Gutenberg Sci-Fi 5
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.
Miriam Allen De Ford
Described herself as ‘born feminist’ when that was a radical stance. Also known as a writer of mysteries, but had commitment to SciFi as a genre (comparable perhaps to the later Doris Lessing?). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction’s verdict of ‘crisp, clear‐cut style that sometimes lacks grace but never vigour’ sits awkwardly with Not Snow Nor Rain. This folksy story about a postman near retirement could almost be a Hippie song from the Sixties… before it’s story of first contact amiably and mysteriously signs off on the cosmos. This entry worth further investigation!
Eight, eight on Gutenberg by Miriam Allen De Ford.
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.
Tom Godwin
By the measures on this list Tom Godwin wrote little, maybe twenty‐five stories and two or three novels. He was a hard SciFi writer, wrote a handful of stories in the Golden Age, kept going through the sixties and seventies, But this is not what is important about Tom Godwin. Perhaps from personal loss or/and physical pain—he worked in isolation as a forest ranger for a time—his stories have challenging plots and an absence of cliched reaction. Brain Teaser pushes a man into a space warp, contains awkward computer interaction that has proved true, and this crushing line,
He had four hypothetical choices of his way to die, all unpleasant.
The Nothing Equation strands it’s protagonist inside a space warp, dead‐set on madness. It’s convincing, these ideas later explored by J. G. Ballard, William Gibson and others, and ends with, I kid you not, a literary trick.
Gutenberg has nine of them, several of them novels and, though I’ve not tried, I think you can rely on the approach.
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.
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