight days short of his 79th birthday.

Leinster wrote for a variety of pulp magazines, but his greatest output was in the field of science fiction, beginning with “Atmosphere” in Argosy in 1918.  While he wrote novels, his best work was at shorter lengths.  Some of these stories include “Sidewise in Time”, “First Contact”, “A Logic Named Joe”, and “Exploration Team”.  These stories have become classics in the field, and “Exploration Team” won one of the first Hugo Awards.

I’ve always enjoyed Leinster’s work. As with any prolific author, not all the stories are of equal quality, but when Leinster was good, he was very good.

Later in the summer, when things settle down, i.e., when the second summer session starts and I’m teaching, one of the things I want to do is restart the Pre-Campbell Science Fiction Challenge.  Leinster will be one of the authors I’ll be reading.

Revisiting H. Beam Piper

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Henry Beam Piper was born on this day, March 23, in 1904.  He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1964.

Piper is not well known today, and that’s a shame.  In his lifetime, he was best known for two series, The Paratime Police and the Terro-Human Future History, as well as the stand-alone short story “Omnilingual”.  His best known novels include the Little Fuzzy subseries of his future series and Space Viking, which was a major influence on Jerry Pournelle.  Piper was a student of history who built his future history by using real history as a guide, similar to what Poul Anderson was doing with his Technic future history.

I read most of Piper’s works that were in print when I was in high school, which was most of them.  The only thing I didn’t read were the Paratime stories.  For several years, I had a summer job flagging for a crop dusting company that was spring mesquite trees in cow pastures.  What that means is that several men walked across the pasture in (hopefully) a line so the pilot would know where to spray.  We would move out of the way ahead of the plane.  (These days this is all done by GPS.)  One summer I carried a Piper paperback in my backpack and read three or four of his books while I would wait for the plane to get a refill and come back.

I think I’ll read one of the Paratime stories tonight to honor his memory.

Two by Garrett and a Nod to Clarke and PKD

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Randall Garrett

Today, December 16, marks a number of birthdays, but I want to focus on one, Randall Garrett’s, and mention two others, Arthur C. Clarke’s and Phillip K. Dick’s.

Garrett (b. 1927) is a particular favorite of mine.  He wrote both novels and short stories, as well as reviews of classic science fiction in poetry form.  Garrett isn’t well remembered today, and to the extent that he is, he’s known for the Lord Darcy stories, which mix magic and mystery in an alternate timeline. Continue reading →

Frederik Pohl at 99

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Today, November 26, is Frederik Pohl’s birthday.

Pohl pretty much did everything in the field a person could do except art.  I’m not aware of him engaging in any visually artistic activities.  He was a fan (member of the Futurians), editor of both pulps and books, agent, and writer.

I grew up reading Pohl.  The Best of Frederik Pohl was one of the first books I bought when I joined the Science Fiction Book Club the summer before I started high school.  Most of his other collections were out of print at the time but easily available in second hand bookstores.  Ah, those were the days.

I always preferred Pohl’s short fiction to his novels, but he was excellent at all lengths.  If you haven’t read Gateway, you should.  I’ll raise a glass in his memory tonight and try to work in a short story if I can.

Happy Birthday, Fredric Brown

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Fredric Brown was born on this date, October 29, in 1906.  He passed away in 1972.

Brown was equally adept at both science fiction and mystery.  In the SF field, he was regarded as a master of the short-short.  His Mystery novel The Fabuloous Clip Joint won an Edgar Award for Best First Novel.  His best known SF novels are What Mad Universe and Martians, Go Home.

I’ll be raising a toast to his memory this evening and reading some of his short fiction.  I don’t  know if I’ll read sf or mystery, since he was great at both.  Maybe I’ll read some of each.

If you’ve not read him, check his stuff out.  Brown is worth reading.