Neutron Star (Ballantine Bools, April 1968). Cover artist unknown As I was preparing last week’s Vintage Treasures article (on Poul Anderson’s Fire Time), I realized that the next book on deck was Neutron Star, by Larry Niven, one of the most important science fiction collections of the 20th Century. And I simultaneously realized we’ve never done a Vintage Treasures feature on Niven before, a pretty serious oversight. (For comparison purposes, as I was assembling reference links at the bottom of…

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Combat SF (Ace Books, June 1981). Cover by Vincent Di Fate Military science fiction has a long and honorable history, from Heinlein’s Starship Troopers to Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War and John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War. It’s not nearly as prevalent on bookstore shelves as it used to be. Some people say that’s because science fiction is no longer a male-dominated genre that panders to young male power fantasies. And those people are mostly right. But there’s still plenty of…

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Frontier of the Dark (Ace Books, January 1984). Cover by Attila Hejja A. Bertram Chandler was an enormously prolific science fiction author whom we haven’t covered much at Black Gate. He wrote some 200 short stories and over 40 novels, and is chiefly remembered today for his popular tales of the pioneer Rim Worlds, especially the adventures of John Grimes. Chandler began his career as a merchant marine officer in the UK, eventually commanding ships in the Australian and New…

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The Mind Spider and Other Stories and Ships to the Stars (Ace Books, 1976). Covers by Walter Rane Last year I discussed the marvelous collection The Worlds of Fritz Leiber, published by Ace in 1976, and was astounded to find the author make this claim in the introduction. I believe this collection represents me more completely, provides a fuller measure of the range of my fictional efforts, than any other. I’ve tried to make it that way, without repeating stories from…

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Time to Come (Berkley Books, December 1958). Cover by Robert E. Schulz Back in December I kicked off a survey of the Science Fiction Anthologies of August Derleth, starting with his 1948 reprint anthology Strange Ports of Call. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls Derleth “one of the pioneering anthologists in the genre.” He began his editing career with horror collection Sleep No More in 1944. Strange Ports of Call, which drew heavily from pulps such as Astounding, Wonder Stories, Amazing, The…

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