Vintage Treasures: The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter
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The Magic Toyshop (Dell, 1969). Cover art by Michael Leonard
The Magic Toyshop, first released in 1967, was Angela Carter’s second novel. She eventually published over a dozen novels and collections between 1966 and 1992, when she died of lung cancer at the much-too-young age of 51. Three decades later she’s still remembered as a feminist icon and master of magical realism; in 2008 The Times ranked her 10th in their list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945.”
Vintage Treasures: The Pangaea Series by Lisa Mason
The Pangaea volumes: Imperium Without End and Imperium Afire
(Bantam Spectra, 1999 and 2000). Covers by Sanjulian
Lisa Mason began her career in the late 80s; her first novel was the cyberpunk Arachne (1990), set in an earthquake-devastated San Francisco. Her most popular title, Summer of Love (1994), about a time traveler from 2467 who visits the 1967 Summer of Love in San Francisco, was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award and spawned one sequel, The Golden Nineties (1995).
We’re concerned today with perhaps her most ambitious series, the two-volume Pangaea cycle set on a distant world (which — spoiler — turns out to be an alternate history version of San Francisco) where people live and work in a rigid society strictly segregated by genetic purity. Here’s John Clute’s summary from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
Science Fiction With Real Humans: The Best of James Blish
The Best of James Blish (Del Rey, 1979). Cover by H. R. Van Dongen
The Best of James Blish (1979) was the twenty-first (and penultimate!) installment in Lester Del Rey’s Classic Science Fiction Series. (Only one more to go!) Science fiction author Robert A. W. Lowndes (1916–1998) provided the introduction — his only one in the series. Sci-fi artist H. R. Van Dongen (1920–2010) provides the ninth cover in the series, the most used artist of the series.
James Blish (1921–1975) was an American science fiction and sometimes fantasy author. He was one of the original Futurians, and besides writing oodles of short fiction and novels, he became also well-known for writing a series of Star Trek novelizations with his second wife J. A. Lawrence. According to Wikipedia, Blish is credited with inventing the term “gas giant” to refer to large planetary bodies. Blish is someone I had never read before, but whose name often comes up in discussion of classic science fiction.
Vintage Treasures: Mars, We Love You edited by Jane Hipolito and Willis E. McNelly
Mars, We Love You (Pyramid Books, 1973) and its British reprint, The Book of Mars
(Orbit, 1976). Covers: unknown (left), and Patrick Woodroffe (right)
The 70s was the golden age of science fiction anthologies, and especially themed anthologies. You didn’t find a lot of books collecting SF cat tales, mermaid legends, or vampire love stories in those days (not that there’s anything wrong with those, I hasten to add).
But take Mars, We Love You, for example. Originally published in hardcover in 1971, the heyday of the Mariner program, it was an affectionate look back at classic SF about the Red Planet. It was a goodbye to the pulp dream of Mars, really, in the cold new age of space probes, which closed the door forever on the SFnal vision of a sister world of planet-spanning canals, ancient Martian civilizations, and alien wonder. Though tinged with pulp nostalgia, and a yearning for a time when many of us still dreamed of finding intelligent life right here in our own solar system, Mars, We Love You is nonetheless a fine anthology that makes enjoyable reading today.
Vintage Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year #8 edited by Terry Carr
The Best Science Fiction of the Year #8 (Del Rey, July 1979)
Terry Carr died 34 years ago, in 1987. A whole generation of fans has arrived since his death, discovered science fiction, argued over the Star War sequels, and settled comfortably into middle age to raise contentious young SF fans of their own.
So fans today could be forgiven for not understanding how thoroughly Carr dominated the field during his lifetime. Before he died in 2018, Gardner Dozois was seen as the preeminent editor and taste-maker in 21st Century science fiction, winning the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor a record-shattering 15 times, and editing 35 volumes of the perennially popular The Year’s Best Science Fiction. But in 1979, the year Best Science Fiction of the Year #8 appeared, that crown belonged to Carr, and he had no less than four books — including three Year’s Best — place ahead of Dozois’ own Year’s Best installment in the annual Locus Poll for Best Anthology.
Lin Carter’s Imaginary Worlds #3: Tricks of the Trade and Reflections
Cover of Imaginary Worlds 
I’m doing a deep dive into Lin Carter’s Imaginary Worlds (first article), and I’ve finally gotten to his last chapter in which he gives advice to writers:
When a writer first begins evolving in his imagination and his notebooks, the raw materials that he intends to shape into an imaginary world, he should think through the problem through to its logical ramifications.
Because…
…despite the convictions of occultists and the religiosi of the several faiths, in the actual world magic simply does not work… and an invented world, therefore, that includes the super natural element must be–has to be–very different from his own. Any writer…. should think through all its implications.
If you’ve just tuned in, Lin Carter was a Fantasy author and editor who flourished roughly from the 50s to the 70s. He was a far better editor than author, however his stories are reliable comfort reads, and compensate for lack of depth with fast pacing and unconstrained imagination. No surprise, then, that his thoughts on Fantasy worlds are worth reading. He gives them in X entertaining secions.
…Vintage Treasures: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
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The Forever War (Ballantine Books, 1976). Cover by Murray Tinkelman
Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War is one of the most honored science fiction novels of all time. First published by St. Martin’s Press in 1975, it swept every major SF Award, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. A decade later, in 1987, it placed 18th on Locus’ list of All-Time Best SF Novels, ahead of The Martian Chronicles, Starship Troopers, and Rendezvous with Rama.
Unlike many SF classics, its reputation has grown steadily over the decades. It’s been widely praised by critics, from Thomas M. Disch (“It is to the Vietnam War what Catch-22 was to World War II, the definitive, bleakly comic satire”) to contemporary authors such as Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz. …
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen: Piper’s Connecticut Yankee Tale
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (1984), Ace Science Fiction Books, cover art by Michael Whelan (right)
I think most people are familiar with Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889). (Certainly, there’s a delightful musical from 1948 featuring Bing Crosby that I loved as a kid.) Twain’s hero is an engineer from Connecticut who receives a blow to the head and is somehow transported in time and space to King Arthur’s England. Although the story is a social satire, it celebrates homespun ingenuity and democratic values, among other things. Although not a satire, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (1965) by H. Beam Piper, similarly celebrates good old American ingenuity and values, but takes place on an alternate 20th century timeline instead of the far past. It’s Piper’s last work and part of his Paratime universe.
In this article I’m going give you six (relatively) spoiler-free reasons to read the book, and one reason that has a spoiler, but that I think will only enhance your enjoyment of the work.
Vintage Treasures: Stellar Fist by Geo. W. Proctor
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Stellar Fist (Ace, 1989). Cover by Martin Andrews
George Wyatt Proctor (1946 – 2008) was an prolific Texas author who produced some two dozen novels and collections after he retired from The Dallas Morning News in 1976. He wrote both science fiction and westerns, and collaborated with a host of well known writers, including Arthur C. Clarke, Howard Waldrop, and Steven Utley. With Robert E. Vardeman he produced nine Swords of Raemllyn sword & sorcery novels in the 80s and 90s, and with Andrew J. Offutt he contributed two novels to the Spaceways series (as John Cleve). In 1985 he wrote two novels in the long-running series V, based on the hit NBC series.
Stellar Fist was his last standalone science fiction novel, following Fire at the Center (1981) and Starwings (1984). From a modern perspective, it’s pretty much exactly what you expect from an 80s military SF novel. But that may not be a bad thing, as put so eloquently in this 2-star Goodreads review by Mark.
This book was pretty much awful, but I found myself really enjoying it — from the ridiculous interstellar-sexpot-spy-turned-time-traveling-lounge-singer-returned-interstellar-spy to the last 20 pages of complete story- and character-breaking chaos. Would highly recommend reading it if you’ve got a sense of humor and nothing better lying around.
That reads like a solid recommendation in my book.
Stellar Fist was published by Ace Books in January 1989. It’s 229 pages, priced $3.50. The cover is by Martin Andrews. It has never been reprinted, which really isn’t very surprising.
See all our recent Vintage Treasures here.