Gutenberg Sci-Fi 4
Harlan Ellison
Nowadays he’s known for arguing with people and making a big show of taking over night‐time parties. He also wrote science fiction, though it is better construction to say he wrote a lot, of which some is called science fiction. Glow Worm was the first story by Harlan Ellison published, and there’s a lot of Harlan Ellison in it. The drive to say something, here about loneliness, means his construction, as often with those who are driven, is not wasteful, skimping or incoherent. There’s also bad science—how can an amateur scientist with no help construct a spaceship, how can any living organism not break when irradiated? But this is maybe better seen as a lack of realism. There is reason—to illustrate overloaded personal reaction, which is a rare intent from the main ages of science fiction. Later, Harlan Ellison became an editor for, and promoter of, the New Age of Science Fiction—‘Glow Worm’ will throw (green) light on why.
The downloads count is a feature of Gutenberg I have no interest in and never refer to elsewhere. Yet the download count of Cosmic Striptese is a puzzle. Is it the snazzy title? No, not the title… I’ll not tell you how, but likely because this story delvers on it’s title. It also shows how M. Ellison was however of the fiction of his age. The characters and dialogue have some of the sparkle of Kuttner and Moore, but are otherwise unlikely and one‐dimensional. Cartoons can do way better than this, as can film (which Ellison wrote for). But the story is well‐made and coherent. And then there is Peter Merton’s Private Mint. This is fantasy wrapped in an enabling excuse of SciFi—it’s time travel! But the work has a good way with it’s idea, adding practical limitations and sticking to them, then adding a condition that is consistent and leads to a fun end. Again, though the characters or wider drama are far from realistic or complex, the drama is developed into plot idea‐by‐idea, which others could learn from. Perhaps not as endearingly odd as the work of Robert Sheckley, this story is wide ranging, and worth a try—you may prefer the character‐based writing and gung‐ho style.
What’s on Gutenberg is maybe five very early stories from a huge output. Though the stories predate work Harlan Ellison is famous for, and which I can’t vouch for, they serve as a dose.
Philip José Farmer
Mr. Farmer was one of those homegrown hackers who love to tinker with the mechanism. A Laurence Sterne of sci‐fi, it can be difficult to say if it’s sci‐fi when he’s prising the badge off to see how it was glued to him. I tried Heel!, which reworks ancient mythology as a film production running into a personal and industrial hell overseen by space pilots. I end that it’s large‐part sci‐fi, well done and original, also airily slick and hard to finish. Or even carry on. Later, I tried They Twinkled Like Jewels. This was unlike—a horror story told from an incomplete perspective with fantastic plot digressions. Outstanding pulp‐horror writing—I read it twice—but where this meets Sci‐Fi, I’m at a loss. In Tongues of the Moon José Farmer takes on guns in space, but highlights with touches of plausible technology, halfway‐likely psychology, keeps action to the moon, uses scenarios with no easy resolution, mines a tricky political background that nowadays would be called Postmodern, and exploits these minerals for vivid scenes including the earth being destroyed by humans. So makes a worn and dull subject gleam and challenge in it’s depths. The Wounded is well‐written with cute asides as it literalises, or physicalizes?, mythology—maybe not the most moving, but you’ve likely never read a plot like this, and I’m not going to spoil it.
There’s no swathe of José Farmer on Gutenberg, currently eight, but clearly worth rooting through.
Charles L. Fontenay
Brief coverage online that he worked for newspapers and wrote a handful of novels. The Gift Bearer is a mild investigation of censorship which throws in a fantasy woman as illustration. Amiable, but barely extra‐terrestrial.
Root round in the trunk, there’s twenty four by Charles L. Fontenay.
H. B. Fyfe
The Science Fiction Encyclopedia has a little on this writer, saying he wrote many stories and a novel about how clever humans “outwit thick‐skulled… Aliens”. A Transmutation of Muddles builds up a hustle of promises and insurance counter‐claims with aliens dramatised like every other swindled civilisation. The aliens are scaly, do not wear much and are coloured brown.
H. B, Fyfe was something of a fixture, there are twenty two on Gutenberg.
Jack Finney
NB: not represented on Gutenberg
Work in advertising lead to writing, mostly not SciFi but fantasy such as ghosts and time travel. The film adaption Invasion of the Body Snatchers is still well‐known.
Scott Fitzgerald
What, that Scott Fitzgerald? ‘The Great Gatsby’? Yes. Look here, in Tales of the Jazz Age, which has in it a story ‘The Diamond as big as The Ritz’. If you don’t know this one, let me tell a little. A rich boy is sent to a school where he makes a friend of another elusive boy. Which second boy invites the first boy to visit his home. Which visit requires a long journey through contrivance and disguise, and ends in an enclave of fabulous wealth. Here’s the proposal: what separates this story from the other ‘hidden world’ stories on this list? That the story never mentions aliens or spaceflight? I submit to you that’s a lousy definition, like saying a romance can not be a romance if the protagonist is not called ‘Mabel’. The hidden world here is a near exact copy of the likes you can find elsewhere on this list (see Edgar Pangbourn and, especially, Abraham Merrit)—empire riches populated by ‘natives’. Perhaps you wish to claim Mr. Fitzgerald’s notion has a personal or social edge, in that it is generated by finance? But even the through‐drama, when it arrives, has the cartoon construction of what passed ffor ‘Sci‐Fi’. I say you can’t have this both ways, either this is Sci‐Fi, because ‘hidden world’ stories are Sci‐Fi, or the other stories are not Sci‐Fi. Anyway, despite Mr. Fitzgerald’s claims in the index, Mr. Pangbourn and Merritt are more inventive in their world‐construction, and their characters (such as these constructions need character, which they do not), are more complex. Fitzgerald is merely more archetypical, the story a perhaps more acute basic construct, and has his prose style to recommend.
Raymond Z. Gallun
Damon Knight had criticism worth noting—to summarise, M. Gallun had a duff ear for the English language, but wrote good aliens. Errrm… Asteroid of Fear is a stomper from the days before the Sci‐Fi age; and yes, it’s a planet story, with dodgy but earnest science, characters cut from a western, and a writing style that gleefully deluges cliche. But… there is a but… it’s never incoherent, and the headlong lunge cokes an inferno about a drama few others would try. No aliens. but stars vegetables.
After near‐ten years silence, M. Gallun returned in the Golden age with, wait for it… novels. One of the first was People Minus X. The complaints about style, this time from the Science Fiction Encyclopedia alongside Damon Knight, feel starchy—it’s adequate, more than I can say of other fiction I’ve read. For starters, great title, and if, as Damon Knight says, his characters can’t stop speechifying, it’s about subjects interesting, even if this author is not one to delve. And you can’t argue with the heap of ideas about androids, miniaturisation, communications, travel, social responses to technology and more—it’s a box of tricks. One of the most fun novel‐length texts on this list.
There’s a fair few of Raymond Gallun on Project Gutenberg, but few of the semi‐famous early short stories—most entries seem to be untracked mid‐period novels.
Randall Garrett
Randall Garrett is best known for being a collaborator with Robert Silverberg, but was prolific enough himself. He also had a reputation as a wild man. The Price of Eggs is an odd short story, far more SocFi than SciFi, about a man who compromises himself with aliens so needs extracting from his omelette. Not only is the proposition unusual, so is the reverse‐ending and M. Garret’s summoning of his people is welcome for more subtlety than the usual action drama. Time Fuze is a micro‐story space‐fantasy developed to a logical and planet‐shattering end, with better character than usual. Psichopath, credit for the daft title, is a spy story that throws in limited mind‐reading ability that, reading so far suggests, is field for this author. Also includes a neat point about the progress of scientific development, a few differentiated characters and architecture that resembles a particle accelerator. My only dislike was a few stretches that use a technique of the time, to explain what has happened, “Because the two seaweeds were reading cat, it was obvious the pyrites was not the perpetrator of the jack”. Otherwise, a stack of fun.
There’s something like 80 titles by Randall Garrett on Gutenberg, so I’ve only chipped a stone from a mountain.
Randall Garrett and Laurence M. Janifer
These two wrote a patch of work together. Credited to a ‘Mark Phillips’ Out Like a Light is a full‐length book originally serialised (my guess) as ‘The Impossibles’. The story starts with an indisputably funny and potent premise that people who approach a certain style and model of car are being mysteriously knocked cold. At bottom the story is a mix of detective fiction and the paranormal. This premise is diluted by the mild stupidity of the characters, at odds with the way these same characters land on the right solution when other possibilities may have existed. Still, the characters the authors create are endearing, perhaps more easy to root for than in most SciFi, maybe a light mockery of the old pulp‐fiction detectives, and the authors do stoke up some drama.
James E. Gunn
A historian and sometime critic of ScuFi, James Gunn eventually became something only Americans could invent, a professor of SciFi. A writer with a grasp of pulp fiction writing, but in the more thoughtful and morose later style. Breaking Point, the Science Fiction Encyclopedia says, is a ‘fix up’, several short stories assembled into a novel. The story has one of those ideas that’s a winner from the off—‐what if alien contact is difficult for humans, incomprehensible? Finally, M. Gunn provides reasoning behind the delusions. For me the story keeps scraping on explanations given in the detailed, categorising American style of psychology—European readers, of which I am one, are comfortable with the idea we just don’t know sometimes what goes on in a head. There’s also an issue, not only James Gunn but often on this list, that the characters are not up to the fantastic challenges they face. One character reacts with something plausible and interesting, but the rest are oafs in a boat. Both Arthur C. Clarke and Stanislaw Lem wrote resonant work on the theme of unknowable contact, memorable with marvels and wit. But that doesn’t make this story bad, it’s a compact and different companion piece.
Edmond Hamilton
The Sargasso of Space had me thinking. There’s no what people like to call character here, Edmond Hamilton may as well call the identities A, B, C and D for all the difference it would make. And cleverness is not in this drama, it does exactly what it says it will. Man sees red light on road, he stops. Light turns green, he goes. This is pure stuff, high‐proof. Grant that A thinks this of D, should he do action X? Yes he should, and does. Punk couldn’t overthrow this, because it is punk. M. Hamilton’s proposal? In the future we will drift, helpless. To get that out of us, we will need to beat people up. Right. Time after time.
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says Edmond Hamilton was a long‐term pro, and that his work at the time of the book The Universe Wreckers was the start of the road to Space Opera. Even now, that seems obvious, as this work needs only some human‐scale drama and tale‐weaving to get there. As the book stands, it’s an engaging and convincing, if stock and lumpy, story of alien invention, contact and device followed by a breakneck and undisputedly exciting battle scene. Also, at distance, interesting is how close the writing is to John Campbell’s writing and later editorial influence. Even if with some outright misconceptions, this book has the science, the stress on an educative/curious outlook and the tidy writing. Perhaps the alignment was accidental but ‘The Universe Wreckers’ dates ten years earlier.
Plenty of Edmond Hamilton on Gutenberg, mostly it seems from his Space‐Wrecking phase.
Jim Harmon
Jim Harmon was a regular contributor to magazines and, according to online sources, had an interest in radio and radio history. Measure for a Loner stews two SciFi ideas into one, the idea interstellar travel would be a long haul, and the idea that in the future mankind will be better adjusted. The author manages to pull a couple of dramatic moves in the course of the story too, which make it a good example of magazine story.
Gutenberg has currently salvaged twenty‐two of Jim Harmon’s submissions.
Charles L. Harness
Charles Harness is not one of the famous SciFi writers, and by pulp standards he wasn’t prolific. He did most of his life other work for cash, publishing now and then. But he was well regarded and won awards. Stalemate in Space is stock items, to list: space war, heroes and bad guys, zap weapons and a blob of telepathy. Except there’s odd structure here. For starters, the telepathy is limited, which is more interesting than a blather on if can or can not be possible—which then provides plot moments. Though not high drama, bad guys and good guys are not quite what they seem. This story, at least, lacks the fantasy and epic scale of most space opera, lacks also madness and wonder. But, as Damon Knight reviewed of a novel by Charles Harness, this tale makes sense, and there’s a wry amusement through all of it. If that’s your kind of story, this is one to read.
Time of writing, the story is the only the one by Charles L. Harness on Gutenberg
Harry Harrison
Mr. Harrison was one of those blokes who you’d probably say you were glad you knew him. A conventional enough upbringing lead him through the Army. It was here that he started to display what Theodore Sturgeon called the ability to ‘ask the next question’, that is, do not buck out at the most comfortable reasoning. Mr. Harrison had this in spades. He came to frustration in the Army, had little good to say of them afterwards, but had the smarts not to trade as a flower‐tossing doom‐monger.
Mr.Harrison’s prose is neat, correct, and not remarkable. That puts his work ahead of two out of three books on the shelf. His books are sewn from pulp fiction stock, and his characters only exist as a twist in the fabric. Odds on, he’s heading towards drama with a point. For example, far as I know Harry Harrison never wrote a story about time‐travel. Like all true sci‐fi writers, he knew time travel is nonsense, not interesting nonsense, and had he been here I guess he would have added that it was indulgent too.
Harry Harrison wrote one of my favourite pre‐teen books, ’The men from P.I.G. and R.O.B.O.T.’—his style was spot‐on for pre‐teens. I read Deathworld, his first novel. It’s got a central identity who is good at what he does, naturally, but with a trace of immorality. Said identity winds up on a planet that has, alongside thunderstorms and volcanos, double gravity. Mr. Harrison makes nothing of this, but I couldn’t stop grinning all the way as our man staggers to the library, gets carted from place to place in the back of lorries, and is hopeless throughout. Would that modern film scripts had the guts or humour. As the plot zips along, I started to wonder about Mr. Harrison’s inspiration—is this an allegory about the Irish Troubles or, to some, civil war? Or another similar conflict?
I also tried a long short story, The Misplaced Battleship. In honesty, unless you count a scenario in outer space, this is not a sci‐fi story at all. But it rings as true as a magnet clamped to steel. And, typically, it is a lean and straightforward show of an drama that would improve many a novel. Incidentally, this is one of the short stories that lead to ‘The Stainless Steel Rat’.
I then tried another novel, Planet of the Damned. This was initially serialized and printed I believe as Sense of Obligation, also on Gutenberg—I’ve not compared for differences. The book was Mr. Harrison’s third novel, and the start fooled me—it’s camp as a tent. Was this Harry Harrison? Then a turn of explanation, which opens a scenario, switches setting, and slings the reader into the plot. I wish I could ask Mr. Harrison what happened here. His jaunting ideas are thickened by circumstance into text that becomes personal drama. This book will not convert the uninterested, and I think it’s off‐beam for his subsequent readers, but no other writer on this list, or script‐writer of so‐called ‘Sci‐Fi’ films, can pull this off,
Now they want to fight a war with your weapons, and for this you are going to kill my world. And you want me to help you!
And then there is the short story that started The Stainless Steel Rat. The idea here is… if early pulp fiction was compromised heroes, why not have compromised heroes in space? Though not marketed as such (as far as I know), the author in the style of early teenage books lays it on with a trowel—the Rat can disguise himself, is neat at martial arts, can handle weapons, build devices, is an expert at robbery and a liar. Almost certain the author is taking a dig at the narrow sociology and militaristic bent of much space‐based science fiction. Despite the fact Harry Harrison had his reasons, I’ve always found the title clumsy. Aside from that, it’s written in a home‐made slang that, unlike conscious mimicry, stands today. It has a neat rick ending. It’s the cannon, man.
As for Toy Shop, about a useless toy with consequences, it’s a resonant short story with generosity and a screwy plot proposal. The K Factor is a complex drama about violence—which man can now avert—summoned from other‐world staples and a non‐tough hero.
There’s a lot of Harry Harrison on Gutenberg, The ‘Deathworld’ followups are missing, as is the bulk of ‘The Stainless Steel Rat’, which may yet be copyright. I doubt you can go wrong.