Search Results for: Wollheim

Vintage Treasures: The Best Science Fiction 1974, edited by Lester del Rey, Terry Carr, and Donald Wollheim

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In his Foreword to his Fourth Annual Collection of Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year, which gathered stories published in 1974, Lester del Rey makes the case for Sense of Wonder as the core literary virtue of science fiction. There is another element that must be present in every good science fiction story. It should excite a feeling of wonder, of something beyond the ordinary. It is the expectation of finding such wonders that makes the reader turn to…

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Invasion Fleets and Rogue Stars: Rich Horton on Who Speaks of Conquest by Lan Wright & The Earth in Peril, edited by Donald A. Wollheim

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Over at his website Strange at Ecbatan, Rich Horton continues his survey of the Ace Double line of 50s science fiction novels with Who Speaks of Conquest by Lan Wright, paired with the anthology The Earth in Peril, edited by Donald A. Wollheim. It was originally published in 1957. Here’s Rich on the Wright novel. The first Terran starship lands at Sirius (why they didn’t go to Alpha Centauri first is never explained — it turns out to be inhabited,…

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Vintage Treasures: World’s Best Science Fiction 1965 – 1970, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr

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If you’ve been paying attention over the past two months, you’re probably aware that we’re deep into the Year’s Best Science Fiction season. So far this year Solaris, Night Shade, and Prime Books have all released Best of the Year anthologies (edited by Jonathan Strahan, Neil Clarke and Rich Horton, respectively), and in the next few months we can expect additional volumes by Gardner Dozois, John Joseph Adams, Ellen Datlow, Paula Guran, Stephan Jones, and others. Now I know what you’re thinking….

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The Editor As Author: Donald A. Wollheim’s The Secret of the Ninth Planet

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As a publisher and editor, Donald A. Wollheim (1914-1990) is arguably the most important single figure in the 20th-century SF and Fantasy community. SF in paperback? SF anthologies? He started them – including The Pocket Book of Science Fiction, the first book with the words “science fiction” in the title. Aside: for those who don’t already know, what we now call a “paperback,” used to be called a “pocket book.” As the editor at Avon (1947-1951), he was responsible for…

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Vintage Treasures: Sentinels of Space by Eric Frank Russell / The Ultimate Invader edited by Donald Wollheim

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We’re back  with our journey through the Ace Double line, this time with one of the earliest volumes in the series: Eric Frank Russell’s SF novel Sentinels of Space, coupled with a Donald Wollheim anthology The Ultimate Invader. It was published in paperback in 1954. Eric Frank Russell is one of those writers I’m not nearly as well-versed in as I should be. I read his brilliant short story “Dear Devil” in Terry Carr’s YA anthology Creatures From Beyond in the mid-seventies,…

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Kirkus Looks at Donald A. Wollheim and the Ace Double

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Back in June, I wrote a short blog entry about one of my favorite Ace Doubles, Tales of Outer Space and Adventures in the Far Future. I took the excuse to talk about one of the field’s true renaissance men, Donald A. Wollheim, who edited both books and launched several of the most enduring SF and fantasy publishing imprints in history. Wollheim doesn’t get much credit for his amazing accomplishments these days. Which is why I was pleased to see Andrew…

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Vintage Treasures: Tales of Outer Space, edited by Donald A. Wollheim

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Sometimes I think I owe Donald A. Wollheim for a big chunk of my childhood. Today we’re looking at Tales of Outer Space, a collection of interplanetary adventure tales edited by Wollheim in 1954, a decade after he invented the mass-market SF anthology with The Pocket Book of Science Fiction in 1943 (the first book with the words “Science Fiction” in the title), and not long after he produced  the first original SF anthology, The Girl With the Hungry Eyes,…

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The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet, Part IV: Dray Prescot by Alan Burt Akers

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Not only is the Dray Prescot series the longest running Sword & Planet series ever published in English, but it’s also consistently of a high quality. There are quite a few volumes that — for me—rival any of Edgar Rice Burrough’s Barsoom books. Certainly, these two series are my all-time favorites, and together make up the primary influence on my own Sword & Planet series, the five books of the Talera series by Charles Allen Gramlich (Gotta get those “three”…

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The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet, Part III: Michael Moorcock, Michael Resnick, and Robert E. Howard

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Quite a few writers who went on to bigger names in other genres wrote some of their earliest books in Sword & Planet. Michael Moorcock was one of these. He’s mostly known for his Elric series. Elric is a kind of anti-Conan. But in 1964, at around the age of 25, he wrote three Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiches set on Mars. In the introduction to a later release of these books he mentioned his early infatuation with ERB, and that…

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The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet, Part II: John Norman

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Read Part I of this series, Don Wollheim, Edwin L. Arnold, and Otis Adelbert Kline. The most controversial of the second generation of Sword & Planet authors was certainly John Norman, which is the pseudonym for author John Lange, a philosophy professor. The first book, Tarnsman of Gor, was published in 1966 and then generally one a year until a break after 1988. There are a total of 37 books at last count but I’ve only personally read up to…

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