1950 - Year in SF&F: Reviews

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE Read other issues here ---------------------------------------------- THRILLING WONDER STORIES, JUNE 1950 - FULL REVIEW: As always, highly interesting, packed with wonder and large-scale vistas - one of the best pulp magazines ever published: Margaret St. Clair "Pillows" © Thrilling Wonder Stories, Jun 1950 The Best of Margaret St.Clair, 1988 --short story : 1950 Retro Hugo nomination --/ fourth place space sf story --/ wonder award --/ adventure award Very solid space adventure with truly interesting aliens. I did not expect it from this writer, but here it is! Licks any other good space sf entry. I can eat such stories for breakfast, lunch and dinner. review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 2002) ---------------------------------------------- Raymond F. Jones "Sunday is 3,000 Years Away" (nv) © Thrilling Wonder Stories, Jun 1950 --/ cool time sf novella --/ rare find Not bad - romantic time travel amid a well-realized world - but it did not hook me, nothing special. Just a good filler for a pulp, providing a nice cover plus a cool title. Somebody has to write a better story for this title. review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 2005) ---------------------------------------------- Arthur C. Clarke "Technical Error" (also as "The Reversed Man") © Thrilling Wonder Stories, 1949 also in - F&SF, Dec 1946 Reach for Tomorrow, 1956 --/ cool sf story The idea here is that a person who had been "flipped" left to right might have trouble surviving because of the peculiar attributes of organic molecules. A huge "supercooled superconducting" generator is accidentally given a surge of current. An engineer at the center of its field somehow flipped about his central left-right plane. review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 1984) ---------------------------------------------- Cleve Cartmill "No Hiding Place" (Jake Murchison) © Thrilling Wonder Stories, Jun 1950 The Space Scavengers, 1975 --/ cool sf story Part of "Jake Murchison-Captain Helen Wall" series. Also known as the "Space Salvagers" stories, these tales are a science fictional riff on the classic, and highly-popular, "battle of the sexes" comedies of the era, like Bringing Up Baby, The Thin Man, etc. The sparks are set off between Jake Murchison and Helen Wall, among their scientifically-premised exploits of attempting to salvage abandoned ships and cargo in space. Well, it did not do much for me. review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 2002) ---------------------------------------------- Raymond Z. Gallun "Coffins to Mars" © Thrilling Wonder Stories, Jun 1950 --/ cool sf novella --/ wonder award --/ rare find Competent Mars-colonization story, with a great title for a pulp suspense story. However, it could've been more intense. My attention flagged in some places. Great heroism and survival in Mars conditions. review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 2002) ---------------------------------------------- Kris Neville "Sam and the Live and the Not-Alive Things" © Super Science Stories, Sep 1950 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award --/ adventure award --/ rare find Another rare and wonderful story: troubled monsters, protective Domes around the last vestiges of civilization, scared children and a nice twist in the end. Kris Neville could be pretty uneven writer but this tale is entertaining enough. ---------------------------------------------- Bryce Walton "The City of the Singing Cubes" © Out of This World Adventures, Dec 1950 --/ cool sf story --/ rare find The sound waves as weapons on alien planet of benign civilization, which quickly learns the ropes of warfare from the contact with human minds. Neat little (absolutely typical, in a solid Eric Frank Russell style) morality tale. review: 10-Jan-07 (read in 2007) ---------------------------------------------- A. E. Van Vogt "Empire of the Atom" (coll) (Clane / Empire of the Atom series) © 1950, Shasta Books --/ cool apocalyptic sf collection The Year of the Bomb gave science fiction many jitters, premonitions, "i-have-a-bad-feeling-about-this" apocalyptic (and sometimes rather apoplectic) books, and this collection is one of the more respectable of the bunch. First, it appeared entirely in "Astounding" in 1946 and soon got reprinted in hardcover (a rare honor in those years), written by Van Vogt in his most productive period, and contains most (if not all) concerns and ideas associated with the newly-found destructive power of the atom. That said, it is one of the most bland and boring efforts of Van Vogt. I found it mostly predictable and unexciting, although it is still very readable due to patented Van Vogt's technique of "surprise or plot twist in every third paragraph", albeit in a very conventional setting. A mutant child escapes being killed at birth and grows up to be a scheming leader and defender of Earth against alien barbarians. One interesting note: the book describes the Temple of the Atom in the new post-apocalyptic Empire, and the order of "nuclear-science" priests. This obviously pleased John Campbell (editor of "Astounding") as a "scientology" supporter. 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