Tag Archives: Retro-Hugos

Retro Hugos: “The Jewel of Bas” by Leigh Brackett

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I did a post on this story a few years ago, which you can find here. I’m not going to write another review.  I did reread “The Jewel of Bas”, mostly in the waiting room while my son was having his wisdom teeth removed this afternoon. I’ll post a few thoughts on it below and try not to repeat what I wrote in the original post.

“The Jewel of Bas” was originally published in the Spring 1944 issue of Planet Stories. I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be it on the cover or not. The man and the woman don’t look like the two principle characters in the story, but the rest of the illustration could be.

I said in the earlier post on this story that I didn’t think it was part of Brackett’s solar system but that it might could be. Having read the story again, I am going to back off of that position a little. I very well could be.

I also liked how Brackett  mentioned Cimmeria and Hyperborea, and made them a part of the world of the story. One thing I missed was that the god Bas said that he came from Atlantis and that the priests of Dagon there considered him a living blasphemy.  One of Henry Kuttner’s Elak of Atlantis stories was titled “The Spawn of Dagon”  Kuttner was a friend of Brackett’s and something of a mentor to her as she was beginning her career. An homage to Kuttner in this reference. I doubt we can know for sure at this late date, but I like to think so.

I really liked this story a lot.  There’s one more in the novella category left, and that’s Kuttner’s “A God Named Kroo”.  That will be the next in this series.

UPDATE: I saw after I posted this review that the Retro Hugo winners had been announced. I wasn’t expecting that for a couple of days. I had gotten the impression they were going to be announced Saturday.  I’ll still do the Kuttner post, but I may not break m y neck to get it up tomorrow.

 

Retro Hugos: “The Changeling” by A. E. Van Vogt

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“The Changeling” was published in the April 1944 issue of Astounding. The ISFDB says it’s the third in a series of four stories the ISFDB calls Pendrake. I’ve not read any of the other stories, and this was my first time to read this one.

I’m not really sure where to start. There were some twists that might have been more expected if I had read the two stories preceding “The Changeling”. But maybe not. It has the feel of a self-contained episode in a larger story arc where the background is important but the characters seem to have been introduced in this episode. I’m not sure. there are remarks toward the end that could be background information or references to previous stories.

Let’s start with the background, because I’m a little surprised this story is on the final ballot. It isn’t exactly woke in some of the attitudes the characters have. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “Invaders From the Stars” by Ross Rocklynne

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Ross Rocklynne was a fairly prolific author during the late 1930 and 1940s. These days he’s pretty much forgotten. So I was a little surprised to see “Invaders From the Stars” on the Retro Hugo ballot. After I read it, I further puzzled.

“Invaders From the Stars” was published in the January 1944 issue of Amazing Stories. Amazing has a reputation from this period of being a second tier pulp, with lots of purple prose and inferior writing.

“Invaders From the Stars” doesn’t help change that, although it’s not that bad. I just don’t think it’s nearly was well-written as any of the other stories on the Retro Hugo ballot. Given that the three remaining novellas are by Brackett, Kuttner, and Van Vogt, I don’t think that’s going to change.

The story isn’t bad, and the prose isn’t that purple. But this isn’t Rocklynne at his best. Here’s the setup. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “Killdozer!” by Theodore Sturgeon

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“Killdozer!” was first published in the November 1944 issue of Astounding.  There are two versions of this novella. It was revised when it was reprinted in Sturgeon’s collection Aliens 4.  The revised version is currently available in Killdozer!: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon Volume 3 and in Selected Stories. I’m not sure if the original is currently available. I don’t know what the differences are, and I’m not going to compare the two versions.

I originally read “Killdozer!” in Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 6.  I think it’s the original version. Asimov and Greenberg tended to reprint the original versions of any stories that had undergone later revision.  That was what I reread it in for this post. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: Final Thoughts on the Short Stories

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So just to recap, here is the shortlist in the short story category for the Retro Hugos:

  • “The Wedge”, Isaac Asimov (Astounding Science Fiction 10/44)
  • “I, Rocket”, Ray Bradbury (Amazing Stories 5/44)
  • “And the Gods Laughed”, Fredric Brown (Planet Stories Spring ’44)
  • “Desertion”, Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science Fiction 11/44)
  • “Huddling Place”, Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science Fiction 7/44)
  • “Far Centaurus”, A.E. van Vogt (Astounding Science Fiction 1/44)

Links are to the posts of the individual stories. While I enjoyed all of these stories and will probably reread them at some future date, I didn’t find them all equally good. This is simply my not so humble opinion; your mileage may vary.

“The Wedge” was the weakest of the stories here. In part, I think, that’s because it’s part of a bigger story arc. I suspect it’s on the final ballot in part due to the reputation of the Foundation series and the author. Ditto for the Bradbury minus the series angle. I could say the same about the two Simak stories as the Asimov except that these are in my mind the two strongest tales on the list.

As for the Brown and Van Vogt entries, they are both examples of their author’s best work at this length. I tend to favor the Brown a bit over the Van Vogt, but that might be because it was one of only two stories (the other being “I, Rocket”) that I hadn’t read before and was therefore fresher.

As for which which of the Simak I think was the strongest, that’s a tough call. I would probably go with “Huddling Place”, although I can easily convince myself that “Desertion” is the better of the two. Some I’m going to compromise and declare a tie.

And just a sidenote of possible interest.  DAW books began publishing a series of anthologies in somewhere around 1980 (I’m too lazy to look it up) entitled Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories. Each volume collected what Asimov , with the assistance of Martin H. Greenberg, considered the best stories of the year.  The first volume covered 1939, and the series ran for 24 volumes, with a 25th published by NESFA Press and edited by Robert Silverberg after Asimov’s death. The sixth volume covers 1944, the year of the current Retro Hugos.

That volume contains 13 stories, Eight of them are on the Retro Hugo ballot. One which isn’t is Leigh Brackett’s “The Veil of Astellar”, which should be on the novelette ballot. Don’t get me started. After the Retro Hugos have been awarded, I will probably reread the rest of the stories. I read this book in high school, and I don’t remember some of the stories.

I’ll start on the novellas I haven’t already covered in the next post. The story will be “Killdozer!” by Theodore Sturgeon. That story was revised for book publication, so I’m reading it in, you guessed it, The Great SF Stories 6,

Retro Hugos: “Desertion” by Clifford D. Simak

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This is the last post for the short story nominees on this year’s Retro Hugo ballot. “Desertion” was first published in the November 1944 issue of Astounding. It was later incorporated into City.  It is currently available in that book (in a slightly revised form) and in Earth for Inspiration in its original form.

“Desertion” is the fourth story in the City series.  I’ve looked at the first and second as they are both on the final ballot for the Retro Hugos. The third, “Census”, isn’t on the ballot, but I’ll talk about it when I review City later in the year.

“Desertion” is a brief story that packs a punch. Just so you know, there will be spoilers. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “Huddling Place” by Clifford D. Simak

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I honestly haven’t been ignoring these Retro Hugo posts.  I’ve just been swamped. Trying to coordinate labs for four different courses plus teach a lecture, all in online format, is a bit time consuming. I’ve been making videos of myself lecturing to empty rooms or collecting data for labs and posting the videos to YouTube. (No, I won’t provide links.) I read this story over a week ago. I’ve just been too brain dead to get it written. Since Worldcon is in two weeks, I doubt I’ll get all of the nominees read. But I’m going to give it the ol’ college try.

“Huddling Place” is the second story that made up the mosaic novel City. It was first published in the July 1944 issue of Astounding. It is currently available in City or No Life of Their Own.

The tale concerns Jerome A. Webster, now the patriarch of the Webster family following the death of his father. There’s not much of a family left. Just he and his son. A once proud and successful line is dying, with only their faithful robot servants to remember their achievements within a few more years.

Jerome has noticed something. Agoraphobia or something very much like it is starting to spread among mankind. It seems to hit people around middle age, a desire to stay home and not venture out. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “I, Rocket” by Ray Bradbury

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“I, Rocket” first appeared in the May 1944 issue of Amazing Stories.  It is available in a replica edition.

The early 1940s were a productive time for Bradbury. He had a number of stories published in the science fiction pulps and in Weird Tales. Not all of these stories were reprinted in Bradbury’s collections during his lifetime. If you are interested in these stories, the Kent State University Press is slowly (and I mean slowly) publishing what is supposed to be an eight volume set of The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury: A Critical Edition.  I came across a remaindered copy of the first volume at a Half Price Books a few years ago for a little under twenty bucks.  For Father’s Day this year, I bought myself the second and third volumes. The difference in price was nontrivial.

“I, Rocket” is in the first volume, although I read it in the collection Forever and the Earth, which was published by PS Publishing about 15 years ago. This year is the centennial of Bradbury’s birth, and I’ll be looking at some of these stories closer to his birthday.

But I digress. Let’s talk about “I, Rocket”. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “And the Gods Laughed” by Fredric Brown

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So the next few Retro Hugo posts are going to be focusing on the short stories that I haven’t already looked at.  I covered “Far Centaurus” for A. E. van Vogt’s birthday, and a scheduling slip-up resulting in my post on “The Wedge” by Isaac Asimov going live before I finished the novelettes.

Today we’re looking at “And the Gods Laughed” by Fredric Brown. It was first published in the Spring 1944 issue of Planet Stories.  It is currently available in hardcover in From These Ashes: The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown from NESFA Press and in electronic format in The Second Fredric Brown Megapack from Wildside Press.

Planet stories is remembered today as a pulp with lots of sword and planet tales and space opera from the likes of Leigh Brackett and Poul Anderson, full of exotic adventure. But it also published more laid back stories as well, albeit usually at shorter lengths.

“And the Gods Laughed” is one of these. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: Final Thoughts on the Novelettes

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The Retro Hugo nominees for best novelette are (links are to reviews):

  • “The Big and the Little”, Isaac Asimov (Astounding Science Fiction 8/44)
  • “Arena”, Fredric Brown (Astounding Science Fiction 6/44)
  • “No Woman Born”, C.L. Moore (Astounding Science Fiction 12/44)
  • “The Children’s Hour”, Lawrence O’Donnell (C.L. Moore & Henry Kuttner) (Astounding Science Fiction 3/44)
  • “When the Bough Breaks”, Lewis Padgett (C.L. Moore & Henry Kuttner) (Astounding Science Fiction 11/44)
  • “City”, Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science Fiction 5/44)

All of these stories are strong contenders. There isn’t a bad one in the bunch. but they aren’t all equal. With the exception of “Whent he Bough Breaks” and “The Children’s Hour”, I’ve not read any of them since high school. Continue reading →