All of the magazines had fiction and review sections, but not all had artwork, editorials, or letter sections or science articles. A table is called for!
In 1999 Van Pelt was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Van Pelt received a Nebula Award nomination for his Short Story “The Last of the O-Forms.”
“The Inn at Mount Either” originally appeared in the May 2005 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, edited by Stanley Schmidt. Rich Horton included it in Science Fiction The Best of the Year 2006 Edition. Van Pelt selected the story for his own collection The Radio Magician and Other Stories, published by Fairwood Press in 2009. The story finished second in the Analog Readers’ Poll and was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.
“The Inn at Mount Either” is a sprawling resort with doorways that provide access to alternative worlds, a complex arrangement which means that the resort employees dissuade their guests from exploring on their own. Despite that, the security at the facility seems farcical and the guests are not actually warned of the resort’s true nature.
Dorian Wallace approaches the concierge because his wife, Stephanie, has been missing for a full day. Despite the oddities and dangers of the lodge, the concierge is neither concerned nor helpful, indicating that they don’t consider someone missing until they’ve been gone for 48 hours, although later developments should indicate that concern should happen immediately, or after two hours at the outside.
Unable to get help, Dorian goes off in search of his wife, remembering how taken she was by the doorway to Polynesia they had seen earlier. Naturally enough, he gets lost in the convoluted structure and passes through some of the doorways, experiencing a variety of alternatives the lodge looks out upon.
“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandlers’ The Big Sleep
(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)
Like many pulpsters, Norbert Davis wrote for several different markets, such as westerns, romance and war stories. But he was at his best in the private eye and mystery field. Davis could write standard hardboiled fare, but he excelled at mixing humor into the genre, and many argue he did it better than anyone else.
Joe ‘Cap’ Shaw, legendary editor of Black Mask, didn’t feel that Davis’ hardboiled humor fit in to the magazine and the writer only managed to break into Black Mask five times between 1932 and 1937. Davis had success in other markets, however, with eighteen stories seeing print in 1936, for example. And several stories appeared in Black Mask after Shaw departed.
Ben Shaley appeared in the February and April, 1934 issues of Black Mask and represent two of the five Davis stories that Shaw chose to print.
Shaley was a Los Angeles PI introduced in “Red Goose.” I like Davis’ description: ‘Shaley was bonily tall. He had a thin, tanned face with bitterly heavy lines in it. He looked calm; but he looked like he was being calm on purpose – as though he was consciously holding himself in. He had an air of hardboiled confidence.’
The humor that Davis is best known for is pretty much absent from this story, but that proves he could hold his own writing ‘straight’ hardboiled. Though Shaley’s exasperation with the nerdy museum curator, as the detective tries to lay the groundwork for the case is amusing.
Charles Sheffield was born on June 25, 1935 and died on November 2, 2002. On two occasions, he published fiction under the name James Kirkwood when he had multiple stories appearing in a single issue of a magazine.
In 1979 Sheffield was a nominee for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He went on to win the Hugo and Nebula Award for his novelette “Georgia on My Mind.” His novel Brother to Dragons won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and his novel The McAndrew Chronicles received the Seiun Award. In 1998 Sheffield served as Toastmaster at Bucconeer, the Worldcon in Baltimore. From 1998 until his death, Sheffield was married to author Nancy Kress.
“Marconi, Mattin, Maxwell” was first published in the May 1977 issue of Galaxy, edited by James Baen. Sheffield included it in his 1979 collection Vectors. The story kicked off a series of ten short stories featuring Henry Carver and Waldo Burmeister, two lawyers in the future. In 2001, Sheffield collected all of the stories in Space Suits: Being the Selected Legal Papers of Waldo Burmeister and Henry Carver, Attorneys-at-Law, as Transcribed and Edited by Henry Carver, LL.B., and With a Special Introduction by Waldo P. Burmeister, LL.B. The story was also translated into German in 1980 for an appearance in Science-Fiction-Stories 80, edited by Walter Spiegl.
In “Marconi, Mattin, Maxwell,” Henry Carver is relating his relationship with the great inventor Gerald Mattin. The story is set up as a letter to an editor who is including a chapter about Mattin in a book about great scientists. Carver indicates that the letter provides the editor with the true story of Mattin rather than the sanitized version that Carver wrote for the book.
The March, 1954 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction features a cover by Ed Emshwiller. I’m not certain how easy it is to see, but I like how he added EMSH to the symbols in the background.
“The Telenizer” by Don Thompson — Langston is a reporter who becomes a target of someone with a telenizer. The device, once honed to someone’s brain waves, can change a person’s perception of reality. One countermeasure is drunkenness, but Langston opts for a neutralizing device that he can carry in a briefcase.
Langston starts a story on himself, beginning with an investigation on Isaac Grogan. Langston did an expose series on Grogan years ago on bribery and corruption, which eventually led to the man’s arrest. Now that Grogan is free, he has motive for revenge. But there could be more at play than the obvious.
I like the premise and some of the action sequences; the story has a good pace. I couldn’t find much information on Thompson, which made me think the name could be a pseudonym for another author, given that this is the longest story in the issue. But I’m not turning up anything.
Maybe someone else (e.g. Rich Horton) has more information.
“The Littlest People” by Raymond E. Banks — Space labor forces are shipped cheaply by placing people in stasis while being shrunk to just a few inches in size. John’s father is the personnel director on an asteroid and meets with Mr. Mott, who arrives with new people available for hire. As John wanders the ship, he finds one of the little people — a woman — lying on the floor.
He picks her up and means to tell Mr. Mott, but there’s a bit of chaos at that moment, and John pockets her. Later, his sister brings the tiny woman (whom she names Gleam) out of stasis by accidentally injuring her leg. So John begins caring for Gleam like a pet while she bemoans her uselessness because of her permanently injured leg.
This is a really intriguing tale by Banks, and aside from some physical violence, it’s a good coming-of-age story.
Cleve Cartmill was born on June 21, 1908 and died on February 11, 1964. Cartmill also used the name Michael Corbin, when he had two stories appearing in the same issue of Unknown Worlds in 1943.
He is perhaps best known for his story “Deadline,” which appeared in the March 1944 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The story was discussed at Los Alamos, where Edward Teller noted that Cartmill had described aspects of their research in detail. The discussion led to an FBI investigation into Cartmill, Campbell, and some other science fiction authors. Cartmill is said to have had a low opinion of the story, himself.
“Huge Beast” was originally published in the Summer 1950 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas. They included the story in The Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1952, when the magazine was only three years old. In 1953, the story was translated and published in the first issue of the French magazine Fiction.
Loren Prater is working in his lab when a small creature suddenly materializes in front of him. At first taken for an animal, the alien quickly announces that he is a golen from a distant planet who has sought out Prater as the only person who can help his race avoid extinction.
The golen is an adorable creature and Prater can’t but help to reach out and scratch the creature’s ears. The golen, in return, is not only able to teleport (wirtle), but it can also share almost holographic imagery with Prater, showing the scientist the golen home world as the golen explains their ecological disaster. The golen’s story of the invading Hugh Beasts doesn’t quite add up and Prater realizes that the golen is trying to gain Prater’s assistance to annihilate mankind. The story then comes down to whether Prater can outwit the golen or if the golen can trick Prater into helping it.
Lloyd Arthur Eshbach was born on June 20, 1910 and died on October 29, 2003.
Eshbach founded Fantasy Press in 1946 and ran it for 9 years, publishing nearly fifty books, including titles by Doc Smith, Stanley Weinbaum, Jack Williamson, A.E. van Vogt, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp, and others.
Eshbach’s novel The Land Beyond the Gate was nominated for the Compton Crook Stephen Tall Memorial Award. In 1988, he received the Milford Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Gallun Award for contributions to science fiction, and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award. In 1949, he was the pro Guest of Honor at the Cinvention, the 1949 Worldcon in Cincinnati and in 1995, he was the Publisher Guest of Honor at the World Fantasy Convention.
Originally published as by “L.A. Eshbach,” “The Valley of Titans” originally appeared in the March 1931 issue of Amazing Stories, edited by T. O’Conor Sloane. It was Eshbach’s fourth published story. Interestingly, underneath his byline, the magazine touted him as “Author of ‘A Voice from the Ether’,” which wouldn’t appear until the May issue of the magazine. In 1968, Ralph Adris reprinted the story in the March issue of Science Fiction Classics.
“The Valley of Titans” is less a story and more a travelogue. Eshbach’s narrator, James Newton, has been sent to fly over the Himalayas to discover what has happened to several missing airplanes. His own plane is forced down in an horrific storm and he discovers a lost valley high in the mountains. This valley has less in common with the Himalayan Shangri-La (and actually pre-dates Hilton’s novel by two years) and more in common with the Plateau of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World.
Robert Moore Williams was born on June 19, 1907 and died on May 12, 1977. He published under his own name as well as the pseudonyms Robert Moore, John S. Browning, H.H. Harmon, Russel Storm, and the house name E.K. Jarvis. He may have been best known for his Jongor series.
Moore’s story “Quest on Io” appeared in the Fall 1940 issue of Planet Stories, edited by Malcolm Reiss. The story was never picked up for publication elsewhere, but in 2011, that issue of Planet Stories was reprinted as a trade paperback anthology.
Despite the title of Williams’s “Quest on Io,” there isn’t really a quest. Andy Horn is a navigator who is spending some downtime while his spaceship is being repaired prospecting on Io with his talking Ganymedian honey bear companion, Oscar. The two come under attack from another prospector who believes they are claimjumpers and when Andy confronts the other prospector, he discovers it is a woman, Frieda Dahlem. While the two of them quickly straighten out their differences, it becomes apparent that there are three claimjumpers who are out to kill both of them (plus Oscar) in order to keep their activities secret.
The story is essentially a western, although the action has been moved to Io. It feels written for an audience of young boys who know women exist, but think there are gross, only around to get in the way. Andy’s relationship with Frieda is very basic. Frieda appears to be a competent woman until a man is around, whether Andy, who becomes her hero, or the three claimjumpers, who turn her into a puddle of incompetence. Oscar seems to exist in the story purely for comic relief, although the humor misfires repeatedly.
“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandlers’ The Big Sleep
(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)
Joseph ‘Cap’ Shaw was still at the helm of Black Mask in January of 1935, when Raymond Chandler’s “Killer in the Rain” scored the cover. But this issue also included stories by Frederick Nebel, Erle Stanley Gardner, George Harmon Coxe and Roger Torrey. All that for fifteen cents!
“Killer in the Rain” featured Carmady. I’m in the camp that feels all of Chandler’s PIs: Carmady, Ted Carmady, Ted Malvern and John Dalmas were all essentially Philip Marlowe with slight differences. Carmady appeared in six stories – all in Black Mask.
The story was heavily cannibalized for Chandler’s first novel, The Big Sleep. Carmen Dravec became Carmen Sternwood, played memorably by Martha Vickers in the HumphreyBogart film. Two other Carmady stories, “The Curtain” and “Finger Man,” were also used. I think that “Killer in the Rain” is a strong story on its own and is definitely worth reading. I’m tinkering with ideas for a separate post on this story.
Frederick Nebel, whose Tough Dick Donahue (subject of an earlier post in the series) would replace The Continental Op when Dashiell Hammett left the pulps, provided Black Mask readers with the twenty-eighth adventure featuring Captain Steve MacBride of the Richmond City Police and newsman Kennedy of the Free Press. MacBride is a tough, by-the-book cop, while Kennedy is a hard-drinking smart aleck reporter. However, both are committed to justice and cleaning up corrupt Richmond City.
Except for one story (“Hell on Wheels” – Dime Detective), the entire series appeared in Black Mask. The collection has been reprinted in a three-volume series from Altus Press.
Murray Leinster was born William F. Jenkins on June 16, 1896 and died on June 8, 1975.
Murray Leinster was one of many nom de plumes used by William Fitzgerald Jenkins. He won the Liberty Award in 1937 for “A Very Nice Family,” the 1956 Hugo Award for Best Novelette for “Exploration Team,” and a retro-Hugo in 1996 for Best Novelette for “First Contact.” Leinster was the Guest of Honor at the 21st Worldcon in 1963 and in 1969 was inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame. In 1995, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History was established, named after Leinster’s story “Sidewise in Time.”
Jenkins holds patent #2727427, issued on December 20, 1955 for an “Apparatus for Production of Light Effects in Composite Photography” and patent 2727429, issued the same day for an “Apparatus for Production of Composite Photographic Effects.”
Leinster first published “Pipeline to Pluto” in the August 1945 issue of Astounding, edited by John W. Campbell, Jr. Ten years later, Groff Conklin included it in his anthology Science Fiction Terror Tales. It appeared in both versions of The Best of Murray Leinster, the British volume edited by Brian Davis and the American volume edited by J.J. Pierce (each book had a completely different table of contents). The story most recently appeared in First Contacts: The Essential Murray Leinster. Over the years, it has been translated into Japanese, Croatian, German, Italian, and Russian.
“Pipeline to Pluto” is a slight story, focusing on Hill’s attempts to get from Earth to Pluto via a system of cargos shuttles. A bruiser, all that Leinster lets the reader know about him is that he has an urgent need to stowaway in the “pipeline” and he has bought another stowaway’s rights to a place. The majority of the action looks at Hill’s attempts to convince Crowder and Moore, who run the smuggling ring, to get him off Earth that evening.
Hill’s pleading and threats to the men are punctuated with exposition in which Leinster explains how the pipeline works. A series of cargo ships, one launched each day from Pluto and one launched from Earth, forming a long line carrying supplies to Pluto and ores mined on Pluto back to the home planet. Leinster not only describes the vessels and how they launch, but eventually describes the impact of being on board the vessels to humans.
