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1952 - Year in SF&F: Reviews



THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE
Read other issues here

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Poul Anderson
"The Star Plunderer"
(Terran Empire)
© Planet Stories, Sep 1952
The Long Night, 1983
--/ cool space sf story
--/ wonder award

Good stuff, nice planetary fiction. Not remarkable in any way, but enjoyable. Space bubble-gum. Kind of like Piers Anthony "Bio of a Space Tyrant" (I can't believe I mentioned Anthony in the same sentence as Anderson, wink, wink), but more readable, of course. Space pirate's rising to power in the Stellar Empire.
review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 1992)

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Charles Beaumont
"The Beautiful People"
(also as "The Beautiful Woman")
© IF, Sep 1952
Yonder, 1958
--/ cool sf story
--/ idea award

Idea about the Transformation that is every teenager's reward at age 19 - accepting the beautiful new face. Every teenager accepts it with glee, but one girl has the stubborn idea of keeping her own face... "When everyone is beautiful, nobody will be, because without ugliness, there can be no beauty."
review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 2006)

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Philip K. Dick
"Beyond Lies the Wub"
© Planet Stories, Jul 1952
The Preserving Machine, 1969
--/ cool sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ humour award

Space story, all right, in the good old pulp style, but with Dick's cutting-edge, black humour underneath it all. Cynical explorers eat the poor alien as a gourmet meal, no matter what this creature says; but in the end, in a truly Van Vogt tradition, the alien invades the spacer's mind and survives.
review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 1999)

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Philip K. Dick
"The Gun"

© Planet Stories, Sep 1952
Beyond Lies The Wub, 1987
--/ cool sf story
--/ wonder award

Nice pulpish adventure, with a space expedition (could be humans, could be not) exploring a ruined planet with gun-guarding machinery. Routine, but I liked the general scale and atmosphere.
review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 2006)

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Philip K. Dick
"The Little Movement"
© F&SF, Nov 1952
A Handful Of Darkness, 1955
--/ fourth place sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ idea award: live toys
--/ shock value


The basis for "Toy Story" movie? Surprising to learn that PKD had this idea first - and I am not sure if got the credit for this... Well, here the toys are having their own "little movement" and organize against a sadistic child owner.
review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 2003)

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Ib J. Melchior
"The Racer"

© Escapade, Sep 1952
--/ third place sf story
--/ adventure award
--/ shock value
--/ idea award
--/ rare find

This is the ORIGINAL story behind the idea of a brutal cross-country race, in which the winner is the one who hits more pedestrians along the way. Similar manic mass-entertainment was described by Robert Sheckley in "The Prize of Peril", but this time cars are used as killing machines and the whole American population becomes a potential target for crazed drivers, bent on increasing their killing score, catering to blood-thirsty TV watching crowd. Interestingly, even though plenty of warning is given along the racing route and everybody has an option to stay safely inside, there are many who prefer to stick it out and take their chances... Going to the movies, picking groceries becomes a life-threatening gamble. This story is a heady mix of shocks and thrills, told in a single breath; a horrifying, emotionally charged, highly cinematic and, surprisingly, humane tale. One heck of the story, asking for one heck of a movie. It's a shame that a cheesy Hollywood remake ("Death Race 2000") ruined the prospects for a better movie, potentially "The Truman Show" classic of our generation.
review: 21-Dec-07 (read in 2007)

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Kris Neville
"The Opal Necklace"
© Fantastic, Summer 1952
--/ fourth place f story
--/ romance award
--/ emotion award
--/ rare find

In the same legendary first issue of "Fantastic" magazine, side by side with the masterpiece of all times: Ray Bradbury's "The Smile", we find a story by the very uneven writer Kris Neville - however, in this case his story shines and stands up well in the awesome lineup. In fact, it may be one of the most emotionally exhausting stories of the marriage gone wrong due to the deep dark magic, and one of the best character studies of "engaged witches" since (or even before) Fritz Leiber's "Conjure Wife". One poor chap marries a bewitching (and utterly selfish, even to the point of emotional vampirism) New Orleans blond beauty - and the agonizing, utterly bizarre relationship proceeds to unfold at a breakneck pace. A short story with the big, nasty bite, nearly unforgettable.
review: 21-Dec-07 (read in 2007)

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Frederick Pohl
"The Space Merchants" (nv)
(with C. M. Kornbluth)
(also as "Gravy Planet")
© Galaxy, Jun 1952
1956, Ballantine Books
--book : 1956 Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll /22 (tie)
--book : 1966 Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll /22
--all time novel : 1975 Locus All-Time Poll /24 (tie)

--/ cool sf novel

Some say that this is also a "classic science fiction novel". It definitely has been influential, but as for the joy of reading... I have to make a point here. Not all classics (critically approved) are easily digestable. Some are boring. Some are beyond boring. Some are beyond the beyond (when you get angry at the critics to the point of manslaughter). Most "classics" will leave you cold (for the simple reason of being out-dated, out-of-style... like a dry stolid trunk of a tree vs. lively off-shoot branches and flowers. It gave life to a variety of styles and then got slowly cooked in the gooey amber of ceaseless critical praise) That might be an exageration, but I have a certain distrust (and lower expectations) when I approach something labeled as "classic". Unless that classic really entered my life, shaped it and earned the title (and that might be entirely subjective experience, having nothing to do with literary values). Back to this novel - it's boring. Not beyond boring (a category reserved for the curious oddities of schlock), but simply an uninvolving "social commentary" on the perils of greed in a capitalist society... as though we haven't heard about that stuff already. Revolutionary for its time, this condemning tract lacks color and vision. Go soak in a jacuzzi, drink Irish Cream and forget about this novel. To provide a counterpoint to my opinion, here is a link to a positive review.
review: 11-Sep-06 (read in 1988)

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Theodore Sturgeon
"More Than Human" (nv)

(exp. from "Baby is Three", "The Fabulous Idiot", "Morality")
© Galaxy, Oct 1952
novel : Ballantine Books, 1953
--novel : 1954 International Fantasy Award W
--book : 1956 Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll /3 (tie)
--book : 1966 Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll /19
--sf novel : 1998 Locus All-Time Poll /13
--novel : Retro Hugo runner-up
--/ fourth place sf novel
--/ style award

A true, and very well deserved, science fiction classic, More Than Human is brilliantly original and, as with pretty much everything Theodore Sturgeon did, astoundingly well-written.

To detail what I mean by "brilliantly original", More Than Human is a series of novellas exploring the birth, and growth, of the next stage in human evolution. In the first novella we’re introduced to Lone, “the idiot” who is actually an incredible genius; Baby, whose mind functions like a computer; Bonnie and Beanie, who can teleport; and a young telekinetic girl named Janie. That’s great and all, but the brilliance and originality of Sturgeon’s masterpiece is that each of these people are not the single next step but all parts of one super-entity, a gestalt. There’s a problem with this new, emergent, being, however: it needs a conscience.

Sturgeon’s genius is throughout More than Human: the characters are engaging, never heavy-handed or simplistic; the science fiction elements are experiential and totally real-feeling, never embarrassingly melodramatic; and the story has a real impact because Sturgeon embraces a true understanding of humanity with all it’s glory as well as flaws, and so the book is never feels cheap or lazy.

More Than Human is one of those books that should be read by everyone, science fiction fan or not: it’s a true work of art. Here is another review of this book.
Review by M. Christian


Cover by Emsh: "Galaxy's Birthday Party"

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Richard Wilson
"Love"

© F&SF, Feb 1952
--/ fourth place sf story
--/ romance award
--/ emotion award
--/ rare find

Written with the softness rarely tasted in the pulps, this is a touching story. It leaves the end untold, just like any true romance should - the happy ending is better not described, but only implied. Then our hearts will beat faster, as we imagine the bliss, or a very private happiness of our own personal kind. Here we have a couple of outcasts: differently formed planetary race, and a blind girl, who falls in love with a man of that race - when the opportunity to shed the veil from her eyes presents itself, will she accept it? Wilson does not answer this. Let every reader solve it on his own, in his heart. Other good sf background: Ore trucks, "Martian" suburbia, the Cave of Violet Light. And, of course, the cute 50s-style storytelling.
review: 10-Jan-08 (read in 2008)

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