A Stellar Lineup: Harlan Ellison, James Tiptree, Jr, Frederik Pohl, John Brunner, Roger Zelazny, Poul Anderson, and more in The Alien Critic 7, edited by Richard E. Geis
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The Alien Critic Number Seven, November 1973. Published and edited by Richard E. Geis. I subscribed to TAC the following year after reading Geis’s column in IF.
Geis really had the juice back then — this issue includes Frederik Pohl, John Brunner, Roger Zelazny, Damon Knight, Poul Anderson, Robert Bloch, Miriam Allen de Ford, Ross Rocklynne, “James Tiptree, Jr.,” and others — including a letter from Harlan Ellison that lists the then-current contents of The Last Dangerous Visions. Seriously.
[Click the images for alien-sized versions.]
The cover art is by Stephen Fabian. Note the name on the helmet.
Below is Harlan Ellison’s letter in The Alien Critic Number Seven, listing the contents of The Last Dangerous Visions. This is a fairly typical Ellison letter from the ’70s, leaky charisma and all.
There’s also this fascinating letter from James Tiptree, Jr.
You took me to task for endless woe & gloom stories; purely publishers’ whims. I’m one of those total pessimists who go around giggling hysterically, usually write several near-comic ones between the doom-wails. But they come out years later in strange order… Of course it could be that my idea of a comedy is dying of a relatively painless disease.
The Alien Critic #7, like others he put out, were pure gold and, sadly, there’s nothing like it anymore. Richard Geis was one of a kind.
I love the cover, especially the name “MALZBERG” (Barry?) on the helmet.
I didn’t discover Richard Geis’ writing until a few years later when I started reading Galaxy SF which later led me to his Science Fiction Review magazine (which the previous Alien Critic evolved into). I loved his exchanges with “Alter” which always made for great reading.
Thank you for posting this. It brought back a lot of memories.
“Geis’ fanzines are a/ c/o/m/p/l/i/c/a/t/e/d/ m/e/s/s/ many and varied. For clarity, we will present them here in time order rather than alphabetic order. In particular, Science Fiction Review, Psychotic, Richard E. Geis, The Alien Critic, and TAC can all be considered phases of one fanzine usually known as Science Fiction Review. ” https://fancyclopedia.org/wiki/Richard_E._Geis
Mr. Geis did accumulate an amazing collection of contributors, even just looking only at the letter writers.
And the look back at The Last Dangerous Visions is a true “What if?” moment. As far as I can tell, there are only 7 of the Ellison list that made it into the J. Michael Straczynski-assisted edition: “War Stories” by Ed Bryant, “Level Best” by Steve Herbst, “(The Time of the) Skin” by A. E. van Vogt, “A Night at the Opera” by Robert Wissner, “Primordial Follies” by Robert Sheckley, “Falling from Grace” by Ward Moore, and “The Danaan Children Laugh” by Mildred Downey Broxon.
In addition, Howard Fast has “All Creatures Great and Small” listed by Ellison, but his “The Size of the Problem” is in the published version.
And so much more. How to resist the math pun of “Sqrt(-1) Think, Therefore Sqrt(-1) Am”, an otherwise unpublished piece (according to ISFDB)? If only, if only!