Friday, April 5, 2019

FFM: FANTASTIC, September 1974, edited by Ted White; THE PARIS REVIEW, Autumn 1974, edited by George Plimpton; THE ONTARIO REVIEW, Autumn 1974, edited by Raymond J. Smith; THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, September 1974, edited by Edward Ferman

Late Summer 1974
Remarkable what an almost random look backward can turn up. 45 years ago. Not too long before I first began reading the magazines, and had already read some stories from them, or would first read them in that year and the next. I had my tenth birthday in August of 1974, and while I wasn't too fond of how life in general was going, I was more than happy enough about what I was finding in literature of various sorts. 

 As I consider the four magazines here now, it occurs to me that all four were eclectic in their remit to a greater degree than most of their peers, and openly so...two in making clear that they mixed fantasy (of all sorts, including horror fiction) and science fiction (and were certainly willing to publish some notable fiction that wasn't fantasy or sf by any reasonable standard on occasion, or impressive stories which could be considered truly fantasticated only by squinting very hard...in the 1970s, Stuart Dybek's "Horror Movie" or Edward Wellen's short novel Goldbrick in F&SF, or Bill Pronzini and Barry Malzberg's "Another Burnt-Out Case" or Jack Dann's "Days of Stone" in Fantastic come to mind), the other two in being open to a greater degree to all sorts of fiction than many of their little-magazine peers (perhaps only the Boston-based and not the CCNY Fiction, Antaeus and TriQuarterly were as eclectic in the '70s), and proclaiming their internationality in their very titles, an English-language magazine initially out of Paris, an intentionally interculturally Anglophone North American magazine initially out of border city Windsor, Ontario. All four were founded in a certain spirit of defiance as well as openness, ambition beyond simply attempting to produce good magazines, and all found themselves a matter of a certain degree of controversy as a result (though in The Paris Review's case, much of that controversy was generated by the ultimate source of some of its funding, as the facts of CIA involvement went from quietly rumored to documented and revealed).  The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction began publishing in 1949, Fantastic in 1952, The Paris Review in 1953...and while this was the first issue of The Ontario Review, the geist of the magazine was not too different from that of its not too elderly peers.

 --much more to come--see indices below:




























































































Fantastic Stories [v23 #6, September 1974] Ted White, editor (75¢, 132pp, digest, cover by Jeff Jones)
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction [v47 #3, #280, September 1974] edited by Edward Ferman (75¢, 164pp, digest, cover by Jeannine Guertin)

 The Paris Review #59 Fall, 1974 $1.95

 FICTION
Frederick Busch Widow Water
Lamar Herrin The Rio Loja Ring-Master
Mike Kempton Long Green
Ray Russell Rational Moments
David Shaber Progress Report

INTERVIEW
Gore Vidal The Art of Fiction No. 50

POETRY
Ameen Alwan Two Poems
Paul Anderson Falling
Maxine Chernoff Two Poems
W. K. Engel Two Poems
Albert Goldbarth Organization
Thomas Johnson Two Poems
Erica Jong Wrinkles
Erica Jong Becoming a Nun
Greg Kuzma Two Poems
Naomi Lazard Two Poems
David Lehman Greeting Where No Kindness Is
Molly McKaughan Ms. Delilah Hoffritz
Rush Rankin Poem
Vern Rutsala You
Ira Sadoff Five Poems
Aram Saroyan Two Poems
Louis Simpson Three Poems
Albert Stainton The Limestone Statue Boxing Factory
Charles Webb Two Poems

FEATURE
Peter Ardery In Memoriam

ART
William Wegman Portfolio of Drawings



The Ontario Review #1 Fall 1974 $2.50


 INTERVIEW
A Conversation with Philip Roth by Joyce Carol Oates 9

POETRY
Stanley Cooperman, from The Jerusalem Poems 23 
Conrad Hilberry, Two for Alfred North Whitehead 28 
Miroslav Holub, Loneliness of the Minotaur 30 
Ernest Sandeen, T wo Poems 31 
J. Michael Yates, from Burn Tissue Cycle 47 
John Ditsky, Three Poems 50 
John R. Reed, Love Poem 53
Derk Wynand, Snowscapes 54 
Tom Wayman, Three Poems 67 
William Heyen, Two Poems 71 
Philip J. Klukoff, Deaf Mute 74 
Carl Dennis, Prowlers 75 
Robert Bringhurst, For Robert Grosseteste 76

FICTION
Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Lucca 33 
Bill Henderson, Pop 56

GRAPHICS
A. G. Smith, Landscapes from Coastal Carolina 41

ESSAY
Paul Marx, Harvey Swados 62

REVIEWS
John R. Reed, Instructive Alchemies 78 
Linda W. Wagner, Four Young Poets 89 
Gloria Whelan, The Poem as Myth 98 
Raymond Smith and Joyce Carol Oates, Briefly Noted 102 
Notes on Contributors 107 

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2 comments:

  1. Paul FraserApril 6, 2019 at 11:03 AM

    Ah, that Fantastic is one of the first back issues of that magazine I picked up after I started getting it in early '77. Must dig it out and see if I like that Swann serial better than I did first time around (didn't dislike it but was more lukewarm about it than his other early stuff).
    Like that Jones cover and that funky font they use for the title of 'Will-O-The-Wisp'.

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  2. Todd MasonApril 6, 2019 at 4:32 PM

    It's certainly the handsomest cover of the four...not a stellar assortment from the other three. Ted White, I gather, went through a Lot of Letraset sheets while laying out the covers of the magazines...

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