Tag Archives: publishing

I Thought It Would Never Happen

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OK, so back a few months ago we had a discussion about how science fiction and fantasy have changed. I titled that post “From Dangerous Visions to Safe Spaces”. Part of the discussion revolved around Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions anthology series. One of the things mentioned was Last Dangerous Visions, which was announced in 1973.

Last Dangerous Visions also came up in the tribute post to Christopher Priest, because he wrote a history of it entitled The Book on the Edge of Forever. Before Harlan died, I would joke that we should take bets on which book would be published first, Last Dangerous Visions or George R. R. Martin’s next sequel to A Game of Thrones.

Well, now we know the answer, and it’s not the one I would have expected since Harlan Ellison, the editor of the anthology, was dead. But… Continue reading →

Meditations on the Vagaries of Time

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One of the things I try to do on a daily basis is check the Internet Speculative Fiction Data Base to see what birthdays are today.  Most of the names I don’t recognize, and many of the ones I do elicit a “Why the heck are they listed here?” response.  I mean, Toni Morrison?  C’mon, gimme a break.

Eric Frank Russell with Bea Mahaffey

But I also see a lot of names I recognize that most people probably wouldn’t.  I grew reading a lot of the older stuff from the 30s and 40s.  Reprint anthologies were abundant.  DAW’s Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF series was being published in those days, Those, the Del Rey Best of series, and the Robert Silverberg edited anthologies in the school library were where I first became aware of a number of writers such as Ross Rocklynne, Margaret St. Clair, Chan Davis, Harry Bates, Charles L. Harness, Cleve Cartmill, Rog Phillips, Judith Merrill, Malcolm Jameson, Tom Godwin, Miriam Allen de Ford, Eric Frank Russell, and others. Continue reading →