(Link) Vintage “Soviet Santa” Postcards Were Propaganda for the Space Race

Happy Christmas to all.

Vintage “Soviet Santa” Postcards Were Propaganda for the Space Race

https://hyperallergic.com/476788/vintage-soviet-santa-postcards-were-propaganda-for-the-space-race/

Extra Credits: The History of Science Fiction

  Helen and I have been watching a wonderful educational series on youtube by Extra Credits on the history of science fiction. Starting with Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and moving through "Golden Age" writers like John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and on to Virtual Reality and Willian Gibson the series just seems to get better. 

The episodes are short and presentations well researched, informative and clearly delivered. The episodes on Frankenstein also looked at other books that influenced Shelly. Other episodes cover topics like pseudo-science, the forgotten foundations of science fiction and authors like Robert Chambers, William Hope Hodgson, Cordwainer Smith and Alfred Bester. This is a modern treatment of the topics and problematic aspects of the author's works or trends in the science fiction of any particular period are mentioned. It is also supported by fun graphics that also give a nod to TV programs like Futurama and Star Trek. I have taken the liberty of including some here.  

Some episodes I found particularly interesting include:

William Gibson: The Gernsback Continuum - Semiotic Ghosts - Extra Sci Fi - #8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWjhxhMI-Qo

The Canals of Mars - Eye of the Beholder - Extra Sci Fi - #10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldFvoglm6C8

The Forgotten Foundations Part 1 - The History of Sci Fi - Extra Sci Fi - #4 (well all the Forgotten Foundations)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIG6I_SpYs4&t=338s

The following quotes from Tubefilter offers some additional information or better yet simply watch an episode for yourself. 

"Extra Credits is exploring a new genre with its latest series. The educational channel, which is best known for dissecting the design and business of video games, has launched Extra Sci-Fi, which sheds light on famous works of science fiction.

The first videos in the Extra Sci-Fi series will take on Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein, which has influenced centuries of science fiction works. The Extra Credits team tackles the classic by examining its themes and linking them to later developments."

  “Science fiction uses the possible as a lens for our world,” explained Extra Sci-Fi writer James Portnow in a press release. “It may be the remote and the unlikely, but what better way to look at human nature than to set it against the extreme cases of what it might someday encounter and see what rolls out. This is so important to Mary Shelley that it’s the very first thing that’s presented to the reader at the beginning of Frankenstein. Without this idea of the fantastic possible, I don’t think we have science fiction.”

https://www.tubefilter.com/2017/11/03/extra-credits-sci-fi-frankenstein/

Fair's Fair Books and John Kessel

Yesterday I visited my favourite used bookstore, the Fair's Fair Books in Inglewood. They have recently reorganized their magazine section, which in turn has caused my collection to swell. I cannot resist some of the iconic covers I have seen reproduced so many time in histories of the genre. This cover by Clarence Doore for "Call Him Savage" by Howard Browne (1954) certainly fits the bill. 

My wife found the two Astounding below, bundled together as they contained part 1 and part 2 of "Question and Answer" by Poul Anderson. They must have come out of someone's collection this way because as the owner said they don't bundle magazine together. It did not matter to me, I took them both and he gave me a good deal. 

Are these grim, square jawed men by the Kelly Freas, the "competent men" of Campbell's Golden Age ?

This cover by Alejandro featuring a naked male is quite different from the normal pulp cover depictions of scantily clad women from the Brundage nudes of Weird Tales to Virgil Finlay's bubble clothed beauties for Famous Fantastic Mysteries and Earle Bergey's  brass brassieres for Startling Stories. Alec Nevala-Lee the author of Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction
has published a fascinating blog post on Alejandro Canedo and his covers for Astounding  which can be found at the link below. 

https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2018/10/29/the-beauty-of-the-world/

I also picked up a couple of books, The Aldiss collection, because I have enjoyed a number of his short stories and the Long, well who could resist.

I also wanted to discuss a couple of stories I read recently by John Kessel. Some time ago I read and quite enjoyed his (2009) short story "Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance". Since I was considering buying his Arkham House collection, Meeting in Infinity I decided to look through my anthologies first. The Science Fiction Encyclopedia, describes Kessel as a "US academic and author who began publishing sf with "The Silver Man" for Galileoin May 1978, and whose short fiction rapidly established him as an author of cunningly pastiche-heavy, erudite stories."

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/kessel_john

I am not sure I would use the term pastiche heavy which so often conjures up slavish imitations. Rather I would suggest he is experimenting with science fiction tropes and themes. He is also not, in my mind, satirizing the genre but rather engaging the reader in his (Kessel's) exploration of the field. 

The two stories I read where, "Invaders" (1990) a novelette which alternates between Francisco Pizarro's capture and execution of the Inca ruler Atahualpa and the commercial conquest of Earth by aliens. The author of the story (Keseel himself ? ) also appears several times within the story. The second story was "The Pure Product" (1986) a very different look at time travellers, which I will not describe further for fear of spoilers. Both stories were quite different than "Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance" which I would describe as an engaging but fairly standard science fiction adventure. I did however find them both interesting to read. They were perhaps a bit grittier than the science fiction I normally enjoy, but I was really interesting to see what Kessel was going to do with the conventions of the science fiction themes he had chosen. I found his approach original enough, at least for me, that I will continue to search out his stories.

                                                                                                   

Cover credits:

Mars is My Destination cover by John Schoenherr

Intangibles Inc. cover by Peter Jones

The Years Best Science Fiction 8th, cover by Michael Whelan

The Best if the Best, cover not attributed

The Bicentennial Man, Stellar, Custom Fitting, James White, Isaac Asimov

  As I mentioned in my last post I am currently reading Astounding, Alec Nevada-Lee's book on John W. Campbell and some of the writers most associated with Astounding, Isaac Asimov,  Robert A, Heinlein, and L. Ron. Hubbard. When I read any books on the history of science fiction I make note of works it mentions and often I look to see if I have copies in my collection. Once I begin scanning shelves and pulling things out, other items also catch my eye and soon I am holding/reading something totally unrelated to my initial query. In this case it was a small collection of of anthologies entitled Stellar, edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey. Once there I had to at least thumb through one of my favourite stories in the collection, "Custom Fitting' by James White. I then scanned the TOC and noticed " The Bicentennial Man" by Isaac Asimov. Since I could not remember reading it, and Asimov obviously figures prominently in Nevada-Lee's book I opened it and began  reading. This demonstrates the somewhat circuitous route my thought processes take and also why it takes me so long to finish a book like Astounding. 

"Custom Fitting" by James White is a charming story of Earth's first contact with a vast intergalactic federation. The protagonist George L. Hewlitt is a old fashioned tailor who lives above his shop in London with his crippled wife, referred to as Mrs. Hewlitt.  

Hewlitt " used to read a lot of science fiction, before it became to soft-centered" (13), which is good because Mr and Mrs. Hewlitt are about to receive a very unusual commission. 

Any science fiction story involving tailors makes me think of Robert Heinlein's comment of potential plots. 


"The little Tailor--this is an omnibus tot all stories about the little guy who becomes a big shot, or vice versa. The mg is from the fairy story. Examples: "Dick Whittington," all of the Alger books, Little Caesar, Galactic Patrol (but not Grey Lensrnan), Mein Kampf, David in the Old Testament. It is the success story or, in reverse, the story of tragic failure. "

"On The Writing Of Speculative Fiction," by Robert A. Heinlein.

https://mab333.weebly.com/uploads/3/2/3/1/32314601/writing_sf_-_01_on_the_writing_of_speculative_ficiton.pdf

I enjoyed "Custom Fitting", it was a slight but imaginative tale. White's depiction of Mrs. Hewlitt could have been a bit more well rounded and generous, but White is the same author who never allowed human females to rise to the rank of doctors in his Sector General novels.
             ________________________________

 " The Bicentennial Man" by Isaac Asimov is the story of Andrew, a robot belonging to the wealthy Martin family. Andrew seems typical of the robots turned out by U.S. Robotics and Mechanical Men, until Little Miss, the youngest of the Martin children, jealous of a pendant her older sister has received from a suitor asks Andrew to carve her one. He does and this makes it clear to everyone that there is something very different about Andrew's positronic brain. He still adheres to the three laws controlling robots but Andrew is anything but ordinary. 

As I read this story I was really struck by similarities to Clifford Simak's All the Traps of Earth the first work I discussed in this blog. It tells the story of Richard Daniel, the 600 year old robot servitor of the Barrington family. 

http://ajaggedorbit.blogspot.com/2014/11/all-traps-of-earth-clifford-simak.html

In both stories Simak and Asimov have presented their robot protagonists as humanoid vanity objects serving the function of domestic servants rather than the industrial robots we see today.

Both robots serve multiple generations of the same family and both families are wealthy and politically powerful.

Both robots exist long after the average robotic life span or even legal regulations controlling robots.

Both stories could be considered non-traditional takes on coming of age stories.

Asimov's Andrew remains largely on earth, interacting with the family, U.S. Robotics and Earth society in general. The concerns of the story are cultural and legal, dealing with the position of robots within the larger society. If one positions this story within the larger body of Asimov's works it takes place centuries before the events of The Caves of Steel when robots are despised by the majority of Earth society.

Simak's Richard Daniel interacts with people as little as possible and abandons Earth for a spiritual odyssey across the galaxy developing strange powers along the way. Humans play almost no part in the story.

The Encyclopedia of Science fiction states "The Bicentennial Man" (in Stellar #2, anth 1976, ed Judy-Lynn del Rey) was his finest single Robot tale and won both a Hugo and a Nebula.

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/asimov_isaac

I have to agree, most of the robot stories that Asimov published early in his career, with the exception of those dealing with R. Daneel Olivaw, The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun are puzzle stories typical of early science fiction. The author presents a puzzle (in this case odd behaviour by a robot) that the protagonist must resolve. In "The Bicentennial Man" Asimov looks at the ramifications of Andrews actions in more detail, the effect they have on the people who encounter him and society as a whole. The story is longer and more fleshed out, the characters and scenes somewhat more developed. In the end, it turns out that there is no puzzle to be solved at the heart of the story, rather it is an account of a life and the people it touches. 

Reading, Astounding, Alec Nevada-Lee, Caitlin R. Kieran

Yesterday was a great reading day. I had finally began to read Astounding, Alec Nevada-Lee's book on John W. Campbell and some of the writers most associated with Astounding, Isaac Asimov,  Robert A, Heinlein, and L. Ron. Hubbard.  As I read, the dogs let me know that our postal worker had dropped by and I  got up hoping that "it" had finally come. And it had.

Anyone who has followed my Lovecraft blog, HPL: Beyond the Walls of Sleep, http://dunwichhorrors.blogspot.com/, (where this will also appear) will know I am a huge Caitlin R. Kieran fan. Her work effortlessly inhabits the intersection of so many genre, horror, fantasy, mystery and science fiction that I am always interested go see where she will take me next. I also have a life long love of palaeontology especially dinosaurs, so the minute I saw the Subterranean Press announcement of the collection The Dinosaur Tourist with a stunning cover by Ray Troll, I had to order it. Then a long wait occurred. Then the announcement came, copies, including mine were shipping. Oh no, a job action by Canada Post. Mail from outside Canada has piled up to the extent that international partners are asked to hold items. The Dinosaur Tourist (trade edition) is sold out. Will my copy appear or be lost to some inter-dimensional gateway to be lovingly perused by the shades of the Whateley brothers, or shelved among the tomes at the Misatonic University Library. No, there it was right in front of me, I hugged the box.

from Subterranean Press

"Almost nothing is only what it seems to be at first glance. Appearances can be deceiving and first impressions often lead us disastrously astray. If we're not careful, assumption and expectation can betray us all the way to madness and death and damnation. In The Dinosaur Tourist, Caitlín R. Kiernan's fifteenth collection of short fiction, nineteen tales of the unexpected and the uncanny explore that treacherous gulf between what we suppose the world to be and what might actually be waiting out beyond the edges of our day-to-day experience. A mirror may be a window into another time. A cat may be our salvation. Your lover may be a fabulous being. And a hitchhiker may turn out to be anyone at all."

https://subterraneanpress.com/dinosaur-tourist

I am including this post on Jagged Orbit because, while Kiernan is associated with horror, she does write very good science fiction. PS Publishing in the UK is distributing the collection A is for Alien, containing many of her science fiction stories as part of a four volume set of her work. I was also really impressed by another Subterranean Press offering, her (2004) novella entitled The Dry Salvages. As I described it on my Lovecraft site.

"A SF work rather than a typical mythos tale, it combines her love of palaeontology with the rather enigmatic tale of a doomed expedition investigating the remains of an extraterrestrial mining colony on the moon of the gas giant Cecrops. It has a subtle, haunting flavour I often associate with European SF and I recommend it. "

http://dunwichhorrors.blogspot.com/search/label/Caitlin%20R.%20Kieran

Cover art Richard Kirk 

https://www.pspublishing.co.uk/a-is-for-alien-trade-paperback-by-caitlin-r-kiernan-2623-p.asp

New Arrivals - Badger Books, Lion Books, Harlequin

We have just returned from two weeks in Saskatoon. Helen's family lived near Westgate Books, so I visited it several times. I found their science fiction section uninspired with nothing terribly old and no magazines. The last time I almost literally bumped into the owner as he came out of the back room. He asked what I was looking for and when I asked about Analogs he said we might have a few, went to the front and put two file books labeled collectable SF on a stand. I had assumed the boxes where books waiting to be sorted. But they were not, they were the good stuff. A number of interesting items had to be returned to the box as I tried to rein in my spending a bit. I still failed.

Westgate has an interesting history which is related here.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/westgate-books-owner-donates-entire-collection-to-employee-1.3046878

Someone obviously liked Fritz Leiber as there were a number of his titles. I loved the Jack Gaughan cover and it also contained the first appearance of Niven's Louis Wu character. 

A lovely cover by Russell FitzGerald for Patrick Meadows "Pater One Pater Two". A review of "Barbarella" by Samuel Delany and "The Cave" by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Who doesn't like a domed city, cover by Frank R. Paul for his conception of "Glass City on Europa". It also contained "The Revolt of the Pedestrians" by David H. Keller, a very old fashioned vibe for 1966.

I am always on the lookout for Harlequin SF as they began in Winnipeg Manitoba. Cover by Friede?

 

I became interested in Badger books after following the unsubscribedblog's Badger Book on Sunday, posts. The cover is by Ed Emshwiller and as is not uncommon with some British SF, the image has appeared elsewhere.

https://unsubscribedblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/a-badger-book-on-sunday-with-the-reverend-r-l-fanthorpe-chapter-24/

   

I have never seen a title by Lion Books before, if anyone has any information on them I would love to know more. The Haploids (1953) cover is by Rafael DeSoto.

My initial thought was that this was a Badger Book, Pel Torro is one of their house names and the unattributed cover's style is similar. But this title was released by Tower Books and ISFDB did not indicate a Badger Book edition.

Four Square Books (1961) cover unattributed.

   

Cover by Vincent Di Fate.

 

More Leiber, R cover by John Schoenherr L cover by Jack Gaughan

 

The unsubscribed blog also posted some lovely images of the wrap around covers done by 

Chris Yates for titles by E.C. Tubb.

https://unsubscribedblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/three-chris-yates-wraparounds/

 

Two covers by Robert Foster that I was looking for.

Yesterday my wife and I made a trip to the Chapters Bookstore here in Calgary for the express purpose of picking up Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding. I had to be the first kid on my block to have one.  I have followed Alec's blog for years and have read his fiction in Analog and the 29th Year's Best Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois. Obviously, given my interest in the history of SF and especially the Campbell period authors, I read in my youth and still read today, I cannot wait to dip in.

Alec has provided an excellent overview of the process of writing this book on his website so I have included a link.

https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2018/10/23/beyond-the-golden-age/#comment-24098

New 

from Worlds Without End Blog

http://blog.worldswithoutend.com/2018/10/astounding-history/

from Nature

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06943-8

I have also included links to a couple of reviews that may be of interest.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alec-nevala-lee/astounding/

https://www.readingreality.net/2018/10/review-astounding-by-alec-nevala-lee/

Happy reading 

Guy

New Arrivals, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs, aging

  A few posts back, I spoke of the death of Peter Nicholls the editor of the 1979, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. As I was preparing for that post, I took out my tattered edition and leafed through looking at the pictures. Which meant looking for my favourite, a 1937 edition of Argosy with an enchanting Burroughs cover by Emmett Watson. I then decided to see if there was a decent/affordable copy on ABE. I found one and since one of the main drawbacks of ABE is the initial shipping costs, I looked to see if the vendor has other items I could add. I knew from previous purchases that this vendor, Leonard Shoup, tends to carry Weird Tales related material so I did a quick search on Lovecraft. And there they were. I could not resist adding The Lurking Fear and Other Stories and The Shuttered Room and Other Tales of Horror to the Argosy and now all I had to do was wait until the frantic barking of the dogs signaled the arrival of our letter carrier

When I first began collecting, rather than simply buying books randomly, I focused initially on two areas. Lovecraft with the obvious (to me) addition of Arkham House and other Weird Tales authors, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. I chose Lovecraft because I was introduced to his work by a school chum at 15 and enjoyed it.

These two Lovecraft titles would be considered minor collections at best. The stories in the The Shuttered Room are pastiches or stories based on Lovecraft's notes by August Derleth. The Lurking Fear contains what I think I can safely describe as lesser tales, although I have a certain fondness for the wildly illogical The Lurking Fear, with it's warning against the dangers of inbreeding, cannibalism and a subterranean existence. I purchased them for the John Holmes covers, these were among the first editions (now lost) that I owned.

(Both author's works can be considered problematic in their treatment of women and minorities, I posted my thoughts on Lovecraft here

http://dunwichhorrors.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-real-shadow-over-innsmouth-odd.html )

I chose Burroughs because his books filled the used bookstores of my youth and I loved the covers. James Blaylock in his wonderful Burroughs themed novel The Digging Leviathan expressed this beautifully. 

" Edward St. Ives was a collector of books, especially of fantasy and science fiction, the older and tawdrier the better. Plots and cover illustrations that smacked of authenticity didn't interest him. It was sea monsters; cigar-shaped, crenelated rockets; and unmistakable flying saucers that attracted him. There was something in the appearance of such things that appealed to the part of him that appreciated the old Hudson Wasp …,.  Once a month or so, after a particularly satisfactory trip to Acres of Books, he'd drag out the lot of his paperback Burroughs novels, lining up the Tarzan books here and the Martian books there and the Pellucidar books somewhere else. The Roy Krenkel covers were the most amazing, with their startling slashes and dabs of impressionist color and their distant spired cities half in ruin and shadow beneath a purple sky." (17)

Cover by Timothy McNamara (as by Ferret)

Roy Krenkel below

I have to admit this purchase was rooted very much in nostalgia or perhaps immaturity if you like. I have lately found the rise of irrationalism worldwide troubling and some days the world seems unrecognizable. As I get older my reading and collecting helps keep me mentally active, engaged and grounded. The process of aging has been beautifully described by Wendell Berry in his novel (a favourite of mine) Jayber Crow.

 "Back there at the beginning, as I see it now, my life was all time and almost no memory. Though I knew early of death, it still seemed to be something that happened only to other people, and I stood in an unending river of time that would go on making the same changes and the same returns forever.
     And now, nearing the end, I see that my life is almost entirely memory and very little time." (24)

I try very hard to avoid wallowing in memories of the past, and make sure that I read new and diverse works and authors, but I, like Edward St. Ives, cannot resist the occasional winged T-Rex.