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.