Today is August 16. This will be a short post because I was in new faculty orientation all day, and my brain is tapioca. I do want to point out the birthdays of two people, Hugo Gernsback and Diana Wynne Jones. Continue reading
This was announced a couple of days ago, but I missed it.
Starship Sloane Publishing is reviving Galaxy Science Fiction.
A bit of history. Back in the 1940s, the top science fiction magazine was Astounding Science Fiction, edited by John W. Campbell, Jr., although arguments can be made that Thrilling Wonder Stories and perhaps Startling Stories were more entertaining. Planet Stories was still being published, but other than an occasional story by Leigh Brackett, it wasn’t publishing many stories of note. Amazing Stories was stumbling along, the Shaver Mystery not yet upon us.
All that changed at the end of the decade when two new magazines came on the scene. One was The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which appears to have ceased publication.
The other was Galaxy Science Fiction. Edited by Horce L. Gold, it was as different from Astounding as it was possible to be. Whereas Campbell focused on the science, wanting reigid adherence to known scientific principles as much as possible, Gold stressed soicology over physics, psychology over engineering.
Many of the classic stories by Fredril Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth were published there, as were stories by Robert Sheckley and Phillip K. Dick.
The first issue is free as a PDF download.
Starship Sloane Publishing also relaunched Worlds of If last year.
Today, August 8, is the birthday of Jerry Pournelle (1933-2017). He was one of the people, along with David Drake, who helped make military science fiction popular.
There were others before him, of course, but Pournelle’s anthology series There Shall Be War and War World helped push the genre to higher popularity. His CoDominium series set a high standard, and he was working on his Janissaries series when he died.
Additionally, he was a frequent collaborator with Larry Niven. Together they wrote such books as Lucifer’s Hammer, The Mote in God’s Eye, and Footfall.
I admit I’ve read very little of Pournelle’s solo work. I read King David’s Spaceship years ago and liked it. Other than a few short stories, most of his work that I’ve read was in collaboration with Larry Niven. I’ve got msot of his books, but I haven’t gotten to them yet.
He was an important figure in the field for many years and deserves to be remembered.
I’m doing a writing challenge to write 2024 words per day, on average, in 2024. I got behind at the beginning of July and stayed behind the entire month up until the last day of the month. I ended the month with an average for July of 2025 words. I am still about three and a half days behind where I need to be for the year. If I can pull ahead this month, it will give me some cushion going into the fall.
I finished half a dozen short stories and a novella, plus I started another novella. I need to carve out time to publsih the novellas. The short stories are under submission.
I posted a couple of days ago about starting a new academic job. Classes start two weeks from tomorrow. I don’t have a schedule yet of when I’ll be teaching, other than it will be in the afternoons and probably only three days a week. Visiitng faculty, which is what this position is, don’t have to serve on committees, do public outreach, or other such activities.
What does this mean for the writing?
It means I am going to have to manage my time a lot better than I am now. I not only can do it, I need to do a better job of not wasting time. I am going to double down on writing. I will still have some time in the day to write. I just need to make sure I reserve that time for writing.
Version 1.0.0
Before I start this post, I want to point out that the title ends in a question mark. It is not intended to be a statement of fact.
But it is a valid question. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF) hasn’t had a new issue in over six months. Questions aren’t being answered. Last year some authors claimed they hadn’t been paid for their stories.
The question has come up over the last week.
I saw a post from Sean CW Korsgaard on Sunday saying his enjoyment of GenCon had been dampened a little when he saw the news about F&SF and SFWA. (There seems to be some drama going on behind the scenes at SFWA, but I’m not going to address that here. I’m not a member. Not my circus, not my monkeys.)
Sean didn’t elaborate or answer any questions about what was going on. Continue reading
So says Al Pacino in The Godfather III.
I know the feeling, but I’m not complaining.
I’m going to be deliberately vague here and not names names of institutions or individuals. Partly for privacy/security reasons, but also because contracts haven’t been signed yet.
I left academia last year to buy some property from my parents to keep land in the family. That required a move that made staying where I was nonworkable. Since then, I’ve been delivering mail in the morning and bodies in the afternoon. (US Postal Service/funeral home).
A few weeks ago, I got a call from a former graduate school classmate. He’s the program head at a medium sized university not close but not too far from here.
He needed someone to fill a one year visiting faculty position. Would I be interested?
Yes, if I could teach afternoons and evenings and still work at the post office. I didn’t want to give up a permanent job, even a part-time one, for a one year appointment with no guarantee of extension. (The position could possibly be extended or converted to a permanent position, but he couldn’t guarantee it.)
I was a little surprised when he agreed to those terms. He fixed the schedule where I would have time to drive from the post office (It’s not in the town where I live) and still have plenty of time if I had to stay late at the post office.
I got an letter of offer today. Transcripts are in limbo. They have supposedly been sent, but they are most likely at HR. The department hasn’t gotten them yet.
Class start on August 22. I’m not sure what that will do to the writing. I’ll address those issues in a later post.
Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988) was born on this date, August 3. He is one of my favorite writers. I was planning on reading one of his stories, but I’ve been busy with other things. So I’m going to offer some reflections on one of the things he wrote about a lot.
Robots.
Robots are a trope that was once almost ubiquitous in science fiction. You don’t see them much anymore. At least I haven’t seen any new stories about them. To be fair, though, I’ve not read much science fiction in the last few years. I’ve mostly been reading mysteries and thrillers.
Anyone who has read robot stories (I’m thinking primarily short fiction here), please drop a line in the comments. Continue reading
August 2, today as I’m writing this, is the birthday of F. Marion Crawford (1854-1909).
Crawford wrote a number of stories about the supernatural, but he his brest remembered for two that have become classics, “For the Blood is the Life” and “The Upper Berth”.
Although an American, Crawford lived most of his life in Italy. He began his career as a novelist. Of his novels, the only one I’m aware of that has fantasatic elements is Khalid, which was reprinted in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.
I took a look at “For the Blood is the Life” a few years ago. Today, I’ll look at “The Upper Berth”. M. R. James considered it one of the best ghost stories and defnitely Crawford’s best tale. Continue reading
Today kicks off August. There are some significant birthdays on August 1, I’ll look at two writers, and editor, and an artist. I’m talking about M. R. James, Raymond Palmer, Edd Cartier, and David Gemmell. Continue reading
Farnsworth Wright (1888-1940) was born on this date, July 29.
He was the editor of Weird Tales during what is regarded as the best years of the magazine. He was the greatest fantasy editor of the first half of the Twentieth Century, if not the whole century. The only other editor who even came close was John W. Campbell, Jr., who was the editor of Unknown/Unknown Worlds. And as a general rule, Campbell didn’t publish the same type of fantasy as Wright.
One can argue that Dorothy McIlwraith, who tooks Farnsworth Wright’s place at the helm of Weird Tales was a more significant editor than Campbell. But that’s an argument for another post. Continue reading