Tag Archives: C. M. Kornbluth

C. M. Kornbluth Educates Tigress McCardle

Leave a reply

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 →

An Observance of C. M. Kornbluth’s Birthday

3 Replies

Ninety-five years ago today, on July 23, 1923, Cyril Kornbluth was born in New York City.  The middle initial was added later.  Although he has faded into relative obscurity today, Kornbluth was one of the best science fiction writers of the 1950’s.  He died on March 12, 1958 of a heart attack.  He was on his way to an interview with Robert P. Mills for the editorship of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Kornbluth was primarily a writer of short fiction.  He only wrote a handful of solo novels.  The rest of his novels were collaborations with Judith Merrill and Frederik Pohl.  His most famous collaboration with Pohl was The Space Merchants.  While he also wrote at least a book’s length worth of short stories in collaboration with Pohl, the bulk of his short work wasn’t collaborative.  Pohl and Kornbluth were founding members of the famed (and infamous) Futurians.

Kornbluth’s work is marked by a bitter cynicism and often contained some pretty dark satire.  (Maybe that’s why he appealed to me when I encountered it as a teenager.)  His most famous stories are “The Little Black Bag”, which resembles Kuttner and Moore’s “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” in that an object from the future is sent back into the past (our present), and its sequel “The Marching Morons”.  The latter takes place in a future where a few elite control a population of morons, and there are no common characters between the two stories.  “The Marching Morons” is as relevant today as it was when it was written.

NESFA Press collected all Kornbluth’s short fiction in His Share of Glory.  It’s also available in an audiobook.  I read it years ago; it’s due to be dusted off and read again.   I’ll try to take a closer look at one of his stories later this week.  There are some gems in this collection.  Kornbluth needs to be more widely read.

RIP, Frederik Pohl (November 26, 1919 – September 2, 2013)

Leave a reply

Fred PohlOne of the last living links to the early days of science fiction has died. Frederik Pohl entered the hospital yesterday morning with respiratory distress and passed away yesterday afternoon.

Pohl started out as a fan and moved to become an editor, agent, and writer. His first editing job came when he was just 19, taking the helm at Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories. He was also a founding member of the Futurians.  He served in World War II, and after the war briefly became a literary agent.

He collaborated with a number of writers throughout the decades, including Lester Del Rey (Preferred Risk as by Edson McCann), Jack Williamson (The Starchild Trilogy, Farthest Star, Wall Around a Star, Land’s End, The Singers of Time) and Arthur C. Clarke (The Last Theorem).  His most famous and successful collaborations were with fellow Futurian C. M. Kornbluth, beginning with the classic The Space Merchants, and including Search the Sky, Gladiator-at-Law and Wolfbane as well as a number of short stories.

Pohl edited Ballantine Books’ Star Science Fiction series in the 1950s, introducing the  concept of the original (nonthemed) anthology.  In the 1960s, he was the editor of Galaxy and If magazines.  During the 70s he was an editor at Bantam.Gateway

Like his collaborator Jack Williamson, Pohl continued to write novels almost until his death.  His most recent was All the Lives He Led (2011).  His Heechee saga is one of the landmarks of modern science fiction, especially the first volume, Gateway.

I had the privilege of meeting Pohl once in the summer of 1991, when the Science Fiction Research Association held a meeting on the campus of the University of North Texas.  Among those in attendance were Pohl, Jack Williamson, L. Sprague de Camp, and James Gunn.  Pohl was very friendly and chatted with me for a bit about what he was working on.  The books he signed for me at that event are among the most prized in my library.

I can’t help but feel like an era has ended.  I grew up reading science fiction by people like Pohl.  In fact, one of the first, if not the first, book I ever bought from the Science Fiction Book Club was The Best of Frederik Pohl.  I bought almost every SFBC edition of his work until I graduated high school.

platinum pohlHe will be missed.  As cliched as it sounds, we shall not see his like again.  Many of his novels are still in print, and his best short fiction was collected a few years ago in Platinum Pohl, which contains a number of stories written after The Best of Frederik Pohl was published.