Vintage Treasures: Time to Come edited by August Derleth
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Time to Come (Berkley Books, December 1958). Cover by Robert E. Schulz
Back in December I kicked off a survey of the Science Fiction Anthologies of August Derleth, starting with his 1948 reprint anthology Strange Ports of Call.
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls Derleth “one of the pioneering anthologists in the genre.” He began his editing career with horror collection Sleep No More in 1944. Strange Ports of Call, which drew heavily from pulps such as Astounding, Wonder Stories, Amazing, The Black Cat, Planet Stories, and others, was his first SF volume. It was a success, and so was the Berkley paperback, and very quickly the formula was set. Over the next six years Derleth produced six more SF anthologies, all of which drew heavily from pulp magazines, and all of which were released in paperback — packaged and heavily abridged with machine-like precision to hit a 172-174 page count and a profitable 35-cent price point.
Time to Come was something different. Derleth’s first original science fiction anthology, it contained brand new stories by the biggest writers of the day, including Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Charles Beaumont, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Carl Jacobi, Ross Rocklynne, Robert Sheckley, and Clark Ashton Smith. Like the others it was very successful, remaining in print in multiple editions for 15 years.
[Click the images for space-sized versions.]
Time to Come: Science-Fiction Stories of Tomorrow (Farrar, Straus and Young, April 1954)
Time to Come was published in hardcover by Farrar, Straus and Young in 1954. Here’s the complete TOC:
Foreword by August Derleth
“Butch” by Poul Anderson
“The Pause” by Isaac Asimov
“Keeper of the Dream” by Charles Beaumont
“No Morning After” by Arthur C. Clarke
“The Blight” by Arthur Jean Cox
“Hole in the Sky” by Irving E. Cox, Jr.
“Jon’s World” by Philip K. Dick
“The White Pinnacle” by Carl Jacobi
“Winner Take All” by Ross Rocklynne
“Paradise II” by Robert Sheckley
“Phoenix” by Clark Ashton Smith
“BAXBR/DAXBR” by Evelyn E. Smith
Time to Come returned to print in paperback multiple times over the next fifteen years, in abridged versions from Berkley, Consul, Tower, and Pyramid Books. Here’s a look at the other editions.
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Later paperback editions: Consul Books (1963), Tower Books (1965),
Pyramid Books (May 1969). Covers by: Henry, unknown, Jack Gaughan
Berkley’s mass market paperbacks were usually heavily abridged, typically reprinting half of the contents of Derleth’s hardcovers. In this case however, ten of the original tales survived in the paperback reprint, losing only Derleth’s intro, and the stories by Janet Fox and Evelyn E. Smith.
Here’s the TOC for the paperback editions.
“Paradise II” by Robert Sheckley
“Phoenix” by Clark Ashton Smith
“Butch” by Poul Anderson
“The Pause” by Isaac Asimov
“Keeper of the Dream” by Charles Beaumont
“No Morning After” by Arthur C. Clarke
“Hole in the Sky” Irving E. Cox, Jr.
“Jon’s World” by Philip K. Dick
“The White Pinnacle” by Carl Jacobi
“Winner Take All” by Ross Rocklynne
Graham hits the highlights for Time to Come in his Goodreads review.
Robert Sheckley’s PARADISE II is a promising story with a planet full of skeletons that finishes abruptly just as it gets going. Clark Ashton Smith’s PHOENIX is next up, sci-fi rather than the usual fantasy from this author; he’s not quite as comfortable here, although there are some passages of his trademark lyrical beauty to make up for it….
Arthur C. Clarke’s NO MORNING AFTER is a good one, a blackly comic fable about aliens contacting Earth to warn of impending destruction, but with unexpected results… JON’S WORLD sees Philip K. Dick exploring the classic ‘butterfly effect’ principle of time travel with solid if unspectacular results. Then we have one of the best stories here, Carl Jacobi’s THE WHITE PINNACLE. Astronauts exploring an alien planet find some weird doppelgangers with deadly results, and it’s unsettling stuff for sure.
Berkley’s paperback reprints of Derleth’s SF anthologies sold well enough that that they’re fairly plentiful today. A total of seven were published:
Beachheads in Space (190 pages, 1957) — cover by Richard Powers
Beyond Time and Space (174 pages, February 1958) — cover by Robert E. Schulz
The Outer Reaches (173 pages, April 1958) — artist unknown
Strange Ports of Call (173 pages, June 1958) — artist unknown
Worlds of Tomorrow (172 pages, October 1958) — cover by Richard Powers
Time to Come (172 pages, December 1958) — cover by Robert E. Schulz
The Other Side of the Moon (172 pages, 35 cents, June 1959) — cover by Richard Powers
Time to Come was published in hardcover by Farrar, Straus and Young in April 1954, and reprinted in paperback by Berkley Books in December 1958. The hardcover is 311 pages, priced at $3.50; the Berkley paperback is 172 pages, priced at 35 cents.
It has been out of print since 1969, and there is no digital edition. However, eBay currently lists 28 copies starting at $2.99 in paperback, and $1.99 in hardcover
See all our recent Vintage Treasures here.
Certainly not a collection of “same old, same old”, for sure, though I have to really trawl through my old sf books to find reprints of the stories (like Asimov’s “The Pause” in his Buy Jupiter collection, though it is a neat little horror/sf story that has stuck with me for years). Beachheads in Space is the only one of Mr. Derleth’s anthologies that I have found so far. I guess I should look for more of them.
Eugene,
I hope to profile a few more of them over the next few months. They’re an interesting snapshot of old science fiction.
I remember Asimov telling the story about Derleth asking him for advice as he put together his first original SF collection, IN TIME TO COME. “Well,” said Asimov, “you should drop the IN and just call it TIME TO COME.” And Derleth did.
Derleth? The Solar Pons guy? He wrote science fiction? Anybody ever read any of it. I mean, Solar Pons was his greatest works, no question.
Ha ha ha!!!
Who are you?