Friday's "Forgotten" Books: the links to reviews: 8 August 2025

First edition and first paperback

Patti Abbott: A Long and Happy Life by Reynolds Price

Brad Bigelow: Revelations of a Wife by "Adele Garrison" (Nana Springer/White) serialized 1915-1946

Ben Boulden: Branded by Ed Gorman

Brian Busby: Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich by Stephen Leacock

Martin Edwards: Nightmare by Anne Blaisdell

Will Errickson: Orphans by Ed Naha

Jose Ignacio Escribano: Not to be Taken aka A Puzzle in Poison by Anthony Berkeley (see also: Jim Noy)

Gregory Feeley, et al.: Orbit 6 edited by Damon Knight

Charles Gramlich: Sojan the Swordsman by Michael Moorcock; Under the Warrior Star by Joe R. Lansdale: "A Planet Stories Double"

Michael A. Gonzales: Touré and the African-American short story revival beginning in the mid-1990s

Mike Gray: "The Oblong Room" by Edward D. Hoch, The Saint Mystery Magazine, July 1967, edited by Leslie Charteris (as revised 5 August 2025)

Bev Hankins: Death on the Dragon's Tongue by "Margot Arnold" (Petronelle Cook)

Lesa Holstine: His Burial Too by Catherine Aird

Jerry House:  Next by Michael Crichton;  R.I.P. by Virgil Partch et al.

Tracy K: Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore

Kaggsy: Mr. Bowling Buys a Newspaper by Donald Henderson

George Kelley: Steering the Craft: A 21st-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin

Margot Kinberg: mysteries involving reservoirs

Nancy Kornfeld and Jackie Kashian discuss Clive Cussler novels and related fictions

B. V. Lawson: The Bait by Dorothy Uhnak

Evan Lewis: "The Shadow Cracks the Riddle of the Yellow Band" by uncredited; Shadow Comics, April 1947, edited by William J. deGrouchy

Steve Lewis: The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper by John D. MacDonald

Todd Mason:  Dutch Uncles: Two Anthologies for Younger Readers: Worlds to Come edited by Damon Knight (Harper & Row 1967); Fourteen For Now edited by John Simon (Harper & Row 1969)

Neeru: Exit John Horton by J. Jefferson Farjeon

J. F. Norris: The Cock's Tail Murder by Hugh Austin

Jim Noy: Not to be Taken aka A Puzzle in Poison by Anthony Berkeley  (see also: J. I. Escribano)

Juri Nummelin: 3 1960s western novels:  On the Dodge by D. B. Newton, The Bitter Night by Wayne D. Overholser; The Demanding Land by "Reese Sullivan" (Giles A. Lutz); Juri notes he read all three in their Finnish translations; Juri's new English-language nonfiction reviews and critiques volume Dark Places and Little Tramps is now out and available in most countries.

"Paperback Warrior": Green Light for Death by Frank Kane

Thomas Parker: Kesrick by Lin Carter

J. Kingston Pierce: Too Late to Die by Bill Crider

James Reasoner: The Joy Wheel by Paul W. Fairman; Double-Action Western, September 1945, edited by Robert A. W. Lowndes; "Ringmaster of Doom" by G. T. Fleming-Roberts, Secret Agent X, November 1935; Knight of Darkness: The Legend of The Shadow by Will Murray (nonfiction)

Jack Seabrook: "Blackmail" by John Lindsay, Thrills edited by John Gawsworth (Associated Newspaper, Ltd., 1936) Cover and contents; Libraries Australia catalog entry

Steven H. Silver: Tor Doubles: The Westerns; Tor (Fantasy) Double #17: Divide and Rule by L. Sprague de Camp; The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett

Kevin Tipple: Kill Devil Falls by Brian Klingborg

Late Friday's "Forgotten" Books: On ORBIT 6 edited by Damon Knight (Putnam, 1970) a discussion on Facebook initiated by Gregory Feeley

Gregory Feeley (link here) August 7

The anthology begins with “The Second Inquisition” by Joanna Russ and ends with “The Asian Shore” by Thomas M. Disch. In between are “Goslin Day” by Avram Davidson, “Entire and Perfect Chrysolite” by R.A. Lafferty, “The End” by Ursula K. Le Guin, “Where No Sun Shines” by Gardner R. Dozois, and “Debut” by Carol Emshwiller.

Neither of the two short stories by Gene Wolfe are among his classics (that began with the next volume), and I don’t remember anything about the story by Kate Wilhelm—I will try reading it next week when the present project is finished.

In terms of sheer quality, this may be one of the very best original anthologies ever published, Harlan Ellison’s not excepted.

Anthology Title: Orbit 6 • [Orbit • 6] • anthology by Damon Knight

Contents (view Concise Listing)

• 1 • The Second Inquisition • [Alyx] • novelette by Joanna Russ
• 40 • Remembrance to Come • (1970) • short story by Gene Wolfe
• 55 • How the Whip Came Back • (1970) • short story by Gene Wolfe
• 75 • Goslin Day • (1970) • short story by Avram Davidson
• 83 • Maybe Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, Was a Little Bit Right • (1970) • short story by Robin Scott Wilson [as by Robin S. Scott]
• 92 • The Chosen • (1970) • short story by Kate Wilhelm
• 115 • Entire and Perfect Chrysolite • (1970) • short story by R. A. Lafferty
• 131 • Sunburst • (1970) • short story by Roderick Thorp
• 142 • The Creation of Bennie Good • short story by James Sallis
• 146 • The End • (1970) • short story by Ursula K. Le Guin (variant of Things)
• 158 • A Cold Dark Night with Snow • (1970) • short story by Kate Wilhelm
• 171 • Fame • (1970) • short story by Arthur Jean Cox [as by Jean Cox]
• 184 • Debut • (1970) • short story by Carol Emshwiller
• 191 • Where No Sun Shines • (1970) • short story by Gardner Dozois
• 203 • The Asian Shore • (1970) • novelette by Thomas M. Disch

Rich Horton

"The Creation of Bennie Good" isn't my favorite early Sallis story, when he was at his weirdest, but I think it's at least intriguing. And of the two Wolfe stories, I think "How the Whip Came Back" is pretty good -- for me it's the earliest of his stories to really make an impression (though I do like "Trip Trap".)

Definitely a remarkable original anthology. The next issue is pretty strong too, with two of Lafferty's best stories, one of Wolfe's very best and another good one, one of the best early Sallis stories, a strong Wilhelm novella, very good stories from Disch, Emshwiller, and Dozois, and probably the only Laumer story that stands out in my memory.

Knight really knew what he was doing. And so of course the old farts in SF got really ticked off at him, and pulled stunts liking voting for No Award in the Nebulas to keep Gene Wolfe from winning.

[in response to a Brett Cox conjecture on the No Award "winner" in a Hugo ballot at the height of New Wave/Old Guard hostility in SF:]

Rich Horton:

Brett Cox For Jo Walton's "Revisiting the Hugos" project, I made a comment about that particular controversy repeating the "confusing ballot instructions" explanation, and Gardner Dozois, who was there, responded as follows:

'There’s no “supposedly” about it, Rich. I was there, sitting at Gene Wolfe’s table, in fact. He’d actually stood up, and was starting to walk toward the podium, when Isaac was told about his mistake. Gene shrugged and sat down quietly, like the gentleman he is, while Isaac stammered an explanation of what had happened. It was the one time I ever saw Isaac totally flustered, and, in fact, he felt guilty about the incident to the end of his days.

'It’s bullshit that this was the result of confusing ballot instructions. This was the height of the War of the New Wave, and passions between the New Wave camp and the conservative Old Guard camp were running high. (The same year, Michael Moorcock said in a review that the only way SFWA could have found a worse thing than RINGWORLD to give the Nebula to was to give it to a comic book). The fact that the short story ballot was almost completely made up of stuff from ORBIT had outraged the Old Guard, particularly James Sallis’s surreal “The Creation of Benny Hill”, and they block-voted for No Award as a protest against “non-functional word patterns” making the ballot. Judy-Lynn del Rey told me as much immediately after the banquet, when she was exuberantly gloating about how they’d “put ORBIT in its place” with the voting results, and actually said “We won!”

'All this passion and choler seems far away now, as if we were arguing over which end of the egg to break.' 

 Michael A. Armstrong

Damon’s story selection model made him open to getting great stories from not just established writers but new voices. He took unsolicited submissions (I have the rejection slips!), but I’m guessing he also invited Milford [Writer's Workshop] and other writers to submit.

If he stumbled upon a good story he also grabbed it, as when he bought Kim Stanley Robinson’s Clarion [Writer's Workshop] application story. I think it was Damon who suggested Stan use his full name so as to not be confused with Spider Robinson.

Buggerly Otherly

(aka Michael Moorcock, among other tasks editor of New Worlds magazine in the latter '60s/early '70s)

ORBIT & NEW WORLDS were publishing similar authors sometimes almost simultaneously -- Sallis and Wolfe for instance -- and occasionally even taking stories which for some reason were not quite suitable for our respective markets. I think ORBIT was, indeed, the best original anthology series. 

Steve Rhodes

Orbit 6 & 13 others in the series can be checked out at Internet Archive

https://archive.org/details/orbit60000damo

Ian McDowell notes that the Roderick Thorp listed on the cover is the same Thorp who might be best-remembered for such novels as THE DETECTIVE (adapted to a Frank Sinatra film) and NOTHING LASTS FOREVER (the novel source for the film DIE HARD).

Tom Lehrer's songs, a Robert Pinsky poem (about his love of a certain classic sf magazine, or more likely, the kinds of stories it promised)

Robert Pinsky, in the 28 July New Yorker: "Astounding Stories" (the story most thoroughly referred to in the poem seems likely to be James Blish's "Surface Tension", which was first published in the 1950s insurgent sf magazine Galaxy and was voted into the anthology The Science Fiction Hall of Fame by the members of the SFWA, the SF Writers of America)

Tom Lehrer: the Songs and Lyrics site (might disappear soon, though it's been up with that warning since 2022, and it has been Lehrer's own)

Tom Lehrer: The Copenhagen Concert

TL: That Was the Year That Was  

0:00 National Brotherhood Week 2:39 MLF Lullaby 5:05 George Murphy 7:15 The Folk Song Army 9:28 Smut 12:45 Send the Marines 14:32 Pollution 16:52 So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III) 19:18 Whatever Became of Hubert? 21:32 New Math 26:04 Alma 30:29 Who's Next? 33:31 Wernher Von Braun 35:19 The Vatican Rag

Tom Lehrer: "Poisoning Pigeons In The Park" (live, 1998)  

2000 interview, The Music Show (BBC Radio)

TL: "I Got It from Agnes" (with Italian subtitles!)   

Tom Lehrer DAT Recordings

 

Hanukkah In Santa Monica-0:05 Hanukkah In Santa Monica (short version)- 1:13 The Love Song of the Physical Anthropologist- 2:16 The Love Song of the Physical Anthropologist Take 2- 3:34 The Love Song of the Physical Anthropologist Take 3- 4:53 The Love Song of the Physical Anthropologist Take 4- 5:23 I Got It From Agnes- 6:46 I Got It From Agnes Take 2- 8:42 Trees- (not an original TL song but a Joyce Kilmer poem)- 10:30 That’s Mathematics Take 4- 11:55 Pieces for That’s Mathematics- 13:48 That’s Mathematics- 14:58

TL: "The Subway Song" (on MIT's campus radio station 88.1 FM, then WTBS Cambridge, now WMBR)

 

Lehrer on BBC 4's Desert Island Discs (12 July 1980)--sadly, the entire program, with TL's chosen recordings included (at least in part), seems to have been removed from BBC's site--this below includes the interview segments: 

An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer (1959)

Intro start, Song start – Title 00:00, 00:21 – Poisoning Pigeons in the Park 02:39, 03:20 – Bright College Days 05:42, 06:37 – A Christmas Carol 08:40, 09:05 – The Elements 10:52, 12:38 – Oedipus Rex 14:34, 16:44 – In Old Mexico 21:00, 21:34 – Clementine (he talks throughout this one) 25:40, 27:37 – It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier 30:31, 31:28 – She's My Girl 33:24, 33:50 – The Masochism Tango 36:55, 38:59 – We Will All Go Together When We Go

Songs by Tom Lehrer (in linked sequence)

The image link includes only "Fight Fiercely, Harvard"; 

hit the text link for the whole album...

Short Story Wednesday: the first will be last: "Time Enough at Last" author Ms. Lyn Venable's first published short story (known to indexers), "Homesick", GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION, December 1952

Lyn, short for Marilyn, Venable, some of us have just learned (thanks to a Facebook post by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, which was cited in a discussion group by Gordon Van Gelder), died in March: 3 June 1927 to 31 March 2025, not quite 98 full years. A few years back, I read most of her published stories and wrote a SSW survey review of those I was aware of, but didn't get a chance to also read her first published story, "Homesick", so wrote about her most famous story (mostly due to its The Twilight Zone adaptation starring Burgess Meredith) "Time Enough at Last" and all her other stories known to have been published in fantasy and sf (and adjacent) magazines in the 1950s. I made a point of finally reading "Homesick" last night (as this is published), and it's not bad for a "first story", in Galaxy in 1952, when that magazine had become the best-selling and most influential sf magazine at that time; as it was the property of an Italian magazine publisher trying several new titles in its first attempt to crack the US market, it also appeared in translation in international editions. Venable would've been 25 at time of publication.

SSW: short stories by Lyn Venable (Marilyn A. Venable, 3 June 1927-31 March 2025): "Time Enough at Last" (the Twilight Zone favorite) and others: Short Story Wednesday

It involves a small, relatively elderly crew of US astronauts, caught in a bind once returned to Earth, and coping as best they can with apparently necessary confinement. The story can be read in the Galaxy issue here; it was illustrated (as were several other stories in the issue) by Edmund Emshwiller, and appeared along with the first installment of Clifford Simak's novel Ring Around the Sun; a story by Isaac Asimov, "The Deep", that remained one of his favorites among his own work (it also might be noted that Asimov notes in his memoirs that Simak was probably the most significant non-editorial influence on Asimov's fiction among all writers); another "first" story, by Howard L. Myers, which would remain his only story in a fantastic-fiction magazine (after a nonfiction feature in Astounding SF a few months earlier) till he began publishing again, as "Verge Foray", in 1967, and would continue to publish under both names in a productive if relatively short career; two notable stories by the still very new writer Robert Sheckley, one of them under the pseudonym "Phillips Barbee". The issue is rounded out by the usual columns: H. L. Gold's editorial, Willy Ley's nonfiction science column, and Groff Conklin's book reviews.

Gold was a US World War 2 veteran, who had gone through some awful battlefield experience which left him an agoraphobe for much of the next two decades, very much including his entire tune editing Galaxy; that the Venable story involves the necessary segregation of its astronaut crew, to some extent cut off from the rest of the world, was probably among the aspects that most thoroughly interested Gold about the story. And, like most editors, he was never averse to discovering new talent, with Venable being one of three new writers to have begun publishing in the last year or so in this issue.

A not necessarily fully effective cover, credited to a kind of photo process

--ISFDB credits the cover to Jack and Bob Strimban, and Sam Willig.

From the FictionMags Index:

Galaxy Science Fiction [v5 #3, December 1952] (35¢, 160pp, digest, cover by Camerage) []
• 2 · What’s New? · H. L. Gold · ed
• 4 · Ring Around the Sun [Part 1 of 3] · Clifford D. Simak · n.; illustrated by Sibley
• 73 · Homesick · Lyn Venable · ss; illustrated by Emsh
• 80 · The Reluctant Weapon · Howard L. Myers · ss; illustrated by Emsh
• 97 · For Your Information: Cause of the Ice Age · Willy Ley · cl
• 106 · The Leech · Phillips Barbee · ss; illustrated by Connell
• 124 · Galaxy’s Five Star Shelf · Groff Conklin · rc
• 124-125 · The Heads of Cerberus, Francis Stevens; Reading, Pa.: Polaris Press, 1952. 191 p. 52-27268. · Groff Conklin · br [Ref. Francis Stevens]
• 125-126 · The Creation of the Universe, George Gamow; New York: Viking, 1952. 147 p. 52-9319. · Groff Conklin · br [Ref. George Gamow]
• 126-127 · The Haploids, Jerry Sohl; New York: Rinehart, 1952. 248 p. 52-5571. · Groff Conklin · br [Ref. Jerry Sohl]
• 126-127 · Eidolon, Julius David Stern; New York: Messner, 1952. 246 p. 52-7410. · Groff Conklin · br [Ref. J. David Stern]
• 127 · Ship of Destiny, Henry J. Slater; New York: Crowell, 1951. 187 p. 52-817. · Groff Conklin · br [Ref. Henry J. Slater]
• 128 · Cost of Living · Robert Sheckley · ss; illustrated by Emsh
• 138 · The Deep · Isaac Asimov · nv; illustrated by Ashman

The ISFDB index of the same issue.

For more of today's short fiction, please see Patti Abbott's blog.