SSW: Guest Post: Paul Di Filippo on STARTLING STORIES, January 1952, edited by Samuel Mines

I was reading--literally only a few pages a night--an issue of Startling Stories, January 1952.  I finally finished it last night.  Let me see if I can cast my memory back over the weeks and see what I thought of these stories in a few words.

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?60673 

cover by Earle K. Bergey(?)

•  6 • The Ether Vibrates (Startling Stories, January 1952) • essay by The Editor, Samuel Mines

• 10 • Journey to Barkut (Complete Novel) • serial by Murray Leinster (book publication as Gateway to Elsewhere 1954)

• 10 •  Journey to Barkut (Complete Novel) • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay

• 15 •  Journey to Barkut (Complete Novel) [2] • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay

• 21 •  Journey to Barkut (Complete Novel) [3] • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay

• 80 • The Great Idea • short story by Raymond Z. Gallun

• 80 •  The Great Idea • interior artwork by Paul Orban [as by Orban]

• 94 • Lost Art • novelette by A. Bertram Chandler

• 94 •  Lost Art • interior artwork by Peter Poulton

• 115 • The Wheel • short story by John Wyndham

• 115 •  The Wheel • interior artwork by Peter Poulton

• 121 • How Green Was My Martian • short story by Mack Reynolds

• 121 •  How Green Was My Martian • interior artwork by Vincent Napoli [as by Napoli]

• 127 •  Letter (Startling Stories, January 1952) • [Letters: L. Sprague de Camp] • essay by L. Sprague de Camp

• 140 • Review of the Current Science Fiction Fan Publications (Startling Stories, January 1952) • essay by Jerome Bixby

• 145 • Science Fiction Movie Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still • essay by uncredited

[can be read here]

The inside front cover ad is for a noir film, The Racket. Very nicely eclectic ad. Where are such ads in today's printzines? Asimov's SF getting income from some Amazon Prime advertising for Knives Out? Why not?

The big editorial news is the start of monthly publication. The rest of the editorial is a meditation on the state of SF sales and audience appeal. The letter column starts here, but the bulk of it is at the back of the book. The quality of the letters and the earnest effort and sense of camaraderie is of course impressive, and, I think, hardly equalled by the social media commentary that dimly substitutes for such correspondence today. de Camp has a letter here.
  
The Leinster piece runs for almost 80 pages and is a de Camp & Pratt (with echoes of Thorne Smith) fantasy romp about a staid fellow who finds his way to a magical Middle Eastern land full of djinn, and gradually becomes the Top Dog there. The humor of course might seem antiquated nowadays--lots of silliness around naked girl djinns--but the tale is light and frothy, going down easy, and even possessed of a few scenes of surreal estrangement.  Reprinted.

The Gallun story concerns a couple of dodgy conmen on Mars. A rube arrives with a lot of cash and an idea on how to revolutionize Mars-Earth transportation.  They seem to rook him, but eventually reveal benign intentions, and the rube is acclimated to Mars. Reprinted just once in a non-English publication.

The Chandler story concerns another scammer who can find any lost artwork a buyer can name. The trick is to travel in time to find the original piece. Our hero is an innocent rocket jockey they need for their mission. Much danger ensues, in present and past, but our hero emerges okay. Chandler, not a writer I would have previously deemed conversant with sex, devotes quite a few lines to the porn collection of one buyer. "There was a painting of what, at first glance, could have been some gorgeous tropical flower. At second and subsequent glances it wasn't." Whoa, ABC, does Commander Grimes know that his adventures are coming out of such a filthy typewriter?!? Reprinted just once in a non-English publication.

The Wyndham tale is post-apocalypse. The very notion and sight of any wheel is forbidden tech. A boy reinvents it, and is sentenced to death, but a wise elder claims the crime and punishment, allowing youth to survive for a perhaps better future. Much reprinted.

The only quasi-stinker is the Mack Reynolds story about a Martian advisor to some cardboard Hollywood guys who want to sell movies--excuse me, "wires"--on Mars. The tale is so full of silly Martian words that it makes for tough slogging. Never reprinted.

I was surprised to see Jerome Bixby reviewing fanzines, as I had not thought of him as a fanzine fan. [I noted to Paul that Bixby's column would've been written about when he was leaving his editorial post at Planet Stories and Jungle Stories, and briefly (iirc) taking one on at Galaxy magazine--so while perhaps no too much Of fan culture, certainly Aware of it--TM]

The art was very fine, making me miss any such illos in modern genre publications.

All in all, with the Leinster as standout, a very pleasant reading experience. I envy the readers of 1952, who got installments of SS and other zines monthly.

Paul Di Filippo

reprinted with permission from the FictionMags discussion list.

Copyright © 2022 by Paul Di Filippo (on LJ)

for more of today's Short Story Wednesday entries, please see Patti Abbott's blog

FFB: THE SHAPE OF THINGS edited by Damon Knight (Popular Library 1965); THE UNKNOWN 5 edited by D. R. Bensen (Pyramid 1964)

I've been ill for much of the week, so reduxing...with apologies...but these were among my less popular reviews of years past...

Friday, December 17, 2010

FFB: THE SHAPE OF THINGS, edited by Damon Knight (Popular Library, 1965)

from the Contento indices:

The Shape of Things ed. Damon Knight (Popular Library SP352, 1965, 50¢, 206pp, pb)
· Introduction · Damon Knight · in
· Don’t Look Now · Henry Kuttner · ss Startling Stories Mar ’48
· The Box · James Blish · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’49
· The New Reality · Charles L. Harness · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec ’50
· The Eternal Now · Murray Leinster · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Fll ’44
· The Sky Was Full of Ships · Theodore Sturgeon · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Jun ’47

· The Shape of Things · Ray Bradbury · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb ’48
· The Only Thing We Learn · C. M. Kornbluth · ss Startling Stories Jul ’49
· The Hibited Man · L. Sprague de Camp · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct ’49
· Dormant · A. E. van Vogt · ss Startling Stories Nov ’48
· The Ambassadors · Anthony Boucher · ss Startling Stories Jun ’52
· A Child Is Crying · John D. MacDonald · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec ’48

This thin volume, without making much of a fuss about it, was the first (and [I incorrectly wrote back in 2010] perhaps still is the only) Best-of the Samuel Merwin and Sam Mines years of Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories, the Other Good sf magazines of the late '40s and early '50s [Mines had actually published a The Best from Startling Stories that included fiction from TWS, during his run with the pulp titles]...magazines with not as distinct personalities as Astounding Science Fiction, John W. Campbell's revolutionary magazine being challenged finally, in part by writers and editors developed and inspired by Campbell but also by (as, for example, Bradbury) writers who were never too compatible with the ASF ethos, or Planet Stories, by the end of the 1940s not only the home of elegant space opera and a regular market for Leigh Brackett and others, but by those years fully as good and about as diverse as ASF...and such magazines stressing sophistication and good prose as Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and briefly also such others as Knight's own Worlds Beyond and Howard Browne's mixed bag of the early Fantastic and the upgraded Amazing.

But, for a while, Startling and Thrilling Wonder, as burdened by their pulp-era titles as was Astounding or Amazing (at least Fantastic, and its predecessor Fantastic Adventures, and Weird Tales had descriptive titles that had some specific relevance to their content), were publishing a range of often fascinating and innovative material, including the likes of Philip Jose Farmer's The Lovers, which dealt directly with tragic interspecies romance and helped establish Farmer's reputation, and the contents of this volume...ranging from James Blish's elegant technological "problem" story (how do you rescue a city encased in an impenetrable force-field?) to Ray Bradbury's whimsical notion of a woman who gives birth to an apparently healthy blue pyramid, to Charles Harness's typical blend of space-opera and mind-blowing philosophical and cosmological speculation...Harness is yet another underappreciated writer in the field, except among those who really love and know This Kind of Thing...his influence on his younger contemporaries Jack Vance and Poul Anderson, particularly, seems pretty clear to me.

I've read that on the strength of this kind of material, Startling managed to become for a while the best-selling of sf magazines, presumably outselling Astounding, just starting to drift due to Campbell's fascination with Dianetics, psi powers, and other matters from the fringes of science, and Amazing, just after Howard Browne dumped the lunatic-fringe-stroking Shaver Mystery material (akin to Ancient Astronauts and the more irresponsible UFOlogy coverage then just coming into vogue, with, as with Dianetics and other pop mysticism, some past-life regression elements) that Browne's predecessor Ray Palmer had used to put that magazine into the circulation stratosphere...and before the insurgence in late 1950/early 1951 of Galaxy.

And yet, these magazines from the Thrilling Group pulp chain, which had been morphed (essentially) into the paperback publisher Popular Library, had been so thoroughly eclipsed, a dozen years after the titles were merged and folded, so that the packaging for this book didn't even bother to mention them...as opposed to highlighting the kinds of writers and fiction they were publishing. (Popular Library had published several Wonder Story Annuals in the '50s and '60s, to test the waters, apparently, for the old title.) That legacy stands...even if this volume is now as obscure, certainly to the average reader, as the magazines it draws from.

Also about Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and the Thrilling Group
Also about Damon Knight

Friday, January 30, 2009

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: THE UNKNOWN 5 edited by D. R. Bensen (Pyramid 1964)

This fine and somewhat influential collection is for several reasons newly, sadly relevant...it has a cover and a new (in 1964) illustration by John Schoenherr for the previously-unpublished story in the collection, the Asimov...but the other illustrations were from the pages of the original story appearances in Unknown and (its later title) Unknown Worlds, by the recently late (in 2009) Ed Cartier. (In fact, Schoenherr, best known for his Dune and other Analog and also wild-animal/landscape painting, is the [in 2009] only living contributor to the book.) (When Pyramid was bought in the latest ‘70s by HBJ, this anthology was re-issued with an absolutely hideous, by intention, Rowena Morrill cover.)

Also, it was published 45 years ago this month…in its turn 21 years after the folding of Unknown Worlds, in it's turn founded 70 years ago, with much nostalgic and not so nostalgic reminiscence in editor D.R. Bensen’s introduction, who notes that in the US-still-neutral WW2 years, the ads in Unknown and other fiction magazines lent themselves to suggesting ways to keep that $30/week job, rather than such late 1963 concerns as nuclear war (the introduction was clearly written before the Kennedy assassination). Today, of course, we’re much further along, and often most concerned with keeping that $600-900/week job.

Unknown, of course, was the fantasy-fiction companion to the hugely influential sf magazine Astounding, as mentioned in previous posts, and during its 3.5-year run it was the other major pole in fantasy-fiction publishing in the pulps and pulp-like magazines to the similarly legendary Weird Tales (in Unknown Worlds's later years, it was published in a larger size and with better paper than the pulps, with a fairly staid cover format that looked more like The Atlantic Monthly at the time than like the pulps…all factors which might’ve led to its folding in 1943, when paper supplies were getting tight and publisher Street and Smith cut back on several fronts.) Actually, 1939, when Unknown was founded, was a good year for fantasy magazines, with Ziff-Davis first offering Fantastic Adventures (though it was originally primarily a science fiction magazine), the Thrilling Group/Standard Magazines launching the shortlived Strange Stories, and the Munsey magazine group beginnin Famous Fantastic Mysteries, primarily a reprint magazine but publishing some notable original fiction. But in the early ‘40s, the post-Lovecraft/Robert Howard/Clark Ashton Smith Weird Tales and Unknown were the most prominent titles devoted exclusively to fantasy. It’s often been thus since—when Unknown folded, both WT and eventually Fantastic Adventures gained new, good contributions and contributors…even if the latter never completely shed hack adventure fiction cheek by jowl with the better work. When WT folded for the first time in 1954, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction had arisen beginning in 1949 and continuing to the present, while FA was folded into the more ambitious new Fantastic in 1954…though, unfortunately, the tendency toward hack was simply transferred over to Fantastic for the next several years (the notable Beyond Fantasy Fiction sprung up for its run from 1953-1955 as a companion to Galaxy Science Fiction). However, F&SF and Fantastic remained the most visible and consistent markets for new fantasy till Fantastic’s first run ended in 1980 (it was merged with its sf stablemate Amazing Stories, and has been revived spottily since).

Which is a long way ‘round to get to the news that F&SF, now in its 60th year, is dropping frequency to bimonthly status for the first time since the early ‘50s, and that Realms of Fantasy, which has held that “other fantasy magazine" status for 15 years, has been rather abruptly folded by its publisher (April’s will be the last issue); the revived Weird Tales, probably the next most visible US fantasy magazine, seems to be continuing, even as Fantastic will supposedly be relaunched again.

In his headnote for one of the stories within, Bensen notes that the axolotl in the Cartier illustration included with the Sturgeon story is the adult form of the “mud puppy,” apparently the then fairly recent subject of a running joke in Mad magazine…which, coincidentally, is dropping its frequency this year from monthly to quarterly, as Time Warner cuts back at its DC/Mad comics division…

So, finally, to the book’s literary content, an attempt to, even more than with its predecessor The Unknown, concentrate on stories that had not been reprinted from the magazine…including a previously unpublished lead-off story by Isaac Asimov, “Author! Author!” This had been in inventory at Unknown Worlds when the magazine folded, and Asimov had never placed it elsewhere, and it's an amiable if slightly stiff tale of a writer literally haunted by his insufferable detective character, who attempts to steal his creator’s life.

Cleve Cartmill, busy over several decades as a ghost-writer for the likes of Leslie Charteris and possibly Henry Kuttner, as well as under his own name (and famously at the center of a WW2 investigation of his atomic bomb story for Astounding, “Deadline”), has a clever if perhaps excessively folksy deal with the devil story with “The Bargain”…Stephen Vincent Benet or Manly Wade Wellman might well’ve done a bit better with this story…perhaps this kind of thing requires a three-name byline.

Theodore Sturgeon’s “The Hag Seleen” follows (originally published, with some justice, as by Sturgeon and James Beard [not the chef]), a good example of Sturgeon’s work for the magazine, but not among the greatest (such as “It,” considered here previously as part of Knight’s The Dark Half, or “Shottle Bop”). Sturgeon’s child characters could sometimes be a bit cute, and this is an example.

Alfred Bester’s novella “Hell is Forever” might be the earliest published example of Bester’s devotion to “dazzlement” as a technique…keeping this, and such later work as The Demolished Man and “5,271,009,” moving at a breakneck pace with sudden flashes of invention and deft turns of plot. He hasn’t mastered it yet, in this tale of a Hellfire Club-like group who find themselves damned to customized private hells after they wade into deeper water than they expected…but the work is both rewarding fun and promising for what he would go on to do…including a number of other novels, the last and most purely criminous reconstructed by Charles Platt for posthumous publication, Tender Loving Rage.

And "The Crest of the Wave," Jane Rice’s tale of a murdered thug’s posthumous retribution for his murder, is a good, if unextraordinary, example of that kind of borderline crime-story horror, with fine detail.

In short, this gives a good sense of what a good issue of Unknown was like, if not (nor could it quite be) an example of the absolute best the magazine published.

It should probably be mentioned that Bensen’s one sf novel was named for the letter column in Unknown, And Having Writ…

The Unknown 5 ed. D. R. Bensen (Pyramid R-962, Jan ’64, 50¢, 190pp, pb) 11 · Introduction · D. R. Bensen · in 13 · Author! Author! · Isaac Asimov · nv * 43 · The Bargain · Cleve Cartmill · ss Unknown Worlds Aug 1942 61 · The Hag Séleen · Theodore Sturgeon · nv Unknown Worlds Dec 1942 83 · Hell Is Forever · Alfred Bester · na Unknown Worlds Aug 1942 165 · The Crest of the Wave · Jane Rice · nv Unknown Jun 1941 Also about Unknown Also about D. R. Bensen For newer reviews of rather older books,  please see Patti Abbott's blog...

BEST FROM STARTLING STORIES, THE SHAPE OF THINGS, WONDER STORIES 1957 and other reprints from the Thrilling Group science fiction titles

After Standard Magazines/Better Publications shut down their Thrilling Group pulp magazines in 1955, they concentrated their activities mostly in the Paperback Library division of the Ned Pines organization...but James Hendryx, Jr. was given the task over the next decade to edit reprint magazines (with a couple of stories reprinted from the slicks rather than pulp back issues): two almost identical issues of Wonder Stories (the first in digest format, the second in pulp size) and eventually three issues of Treasury of Great Science Fiction Stories (with the last cutting the title down), also in pulp format.  (Treasury also had a western fiction companion.)

Cover painting by Richard Powers

• Publication: Wonder Stories, 1957
  (View All Issues) (View Issue Grid)
• Editors: Jim Hendryx, Jr.
• Year: 1957-00-00
• Publisher: Better Publications, Inc.
• Price: $0.35
• Pages: 132
• Binding: digest

Contents:

• 2 • Shadow on the Sand • (1950) • novella by John D. MacDonald
• 30 • A Sound of Thunder • (1952) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• 40 • All the Time in the World • (1952) • shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke
• 51 • Man of Distinction • (1951) • shortstory by Fredric Brown
• 59 • Thanasphere • (1950) • shortstory by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• 72 • Spacemate • (1950) • shortstory by Walt Sheldon
• 81 • The Monitor • (1954) • shortstory by Margaret St. Clair
• 86 • Star Bride • (1951) • shortstory by Anthony Boucher

• Publication: Wonder Stories, 1963
  (View All Issues) (View Issue Grid)
• Editors: Jim Hendryx, Jr.
• Year: 1963-00-00
• Publisher: Better Publications, Inc.
• Price: $0.50
• Pages: 100
• Binding: pulp

Contents:

• fep •  Shadow on the Sand [2] • (1950) • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 2 • Shadow on the Sand • (1950) • novella by John D. MacDonald
• 2 •  Shadow on the Sand • (1950) • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 32 • All the Time in the World • (1952) • shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke
• 32 •  All the Time in the World • (1952) • interior artwork by J. Dreany
• 40 • A Sound of Thunder • (1952) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• 40 •  A Sound of Thunder • (1954) • interior artwork by Ed Emshwiller [as by Emsh ]
• 48 • Robert • (1953) • shortstory by Evan Hunter
• 48 •  Robert • (1953) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 53 • The Monitor • (1954) • shortstory by Margaret St. Clair
• 57 • The Hunters • (1952) • shortstory by Walt Sheldon
• 59 • Man of Distinction • (1951) • shortstory by Fredric Brown
• 59 •  Man of Distinction • (1951) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 65 • Star Bride • (1951) • shortstory by Anthony Boucher
• 67 • Thanasphere • (1950) • shortstory by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• 67 •  Thanasphere • (1959) • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• bep •  Shadow on the Sand [3] • (1950) • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay

• Publication: Treasury of Great Science Fiction Stories, Number 1
  (View All Issues) (View Issue Grid)
• Editors: Jim Hendryx, Jr.
• Year: 1964-00-00
• Publisher: Popular Library, Inc.
• Price: $0.50
• Pages: 100
• Binding: pulp

Contents:

• 4 • The Earth Men • [The Martian Chronicles] • (1948) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• 4 •  The Earth Men • (1948) • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 14 • The Portable Star • (1955) • shortstory by Isaac Asimov
• 14 •  The Portable Star • (1955) • interior artwork by Ed Emshwiller [as by Emsh ]
• 23 • Happy Ending • (1948) • novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner ]
• 23 •  Happy Ending • (1948) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 35 • The Three • (1953) • shortstory by Gordon R. Dickson
• 35 •  The Three • (1953) • interior artwork by C. A. Murphy
• 43 • The Last Test • (1952) • shortstory by Robert Zacks
• 43 •  The Last Test • (1952) • interior artwork by J. Dreany
• 46 • Quest of the Starhope • (1949) • shortstory by Leigh Brackett
• 46 •  Quest of the Starhope • (1949) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 56 • Sibling • (1953) • shortstory by Leslie Waltham
• 56 •  Sibling (reprint) • (1953) • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 63 • The Rotohouse • [Oona and Jick] • (1948) • shortstory by Margaret St. Clair
• 63 •  The Rotohouse • (1948) • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 70 • The Blunderer • (1952) • shortstory by L. Sprague de Camp
• 70 •  The Blunderer • (1952) • interior artwork by Vincent Napoli [as by Napoli ]
• 78 • Keyhole • (1951) • shortstory by Murray Leinster
• 78 •  Keyhole • (1951) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 89 • Hero • (1939) • shortstory by H. L. Gold
• 89 •  Hero • (1939) • interior artwork by uncredited

• Publication: Treasury of Great Science Fiction Stories, Number 2 (View All Issues) (View Issue Grid)
• Editors: Jim Hendryx, Jr.
• Year: 1965-00-00
• Publisher: Popular Library, Inc.
• Price: $0.50
• Pages: 100
• Binding: pulp

Contents:

• fep • Fact Chases Fiction • essay by uncredited
• 4 • The Woman from Altair • (1951) • novelette by Leigh Brackett
• 5 •  The Woman from Altair • (1951) • interior artwork by Paul Orban [as by Orban ]
• 24 • Purpose • (1950) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury (variant of The City)
• 24 •  Purpose • (1950) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 29 • Affair of State • (1953) • shortstory by Charles A. Stearns
• 29 •  Affair of State • (1953) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 35 • Columbus Was a Dope • (1947) • shortstory by Robert A. Heinlein
• 35 •  Columbus Was a Dope • (1947) • interior artwork by Astarita
• 38 • Percy the Pirate • (1945) • shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• 38 •  Percy the Pirate • (1945) • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 46 • De Profundis • (1945) • shortstory by Murray Leinster
• 46 •  De Profundis • (1945) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 54 • Planet of the Black Dust • (1946) • shortstory by Jack Vance
• 54 •  Planet of the Black Dust • (1946) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 66 • Music of the Spheres • (1950) • shortstory by Walt Sheldon
• 66 •  Music of the Spheres • (1950) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 73 • Wanderer of Time • (1944) • shortstory by John Russell Fearn [as by Polton Cross ]
• 73 •  Wanderer of Time • (1944) • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 84 • What's It Like Out There? • (1952) • novelette by Edmond Hamilton
• 84 •  What's It Like Out There? • (1952) • interior artwork by Paul Orban [as by Orban ]

• Publication: Great Science Fiction Stories, Number 3
  (View All Issues) (View Issue Grid)
• Editors: Jim Hendryx, Jr.
• Year: 1966-00-00
• Publisher: Popular Library, Inc.
• Price: $0.50
• Pages: 100
• Binding: pulp

Contents:

• fep •  untitled • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 4 • The Truants • (1950) • novelette by Leigh Brackett
• 4 •  The Truants • (1950) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 21 •  The Naming of Names • (1949) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 21 • The Naming of Names • (1949) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury (variant of Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed)
• 30 • A Walk in the Dark • (1950) • shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke
• 30 •  A Walk in the Dark • (1950) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 37 • Mating Time • (1953) • shortstory by Joseph Shallit
• 37 •  Mating Time • (1953) • interior artwork by Paul Orban [as by Orban ]
• 44 • Messenger • (1949) • shortstory by Theodore Sturgeon
• 44 •  Messenger • (1949) • interior artwork by Astarita
• 51 • Continued Story • (1952) • shortstory by Margaret St. Clair
• 51 •  Continued Story • (1952) • interior artwork by Peter Poulton
• 63 • Noise • (1952) • shortstory by Jack Vance
• 63 •  Noise • (1952) • interior artwork by Emsler
• 72 • A Condition of Beauty • (1949) • shortstory by John D. MacDonald
• 72 •  A Condition of Beauty • (1949) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 78 • Atomic! • (1947) • novelette by Henry Kuttner
• 78 •  Atomic! • (1947) • interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 96 • Remembrance of Things to Come • (1952) • shortstory by William Ratigan
• 96 •  Remembrance of Things to Come • (1952) • interior artwork by Peter Poulton
• bep •  untitled • interior artwork by uncredited

And the anthologies drawn from the Thrilling Group magazines:

cover painting by Alex Schomberg

The Best from Startling Stories ed. Samuel Mines (Henry Holt LCC# 53-8980, 1953, $3.50, 301pp, hc) Also as Startling Stories and Moment Without Time

• vii · Foreword: Blueprint for Tomorrow · Samuel Mines · in
• ix · Introduction · Robert A. Heinlein · in
• 1 · The Wages of Synergy · Theodore Sturgeon · nv Startling Stories Aug 1953
• 61 · The Perfect Gentleman · R. J. McGregor · ss Startling Stories Sep 1952
• 81 · Moment Without Time · Joel Townsley Rogers · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr 1952
• 113 · The Naming of Names · Ray Bradbury · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Aug 1949
• 135 · No Land of Nod · Sherwood Springer · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec 1952
• 163 · Who’s Cribbing? · Jack Lewis · ss Startling Stories Jan 1953
• 173 · Thirty Seconds — Thirty Days · Arthur C. Clarke · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec 1949
• 207 · Noise · Jack Vance · ss Startling Stories Aug 1952
• 225 · What’s It Like Out There? · Edmond Hamilton · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec 1952
• 255 · Dormant · A. E. van Vogt · ss Startling Stories Nov 1948
• 279 · Dark Nuptial · Robert Donald Locke · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb 1953

Cover painting by Eugene Berman

The Shape of Things ed. Damon Knight (Popular Library SP352, 1967, 50¢, 206pp, pb)

• Introduction · Damon Knight · in
• Don’t Look Now · Henry Kuttner · ss Startling Stories Mar 1948
• The Box · James Blish · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr 1949
• The New Reality · Charles L. Harness · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec 1950
• The Eternal Now · Murray Leinster · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Fll 1944
• The Sky Was Full of Ships · Theodore Sturgeon · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Jun 1947
• The Shape of Things · Ray Bradbury · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb 1948
• The Only Thing We Learn · C. M. Kornbluth · ss Startling Stories Jul 1949
• The Hibited Man · L. Sprague de Camp · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct 1949
• Dormant · A. E. van Vogt · ss Startling Stories Nov 1948
• The Ambassadors · Anthony Boucher · ss Startling Stories Jun 1952
• A Child Is Crying · John D. MacDonald · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec 1948

My review of The Shape of Things

Indices and images from ISFDB and Homeville.

FFB: THE SHAPE OF THINGS, edited by Damon Knight (Popular Library, 1967)

from the Contento indices:
The Shape of Things ed. Damon Knight (Popular Library SP352, 1967, 50¢, 206pp, pb)
· Introduction · Damon Knight · in
· Don’t Look Now · Henry Kuttner · ss Startling Stories Mar ’48
· The Box · James Blish · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’49
· The New Reality · Charles L. Harness · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec ’50
· The Eternal Now · Murray Leinster · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Fll ’44
· The Sky Was Full of Ships · Theodore Sturgeon · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Jun ’47· The Shape of Things · Ray Bradbury · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb ’48
· The Only Thing We Learn · C. M. Kornbluth · ss Startling Stories Jul ’49
· The Hibited Man · L. Sprague de Camp · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct ’49
· Dormant · A. E. van Vogt · ss Startling Stories Nov ’48
· The Ambassadors · Anthony Boucher · ss Startling Stories Jun ’52
· A Child Is Crying · John D. MacDonald · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec ’48

This thin volume, without making much of a fuss about it, was the first (and [I incorrectly wrote back in 2010] perhaps still is the only) Best-of the Samuel Merwin and Sam Mines years of Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories, the Other Good sf magazines of the late '40s and early '50s [Mines had actually published a The Best from Startling Stories that included fiction from TWS, during his run with the pulp titles]...magazines with not as distinct personalities as Astounding Science Fiction, John W. Campbell's revolutionary magazine being challenged finally, in part by writers and editors developed and inspired by Campbell but also by (as, for example, Bradbury) writers who were never too compatible with the ASF ethos, or Planet Stories, by the end of the 1940s not only the home of elegant space opera and a regular market for Leigh Brackett and others, but by those years fully as good and about as diverse as ASF...and such magazines stressing sophistication and good prose as Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and briefly also such others as Knight's own Worlds Beyond and Howard Browne's mixed bag of the early Fantastic and the upgraded Amazing.

But, for a while, Startling and Thrilling Wonder, as burdened by their pulp-era titles as was Astounding or Amazing (at least Fantastic, and its predecessor Fantastic Adventures, and Weird Tales had descriptive titles that had some specific relevance to their content), were publishing a range of often fascinating and innovative material, including the likes of Philip Jose Farmer's The Lovers, which dealt directly with tragic interspecies romance and helped establish Farmer's reputation, and the contents of this volume...ranging from James Blish's elegant technological "problem" story (how do you rescue a city encased in an impenetrable force-field?) to Ray Bradbury's whimsical notion of a woman who gives birth to an apparently healthy blue pyramid, to Charles Harness's typical blend of space-opera and mind-blowing philosophical and cosmological speculation...Harness is yet another underappreciated writer in the field, except among those who really love and know This Kind of Thing...his influence on his younger contemporaries Jack Vance and Poul Anderson, particularly, seems pretty clear to me.

I've read that on the strength of this kind of material, Startling managed to become for a while the best-selling of sf magazines, presumably outselling Astounding, just starting to drift due to Campbell's fascination with Dianetics, psi powers, and other matters from the fringes of science, and Amazing, just after Howard Browne dumped the lunatic-fringe-stroking Shaver Mystery material (akin to Ancient Astronauts and the more irresponsible UFOlogy coverage then just coming into vogue, with, as with Dianetics and other pop mysticism, some past-life regression elements) that Browne's predecssor Ray Palmer had used to put that magazine into the circulation stratosphere...and before the insurgence in late 1950/early 1951 of Galaxy.

And yet, these magazines from the Thrilling Group pulp chain, which had been morphed (essentially) into the paperback publisher Popular Library, had been so thoroughly eclipsed, a dozen years after the titles were merged and folded, so that the packaging for this book didn't even bother to mention them...as opposed to highlighting the kinds of writers and fiction they were publishing. (Popular Library had published several Wonder Story Annuals in the '50s and '60s, to test the waters, apparently, for the old title.) That legacy stands...even if this volume is now as obscure, certainly to the average reader, as the magazines it draws from.

For more "forgotten" books this week, please see, as usual, Patti Abbott's blog.