FFB: FANTASY: SHAPES OF THINGS UNKNOWN, edited by Edmund J. Farrell, Thomas E. Gage, John Pfordresher & Raymond J. Rodrigues (Scott, Foresman 1974)

From the Contento indices:



Fantasy: Shapes of Things Unknown ed. Edmund J. Farrell, Thomas E. Gage, John Pfordresher & Raymond J. Rodrigues (Scott, Foresman 0-673-03409-7, 1974, 384pp, tp); Textbook, in The Man [sic] in Literature Program [hello 1974].

Cover · Dream · Joan Miro (interior art uncredited and apparently in the public domain, aside from an uncredited panel from a Marvel Thor comic)
Unit 1: The Seen and the Unseen
9 · Thus I Refute Beelzy · John Collier · ss Atlantic Monthly Oct ’40
15 · The Laocoön Complex · J. C. Furnas · ss Esquire Apr ’37
28 · The Blue Lenses · Daphne du Maurier · nv Ladies Home Journal May ’59
68 · Harvey · Mary Chase · play, 1943
Unit 2: Children of the Devil
149 · Mrs. Amworth · E. F. Benson · ss Hutchinson’s Magazine Jun ’22
165 · Gabriel-Ernest · Saki · ss The Westminster Gazette May 29 ’09
173 · O Ugly Bird! [John] · Manly Wade Wellman · ss F&SF Dec ’51
190 · The Green Scarf · A. M. Burrage · ss The London Magazine Aug ’26
Unit 3: Beast and Creeping Things
209 · Born of Man and Woman · Richard Matheson · vi F&SF Sum ’50
213 · The Fly · George Langelaan · nv Playboy Jun ’57
249 · Talent · Theodore Sturgeon · ss Beyond Fantasy Fiction Sep ’53
258 · Heartburn · Hortense Calisher · ss The American Mercury Jan ’51
Unit 4: Powers and Abilities
271 · The High Divers · Jack Conroy · vi
274 · Pecos Bill · Phil Squires · ss Legends and Tales of the Old West, 1962
280 · The Portable Mrs. Tillson · Whitfield Cook · ss Story, 1937
291 · The Man with English · Horace L. Gold · ss Star Science Fiction Stories #1, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1953
301 · Free Dirt · Charles Beaumont · ss F&SF May ’55
Unit 5: Signs and Wonders
313 · The Chaser · John Collier · ss New Yorker Dec 28 ’40
317 · The Masque of the Red Death · Edgar Allan Poe · ss Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine May, 1842
324 · Prey · Richard Matheson · ss Playboy Apr ’69
337 · The Horn of Plenty · Vladimir Grigoriev · ss Galaxy Dec ’69
354 · The Magic Shop · H. G. Wells · ss The Strand Jun ’03
366 · Discussion Questions · Misc. · ms
377 · Biographies of Authors · Misc. · bg
383 · Pronunciation Key · Misc. · ms
384 · Index of Authors and Titles · Misc. · ix

This is my first textbook entry in the "Forgotten" Books roundelay, although some of my other choices over the last two and a half years have been used as texts in courses in various venues. Despite a certain potted quality about most of them, I've loved good literature anthology texts all my literate life, and collected them as I came across them for sale as a child, usually for small change in library and tag sales, and at the five-and-dimes such as WT Grant's (where the textbooks were usually in the 3/$1 bin rather than the 4/$1 bin with the Lancer paperbacks in the mid-'70s). Scott, Foresman was a leading publisher of elementary and high-school textbooks in the US in the 1970s, probably the leading publisher of the literature textbooks, and how many other books were so widely thrust upon public-school students, at least, yet so easily forgotten after they were turned back in at the end of the school year (leading to a brisk trade in queries to information librarians and occasionally booksellers, along the lines of "It was a story about a horrible car-crash, that turned out to be a test..." (I can identify this widely-reprinted story "spoiled" thus for you at the end of the entry...another widely-reprinted story in the same sort of venue was Donald Westlake's allegorical sf "The Winner," from Harry Harrison's Nova 1 anthology of original sf stories).

Liberal and well-funded school districts might well've taken this and other volumes in the "Man in Literature Program" for junior or senior-high cirricula...I certainly would've enjoyed seeing what my classmates would make of the classroom discussion questions as this, for Hortense Calisher's "Heartburn": "Briefly summarize the circumstances by which Dr. Retz acquired the small animal in his chest. By what circumstances can he be relieved of it?" As it was, I first read Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day," Alan Nourse's "Brightside Crossing," and Clifford Simak's brilliant "Desertion" in my 7th-grade Scott, Foresman text, though the class only went through the Bradbury, after three previous years going through the Scott, Foresman "elite" series of Cavalcades, Ventures and Vistas in another state's elementary school...they also published the irregular set of hardcover editions of "free reading" books we had in the classroom, including Keith Robertson's Henry Reed's Journey and Harold Courlander's Ride with the Sun, which I have briefly reviewed previously.

Meanwhile this is a fine selection of chestnuts and a few odd surprises, the umpteenth anthologization at least of such work as the Benson (whose Mapp and Lucia novels of manners would not yet have had their revival by 1974, and his brilliant horror fiction was still what he was best remembered for) and the Colliers and the Langelaan, with the Sturgeon, Du Maurier, Wellman and Gold not quite in the same league (each of those writers having more-anthologized stories) but all fine choices, and the Saki, Poe and Wellman impeccable choices except for the weak protest that these stories by them were almost ineluctable by any literate youngster. Well, persistent literate youngster. That kid probably wouldn't've had much other chance to read "Prey" or "Free Dirt," though, however much they might enjoy their creators' work on Twilight Zone repeats or horror or suspense film broadcasts...and the inclusion of such "outliers" as Harvey and the tall-tale retold among the other fantasies seems valuable to an old eclecticist such as myself. I'm sorry that reading texts these days probably aren't allowed to be as adventurous today (Texas's more retrograde folks do indeed lead the way), as I will enjoy acquainting myself with the few unfamilar stories in this volume, which arrived in today's mail, such as the Furnas and the apparently very obscure Conroy item, and rereading the plethora of familiar stories, almost all first read by the age I'd be assigned this book.

Meanwhile, this seems an opportune point to mention two recent retrospectives (contents detailed at the end of the post), by our surviving veteran annual horror anthologists:



Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror, edited by Ellen Datlow and The Mammoth Book of the Best of the Best New Horror (the UK title differs slightly but is no more wieldy), edited by Stephen Jones. Both cover twenty-year periods, Datlow's the two decades after she was first on the jury for the World Fantasy Award and the next year co-edited the first of her Year's Best Fantasy and Horror volumes (my first published fiction, "Bedtime," she was kind enough to shortlist in the 1995 volume). Jones's book is more directly keyed to his annual Best New Horror, which he began, initially co-editing with Ramsey Campbell, with their 1990 volume...he takes one story from each volume so each of the twenty years is represented by a story; Datlow's book is less worried about having each year repressented, which is probably the richer if less systematic approach; John Pelan's enormous retrospective of 20th Century short horror fiction, forthcoming from Cemetery Dance Publications, is probably going to be not Quite the volume(s) it could be, in part because he is rigorously holding to a schedule of each year represented by one story and no writer having more than one story in the two volumes...the greatest error this forces, by me, is exclusion of Fritz Leiber's "Smoke Ghost," almost certainly the single most influential short horror story of the century in English...and some other questionable, if usually good, choices as Robert Bloch's representation by the relatively cheerful fantasy "That Hell-Bound Train" (his "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" is almost certainly the most plagiarized horror story published in English in the last century...though it wouldn't be my choice to represent him, either...perhaps "Sweets to the Sweet" among so many other candidates), or the inclusion of a number of what I'd call suspense stories, such as Joe Lansdale's triumphant "Night They Missed the Horror Show," rather than supernatural stories.


The ISFDB and Contento also have the following sf companion to the Fantasy book indexed (I have to wonder how many other volumes in the Not-Woman in Literature series there were):
Science Fact/Fiction ed. Edmund J. Farrell, Thomas E. Gage, John Pfordresher & Raymond J. Rodrigues (Scott, Foresman 0-673-03407-0, 1974, 394pp, tp)
ix · Science Fiction: Before Christ and After 2001 · Ray Bradbury · in *
3 · The Gun Without a Bang [as by Finn O’Donnevan] · Robert Sheckley · ss Galaxy Jun ’58
9 · Crabs Take Over the Island · Anatoly Dnieprov · ss International Science Fiction Jun ’68
26 · All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace · Richard Brautigan · pm The Pill vs. the Springtown Mine Disaster, 1968
27 · EPICAC · Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. · ss Colliers Nov 25 ’50
33 · R.U.R. · Karel Capek · pl, 1921
80 · The Human Factor · David Ely · ss The Saturday Evening Post Nov 16 ’63
90 · The Thinking Machine · Isaac Asimov · ar Science Digest Dec ’67
93 · Misbegotten Missionary · Isaac Asimov · ss Galaxy Nov ’50
105 · Elegy · Charles Beaumont · ss Imagination Feb ’53
112 · Aesthetics of the Moon · Jack Anderson · pm
115 · Constant Reader · Robert Bloch · ss Universe Jun ’53
126 · Who’s There? · Arthur C. Clarke · ss New Worlds Nov ’58
130 · We’ll Never Conquer Space · Arthur C. Clarke · ar Science Digest Jun ’60
137 · The Sack · William Morrison · ss Astounding Sep ’50
152 · Mariana · Fritz Leiber · ss Fantastic Feb ’60
156 · I Always Do What Teddy Says · Harry Harrison · ss EQMM Jun ’65
163 · The Man Who Could Work Miracles · H. G. Wells · ss The Illustrated London News Jul, 1898
177 · Echoes of the Mind · Arthur Koestler · ar Esquire Aug ’72
183 · The Reluctant Orchid [Harry Purvis (White Hart)] · Arthur C. Clarke · ss Satellite Dec ’56
191 · Founding Father · Isaac Asimov · ss Galaxy Oct ’65
196 · The Wound · Howard Fast · ss The General Zapped an Angel, Morrow, 1970
205 · The Sound Machine · Roald Dahl · ss New Yorker Sep 17 ’49
215 · Love Among the Cabbages · Peter Tompkins & Christopher Bird · ar Harper’s Nov ’72
223 · Puppet Show · Fredric Brown · ss Playboy Nov ’62
231 · Random Sample · T. P. Caravan · vi F&SF Apr ’53
234 · On the Wheel · Damon Knight · ss Nova 2, ed. Harry Harrison, Walker, 1972
239 · Orbiter 5 Shows How Earth Looks from the Moon · May Swenson · pm The Southern Review, 1969
240 · The King of the Beasts · Philip José Farmer · vi Galaxy Jun ’64
242 · UFO Detective Solves ’em All—Well Almost · Philip J. Hilts · ar The Washington Post, 1973
247 · The Good Provider · Marion Gross · ss F&SF Sep ’52
251 · A Sound of Thunder · Ray Bradbury · ss Colliers Jun 28 ’52
261 · Who’s Cribbing? · Jack Lewis · ss Startling Stories Jan ’53
267 · The Third Level · Jack Finney · ss Colliers Oct 7 ’50; F&SF Oct ’52
271 · Speed · Josephine Miles · pm, 1960
272 · The Inn Outside the World · Edmond Hamilton · ss Weird Tales Jul ’45
284 · On the Relativity of Time · Wolfgang Pauli · ar, 1949
286 · Relativity Wins Again · Anon. · ar Science Digest Jan ’72
287 · A Matter of Overtime · Anon. · ar Time Mar ’69
289 · There Will Come Soft Rains · Ray Bradbury · ss Colliers May 6 ’50
295 · The Forgotten Enemy · Arthur C. Clarke · ss King’s College Review Dec ’48
301 · Earthmen Bearing Gifts · Fredric Brown · vi Galaxy Jun ’60
304 · The Ifth of Oofth · Walter Tevis · ss Galaxy Apr ’57
312 · Electronic Tape Found in a Bottle · Olga Cabral · pm, 1971
313 · Brace Yourself for Another Ice Age · Douglas Colligan · ar Science Digest Feb ’73
317 · The Census Takers · Frederik Pohl · ss F&SF Feb ’56
322 · Disappearing Act · Alfred Bester · ss Star Science Fiction Stories #2, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1953
337 · Bulletin · Shirley Jackson · vi F&SF Mar ’54
340 · Autofac · Philip K. Dick · nv Galaxy Nov ’55
359 · Toward the Space Age · William Stafford · pm, 1970
360 · Spaceship Earth · R. Buckminster Fuller · ar, 1969
364 · Biographies of Authors · Misc. · bg
366 · Science-Fiction Awards · Misc. · ms
378 · Pronunciation Key · Misc. · ms
379 · Discussion Questions · Misc. · ms
394 · Index of Authors and Titles · Misc. · ix

and...the contents of the Datlow and Jones and Pelan books noted above:

Darkness Table of Contents (Tachyon Publications)
Trade paperback / 424 pp. / March 2010 / 978-1-892391-95-7

Jacqueline Ess: Her Will And Testament by Clive Barker
Dancing Chickens by Edward Bryant
The Greater Festival of Masks by Thomas Ligotti
The Pear-Shaped Man by George R.R. Martin
The Juniper Tree by Peter Straub
Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds by Dan Simmons
The Power and the Passion by Pat Cadigan
The Phone Woman by Joe R. Lansdale
Teratisms by Kathe Koja
Chattery Teeth by Stephen King
A Little Night Music by Lucius Shepard
Calcutta, Lord of Nerves by Poppy Z. Brite
The Erl King by Elizabeth Hand
The Dog Park by Dennis Etchison
Rain Falls by Michael Marshall Smith
Refrigerator Heaven by David J. Schow
---- by Joyce Carol Oates
Eaten (Scenes from a Moving Picture) by Neil Gaiman
The Specialist’s Hat by Kelly Link
The Tree is My Hat by Gene Wolfe
Heat by Steve Rasnic Tem
No Strings by Ramsey Campbell
Stitch by Terry Dowling
Dancing Men by Glen Hirshberg
My Father’s Mask by Joe Hill

The Best of the Best New Horror contents:
Robinson Publishing, UK • tp • £9.99 ISBN: 978-1-84901-304-8; Running Press, USA • tp • $13.95 ISBN: 978-0-7624-3841-9
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
EDITOR'S FOREWORD Stephen Jones
INTRODUCTION: BETTERING THE BEST Ramsey Campbell
1989 NO SHARKS IN THE MED Brian Lumley
1990 THE MAN WHO DREW CATS Michael Marshall Smith
1991 THE SAME IN ANY LANGUAGE Ramsey Campbell
1992 NORMAN WISDOM AND THE ANGEL OF DEATH Christopher Fowler
1993 MEFISTO IN ONYX Harlan Ellison
1994 THE TEMPTATION OF DR STEIN Paul J. McAuley
1995 QUEEN OF KNIVES Neil Gaiman
1996 THE BREAK Terry Lamsley
1997 EMPTINESS SPOKE ELOQUENT Caitlín R Kiernan
1998 MR. CLUBB AND MR. CUFF Peter Straub
1999 WHITE Tim Lebbon
2000 THE OTHER SIDE OF MIDNIGHT: ANNO DRACULA, 1981 Kim Newman
2001 CLEOPATRA BRIMSTONE Elizabeth Hand
2002 20TH CENTURY GHOST Joe Hill
2003 THE WHITE HANDS Mark Samuels
2004 MY DEATH Lisa Tuttle
2005 HAECKEL'S TALE Clive Barker
2006 DEVIL'S SMILE Glen Hirshberg
2007 THE CHURCH ON THE ISLAND Simon Kurt Unsworth
2008 THE NEW YORK TIMES AT SPECIAL BARGAIN RATES Stephen King
INDEX TO TWENTY YEARS OF BEST NEW HORROR
I: Index by Contributor
II: Index by Title
III: Contents of Previous Omnibus Editions

The Century's Best Horror Fiction
edited by John Pelan ISBN: 1-58767-080-1
Table of Contents
1901: Barry Pain -- The Undying Thing
1902: W.W. Jacobs -- The Monkey's Paw
1903: H.G.Wells -- The Valley of the Spiders
1904: Arthur Machen -- The White People
1905: R. Murray Gilchrist -- The Lover's Ordeal
1906: Edward Lucas White -- House of the Nightmare
1907: Algernon Blackwood -- The Willows
1908: Perceval Landon -- Thurnley Abbey
1909: Violet Hunt -- The Coach
1910: Wm Hope Hodgson -- The Whistling Room
1911: M.R. James -- Casting the Runes
1912: E.F. Benson -- Caterpillars
1913: Aleister Crowley -- The Testament of Magdelan Blair
1914: M. P. Shiel -- The Place of Pain
1915: Hanns Heinz Ewers -- The Spider
1916: Lord Dunsany -- Thirteen at Table
1917: Frederick Stuart Greene -- The Black Pool
1918: H. De Vere Stacpoole -- The Middle Bedroom
1919: Ulric Daubeny -- The Sumach
1920: Maurice Level -- In the Light of the Red Lamp
1921: Vincent O'Sullivan -- Master of Fallen Years
1922: Walter de la Mare -- Seaton's Aunt
1923: George Allen England -- The Thing From--"Outside"
1924: C.M. Eddy, Jr. -- The Loved Dead
1925: John Metcalfe -- The Smoking Leg
1926: H.P. Lovecraft -- The Outsider
1927: Donald Wandrei -- The Red Brain
1928: H.R. Wakefield -- The Red Lodge
1929: Eleanor Scott -- Celui-La
1930: Rosalie Muspratt -- Spirit of Stonhenge
1931: Henry S. Whitehead -- Cassius
1932: David H. Keller -- The Thing in the Cellar
1933: C.L. Moore -- Shambleau
1934: L.A. Lewis -- The Tower of Moab
1935: Clark Ashton Smith -- The Dark Eidolon
1936: Thorp McCluskey -- The Crawling Horror
1937: Howard Wandrei -- The Eerie Mr Murphy
1938: Robert E. Howard -- Pigeons from Hell
1939: Robert Barbour Johnson -- Far Below
1940: John Collier -- Evening Primrose
1941: C.M. Kornbluth -- The Words of Guru
1942: Jane Rice -- The Idol of the Flies
1943: Anthony Boucher -- They Bite
1944: Ray Bradbury -- The Jar
1945: August Derleth -- Carousel
1946: Manly Wade Wellman -- Shonokin Town
1947: Theodore Sturgeon -- Bianca's Hands
1948: Shirley Jackson -- The Lottery
1949: Nigel Kneale -- The Pond
1950: Richard Matheson -- Born of Man & Woman
1951: Russell Kirk -- Uncle Isiah
1952: Eric Frank Russell -- I Am Nothing
1953: Robert Sheckley -- The Altar
1954: Everil Worrell -- Call Not Their Names
1955: Robert Aickman -- Ringing the Changes
1956: Richard Wilson -- Lonely Road
1957: Clifford Simak -- Founding Father
1958: Robert Bloch -- That Hell-Bound Train
1959: Charles Beaumont -- The Howling Man
1960: Fredric Brown -- The House
1961: Ray Russell -- Sardonicus
1962: Carl Jacobi -- The Aquarium
1963: Robert Arthur -- The Mirror of Cagliostro
1964: Charles Birkin -- A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts
1965: Jean Ray -- The Shadowy Street
1966: Arthur Porges -- The Mirror
1967: Norman Spinrad -- Carcinoma Angels
1968: Anna Hunger -- Come
1969: Steffan Aletti -- The Last Work of Pietro Apono
1970: David A. Riley -- The Lurkers in the Abyss
1971: Dorothy K. Haynes -- The Derelict Track
1972: Gary Brandner -- The Price of a Demon
1973: Eddy C. Bertin -- Like Two White Spiders
1974: Karl Edward Wagner -- Sticks
1975: David Drake -- The Barrow Troll
1976: Dennis Etchison -- It Only Comes Out at Night
1977: Barry N. Malzberg -- The Man Who Loved the Midnight Lady
1978: Michael Bishop -- Within the Walls of Tyre
1979: Ramsey Campbell -- Mackintosh Willy
1980: Michael Shea -- The Autopsy
1981: Stephen King -- The Reach
1982: Fritz Leiber -- Horrible Imagings
1983: David Schow -- One for the Horrors
1984: Bob Leman -- The Unhappy Pilgrimage of Clifford M.
1985: Michael Reaves -- The Night People
1986: Tim Powers -- Night Moves
1987: Ian Watson -- Evil Water
1988: Joe R. Lansdale -- The Night They Missed the Horror Show
1989: Joel Lane -- The Earth Wire
1990: Elizabeth Massie -- Stephen
1991: Thomas Ligotti -- The Glamour
1992: Poppy Z. Brite -- Calcutta Lord of Nerves
1993: Lucy Taylor -- The Family Underwater
1994: Jack Ketchum -- The Box
1995: Terry Lamsley -- The Toddler
1996: Caitlín R. Kiernan -- Tears Seven Times Salt
1997: Stephen Laws -- The Crawl
1998: Brian Hodge -- As Above, So Below
1999: Glen Hirshberg -- Mr. Dark's Carnival
2000: Tim Lebbon -- Reconstructing Amy

For more of this week's book selections, please see Patti Abbott's blog for the roundup of links and guest suggestions.

****spoiler bit from above****

"Test" by Thedore L. Thomas, from F&SF, April 1962, and reprinted at least twenty times, I'd guess. I recall seeing it in the Xerox Publications classroom magazine Read, for example, ca. 1977.

Tuesday Memorial

The Breeders were That good. Really, folks, Try not to abnegate yourselves with anything, including narcotics, black tar or otherwise...and maybe we can stop incarcerating the slow suicices. They've got their own liminal, limned houses.





And there was that other band Kim Deal was in. The Pixies called my folks' house once, at like 2-3am ET, to talk to my brother, who'd sent them some art. They were feeling no pain. My father, who answered the phone, was feeling less festive. (I didn't live there any longer, or I might've saved everyone a brief lack of actual conversation.)

What's come in (after Rick Robinson's roundup notes)

Items in this long weekend, essentially:

Books:
STORIES, Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio, eds.
NEW STORIES FROM THE SOUTH 2010, Amy Hempel, ed.
THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY, Rich Horton, ed.
DARKNESS, Ellen Datlow, ed.
THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF THE BEST OF THE BEST OF YEAR’S BEST HORROR, Stephen Jones, ed.
THRILLER 2, Clive Cussler, ed.

Magazines (current issues):
FICTION (Mary Gordon has an interesting but minor stalker story to lead off)
PEN AMERICA
PLOUGHSHARES
FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION
ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE
THE LAB
PHOTO (the French original)
BARRELHOUSE
ASIMOV’S SF
ALASKA QUARTERLY REVIEW
TIN HOUSE
VIDEO WATCHDOG
Z MAGAZINE
BITCH (Ursula K. Le Guin’s brief interview is worth a look)
THE PROGRESSIVE
THE NATION

Albums
PREFLYTE SESSIONS, The Byrds
THE NEW CONTINENT, The Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra featuring Lalo Schifrin

DVDs
STRIVE FOR JIVE, The Toshiko Akiyoshi Orchestra
SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING (apparently a premium offered with a gift subscription to SIGHT AND SOUND)

Friday's "Forgotten" Magazines and Periodical Books: Firsts: F&SF, FANTASTIC, WHISPERS, SHADOWS, TZ, ARIEL, WEIRD TALES, OTHER WORLDS and before.

(Indices from ISFDB.org and the Contento indices; magazine cover images mostly from the collection at Galactic Central).

So, I thought I'd highlight the first new issues I picked up of some of my favorite fiction magazines from my salad days (having already blogged about the first older issues I encountered, my free first taste)...the second taste, no longer free (though only Ariel was so expensive as to make me think twice...).

The March, 1978, issue of F&SF (the first issue to cost $1.25...editor and publisher Edward Ferman would offer "all-star" issues for the anniversaries and every price rise...and clearly, my timing was exquisite) was pretty impressive, both for its nice proportion of horror stories (the Wellman, the Grant, the Garrett Lovecraftian parody which inspired the cover, and the relatively weak Young) and for the longest fiction in the issue, John Varley's "The Persistence of Vision." Solid columns by Algis Budrys, Baird Searles (his rundown of the film of Damnation Alley, quite probably the funniest column Searles wrote) and Isaac Asimov, a Gahan Wilson cartoon, Ted Thomas's deft humanistic sf piece, Glen Cook's fine Vancean fantasy, and a not-bad Papa Schimmelhorn story...instant addiction.

6 • The Persistence of Vision • novella by John Varley
51 • Hundred Years Gone • [Southern Appalachia] • shortstory by Manly Wade Wellman
63 • Books (F&SF, March 1978) • [Books (F&SF)] • essay by Algis Budrys
65 •   Review: Gateway by Frederik Pohl • review by Algis Budrys
66 •   Review: The Futurians by Damon Knight • review by Algis Budrys
72 • The Family Man • shortstory by Theodore L. Thomas [as by Ted Thomas ]
78 • The Seventh Fool • shortstory by Glen Cook
83 • Cartoon: "I suppose you don't think this is hard work! • interior artwork by Gahan Wilson
84 • Hear Me Now, My Sweet Abbey Rose • shortstory by Charles L. Grant
97 • Films and Television: The Road to Albany • [Films (F&SF)] • essay by Baird Searles
100 • Down the Ladder • shortstory by Robert F. Young
111 • The Horror Out of Time • shortstory by Randall Garrett
123 • Anyone for Tens? • [Asimov's Essays: F&SF] • essay by Isaac Asimov
135 • Papa Schimmelhorn's Yang • [Schimmelhorn] • novelette by Reginald Bretnor

The quarterly Fantastic had its July issue out by March (and also the first $1.25 issue), so the next time I dropped by the Derry bookstore that was my source of new fiction magazines, and most of my new books, in my New Hampshire years (a real pity it didn't ever carry UnEarth nor Shayol nor even the Boston-based Galileo regularly in those years), I snagged it. Again, Robert Young's story was more foolish than not, but fun enough to read (and an opportunity for Stephen Fabian to do his mild cheesecake illustrations), but Charles Sheffield's first Erasmus Darwin historical fantasy (further stories would appear in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and F&SF in months to come, as Fantastic would soon go into its final decline) was impressive, as the horrors by Malzberg, Springer, and arguably Davis were augmented by charming fantasies by Godwin and Haldeman, and a borderline sf by Bunch. And Fritz Leiber was their book reviewer! I did luck into his first column in about a year or so...and one where he was, as he had with Katherine Kurtz previously, reluctantly forced to give a very negative review...unsurprisingly, even moreso (along with inviting a guest to give another persoective, at least as unimpressed).

4 • Editorial (Fantastic, July 1978) • [Editorial (Fantastic)] • essay by Ted White
6 • The Journal of Nathaniel Worth • novelette by Robert F. Young
7 • The Journal of Nathaniel Worth • interior artwork by Stephen Fabian [as by Steve Fabian ]
20 • The Last Rainbow • novelette by Parke Godwin
21 • The Last Rainbow • interior artwork by Joe Staton
44 • The Chill of Distant Laughter • shortstory by Sherwood Springer
45 • The Chill of Distant Laughter • interior artwork by John Rodak
54 • The Treasure of Odirex • [Erasmus Darwin] • novella by Charles Sheffield
55 • The Treasure of Odirex • interior artwork by Lydia Moon
93 • Prowl • shortstory by Barry N. Malzberg
96 • David's Friend, the Hole • shortstory by Grania Davis
97 • David's Friend, the Hole • interior artwork by Tony Gleeson
105 • What Weighs 8000 Pounds and Wears Red Sneakers? • shortstory by Jack C. Haldeman, II
108 • Send Us a Planet! • shortstory by David R. Bunch
116 • Fantasy Books (Fantastic, July 1978) • [Fantasy Books (Fantastic)] • essay by Fritz Leiber
119 •   Review: The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks • review by Fritz Leiber
123 • . . . According to You (Fantastic, July 1978) • [According to You (Fantastic)] • letter column conducted by Ted White

There were only two more Ted White issues of Fantastic before Arthur Bernhard bought out his retiring senior partner Sol Cohen as publisher, and remade Fantastic into a garish mostly-reprint magazine with game but even more underpaid tyro editor Eleanor Mavor (she used the pseudonym "Omar Gohagen" at first). White wandered over to Heavy Metal for a year, where he luxuriated in a real budget...at about the same time, Ben Bova was leaving the sf magazine Analog and wandering over to a gig at Omni, and leaving behind a minimal budget for a similarly luxurious one.

So, as I mentioned, Ariel simply cost too much. Though it was handsome, as I browsed each issue as I found it, this second issue being the first I saw. A buck and a quarter I could swing on my irregular allowance...but $6 for one rather slim issue/volume? Even with that lineup? Um...
Cover: Frank Frazetta
fep • Ariel: The Book of Fantasy, Volume Two • interior artwork by Franklin Booth
bc • Ariel: The Book of Fantasy, Volume Two • interior artwork by Bruce Jones
2 • Ariel: The Book of Fantasy, Volume Two (frontispiece) • interior artwork by Richard Corben
3 • Title Page (Ariel: The Book of Fantasy, Volume Two) • interior artwork by Frank Frazetta
5 • Contents Page (Ariel: The Book of Fantasy, Volume Two) • interior artwork by Frank Frazetta
6 • Eggsucker • [Vic and Blood • 1] • shortstory by Harlan Ellison
6 • Eggsucker • interior artwork by Richard Corben
14 • Interview with Frank Frazetta Part II • interview of Frank Frazetta • interview by Armand Eisen
14 • Interview with Frank Frazetta, Part II • interior artwork by Frank Frazetta
27 • The Princess and the Merman • shortfiction by Bruce Jones
27 • The Princess and the Merman • interior artwork by Bruce Jones
32 • The Lake — To __ • interior artwork by Michael Hague
33 • The Lake — To __ • (1827) • poem by Edgar Allan Poe (aka The Lake)
34 • Science Fiction Chauvinism • (1975) • essay by Ursula K. Le Guin [as by Ursula Le Guin ]
34 • Science Fiction Chauvinism • interior artwork by Mark Corcoran
36 • Frodo as Christ • interior artwork by John Butterfield
36 • Frodo as Christ • (1970) • essay by Myra Edwards Barnes [as by Myra Edward Barnes ]
40 • The Burning Man • (1976) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
40 • The Burning Man • interior artwork by Bruce Jones
44 • Thinking of Frankenstein • essay by Arthur Asa Berger
44 • Thinking of Frankenstein • interior artwork by Michael McClue
47 • Paradise Gems • shortstory by David James
47 • Paradise Gems • interior artwork by Tom Kowal
48 • The Helmet-Maker's Wife • novelette by Keith Roberts
48 • The Helmet-Maker's Wife • interior artwork by Robert Noback
56 • Den (Ariel #2) • comics by Richard Corben
71 • Islands • (1963) • shortstory by Michael Moorcock
72 • Islands • interior artwork by Jeff Jones

But one I was willing to expend the effort and expense (a mere $4 for this relatively fat double issue, in comparison) to obtain was my first Whispers issue, having already enjoyed library copies of the First World Fantasy Awards anthology, with its Whispers sampler within, and the first Whispers anthology.
Title: Whispers #13-14, October 1979: Fritz Leiber tribute issue
(wraparound) Cover: Steve Fabian
fep • Our Lady of Darkness • interior artwork by John Stewart
bep • Smoke Ghost • interior artwork by Chris Pellitiere
1 • Whispers (masthead) • (1977) • interior artwork by John Linton
2 • Editorial (Whispers #13-14) • essay by Stuart David Schiff
3 • News (Whispers #13-14) • essay by Stuart David Schiff
12 • A Ghostly Photograph of Fritz Leiber • interior artwork by Emil Petaja
13 • The Button Molder • novelette by Fritz Leiber
35 • Swords and Deviltry Folio • interior artwork by Stephen Fabian [as by Steve Fabian ]
43 • Fritz Leiber Revisited: From Hyde Park to Geary Street • essay by James Wade
48 • Alderman Stratton's Fancy • (1969) • shortstory by David Campton
55 • Alderman Stratton's Fancy • interior artwork by Ray Capella
56 • Castle of Tears • [Dread Empire] • shortstory by Glen Cook
64 • Castle of Tears • interior artwork by Vincent Napoli
69 • Blood Moon • shortstory by Thomas L. Owen
78 • Chang Dree • shortstory by Gerald W. Page
88 • HPL: A Reminiscence (part 2 of 2) • essay by H. Warner Munn
96 • The Sorcerer's Dream • shortstory by Brian Lumley
99 • The Sorcerer's Dream • interior artwork by Alan Hunter
100 • A Fly One • shortstory by Steve Sneyd
104 • A Fly One • interior artwork by Denis Tiani
105 • The Last Ambition • shortstory by Charles L. Grant
109 • The Last Ambition • interior artwork by Alan Hunter
110 • Who Nose What Evil • shortstory by Charles E. Fritch
115 • Who Nose What Evil • interior artwork by Jim Shull
116 • The White Beast • [Dilvish] • shortstory by Roger Zelazny
118 • The White Beast • interior artwork by Alan Hunter
119 • The Secret Member • essay by J. Vernon Shea
121 • The Dead Line • shortstory by Dennis Etchison

--Goodness. Even the minor Lumley was fun to read. Much less the Leiber, the Etchison, the Campton, the Grant...

Meanwhile, here's the lineup for that first Whispers anthology, from Doubleday:
Whispers ed. Stuart David Schiff (Doubleday 0-385-12568-2, Aug ’77, $7.95, hc); Also in pb (Jove 1979).
· Introduction · Stuart David Schiff · in
· Sticks · Karl Edward Wagner · nv Whispers Mar ’74
· The Barrow Troll · David Drake · ss Whispers Dec ’75
· The Glove · Fritz Leiber · ss Whispers Jun ’75
· The Closer of the Way · Robert Bloch · ss *
· Dark Winner · William F. Nolan · ss Whispers Dec ’76
· Ladies in Waiting · Hugh B. Cave · ss Whispers Jun ’75
· White Moon Rising · Dennis Etchison · ss *
· Graduation · Richard Christian Matheson · ss Whispers Aug ’77
· Mirror, Mirror · Ray Russell · ss *
· The House of Cthulhu · Brian Lumley · ss Whispers Jul ’73
· Antiquities · John Crowley · ss *
· A Weather Report from the Top of the Stairs · James Sallis & David Lunde · ss Whispers Dec ’73
· The Scallion Stone · Basil A. Smith · nv *
· The Inglorious Rise of the Catsmeat Man · Robin Smyth · ss New Writings in Horror and the Supernatural #1, ed. David A. Sutton, London: Sphere, 1971; Whispers Jul ’74
· The Pawnshop · Charles E. Fritch · ss *
· Le Miroir · Robert Aickman · ss Whispers Aug ’77
· The Willow Platform · Joseph Payne Brennan · ss Whispers Jul ’73
· The Dakwa [Lee Cobbett] · Manly Wade Wellman · ss *
· Goat · David Campton · ss New Writings in Horror and the Supernatural #1, ed. David A. Sutton, London: Sphere, 1971; Whispers Dec ’75
· The Chimney · Ramsey Campbell · ss *
· Afterword · Stuart David Schiff · aw

The only conteporary series which could touch the Schiff anthologies, at least at first, was Charles Grant's Shadows volumes, with their emphasis on what Grant himself preferred to write, "quiet" or subtle horror...Avram Davidson's brilliant "Naples" led, and not only in its placement in this impressive debut.

Shadows ed. Charles L. Grant (Doubleday 0-385-12937-8, 1978, $7.95, hc); Also in pb (Playboy 1980).
· Introduction · Charles L. Grant · in
· Naples · Avram Davidson · ss *
· The Little Voice · Ramsey Campbell · nv *
· Butcher’s Thumb · William Jon Watkins · ss *
· Where All the Songs Are Sad · Thomas F. Monteleone · nv *
· Splinters · R. A. Lafferty · ss *
· Picture · Robert Bloch · ss *
· The Nighthawk · Dennis Etchison · ss *
· Dead Letters · Ramsey Campbell · ss *
· A Certain Slant of Light · Raylyn Moore · ss *
· Deathlove · Bill Pronzini · ss *
· Mory · Michael Bishop · nv *
· Where Spirits Gat Them Home · John Crowley · ss *
· Nona · Stephen King · nv *

(Well, to be fair, Ramsey Campbell found his 1980 New Terrors anthology published in two volumes...not supported, as Kirby McCauley was with his comparable Frights and Dark Forces, with one fat volume...these all comparable reads....)

Even Zebra, so ready to help overload horror fiction with mediocre to terrible horror novels in a few years, was willing to briefly support two anthology series, both not quite what they should be, and not quite up to these others, but more grist for my mill...Roy Torgeson's Other Worlds (which actually managed to leave out the Avram Davidson story mentioned on its cover...published in the second and final volume), and Lin Carter's Weird Tales, the second revival to use the title (Sam Moskowitz had edited four issues for Leo Margulies's Renown Publications in 1973-74 of the first revival...Carter's series saw four volumes, and some questionable accounting on everyone's part helped kill it...a two-issue revival followed in 1984, and the current WT began its much more tradtionalist (than currently) run in 1985 when George Scithers and his editorial staff left the D&D-gaming TSR Publishers, who'd hired them from founding Asimov's to edit Amazing (combined with Fantastic) after TSR bought it from Bernhard; TSR promptly sold the tv rights to the magazine and title to Steven Spielberg for his plastic timewaster...a bump of cash which no doubt helped keep the magazine going despite TSR nonchalance.

Other Worlds 1 ed. Roy Torgeson (Zebra 0-89083-558-6, Dec ’79, $2.25, 282pp, pb)
9 · Introduction · Roy Torgeson · in
18 · Fire from the Wine-Dark Sea · Somtow Sucharitkul · nv *
40 · The Birdchaser · James E. Thompson · ss *
46 · The Pavilion Where All Times Meet · Jayge Carr · nv *
69 · The Bully and the Beast · Orson Scott Card · na *
142 · Hideout · Steve Rasnic Tem · ss *
153 · The Last Performance of Kobo Daishi · Alan Ryan · nv *
178 · Miss Notworthy and the Aliens · Sharon Webb · ss *
187 · Water Kwatz, or More Bible Suckers · Ronald Anthony Cross · ss *
207 · The Dragon That Lived in the Sea · Elizabeth A. Lynn · ss *
215 · The Painters Are Coming Today · Steve Rasnic Tem · ss *
221 · Perfect Balance · Steve Perry · ss *
235 · The Character Assassin · Paul H. Cook · ss *
249 · from The Last Viking: The Saga of Harald Hardrede · Poul Anderson · ex *

Weird Tales [No.1, v48 # 1, Spring 1981] ed. Lin Carter (Zebra 0-89083-714-7, Dec ’80, $2.50, 268pp, pb)
5 · Editorial · Lin Carter · ed *
9 · Scarlet Tears · Robert E. Howard · nv *
47 · Down There · Ramsey Campbell · ss *
65 · The Light from the Pole · Clark Ashton Smith & Lin Carter · ss *
86 · Someone Named Guibourg · Hannes Bok · nv *
Annals of Arkya:
___ 116 · 1. The Courier · Robert A. W. Lowndes · pm *
___ 116 · 2. The Worshippers · Robert A. W. Lowndes · pm *
117 · Bat’s Belfry · August W. Derleth · ss Weird Tales May ’26
130 · The Pit · Carl Jacobi · ss *
149 · When the Clock Strikes · Tanith Lee · ss *
174 · Red Thunder · Robert E. Howard · pm JAPM: The Poetry Weekly Sep 16 ’29
175 · Some Day I’ll Kill You! · Seabury Quinn · ss Strange Stories Feb ’41
194 · Healer · Mary Elizabeth Counselman · nv *
219 · The House Without Mirrors · David H. Keller, M.D. · ss *
230 · Dreams in the House of Weir · Lin Carter · nv *

And, finally, in 1981, a magazine rolled onto the stands that wouldn't quite replace Fantastic in my heart, but did in its seven-year run consistently improve and offer a good array of much of the best short fantasy and horror published during its time...and even helped name as well as first publish some of the best of the not-so-quiet horror writers, the "splatterpunks"...Twilight Zone. I missed the first issue, and started with the second. (Its sister publication, a few years later, Night Cry, was even better but had poorer distribution...very catch as catch can.)
6 • In the Twilight Zone: Rewriting the Legends... • essay by T. E. D. Klein
7 • Other Dimensions: Books (Twilight Zone, May 1981) • essay by Theodore Sturgeon
7 •   Review: Far from Home by Walter Tevis • review by Theodore Sturgeon
7 •   Review: King David's Spaceship by Jerry Pournelle • review by Theodore Sturgeon
7 •   Review: Zelde M'Tana by F. M. Busby • review by Theodore Sturgeon
7 •   Review: Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler • review by Theodore Sturgeon
7 •   Review: Orbit 21 by Damon Knight • review by Theodore Sturgeon
7 •   Review: Shadows 3 by Charles L. Grant • review by Theodore Sturgeon
7 •   Review: The Last Defender of Camelot by Roger Zelazny • review by Theodore Sturgeon
7 •   Review: Fundamental Disch by Thomas M. Disch • review by Theodore Sturgeon
7 •   Review: If All Else Fails by Craig Strete • review by Theodore Sturgeon
7 • Review of the nonfiction book "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas R. Hofstader • essay by Theodore Sturgeon
7 • Review of the nonfiction book "The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light" by William Irwin Thompson • essay by Theodore Sturgeon
8 •   Review: An Island Called Moreau by Brian W. Aldiss • review by Theodore Sturgeon
8 •   Review: The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe • review by Theodore Sturgeon
8 •   Review: Conan and the Spider God by L. Sprague de Camp • review by Theodore Sturgeon
8 •   Review: Nightmares by Charles L. Grant • review by Theodore Sturgeon
8 •   Review: Jack Vance by Martin Harry Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander and Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller • review by Theodore Sturgeon
9 •   Review: A Fond Farewell to Dying by Syd Logsdon • review by Theodore Sturgeon
10 • Other Dimensions: Screen (Twilight Zone, May 1981) • essay by Gahan Wilson
13 • TZ Interview: Peter Straub: "I Looked Into My Imagination and That's What I Found" • interview of Peter Straub • interview by Jay Gregory
18 • In the Sunken Museum • novelette by Gregory Frost
19 • In the Sunken Museum • interior artwork by Frances Jetter
28 • Blood Relations • shortstory by Lewis Shiner
28 • Blood Relations • interior artwork by Arthur Somerfield
34 • And I Only Am Escaped to Tell Thee • shortstory by Roger Zelazny
34 • And I Only Am Escaped to Tell Thee • interior artwork by Bob Gale
36 • Chronic Offender • shortstory by Spider Robinson
37 • Chronic Offender • interior artwork by Steven Guarnaccia
46 • Seven and the Stars • shortstory by Joe Haldeman
46 • Seven and the Stars • interior artwork by Jose Reyes
53 • TZ Screen Preview: The Hand • essay by uncredited
57 • Drum Dancer • shortstory by George Clayton Johnson
57 • Drum Dancer • interior artwork by A. G. Metcalf
60 • Brief Encounter • shortstory by Michael Garrett
60 • Brief Encounter • interior artwork by Jose Reyes
62 • How They Pass the Time in Pelpel • shortstory by Robert Silverberg
62 • How They Pass the Time in Pelpel • interior artwork by uncredited
70 • Magritte's Secret Agent • novelette by Tanith Lee
70 • Magritte's Secret Agent • shortfiction by Jose Reyes
89 • Show-by-Show Guide: TV's Twilight Zone: Part Two • essay by Marc Scott Zicree
95 • The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street (teleplay) • shortfiction by Rod Serling
106 • Looking Ahead (Twilight Zone, May 1981) • essay by uncredited

...of course, I was primed for all these as a small child, when my parents presented me with a few issues of Humpty Dumpty and Children's Digest, when they were published by the Parents Magazine folks, and not yet by Christian conservatives.

This was one of the issues of HD I had:















And, with excerpts from Hugh Lofting and Lewis Carroll (and Herge's Tintin comics serialized), I think I had this issue of CD...


While my folks would get me a few Highlights for Children and, as a Webelos, Boy's Life in the next few years, I think the digests made a stronger impression... pity my folks didn't know about Jack and Jill and Cricket...nor realized how much I enjoyed the digests...of course, I was also reading the crime-fiction and sf digests, and Short Story International, and The Atlantic Monthly and Dissent, and Omni and Scientific American, and Downbeat when I could find it, by the turn of the '80s...

For more of this round of "forgotten" books, and probably less nostalgic ramble by anyone else this week, please see George Kelley's blog, as he fills in for the vacationing Patti Abbott.

And, in a ten-years-later addition to the discussion here, illustrator and writer Tony Gleeson cites his own years-later experience with the illustration of a Grania Davis story in this issue of Fantastic, the illustration reprinted below from the context of the issue archived here. (Text and illo are a bit sharper and more readable at Archive.org.)

August "Forgotten" Music/Friday's "Forgotten" Book: BLUE ROSE by Blue Rose (Sugar Hill, 1989); LIFE OF THE PARTY by Mary Fleener (Fantagraphics, 1996)

Life is not cooperative at all at the moment, so I shall have less to say than I'd like about this wonderful book, which collects most of Mary Fleener's most autobiographical comix stories (as of the '96 publication date) and this bluegrass "supergroup" album, I believe the first all-female gathering of veterans, rather than younger folk who came up together in bluegrass (as the Dixie Chicks initially did, or such younger bands as Uncle Earl).

From her middle-class LA early-teen years, through adventures in the bohemian subcultures (including latter-day 1970s hippiedom and the fringes of American punk rock, surf culture and more), the weirdness of the theoretically conventional "straight" life around that and various eerie bits of coincidence that seemingly could verge on the supernatural, Fleener's bold style (given, particularly in portraying incidences of stress or ecstacy, to Cubist abstractions, such as the cover above) is an excellent match with her wit and wry take on the passing show.


Life of the Party is a good introduction to her work, as would be particularly the three issues of Fleener, one of the several shortlived comics titles she's produced on her own or in collaboration (she was one of the most talented of the contributors to the durable Wimmen's Comix and one of the founding group of contributors to its heir, Twisted Sisters. However, Life is, as too many books are, barely in print, from Fantagraphics and others.

Some samples of her b&w work:








Meanwhile, Blue Rose the band: Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer, Laurie Lewis, Sally Van Meter, and Molly Mason (no relation as far as I know) simply recorded this wonderful album, toured a bit as a group, but didn't find sufficient support to remain a unit, if that was ever the intent, and that's really too bad (as well as a poor commentary on the tough life a bluegrass band could face in the '80s and '90s)...these truncated clips, more at the band link above than I replicate here, will give you a sense of their wonderful sound (though the instrumental solos are often what's truncated, in favor of the lovely vocal harmonies):

1. River of Change
2. Geraldine and Ruthie Mae
3. Blue Love
4. Little Birds
5. Your Friendship Carries Me
6. Sad But True
7. Wild Rose of the Mountain
8. Careless Love
9. Train of Life
10. Time Has Made A Change

--though I'm tempted to simply post them all. You probably need this record. I did.

For more of August's "forgotten" music, please see Scott Parker's blog; for more of this Friday's "forgotten" books, please see Patti Abbott's...

Friday's "Forgotten" Books, College Edition: DREAM MAKERS II: Interviews by Charles Platt; ESSENTIAL WORKS OF ANARCHISM, edited by Marshall Shatz

I matriculated at the University of Hawaii, Manoa as a prospective triple-major (English, Political Science, and an interdisciplinary Planetary Science major), in the Honors Program, and proceeded to take on 18-21 credits per semester of the most challenging courses I could make my way into for the first two semesters, while going in every direction that looked interesting extracirricularly. I was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Hawaii Review, the only literary magazine on campus in those years before Manoa, as an 18-year-old frosh; that appointment was rescinded by the Board of Publications for essentially frivolous reasons and against their own rules, without my (or my successor) being able to get the funds from the BOP to produce any issues. That, while enervating, was lost a bit in the rush of three friends and my campaign, as the Green Slate, for the student Senate of the Associated Students of UH...there were 19 senatorial slots in the College of Arts and Sciences, and 24 candidates. My friend Keiko was easily elected, and I came in 19th, so barely was; our running-mates Darius and Greg placed in the last five in vote totals. We were all motivated to one degree or another by opposition to the Maranatha Christian-cult incumbents on the Senate, who were able to ram through various questionable bills and resolutions in my freshman year; we foiled some of their further attempts, despite most of the executive offices in the new administration being held by Maranathans who had been senators the previous year (Keiko transferred to Barnard College at Columbia U over the summer, but Greg, whose brother was a newly elected Maranathan senator, and Darius were able to enter the senate as Keiko and others dropped out...one of the two School of Engineering senators, Kevin, was an ally on some of these matters, and was also, like Keiko, a punk-rock enthusiast rather more seriously than I was...as a favor, later, in part to thank him for letting me crash with his family, I bankrolled in part his concert event, the Second Pacific Nu Musik Festival, which was a watershed in Hawaiian punk and new wave events). I also became, more by default than anything else, the president of the Honolulu Science Fiction Society.

So it would be hard to blame my reading in those Hawaiian years for my extraordinarily mixed record as a student in 1982-1983, when after three semesters I dropped out of the UH, halfway through my incumbency, and having taken writing courses with Robert Onopa (a 300-level course as a second-semester freshman) and A. A. Attanasio (a graduate seminar in my sophomore year's first and only Hawaiian semester). But I was certainly still reading The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and the horror-fiction magazine and anthology series Whispers and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and while growing decreasingly happy with the tack The Atlantic was taking, this new incarnation of Harper's was interesting. As was, among the books I was quite happy to find, the now rather obscure collection of interviews with and profiles of sf and fantasy writers called Dream Makers II, the second such volume, assembled by the ever-contentious Charles Platt, who nonetheless with these books was channeling the rather more openhearted and professionally smooth approach of one of his idols, Alfred Bester, who loved writing sf but loved writing and editing (and particularly profiling) for Holiday magazine in its glory years in the 1960s about as much. Platt's first volume did reasonably well, for a collection of interview-based essays, and Platt was able to get backing to touch base with a similar range of writers for the second volume, including such folks as the half-paralyzed and sporadically enraged Keith Laumer, grimly determined to get past the strokes that hadn't yet utterly incapacitated him; Joanna Russ explicitly Outing herself as lesbian, still a relatively bold move in 1983 even if not much of a suprise to those who'd been reading her more autobiographical work; Jerry Pournelle expressing his appreciation for Mussolini and the Fascists, and revealing that he had been, briefly, after his service in the US military in the Korean War, a member of the US Communist Party, largely out of disgust with what he'd just experienced (and, one gathered, his still-strong fetish for Order and Hierarchy), and generally reading how a second set of major writers in the field felt they should present themselves and their work, and what Platt made of them as interview subjects, usually in their homes when they were game to have him over. Fascinating stuff, and certainly Platt's piece on Theodore Sturgeon in this volume didn't make it any easier to miss (what would turn out to be) Sturgeon's last writers' workshop, on one of the neighbor islands, which I couldn't afford to attend so didn't apply for (this was in a period of trying to make my way without taking more money from my parents, which turned out not to work so very well in the depressed job market of 1983-84 Honolulu/Oahu).

Well, having left Hawaii to rejoin my parents, brother and cat, who had moved in '83 to the DC suburbs in Virginia, I got some jerk jobs and began saving money to return to school there, going on to fill out some core requirements at Northern Virginia Community College in 1985, where in working on the campus paper I met Frank Lawrence, my Green/libertarian-left political interests didn't lessen, and in reading a column in Utne Reader about a Canadian journal that sounded particularly interesting, I sent off for a copy of Our Generation, the libertarian socialist and anarchist magazine, which in that issue featured long essays by Noam Chomsky and Murray Bookchin, and shorter pieces (iirc) by George Woodcock and Janet Biehl, among others. Our Generation would soon be supplemented by such more local productions as Social Anarchism, which I would eventually contribute to editorially, and such more farflung publications as The Match! (from an eccentric DIY publisher in Arizona) and Freedom (the anarchist newspaper/newsletter of long standing out of England), and I cast about and supplemented reading the likes of Emma Goldman's massive and often breathtaking Living My Life and Woodcock's and Chomsky's and Daniel Guerin's books, and the likes of Sonia Johnson's political memoirs, with anthologies such as Marshall Shatz's slightly potted but useful and interesting Essential Works. It was nice to have early work by such a Green mover and shaker as Daniel Cohn-Bendit handily cheek-by-jowl with that of Paul Goodman, and both brought together with such progenitors as Proudhon and Bakunin, Kropotkin and Godwin. As with Johnson, not a few of the feminists I was reading voraciously as well, very much including Joanna Russ and the all but anarchist Ursula Le Guin, were echoing much of what the left-libertarian foremothers had noted, applying it to new circumstances. Both on my last academic campus, George Mason University, and off, I grew more involved with the anarchist, libertarian-socialist, Green and other activities at hand, and helped start a few. Very busy times. And some very good reading, to say the least.

Tables of Contents:

For the Platt, from WorldCat:

The first anthology.

Description: xv, 300 p. : ports. ; 21 cm.
Contents:
Jerry Pournelle --
Larry Niven --
Christopher Priest --
William S. Burroughs --
Arthur C. Clarke --
Alvin Toffler --
John Sladek --
D.M. Thomas --
Keith Roberts --
Andre Norton --
Piers Anthony --
Keith Laumer --
Joe Haldeman --
Fritz Leiber --
Robert Anton Wilson --
Poul Anderson --
Jack Vance --
Theodore Sturgeon --
L. Ron Hubbard --
Joanna Russ --
Janet Morris --

The best of/third edition.

Joan D. Vinge --
Harry Harrison --
Donald A. Wollheim --
Edward L. Ferman --
Kit Reed --
James Tiptree, Jr. --
Stephen King.
Responsibility: by Charles Platt.

for the Shatz, from the table of contents in the online version, link above:
Preface ix

Introduction xi

Part I. Anarchism in Theory: Classics of Anarchist
Thought 1
WILLIAM GODWIN: The Father of Anarchism
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice 3

MAX STIRNER: Individualist Anarchism

The Ego and His Own 42

PIERRE-JOSEPH PROUDHON: Mutualist

A Bantam mm paperback!

Anarchism
General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth
Century 81

MICHAEL BAKUNIN: Revolutionary Anarchism
God and the State 123
Statism and Anarchy 155

PETER KROPOTKIN: Anarchist Communism
The Conquest of Bread 184

LEO TOLSTOY: Christian Anarchism
The Kingdom of God Is Within You 229


Part II. The Mind of the Anarchist: Memoirs and
Autobiographies 267
PETER KROPOTKIN : The "Repentant
Nobleman"
Memoirs of a Revolutionist 269

EMMA GOLDMAN: Anarchism and the
Liberated Woman
Living My Life 312

ALEXANDER BERKMAN: "Propaganda by
the Deed"
Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist 356

RUDOLF ROCKER: The Anarchist "Melting Pot"
The London Years 393


Part III. Anarchism in Practice: Firsthand
Descriptions 423
JOSIAH WARREN: The Cincinnati Time Store
and the Modern Times Colony
Practical Details in Equitable Commerce 425
Practical Applications of the Elementary Principles
of "True Civilization" 443

VOLINE: Nestor Makhno and Anarchism in the
Russian Revolution
The Unknown Revolution 450

FRANZ BORKENAU: The Anarchists in the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Cockpit 484


Part IV. Anarchism Today: Anarchist Themes in
the Contemporary World 515
HERBERT READ: Anarchism and Man's
Freedom
Existentialism, Marxism and Anarchism 517

DANIEL GUÉRIN: Workers' Self-Management
of Industry
Anarchism 539

DANIEL AND GABRIEL COHN-BENDIT:
Anarchism and Student Revolt
Obsolete Communism: The Left-Wing Alternative 553

ROEL VAN DUYN: The Kabouters of Holland
Proclamation of the Orange Free State 569

PAUL AND PERCIVAL GOODMAN: Restoration
of the Community
Communitas 575


Suggestions for Further Reading 598
Index of Persons 601


For more "forgotten" books in the midst of college-years memoirs, see Patti Abbott's blog for a guide to the other participants...