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1954 - Year in SF&F: Reviews



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

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Leigh Brackett
"Teleportress of Alpha C"

(also part of "Alpha Centauri or Die!")
© Planet Stories, Win 1954
novel: Ace Double, 1963
--/ cool space sf novella
--/ wonder award

This novella ended up to be part of Brackett's "Alpha Centauri or Die" novel, but it does not measure up with opening story "The Ark of Mars" (see review). The robots, taking over human space flights, are like Jack Williamson's "humanoids", but perhaps more ambiguous here. Plus the girl with ESP powers is trying to find out alien mind capabilities...Overall impression is a bit slack.
review: 07-Jul-06 (read in 2006)

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Ray Bradbury
"A Sound of Thunder"
© Colliers, Jun 1952
Planet Stories, Jan 1954
The Golden Apples of the Sun, 1953
--short story : 1999 Locus All-Time Poll /8 (tie)
--/ third place time sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ idea award
--/ adventure award


You can not find more classic SF story about time-travel. A "required reading". The good news is that it is also thrilling to read. Time safari with huge consequences / ripples down the time-stream for squashing a butterfly. A highlight of Bradbury's writing carrer. It is also entirely possible, that it was the very first SF story I've read.
review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 1981)

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James Causey
"Inferiority"
© Science Stories, Apr 1954
--/ cool sf story
--/ emotion award
--/ rare find

This light-hearted story could easily have been a part of Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" (with some improvement in writing, of course). Same atmosphere of poetic, gentle race confronted with seemingly superior human military civilization. The ultimate (and poignant) triumph of art and humble virtues makes this story almost Christian in its values, not to mention totally rare. (Whoever heard of the "Science Stories" pulp??)

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Philip K. Dick
"The Crystal Crypt"

© Planet Stories, Jan 1954
Beyond Lies The Wub, 1987
--/ cool sf story

This story did not meet my expectations. Even though it's from vintage Planet Stories, it is truly unremarkable. Some terrorists trying to blow up a town on other planet....the only plus is the description of this town, good artwork forming in my head.
review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 2006)

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Philip K. Dick
"Meddler"

© Future Science Fiction, Oct 1954
Beyond Lies The Wub, 1987
--/ cool time sf story
--/ wonder award

Do not meddle with the past...plus idea of a Time Scoop (dredging the future for valuable artifacts), some interesting future scenery and a human downfall from ...poisonous butterflies.
review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 2006)

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Philip K. Dick
"Prize Ship"
(also as "Globe From Ganymede")
© Thrilling Wonder Stories, Win 1954
Beyond Lies the Wub, 1987
--/ fourth place sf story
--/ wonder award

Humans capture a highly advanced ship from Ganymede, with only one control lever and no instructions. They are trying to figure out the control and even general idea of the function of this thing, which makes for nice adventure. I like this kind of thing, you know.
review: 06-Jul-06 (read in 2004)

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Philip K. Dick
"The Short, Happy Life Of The Brown Oxford"
(Doc Labyrinth series)
© F&SF, Jan 1954
I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon, 1987
--/ fourth place sf story
--/ idea award
--/ humour award


An amusing story about a scientist who brings to life various inanimate objects...would make an excellent cartoon. Rare example of a good sf humor.
review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 1999)

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Jack Finney
"The Body Snatchers" (nv)

© Colliers, Dec 10, 1954
New York: Dell; Eyre & Spottiswode 1955
--/ third place apocalyptic sf novel
--/ adventure award
--/ style award
--/ emotion award: paranoia

I am not writing this review. Sure, I might look like, sound like, act like, your regular reviewer but I am, in fact, a flawless reproduction .....

There's a very special kind of story out there and, ironically, it is unique and rare: "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson is one, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe is another -- and then there's Jack Finney's "The Body Snatchers".

What makes these stories special? They are the beginning, a unique and fresh approach: Stevenson created the archetypal story of man's dual nature, Poe created the first detective story, and Finney created ... well, he created pod people.

It's hard in some ways to read Finney's book today. Not that it's not a good or even great book, because it's that and much more. Finney's restrained style is there, his wry sense of humor is there, his enviously lean prose is there, but if you'd never read "The Body Snatchers" and picked up a copy only today, you'd fail to see its incredible uniqueness against the now-ubiquitous theme. That's a shame because the world owes a lot to Finney's (deceptively) simple little book. For the first time, we saw the horror of a world grown cool and impersonal, distant and nightmarishly "the same."

So powerful is Finney's creation -- as well as the great 1956 film version directed by Don Siegel, starring Kevin McCarthy -- that even the tiniest glimpse of someone acting cold and remote, removed and distant, conjures up the entire idea of the book ... and, naturally, alien seed pods.



Alas, what a lot of people don't know about the book, as it was excised from every adaption of it, is that the aliens in the novel DO have emotions -- it's just that theirs are faked. That twist adds a whole new level of power to the novel: the impostors aren't just unemotional, they actually put a "face" on over their inhumanity -- which is a much more biting commentary than just the simple idea of a cold and drone-like inhumanity. Another horror of the book that's never been adapted is the idea that the pod-people can't reproduce. Once all of humanity has been replaced -- and the aliens have left for space again -- the earth will be left as nothing but a depopulated wasteland.

Again, the book really has to be savored, relished -- re-read again and again to appreciate Finney's sly genius. Just look at the characters. It would be easy to make Dr. Miles Bennell and Becky stand out, and so make the impostors more of a statement about conformity. Instead, they are anything but outrageous, which only adds to the chilling creeps when you realize that they, too, have been less than honest with their emotions, that they are too close -- far too close -- to the impostors in their emotional range, the depth of their feelings. Their fight almost feels like it's a battle against the end of the world, sure, but also to preserve the tiny, almost invisible contrast between the cold indifference of the invaders and the slightly-less-cold indifference of the real humans.

In the end, "The Body Snatchers" is a truly great book. The trick, though, is to read it for its uniqueness -- and not let all its subsequent impostors and imitators take away from its unique and special shine.
Review by author M. Christian




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Murray Leinster
"Second Landing"
(Canis Venatici series)
© Thrilling Wonder Stories, Jan 1954
Get Off My World!, 1966
--/ fourth place space sf novella
--/ wonder award
--/ adventure award
--/ style award


I thoroughly enjoyed this planetary exploration tale. I remember how after laying my hands on this old Belmont collection in a library, i devoured it so fast, that the worlds and stars were whirling in my head like crazed comets and a satisfied nebula of reader's delight nested in my mind like in the center of the galaxy, for many years afterwards. This collection made me REALLY appreciate Leinster as a space adventure writer. A piece of trivia: this novella was one of the first attempts at "shared world" type SF stories, so called "the Twayne Triplets". A scientist would design a "world" and a situation, and three writers would be commissioned to write novellas based on the world/situation. In this case, first one was "Get Out of My Sky" by James Blish. The prospective third story was "First Cycle" by H. Beam Piper, which Piper left unfinished, but which Michael Kurland completed and published in 1982.
review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 1986)

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Theodore Sturgeon
"Beware the Fury"

(also as "Extrapolation")
© Fantastic, Nov 1954
Sturgeon in Orbit, 1967
--/ cool sf story
--/ style award

The story reads smooth, like a good drink (Sturgeon, the word-smith), but the drink is diluted, so other than the main moral "Beware the fury of a patient man" this story does not linger in the mind. Some barely exciting encounters with evil aliens bent on conquering Earth, with a Waldo-like figure of a savior: a man-hater, anti-social academic who gains the upper hand in the fight by the same trait of unpredictability. Not every traitor is what he seems. Usually one can not see the whole picture enough to judge.
review: 10-Jan-08 (read in 2007)
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