1959 - Year in SF&F: Reviews

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE Read other issues here ---------------------------------------------- Harlan Ellison "The Abnormals" (also as "The Discarded") © Fantastic, Apr 1959 Paingod & Other Delusions, 1965 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award This story comes form a very prolific period in Ellison's writing career: He lived in New York and submitted (together with his buddy Robert Silverberg) a flood of stories to second rate publishers of SF, crime fiction and westerns. The paycheck was good and immediate, the times were good too - he nostalgically remembers the "Roaring Fifties", when one could have a viewing of top-notch Broadway production and then hole up in a jazz bar with the legends playing live - all for a very reasonable price. Granted, the short story market was already cooling off, but Ellison had found an almost perfect outlet for his "edgy" sci-fi & crime fiction - the magazine editors lapped up his stories with poorly concealed glee, slapping the most outrageous titles on his (not that graphic, really) stories: "Homicidal Maniac", "Psycho at Mid-Point" etc. All the more amazing is the fact that Ellison's fiction from that period is still reprinted and enjoyed today (while Silverberg's mountains of wordage lie mercifully forgotten). "The Abnormals" is a cool story, really - in fact some say that its TV version (written by Ellison and Josh Olson and directed by Jonathan Frakes) is perhaps the best episode of "Masters of Science Fiction" show aired on ABC. A spaceship full of mutants is exiled from Earth and turned into a nomadic tribe to haunt the spaceways. This is a classic premise, a paen to loneliness and alienation (certainly recurring themes in Ellison's writing). Robert Heinlein's mutants inside a "generation" starship ("The Universe", or "Orphans in the Sky") still haunt my memory as the creepiest environment to grace space fiction. Ellison's heroes are disfigured, disillusioned and tough - and then it just so happens that Earth suddenly remembers them, needs their help and even wants them back. Earth rulers don't really get "the finger", but they come close. Knowing that some Ellison stories end with that "all-encompassing proposition" it is no surprise. Read for yourself - this is pure pulp entertainment. review: 27-Aug-07 (read in 1994) (image credit: PS2 ad) ---------------------------------------------- Murray Leinster "The Pirates of Ersatz" (nv) (also as "The Pirates of Zan") © Astounding Stories, Feb 1959 "The Pirates of Zan" (nv) (also as "The Pirates of Ersatz") © Astounding Stories, Feb 1959 novel: Ace Double, 1959 --novel : 1959 Hugo nomination --/ cool sf novel Some say that this is a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta in space, using good old space pirates as a backdrop. Some even say it's funny. I would agree with the first statement but not the second. Light-hearted fare, to the point of evaporating the moment it enters the brain, so the memory retention factor is zero. Sadly, this is considered one of Leinster's high points in writing, so it is widely reprinted. I found the style of writing wooden and awkward, the plot is marginal and the idea non-existent. Plus I just feel plain insulted by the fact that Leinster uses the venerable "space piracy" stage, completely stripping it of action, wonder and romance (compare this novel to the greatly exciting "The Three Planeteers" by Edmond Hamilton), and for many readers that would be the only brush with the theme (as they do not have access to pulps). Oh well, enough grumbling. The plot is about the coming to fame and fortune of an ex-pirate engineer, who uses pirate economics for the benefit of an otherwise backwater planet. There is some romance in it, but I could not care for the characters, so they might as well be cats or hamsters (they perfunctorily kiss in the end, so they must be humans after all). review: 29-Jul-06 (read in 2006) ---------------------------------------------- Frank Belknap Long "The Flame of Life" © Future, June 1959 Odd Science Fiction, Belmont 1964 --/ fourth place sf story --/ romance award --/ wonder award --/ rare find Very cool story, very romantic - a flame of love versus the kind of radioactive mysterious glow from space, enveloping the ex-astronaut. Frank Belknap Long is a ticket to solid, highly visual pulp entertainment. An unexpected and rare treat from the sadly declining days of good old "Future" pulp magazine. review: 11-Nov-07 (read in 2007) ---------------------------------------------- Clifford Simak "Installment Plan" © Galaxy, Feb 1959 All The Traps Of Earth, 1962 --/ cool sf story Positronic brain plug-ins, or "transmogs" (from a curious english word "transmogrify") - robots have learned to reproduce by assembling more of themselves from spare parts. review: 06-Jul-06 (read in 1983) ---------------------------------------------- Clifford Simak "No Life Of Their Own" © Galaxy, Aug 1959 All the Traps Of Earth, 1962 --/ third place time sf novella --/ wonder award --/ style award --/ humour award --/ idea: luck/time dimension plus alien/human village melting pot --/ rare find I could write the whole article about this one...First, this is one the best examples of Simak's "pastoral", small-town-style writing, where we are comforted just by simple rural surroundings and simplicity of how people speak and live. All the more strange, then, the out-worldly elements seem when they appear, and all the more the "sense-of-wonder" is activated, contrasted against subdued background. This might be Simak's writing secret, successful formula that I can not get enough of... Second, the sheer intensity and weirdness of alien elements are breathtaking, accompanied by rapid play of ideas. And third, but not last, - humour. The story is about the "melting-pot" of aliens and humans in a normal village, where aliens do whatever they please and humans just observe, slack-jawed. Humans are confronted with "alternate-universe-inhabiting" creatures who play the hand of good luck to some chosen people, both humans and aliens are trying to solve time mysteries, and in the end "good time was had by all" review: 07-Jul-06 (read in 2006) ---------------------------------------------- Return to the Wonder Timeline

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