Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Robert Silverberg. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Robert Silverberg. Sort by date Show all posts

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

fantasy magazines, late March, 1965

The first set is comprised of what could've been found on a theoretical Very well-stocked newsstand (as some were) in late March, 1965...the English-language professional magazines specializing in publishing fantasy fiction (though all of the science fiction and mystery magazines were not averse to publishing some fantasy or horror or at least material running up to the very edges, nor the eclectic fiction magazines, of which there were a few non-littles still extant at that time...). For some reason, the March issues, or the earlier issues in each case, have somewhat better covers...either better-executed, or better subjects, or perhaps just a touch less blatantly sleazy in Gamma's case. Some of he second set might just have been on the stands instead, given the vagaries of magazine distribution...and certainly the undercapitalized Gamma (which folded with the issued dated September) and the microbudgeted Magazine of Horror had erratic schedules (Gamma had announced a stablemate, crime-fiction magazine Chase, which was published by MOH's publisher instead...and was much less handsome for it).
Cover by Agosta Morol

Cover by Fred Wolters





























Cover by Edmund Emshwiller ("Emsh")

































Cover by Gray Morrow















Cover by John Healey
Cover by Bert Tanner





































The notable facts of these issues are several, not least that John Brunner appears in the April issue of the Magazine of Horror, and any number of other fantastic-fiction issues at about this time (as the always-prolific Brunner was working up to some of the best work in his career); the March F&SF features one of Roger Zelazny's most important early stories, while the April issue is perhaps most significant as the first issue that Edward Ferman edited on his own (even though his father, publisher Joseph Ferman, still had the formal title of "editor" as he had since Davidson's resignation the previous year), not "using up" the inventory that Avram Davidson had purchased for the magazine, and introducing Gahan Wilson's first monthly cartoon (Wilson had contributed cartoons to Fantastic in the 1950s, as well as having already made a career for himself in Playboy, The New Yorker and other slick magazines by 1965)...Southern Illinois University Press published a facsimile of this issue in hardcover, with added memoirs by several of the contributors including Ferman, in 1981. Meanwhile, these were almost the last issues edited by the similarly important Cele Lalli, who had begun editorship of Fantastic and its stablemate Amazing as Cele Goldsmith; when the magazines were sold at mid-year to independent publisher Sol Cohen, as Cele G. Lalli she would stay with Ziff-Davis as a notable editor of bridal magazines. Here's a decent appreciation for some of the early issues of the Magazine of Horror, which Robert A. W. Lowndes was able to keep afloat from 1963-1971, and a more comprehensive one here...and not long after these issues, edited by Kyril Bonfiglioli with the help of fellow writer and artist Keith Roberts, the British institution Science Fantasy would change title to SF Impulse...while its elder sibling, New Worlds, underwent similar changes and eventually even greater ones...
Indices courtesy ISFDb:

Science Fantasy, March 1965 

  
Magazine of Horror, April 1965 


The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1965 

  
Fantastic: Stories of Imagination, March 1965


Gamma,  February 1965 

Cover by Gray Morrow



Cover by Fred Wolters
Cover uncredited (perhaps a rush job
by Keith Roberts)

Cover by John Healey,  which would be recycled much later by Mike Shayne 
Mystery Magazine, then also under the editorship of Charles Fritch


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Friday, November 4, 2011

FFB: THE WESTERN HALL OF FAME and THE MYSTERY HALL OF FAME ed. Bill Pronzini, MH Greenberg (& Chas. Waugh), HIGH GEAR ed. Evan Jones

Some quick takes this week, but nonetheless some important books, the first one at least to me.
The first edition.

High Gear was the first anthology of sports fiction I read, as a kid; my father was a (mostly) amateur auto-racing driver (mostly sports cars, both track and auto-cross racing--the latter long-term road-racing, sometimes with my mother as navigator) in Alaska in the early and mid 1960s, and the Bantam Pathfinder edition of this anthology presumably caught his eye at the racks or someone else's eye who thought it would be a good gift. Certainly it was to me...it was my first encounter with the fiction of William Campbell Gault, William F. Nolan, John D. MacDonald, William Saroyan (beating out first exposure to My Name is Aram by a year or two), war-correspondent legend Bill Mauldin and some guy named Steinbeck; it wasn't my first experience with Thurber, but close, as well as with such sports-fiction specialists (along with Gault) as Ken Purdy and Henry Gregor Felsen. I don't know anything about this Evan Jones (there seem to be, possibly, several active in the literary world in the last century) except that he also seems to have edited some western and otherwise frontier-oriented anthologies...and that he had excellent taste as an editor here.

(High Gear and The Western Hall of Fame contents courtesy the Contento indices)
High Gear ed. Evan Jones (Bantam Pathfinder EP32, Jul ’63, 45¢, 184pp, pb); Reissue (original: Bantam, Mar ’55).

1 · First Skirmish · Henry Gregor Felsen · ss, 1954
16 · Change of Plan · Ken Purdy · ss Atlantic Monthly Sep ’52
23 · Dirt-Track Thunder · William Campbell Gault · ss Argosy, 1946
38 · The Ragged Edge · William F. Nolan · ss Sports Car Journal, 1957
52 · The Affair of the Wayward Jeep · Bill Mauldin · ss The Saturday Evening Post Jun 27 ’53
68 · Elimination Race · John D. MacDonald · ss Colliers Sep 13 ’52
83 · Smashup · James Thurber · ss New Yorker Oct 5 ’35
89 · Head-On · Robert Switzer · ss Esquire Feb ’53
94 · Hearse of the Speedway · Peter Granger · ss Esquire, 1936
105 · 1924 Cadillac for Sale · William Saroyan · ss, 1948
110 · Money on Morgan · Robert Westerby · ss Esquire, 1938
117 · The $20,000,000 Decision · Cameron Hawley · ss Colliers Jan 22 ’54
136 · Throttle Shy · Frank Harvey · ss Argosy Sep ’52
150 · The Phantom Flivver · Frank Luther Mott · ss The Saturday Evening Post Jan 28 ’50
161 · A Model T Named “It” · John Steinbeck · ss Ford Times Jul ’53
165 · The Magnificent Torpedo · Dean Evans · ss Argosy Oct ’51
178 · Flags in Castelfiorentino · Francis Steegmuller · ss New Yorker, 1951

A rather blurry image of the Pathfinder reprint edition my father had, which he's given to me.

The Western Hall of Fame ed. Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg (William Morrow and Co. 0-688-02220-0, 1984, $17.95, 376pp, hc, cover by Terry Fehr) [Western]

5 · Introduction · Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg · in
11 · The Blue Hotel · Stephen Crane · nv Colliers Nov 26, 1898
45 · The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County · Mark Twain · ss, 1867
53 · The Outcasts of Poker Flat · Bret Harte · ss Overland Monthly Jan, 1869
67 · An Afternoon Miracle · O. Henry · ss Everybody’s Magazine Jul ’02
81 · Tappan’s Burro · Zane Grey · nv Ladies Home Journal Jun ’23
131 · Wine on the Desert · Max Brand · ss This Week Jun 7 ’36
141 · Stage to Lordsburg · Ernest Haycox · ss Colliers Apr 10 ’37
159 · A Day in Town · Ernest Haycox · ss Colliers Jan 1 ’38
177 · The Indian Well · Walter Van Tilburg Clark · ss, 1943
197 · A Man Called Horse · Dorothy M. Johnson · ss Colliers Jan 7 ’50
215 · Outlaw Trail · S. Omar Barker · ss The Saturday Evening Post Jan 3 ’59
231 · Blood on the Sun · Thomas Thompson · ss The American Magazine Jun ’54
249 · Stubby Pringle’s Christmas · Jack Schaefer · ss (YA chapbook, Houghton Mifflin, 1964)
265 · The Winter of His Life · Lewis B. Patten · ss The Colorado Quarterly, 1953
275 · Isley’s Stranger · Clay Fisher · ss (Legends and Tales of the Old West, edited by S. Omar Barker for WWA, Doubleday 1962)
309 · Lost Sister · Dorothy M. Johnson · ss Colliers Mar 30 ’56
323 · Paso Por Aqui · Eugene Manlove Rhodes · nv The Saturday Evening Post Feb 20 ’26 (+1)

What's notable to me in this anthology, with its stories chosen by polling the members of the Western Writers of America, with a simplified Australian ballot (essentially, please name your choice for best western short story ever, and your four or so [more if you like] other suggestions for the anthology) is in who isn't in the book...such younger writers as Joe Lansdale and Loren Estleman were still establishing themselves in 1983-84, but the absence of the Els--Elmer Kelton and Elmore Leonard--seems a bit odd, though perhaps their stars have risen among their peers in the last quarter-century. (Old favorite of mine Shirley/Lee Hoffman barely wrote any short fiction in the western field, pretty much going straight into the novels with The Valdez Horses and her first-novel Spur; rather comparable to Samuel Delany's entry into the sf scene.) Also, and even more surprising to me, is that not a damned one of these stories was first published in a western-fiction magazine, pulp, digest or otherwise, though the "Clay Fisher" story was apparently first published in the "1962 Doubleday WWA anthology," as the Spur Awards page on the WWA site puts it (not bothering to name the anthology!--though Pronzini and Greenberg fail to do so, as well, in the copyrights detail page). I've just received this book, so haven't yet had the opportunity to go through it...though it does look inviting, save the Zane Grey story (which, I'm amused to note, was first published in The Ladies Home Journal...given the machismic anxiety of some western readers, I'm sure that datum wouldn't help, but of course Grey, in the manner of Stephen King, wrote badly enough on a regular basis to transcend the usual audiences for his kind of fiction at the time...and perhaps, as I occasionally am with King, I'll be pleasantly surprised by this novella).









(courtesy WorldCat)
The Mystery Hall of Fame.
New York : Morrow, 1984
edited by Bill Pronzini; Martin Harry Greenberg; Charles Waugh; from polling of the Mystery Writers of America.
467 pp. ; 22 cm.

Contents: The purloined letter / Edgar Allen Poe --
The adventure of the speckled band / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle --
The oracle of the dog / G.K. Chesterton --
The monkey's paw / W.W. Jacobs --
The problem of cell 13 / Jacques Futrelle --
The hands of Mr. Ottermole / Thomas Burke --
The two bottles of relish / Lord Dunsany --
The gutting of Couffignal / Dashiell Hammett --
Accident / Agatha Christie --
Red wind / Raymond Chandler --
Rear window / Cornell Woolrich --
The house in Goblin Wood / John Dickson Carr --
Don't look behind you / Fredric Brown --
The nine mile walk / Harry Kemelman --
The specialty of the house / Stanley Ellin --
Love lies bleeding / Philip MacDonald --
Lamb to the slaughter / Roald Dahl --
No parking / Ellery Queen --
The oblong room / Edward D. Hoch --
Sweet fever / Bill Pronzini.

Now, this selection seems less surprising, though to find Kemelman muscling past the likes of Ross Macdonald, or John D. McD for that matter, seems not so much a gross injustice as a product of the time of the polling. However, as wonderful a story as W. W. Jacobs's "The Monkey's Paw" is, it has essentially no business being in this book...as opposed to the Silverberg and Greenberg The Horror Hall of Fame. The Pronzini was polled in, and published here over Pronzini's objection (a jusst case of modesty overruled). There is perhaps one too many classic stories here of murder and eating the evidence, but the gimmick was pretty irresistible, and the stories are indeed classics (though John Collier's "A Touch of Nutmeg Makes It" might still be the most insidious of this class among the early stars). (Also notable to me is the number of typos in some WorldCat listings...fixed above...) Another recent purchase (simultaneous, actually), but I've read more of the selections above before, and don't actively dislike the work of any of the writers collected here, so expect to have a more familiar good time going through this one.

For more of this week's books, please see Patti Abbott's blog.

And, a late bulletin: it seems that, even as Robert Silverberg has edited or co-edited two poll-driven Fantasy Hall of Fame volumes, that Dale Walker (again with the WWA polled? Yes, as it turns out) produced a 1997 Western Hall of Fame (index from Contento):


The Western Hall of Fame Anthology ed. Dale L. Walker (Berkley 0-425-15906-X, Dec ’97, $5.99, 268pp, pb) [Western]

vii · Introduction · Dale L. Walker · in
xi · Author Notes · Dale L. Walker · ss
1 · The Defense of Sentinel · Louis L’Amour · ss 5 Western Novels Magazine Oct ’52
11 · Gun Job · Thomas Thompson · ss Colliers Feb 28 ’53
33 · The Luck of Roaring Camp · Bret Harte · ss Overland Monthly Aug, 1868
45 · The Blue Hotel · Stephen Crane · nv Colliers Nov 26, 1898
77 · To Build a Fire · Jack London · ss The Youth’s Companion May 29 ’02
95 · The Burial of Letty Strayhorn · Elmer Kelton · ss New Trails, ed. John Jakes and Martin H. Greenberg, Doubleday, 1994
109 · Hell on the Draw · Loren D. Estleman · ss The New Frontier, ed. Joe R. Lansdale, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1989
125 · A Horse for Mrs. Custer · Glendon Swarthout · ss
145 · The Face · Ed Gorman · ss The Best Western Stories of Ed Gorman, Swallow Press, 1992
159 · Candles in the Bottom of the Pool · Max Evans · ss, 1973
189 · The Shaming of Broken Horn · Bill Gulick · ss The Saturday Evening Post Feb 13 ’60
207 · No Room at the Inn [Sabrina Carpenter; John Quincannon] · Bill Pronzini · ss Crime at Christmas, ed. Jack Adrian, Equation, 1988
221 · Geranium House · Peggy Simson Curry · ss Frontiers West, ed. S. Omar Barker, Doubleday, 1959
233 · Three-Ten to Yuma · Elmore Leonard · ss Dime Western Magazine Mar ’53
249 · The Tin Star · John M. Cunningham · ss Colliers Dec 6 ’47
267 · Permissions · Dale L. Walker · ms

--that certainly redresses some of the slights of the first set...while adding some more! At least this one (and the second Silverberg) could've been, as the SFWA sf HOF volumes were, tagged Volume 2...

...and, for the hell of it, here's the comparison of the two Fantasy Hall of Fames, the first from a World Fantasy Convention attendees poll, the second from a SFWA poll a decade and a half later:

The Fantasy Hall of Fame ed. Robert Silverberg & Martin H. Greenberg (Arbor House 0-87795-521-2, Oct ’83, $16.95, 431pp, hc)

9 · Introduction · Robert Silverberg · in
13 · The Masque of the Red Death · Edgar Allan Poe · ss Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine May, 1842
21 · An Inhabitant of Carcosa · Ambrose Bierce · ss San Francisco Newsletter Dec 25, 1886
26 · The Sword of Welleran · Lord Dunsany · ss The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories, London: G. Allen, 1908
42 · The Women of the Wood [earlier version of “The Woman of the Wood”, Weird Tales Aug ’26] · A. Merritt · nv The Fox Woman & Other Stories, Avon, 1949
76 · The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan · Clark Ashton Smith · ss Weird Tales Jun ’32
86 · The Valley of the Worm [James Allison (past lives of)] · Robert E. Howard · nv Weird Tales Feb ’34
110 · Black God’s Kiss [Jirel of Joiry] · C. L. Moore · nv Weird Tales Oct ’34
143 · The Silver Key [Randolph Carter] · H. P. Lovecraft · ss Weird Tales Jan ’29
157 · Nothing in the Rules · L. Sprague de Camp · nv Unknown Jul ’39
191 · A Gnome There Was · Henry Kuttner · nv Unknown Oct ’41
221 · Snulbug · Anthony Boucher · ss Unknown Dec ’41; F&SF May ’53
239 · The Words of Guru [as by Kenneth Falconer] · C. M. Kornbluth · ss Stirring Science Stories Jun ’41
248 · Homecoming · Ray Bradbury · ss Mademoiselle Oct ’46
263 · Mazirian the Magician [Dying Earth] · Jack Vance · ss The Dying Earth, Hillman, 1950
282 · O Ugly Bird! [John] · Manly Wade Wellman · ss F&SF Dec ’51
296 · The Silken-Swift · Theodore Sturgeon · nv F&SF Nov ’53
318 · The Golem · Avram Davidson · ss F&SF Mar ’55
325 · That Hell-Bound Train · Robert Bloch · ss F&SF Sep ’58
341 · Kings in Darkness [Elric] · Michael Moorcock · nv Science-Fantasy #54 ’62
375 · Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes · Harlan Ellison · nv Knight May ’67
399 · Gonna Roll the Bones · Fritz Leiber · nv Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967
424 · The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas · Ursula K. Le Guin · ss New Dimensions 3, ed. Robert Silverberg, Nelson Doubleday, 1973

The Fantasy Hall of Fame ed. Robert Silverberg (HarperPrism 0-06-105215-9, Mar ’98 [Feb ’98], $14.00, 562pp, tp) Anthology of 30 fantasy stories from 1939 to 1990, chosen by SFWA members. Introduction by Silverberg; individual story introductions by Martin H. Greenberg.

vii · Introduction · Robert Silverberg · in
1 · Trouble with Water · H. L. Gold · ss Unknown Mar ’39
21 · Nothing in the Rules · L. Sprague de Camp · nv Unknown Jul ’39
47 · Fruit of Knowledge · C. L. Moore · nv Unknown Oct ’40
77 · Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius [1941] · Jorge Luís Borges · ss Labyrinths, New Directions, 1962
91 · The Compleat Werewolf [Fergus O’Breen] · Anthony Boucher · na Unknown Apr ’42
137 · The Small Assassin · Ray Bradbury · ss Dime Mystery Magazine Nov ’46
153 · The Lottery · Shirley Jackson · ss New Yorker Jun 26 ’48
161 · Our Fair City · Robert A. Heinlein · ss Weird Tales Jan ’49
177 · There Shall Be No Darkness · James Blish · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’50
211 · The Loom of Darkness [“Liane the Wayfarer”; Dying Earth] · Jack Vance · ss The Dying Earth, Hillman, 1950
221 · The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles [as by Idris Seabright] · Margaret St. Clair · ss F&SF Oct ’51
225 · The Silken-Swift · Theodore Sturgeon · nv F&SF Nov ’53
243 · The Golem · Avram Davidson · ss F&SF Mar ’55
249 · Operation Afreet [Steven Matuchek; Ginny Greylock] · Poul Anderson · nv F&SF Sep ’56
277 · That Hell-Bound Train · Robert Bloch · ss F&SF Sep ’58
289 · Bazaar of the Bizarre [Fafhrd & Gray Mouser] · Fritz Leiber · nv Fantastic Aug ’63
311 · Come Lady Death · Peter S. Beagle · ss Atlantic Monthly Sep ’63
327 · The Drowned Giant · J. G. Ballard · ss The Terminal Beach, London: Gollancz, 1964
337 · Narrow Valley · R. A. Lafferty · ss F&SF Sep ’66
349 · Faith of Our Fathers · Philip K. Dick · nv Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967
379 · The Ghost of a Model T · Clifford D. Simak · nv Epoch, ed. Roger Elwood & Robert Silverberg, Berkley, 1975
393 · The Demoness · Tanith Lee · ss The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories #2, ed. Lin Carter, DAW, 1976
405 · Jeffty Is Five · Harlan Ellison · ss F&SF Jul ’77
423 · The Detective of Dreams · Gene Wolfe · nv Dark Forces, ed. Kirby McCauley, Viking, 1980
439 · Unicorn Variations · Roger Zelazny · nv IASFM Apr 13 ’81
461 · Basileus · Robert Silverberg · ss The Best of Omni Science Fiction, No. 5, ed. Don Myrus, Omni, 1983
477 · The Jaguar Hunter · Lucius Shepard · nv F&SF May ’85
501 · Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight · Ursula K. Le Guin · nv Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences, Capra Press, 1987
527 · Bears Discover Fire · Terry Bisson · ss IASFM Aug ’90
537 · Tower of Babylon · Ted Chiang · nv Omni Nov ’90

Two covers that leave much to be desired...the newer book's being a bit less dire...

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Friday, December 11, 2009

Friday's "Forgotten" Books, Jr.: Eleanor Clymer MY BROTHER STEVIE; Robert Silverberg VOYAGERS IN TIME; Robert Arthur ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MONSTER MUSEUM



My Brother Stevie by Eleanor Clymer (Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1967) was my first favorite novel; I read it when I was about seven, and it involves a girl permanently abandoned by her parents with the instruction to take care of her junior hellion brother...as a kid with a new brother and some very busy parents still fairly recently moved to my third state in three years, this narrative not too inexplicably spoke to me. It was grittier than nearly anything else I read at that age, and seemed to have a good sense of how bewildering everything can be to a kid at that stage of life (you might think things are beyond your control now, and you're correct in too many ways, but cast your mind back to your single-digit years and not long after). A helpful teacher helps put things (mostly) aright.

 Voyagers in Time, edited by Robert Silverberg, was the first anthology of sf stories I remember picking up and going through...though most of the stories are at least minor classics of adult science fiction, the book was packaged for the teen market (a number of them are also chestnuts of the anthologies in the field). I knew I'd read David Masson's "Traveller's Rest" somewhere when years later I'd see references to the story in various critical and reference works, but couldn't until restumbling across this anthology remember where the hell it had been. A battered, stripped copy of this one (in its Grosset & Dunlap Tempo edition) was kicking around the house from my early literate years, from the bad old days of mob-dominated paperback distribution, wherein in wasn't too hard for my father to stumble across stripped mass-market editions for sale in the open for a dime each or somesuch, when of course the distributor was legally obligated to destroy these copies after returing the front covers for credit to their publishers (an incredibly wasteful system that probably still hasn't completely died out). The Wells excerpt made the strongest impression at the time...

 Alfred Hitchcock's Monster Museum was just one of the several anthologies aimed at young readers specifically that Robert Arthur ghost-edited for Hitchcock to put his name to, as Arthur was also ghost-editing Alfred Hitchcock Presents: anthologies aimed at the adult market at the same time; I read both series together and loved their eclecticism, as I've mentioned multiple times on this blog and elsewhere, as well as their reliability (Arthur was an excellent editor as well as a good writer, and his successors, after his death, often did a reasonable job of keeping up with him--Arthur also edited, in the clear, such YA anthos as Thrillers and More Thrillers and, earlier, had been the editor of The Mysterious Traveler Magazine, branded for his radio series and one of the great "lost" shortlived fiction magazines). The original hardcover editions were interestingly illustrated, and the paperback editions were, for no compelling reason, sometimes abridged.
from "AfredSpace":

 Alfred Hitchcock's Monster Museum
Edited by Robert Arthur. "Twelve Shuddery Stories for Daring Young Readers." Illustrated by Earl E. Mayan. Random House New York. @ 1965. 207 pages.
"The Day Of The Dragon" by Guy Endore,
"The King Of The Cats" by Stephen Vincent Benet,
"Slime" by Joseph Payne Brennan,
"The Man Who Sold Rope To The Gnoles" by Idris Seabright [Margaret St. Clair],
"Henry Martindale, Great Dane" by Miriam Allen deFord,
"The Microscopic Giants" by Paul Ernst,
"The Young One" by Jerome Bixby,
"Doomsday Deferred" by Will F. Jenkins [aka "Murray Leinster"],
"Shadow, Shadow On The Wall" by Theodore Sturgeon,
"The Desrick On Yandro" by Manly Wade Wellman,
"The Wheelbarrow Boy" by Richard Paker [sic],
"Homecoming" by Ray Bradbury.

 ..and, because I thought that "Paker" was unlikely, here's the Contento index:

 Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum [ed. by Robert Arthur] ed. Anon. (Random House 0-394-84899-3, 1982, $2.50, 213pp, tp)
ix · Introduction: A Variety of Monsters · Alfred Hitchcock · in [ghosted by Arthur]
3 · Slime · Joseph Payne Brennan · nv Weird Tales Mar ’53
40 · The King of the Cats · Stephen Vincent Benét · ss Harper’s Bazaar Feb ’29
62 · The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles · Idris Seabright · ss F&SF Oct ’51
70 · Henry Martindale, Great Dane · Miriam Allen deFord · ss Beyond Fantasy Fiction Mar ’54
90 · Shadow, Shadow, on the Wall · Theodore Sturgeon · ss Imagination Feb ’51
105 · Doomsday Deferred · Will F. Jenkins · ss The Saturday Evening Post Sep 24 ’49
129 · The Young One · Jerome Bixby · nv Fantastic Apr ’54
169 · The Desrick on Yandro [John] · Manly Wade Wellman · ss F&SF Jun ’52
188 · The Wheelbarrow Boy · Richard Parker · ss Lilliput Oct ’50
194 · Homecoming · Ray Bradbury · ss Mademoiselle Oct ’46

Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum [ghost edited by Robert Arthur] "ed. Alfred Hitchcock"(Collins - Lions 0-00-670696-7, 1973, 45p, 190pp, pb)
7 · Introduction: A Variety of Monsters · Alfred Hitchcock · in
9 · The Day of the Dragon · Guy Endore · nv Blue Book Jun ’34
36 · The King of the Cats · Stephen Vincent Benét · ss Harper’s Bazaar Feb ’29
52 · Slime · Joseph Payne Brennan · nv Weird Tales Mar ’53
78 · The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles · Idris Seabright · ss F&SF Oct ’51
83 · Gone to the Dogs [“Henry Martindale, Great Dane”] · Miriam Allen deFord · ss Beyond Fantasy Fiction Mar ’54
97 · The Microscopic Giants · Paul Ernst · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct ’36
114 · The Young One · Jerome Bixby · nv Fantastic Apr ’54
143 · Doomsday Deferred · Will F. Jenkins · ss The Saturday Evening Post Sep 24 ’49
159 · The Desrick on Yandro [John] · Manly Wade Wellman · ss F&SF Jun ’52
172 · The Wheelbarrow Boy · Richard Parker · ss Lilliput Oct ’50
177 · Homecoming · Ray Bradbury · ss Mademoiselle Oct ’46

--note the Sturgeon is missing from the British paperback, and probably from the US pb as well. I have to wonder what British editorial hand forced the title change on the deFord (or was it H.L. Gold's notoriously heavy hand in the original magazine appearance, finally fixed up in the UK reprint?).

 From the Contento indices:
Voyagers in Time ed. Robert Silverberg (Meredith Press, 1967, $4.95, xii+243pp, hc)
· Introduction · Robert Silverberg · in
· The Sands of Time · P. Schuyler Miller · na Astounding Apr ’37
· And It Comes Out Here · Lester del Rey · ss Galaxy Feb ’51
· Brooklyn Project · William Tenn · ss Planet Stories Fll ’48
· The Men Who Murdered Mohammed · Alfred Bester · ss F&SF Oct ’58
· Time Heals · Poul Anderson · nv Astounding Oct ’49
· Wrong-Way Street · Larry Niven · ss Galaxy Apr ’65
· Flux · Michael Moorcock · nv New Worlds Jul ’63
· Dominoes · C. M. Kornbluth · ss Star Science Fiction Stories #1, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1953
· A Bulletin from the Trustees... · Wilma Shore · ss F&SF Aug ’64
· Traveller’s Rest · David I. Masson · ss New Worlds Sep ’65
· Absolutely Inflexible · Robert Silverberg · ss Fantastic Universe Jul ’56
· The Time Machine [chapter xi, xii-part; Time Machine] · H. G. Wells · ex The New Review Jan, 1895 (+4)

 For more, mostly younger-readers' (this week) "forgotten" books, please see Patti Abbott's blog.
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Wednesday, January 31, 2024

SSW: Fred Chappell's 3 (earliest published?) short stories, in Robert Silverberg's SPACESHIP, April 1952, April and October 1953: Short Story Wednesday

Fred Chappell (born 28 May 1936/died 4 January 2024) and Robert Silverberg (born 15 January 1935) were teenaged fantastic-fiction fans in 1952, but were already showing some promise of the kind of writers (and editors) they would soon and continue to become...both had discovered the fiction magazines, among other reading, that would help shape a notable part of both their careers, and were involved in the (somewhat!) organized fantasy/sf/horror-fiction-fandom culture of the late '40s and early '50s...so much so that three issues of young New Yorker Silverberg's fanzine (or amateur magazine meant for other fans and any other interested parties) Spaceship (first published by Silverberg in 1949) would each offer one of three vignettes from young Canton, North Carolina resident Fred Chappell, in Starship's 4/52, 4/53 and 10/53 issues. Prof. Shirley Bailey Shurbutt, in the online "Kunstlerroman as Metafiction: The Poetry and Prose of Fred Chappell and the Art of Storytelling" misunderstands a line (she conflates professional fiction magazines with amateur fanzines) in John Lang's Understanding Fred Chappell in which Lang notes Chappell's statement that he had published two early stories under pseudonyms that Chappell insisted he would not divulge, and also notes that Chappell had two (rather than three) short stories in Silverberg's fanzine (almost correct, though under the byline "Fred Chappell") and Harlan Ellison's fanzine Dimensions (apparently untrue, but a closer look at Dimensions issues here will come soon)...if Chappell also had two early, pseudonymous stories in non-amateur magazines such as Weird Tales or the other sf and fantasy magazines of the early '50s, his attempts to keep them hidden have (as far as I know) succeeded, so far. 


Chappell makes the claim about two hidden stories himself (with implication that they are to professional magazines) in the 2022 documentary Fred Chappell: I Am One of You Forever (which can be seen here, and should be--despite the documentarians choosing, when running a slideshow of fantasy and sf magazine covers over Chappell's soundtrack description of his first publications, throw in an issue of a monster-movie magazine, for no obvious reason other than their confusion, among the fiction magazines). Chappell's sister recalls that Fred first attended a convention, apparently the 1953 Philcon in Philadelphia (which she refers to as a national writers' conference, which is understandable, but not quite correct--so much as a convention of writers, editors, fans in the social sense [the fannish subculture, including those who published fanzines] and fans of the specific writers, et al.), the WorldCon for that year, when he was 14 years old, which Bob Silverberg (in correspondence) suspects is a memory-slip on her part, as Silverberg recalls meeting Fred for the first time face-to-face at the '53 convention, when Chappell would've been 17yo.


The three Chappell stories in Spaceship are juvenilia, but (unsurprisingly) relatively deft fiction for a promising teen writer. They are worth reading, certainly for any fan or would-be scholar of Chappell's work.


"The New Frontier", in Spaceship #17 (1952) (which can be read here, and features contributions by other notable writers and fans as well--not least western and fantastica writer and folk-music critic and magazine editor/publisher Ms. Lee Hoffman), is a bit of a psychodrama, as the widow of an astronaut will find herself triggered into fugue states of communication with her dead husband.

"The Tin Can", in Spaceship #21 (1953) is young Chappell in a somewhat comic mood, albeit also exploiting adolescent insecurities as they persist with his protagonist, who acutely feels his lack of sophistication and self-worth in the company of his fellow astronauts...even after he discovers what looks like an enormous tin can through one of their spacecraft's viewports. A bit of an anticipation of Pop Art here, too. The online reproduction of this story features some rather odd scanning, in (I suspect) an attempt to not damage the fanzine issue too badly, but it's legible. This might also be the least assured of the three Chappell stories in Silverberg's fanzine.

"Brother", in Spaceship #23 (1953) is a slightly more straightforward  story of brothers' rivalry (in a sense), with the middle brother of three boys no little vexed by his elder brother's consistent recounting of the rigors of the elder's life as an astronaut, to the rapt attention of their parents and the youngest brother. Middle brother is both jealous and rather less invested in and actively questioning the glamor of the experience. (Though it had begun earlier, the 1950s were a good period inside and outside the sf community for considerations of how there might not be so very much glory in space exploration, for a number of reasons, most of them inherent in humanity.) 

If these were the stories Chappell would rather not be seen, well, they are both promising efforts by a writer in his mid-teens, and are short enough as well as deft enough to make reading through the typewriter-layout of the fanzine issues worth the look (and enlarging the image on your computer, if necessary) for more than simply historical purposes. 

Thanks to Robert Silverberg, Gordon Van Gelder and Rodrigo Baeza for drawing attention to these early Chappell publications.

For more of today's Short Story Wednesday items, please see Patti Abbott's blog.

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