tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post1182606957052646583..comments2024-03-27T22:39:08.396-04:00Comments on Sweet Freedom: Women editors in fantasy and sf at midcentury...Todd Masonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-54112448378120648222019-04-10T04:24:42.230-04:002019-04-10T04:24:42.230-04:00! had certainly encountered Celeste, Celia and Sel...! had certainly encountered Celeste, Celia and Selena, but never Cele in my youth. I assumed it might well be "Say-lay" or even "Chay-lay"...certainly the circumstances in which I encountered her name put celestial thoughts into the back-brain...Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-12586131328139456582019-04-08T08:21:13.703-04:002019-04-08T08:21:13.703-04:00"I always used to mispronounce Cele as well!&..."I always used to mispronounce Cele as well!"<br /><br />And thus we know that neither of you is Jewish. :-)<br /><br />I have to thank Richard Moore, or I would have been asking the same questions about yyour initial references to Noreen (with whom Larry published many fanzines, including the newszine AX, whereas I don't recall many, if any, with Lee) and Lee. <br /><br />I otherwise second most of the assertions in the discussion here. Gary Farberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10758652095615070101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-58529592341351450532019-04-06T04:54:17.066-04:002019-04-06T04:54:17.066-04:00Nice article. I always used to mispronounce Cele a...Nice article. I always used to mispronounce Cele as well!Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10679200718155534578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-50387678373080832302011-05-31T23:45:54.175-04:002011-05-31T23:45:54.175-04:00George--something which unfortunately remained tru...George--something which unfortunately remained true throughout the terms of all the editors at Ultimate Publications, from Joe "Ross" (who did a pretty poor job, but published some impressive work almost in spite of himself) through Harry Harrison, Malzberg, White and Mavor...with the budget only going up when the combined magazine was sold to TSR, who benefited almost immediately from Spielberg's purchase of title rights and story options for his disastrous tv series.<br /><br />Rich--yes, the later (than UNKNOWN) Leibers have more maturity, unsurprisingly, and a grace and fluidity that even the best of the earliest work (the novella that first appeared in NIGHT'S BLACK AGENTS, heavily co-authored with Harry Fischer, "Adept's Gambit"). The last F&GM stories Leiber wrote could at times be a bit tired or slight, I think in part because Leiber had fallen into the habit of using his characters to ease back in after blocks and blackouts.<br /><br />Leiber pretty consistently demonstrated the edges of what could be done with fantastic fiction...moreso than almost anyone else, and I'm not sure anyone has surpassed him, though some might've equaled.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-81423280992808825462011-05-31T20:05:22.651-04:002011-05-31T20:05:22.651-04:00Like Richard Moore, I discovered SF magazines thro...Like Richard Moore, I discovered SF magazines through FANTASTIC and AMAZING edited by Cele Goldsmith. When you look at what quality zines she put out on a shoe-string budget, you have to be impressed.Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04546161337366365635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-3594280313287734732011-05-31T00:17:26.491-04:002011-05-31T00:17:26.491-04:00It was actually "Lean Times in Lankhmar"...It was actually "Lean Times in Lankhmar", the story that WAS in the November 1959 issue that is a favorite and just blew me away when I read it. My aging brain flipped the two titles and I should never write anything these days without checking the facts.<br /><br />It was the first in the series I had read and then I came upon the issue of Other Worlds with another. Fairly soon I learned of the Gnome Press collection TWO SOUGHT ADVENTURE and ordered it. I liked the original Unknown stories but they were different, and not as satisfying in some ways as "Lean Times in Lankhmar". <br /><br />The humor in "Lean Times" certainly attracted me but it was also the satirical look at religion that excited me. For a kid barely in my teens in rural Georgia almost fifty years ago, it seemed wonderfully daring and it expanded my view of what was possible in fantasy and SF.Richard Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13770090814220403413noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-13655708953537403632011-05-30T20:58:07.731-04:002011-05-30T20:58:07.731-04:00And, thanks! for the comments and benisons!And, thanks! for the comments and benisons!Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-77463945853325388642011-05-30T20:57:38.770-04:002011-05-30T20:57:38.770-04:00FANTASTIC was almost always a slightly better maga...FANTASTIC was almost always a slightly better magazine than AMAZING through the decades, in part I suspect because the commercial competition for good fantasy fiction was always less...even in the times when FANTASTIC would run some sf as routine as AMAZING's could be. (I do remember being slightly puzzled that Ted White, in what turned out to be his last issues of the magazines, placed a borderline fantasy story by Steve Utley in AMAZING and a fairly straightforward sf by SU story in FANTASTIC...but perhaps that was precisely because he liked the latter better.)<br /><br />I hedged bets a bit in re: Hoffman because I couldn't remember if they had married, either...I knew that Noreen Shaw had been with him longer (albeit he died so relatively young). But LP in this case means basically the person you're spending your serious time with, not necessarily your whole life, whether that be a spouse or steady. And, indeed, Lee Hoffman was an excellent writer, in every field she turned her hand to...including what little I've seen of her folkie journalism/crit.<br /><br />I hedged a bit on both Zelazny and Le Guin as Goldsmith "discoveries" because both had published elsewhere first, Zelazny famously in the Scholastic Magazines publication LITERARY CAVALCADE while still in high school. By all accounts, Goldsmith was a very kind person, as well as an editor learning all she could about fantasy and sf as quickly as she could, when she got the gig working with a boss, Fairman, who clearly didn't give a damn. And Ziff-Davis never made things easy for her, publishing the magazines monthly till they sold them but also keeping her editorial budget low.<br /><br />That All-Leiber issue was a hell of a thing, and a nervy as well as generous thing for Goldsmith to do, even given that we're talking FRITZ LEIBER here...though "Ill Met in Lankhmar" would have to wait till F&SF in 1970, when Leiber was coming out of another alcoholic block, after the death of Jonquil Leiber...though "Lean Times in Lankhmar" was in the FANTASTIC Leiber issue, even as "Ship of Shadows" would be the featured fiction in the special Leiber issue of F&SF a decade later, and FANTASTIC did publish the two origin stories that led up to "Ill Met": Cele Goldsmith published "The Unholy Grail" in 1963 and Ted White "The Snow Women" in 1970.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-91601250818401753312011-05-30T17:08:56.473-04:002011-05-30T17:08:56.473-04:00Realizing I concentrated my first comment on a min...Realizing I concentrated my first comment on a minor point, I wanted to circle back to speak of Cele Goldsmith. It was her Amazing Stories that hooked me on SF magazines and my first subscriptions were to Amazing and Fantastic. Astounding was next with F&SF quick to follow.<br /><br />But Goldsmith's magazines had a special place in my heart and I always pulled for them as the underdogs. I wrote her when I was 14 and was thrilled to get a personal letter back from her. <br /><br />Keith Laumer and Roger Zelazny were two talented writers who first made impressions in her magazines. I could not wait for each issue of Fantastic to arrive with Laumer's WORLDS OF THE IMPERIUM. <br /><br />Fantastic was also where I discovered Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories. The first was in the all Leiber issue of Fantastic in November 1959. It had "Ill Met in Lankhmar" which is still one of my favorite of the series.<br /><br />My impression was that her Fantastic had a little more sparkle than Amazing. But I loved them both.Richard Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13770090814220403413noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-35989077528024158972011-05-30T15:44:30.607-04:002011-05-30T15:44:30.607-04:00Very good summary of fantasy/SF women editors. No...Very good summary of fantasy/SF women editors. Not sure of your meaning regarding Larry Shaw's " (first I think) eventual life partner" in reference to Lee Hoffman. I think Lee was his first wife but that only lasted a couple of years in the fifties. <br /><br />Noreen Shaw, another active fan, would be more deserving of the "life partner" title, although I'm not certain she would have cared for that term. I was in a mystery apa with Noreen for some years and she worked for a library in Los Angeles and could not wait for retirement to come so she could move back to Ohio. She did move back but had only a few years to enjoy retirement before she died.<br /><br />I wish I had known Lee as by all accounts, she was such an engaging personality and certainly was an excellent writer. She was also an important figure in the the NYC folk scene.Richard Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13770090814220403413noreply@blogger.com