Search Results for: Thomas Disch

Galaxy, October 1968: A Retro-Review

An issue of Galaxy from fairly late in Fred Pohl’s tenure. There’s one fairly notable story here, and a couple more good ones, but to me the most interesting feature was Algis Budrys’ book review column. But let’s begin at the beginning. The cover is by Douglas Chaffee. Interiors are by Jack Gaughan, Joe Wehrle, Jr., Dan Adkins, Virgil Finlay, Larry S. Todd illustrating his own piece (not surprising, as Todd, then just 20, became fairly well-known later for his…

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Fantastic, November and December 1963: A Retro-Review

I recently looked at a couple of issues of Fantastic with a Brak the Barbarian serial by John Jakes, and here’s another pair with a Brak serial. Indeed, this was Jakes’ first SF/Fantasy novel, and his second Brak story. The editorials cover first, Freeman Dyson’s ideas about using gravity as an energy source (for transportation), and second, the notion of having astronauts use crayons in orbit. The covers are by Alex Schomburg (November) and Paul E. Wenzel (December), in neither…

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Vintage Treasures: Three Apocalyptic Anthologies

Back in January I bought a nice lot of 42 vintage science fiction paperbacks on eBay. Most were from the 70s and 80s, and most were in pretty good shape. Enough to keep me busy for a month, taking them out of the box one by one and cooing over them. Most of you are probably too young to remember that far back, when the Cold War was at its height and the specter of nuclear war loomed over everything. In November…

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The Books of David G. Hartwell: The Dark Descent and The World Treasury of Science Fiction

We lost David Hartwell on January 20th. This is our second article in a series that looks back at one of the most productive careers in our industry. Last time we looked at two of David’s earliest anthologies, Masterpieces of Fantasy and Enchantment and Masterpieces of Fantasy and Wonder, released in 1988 and 1989. Here I want examine two more monumental anthologies he produced in the late 80s, both seminal to the field: The Dark Descent (October 1987) and The World Treasury of…

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Galaxy, October 1967: A Retro-Review

A bit of a change of pace here, a late ’60s issue of Galaxy. Frederik Pohl was the editor. It is billed as the “Seventeenth Anniversary Issue, and the conceit is that the contributors are all celebrating an anniversary in the field. For example, Pohl himself published a poem in an SF magazine in 1937, making this his 30th anniversary. George O. Smith’s first story was published in 1942, so his 25th anniversary. H. L. Gold is here as the…

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Fantastic Reference and Non-fiction Books

At the centre of all the fuzzy sets is a rough definition of what we mean by fantasy: a fantasy text is a self-coherent narrative which, when set in our REALITY, tells a story which is impossible in the world as we perceive it (see PERCEPTION); when set in an OTHERWORLD or SECONDARY WORLD, that otherworld will be impossible, but stories set there will be possible in the otherworld’s terms. An associated point, hinted at here, is that at the…

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Donald Westlake’s Famous Complaint

Three-time Edgar Award winning mystery author Donald Westlake famously dissed virtually every editor in the field in an article in fan magazine Xero in 1960, saying in part: Campbell is an egomaniac. Mills of F&SF is a journeyman incompetent. Cele Goldsmith is a third-grade teacher and I think she wonders what in the world she’s doing at Amazing. (Know I do.) As for Pohl, who can tell? Galaxy is still laden with Gold’s inventory, and when Pohl edited Star he…

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Vintage Treasures: The Amazing Space Race

A few weeks back, I purchased a lot of 27 Amazing Stories digests from the mid-60s and early 70s in great condition, for $35 (including shipping) — or about a buck an issue. This was simultaneously delightful and dismaying. Delightful, of course, to get a fine set of SF magazines for not much more than they cost on the newsstand 45 years ago; dismaying to find that pristine vintage copies of one of the most important SF magazines command such…

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Amazing Stories, August 1964: A Retro-Review

Here’s another of Cele Goldsmith’s issues of Amazing, though by this time she had married, and was Cele Lalli. Of particular interest this time around is an obscure Ursula K. LeGuin story.  I notice as well a different font for the title – I liked it. Not sure when it changed. This time the cover is by Richard McKenna. At first I thought it might be the author of the Nebula winning story “The Secret Place” as well as “Casey…

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Galaxy, December 1965: A Retro-Review

I picked up a few magazines at an antique store near Columbia, MO, last week, including three consecutive issues — of different magazines — from the end of 1965/beginning of 1966: the December 1965 Galaxy, the January 1966 F&SF (reviewed here), and the February 1966 Analog. The first one I got to was the Galaxy. This is from more or less the center of Frederik Pohl’s editorial tenure. Galaxy in this period was bimonthly, with two sister magazines — Worlds…

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