Hal Clement, real name Harry Clement Stubbs, was born on this date, May 30, in 1922. He passed away in 2003. He attended Conestoga the last few years of his life, and I was privileged to meet him on those occasions. Once I was walking through the dealer’s room, and someone was following along behind me whistling. I turned around and saw that it was Hal Clement. Continue reading
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
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
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!
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
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
Chad Oliver, summer of 1959
Yesterday, March 30, was the birthday of Chad Oliver (1928-1993). I got my wires crossed and thought it was today. Oliver wrote anthropological science fiction. Not surprising, really, considering he was a professional anthropologist, spending most of his career at the University of Texas. Howard Waldrop once said something to the effect that most of the science fiction writers in Texas got together when he and Chad met for a beer. That was in the early 90s, and I don’t remember his exact words Howard was referring to years prior to when he made the statement, too.
I had the privilege of meeting him at least once, at an Armadillocon a year or two before his death. He was friendly and outgoing, and I looked forward to getting to know him at future conventions. And then he passed away. Fortunately his writing has lived on.
Oliver started his writing career while in graduate school in California. It was there he fell in with the likes of Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, William F. Nolan, Charles Beaumont, and others of what became known as the California School. While not a major figure in that group, he is considered one of them by association, although his writing moved in a different direction from theirs.Ma
I read several of Chad’s short stories earlier this evening for this post, but the one I want to focus on is “Of Course”, from the May 1954 issue of Astounding. (Yes, another combined birthday/90th Anniversary post.)
This is a short, punchy story with a nice twist. A large cigar shaped spacecraft appears over Earth and tells every government that they will choose one representative of the most advanced civilization to take back with them to study. They’ll bring him back in a hundred years, and in the meantime that representative’s civilization will get one thing they want to make their lives easier.
All the major nations, such as the US, the USSR (remember, this was written in the 50s at the height of the Cold War), and others are sure it will be them but are afraid it will be one of their enemies. You can probably guess it’s not them. Nor is it their enemies.
I won’t say who the person the aliens chose represents. It won’t matter, anyway, once you read the last page of the story and find out what the aliens are really up to. Poor humans, they never had a chance. 🙂
The volume I perused tonight was Far From This Earth, Selected Stories of Chad Oliver Volume 2. NESFA Press published two volumes of Chad’s stories, plus an omnibus of novels about fifteen years ago. Fortunately, they are available in electronic editions for only three bucks.
The last story in the book was “A Lake of Summer”. It was a tribute to his friend Ray Bradbury, a gentle fantasy that was very much a Bradbury kind of story. It was originally published in The Bradbury Chronicles: Stories in Honor of Ray Bradbury back in 1991, making it the last story Chad published before he died.
If you’ve not read Chad, give him a try. His work is full of warmth and humor, and there really isn’t anyone writing like him today that I’m aware of.
A. Bertram Chandler
A. Bertram Chandler (1912-1984) was born on this date, March 28, in England. He emigrated to Australia in 1956 and is generally considered to be an Australian author. He has fallen into a bit of obscurity today, although he is still remembered for his stories and novels of John Grimes. This space opera series follows Grimes through his career as a cadet, officer, pirate, and independent trader. I’ve only read a few of the stories, but what I have read, I’ve enjoyed. The entire Grimes series is available in six omnibus editions from Baen. Depending on how much free time this work from home situation leaves me, I might give that series a go from the beginning.
Chandler spent his life in the merchant marines, and this experience is reflected in his fiction. I’ve heard the Grimes books described as nautical novels set in space.
Chandler started his writing career in the mid-1940s, with many of his first stories appearing in Campbell’s Astounding. While a few of these stories have been reprinted, there has never been a career retrospective of his non-Grimes work. The closest thing was the NESFA volume Up to the Sky in Ships.
In addition to being a birthday post, this is also an Astounding 90th anniversary post. “The Cage” is arguably Chandler’s best known story that doesn’t concern Grimes. The other one that’s well-known is his fourth published story, “Giant Killer”, from the October 1945 issue of Astounding. That’s what we’re going to look at today. There will be spoilers. Continue reading
So as I was writing yesterday’s post on Raymond Z. Gallun and his story “Old Faithful”, I couldn’t help but think of H. Beam Piper’s “Omnilingual”. Both stories concern communication between Earth and Mars. Gallun dealt with two living species trying to find common ground for communication. Piper ups the ante by having a group of archaeologists, or rather one archaeologist in particular, try to find common ground and read the writings left behind by a long dead race.
H. Beam Piper
After posting that review, I checked the ISFDB to see if there were any birthdays of note today. Lo and behold, whose name did I see but H. Beam Piper’s? Talk about good timing. (The universe made up for it this today.)
Henry Beam Piper was born on March 23, 1904. He has been forgotten by many readers, especially younger readers, and that’s a shame. He was one of the best writers the field produced in the middle of the last century. If he had lived longer (he died in 1964), perhaps he would be better known today.
Piper published most of his stories in Astounding, so this post also counts at a 90th Anniversary post for Astounding. “Omnilingual” first appeared in the February 1957 issue.
This review is going to contain spoilers. If you want to read the story first, it’s currently available in The Rise of the Terran Federation, edited by John F. Carr or in the H.Beam Piper Megapack, which contains some of his nonfiction. Continue reading
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