Gutenberg Sci-Fi 7
R. A. Lafferty
The Six Fingers of Time uses two story ideas—time as flexible perception, and physical deformity as mark of talent—to pursue a story that could best be called Speculative Fiction of Theology. TheoFi? You heard me right. M. Lafferty’s style can seem clumsy, then you realise it is precise, careful and consistent. The characters are unlike in that they are not smart, agile or obsessed. The end asks you‐the‐reader to work out the implications of the characters refusal to endorse supernatural force. With it’s initial hook, it’s easy to see how this story got published but, even in the wide landscape of SciFi, it’s an outlier.
It would have helped me, so I’ll say—the title of Aloys is the name of a central character. The story has a subject about which much more should be written (on this list are far too few examples) the psychology and culture of science. Accept the amusing nonsense framework and a twist of melodrama and the story is true. As seems usual for this author the end is both something you need to work for yourself and hugely challenging—me, you and the world will be better for it. In The Garden is a rethink of the world‐building of others—rather than Empire or ancient‐history, the author locks into The Bible, then after some funny inter‐character talk pulls out the rug not once but twice. Never clearer that this author works in reverse to other writers here, as careful style wraps sucker‐punch ideas.
…and there’s seven more on Gutenberg.
Keith Laumer
University man who twice served in the forces, and model airplane enthusiast. The SciFi encyclopedia concluded, ‘…polished and succinct daydreams of sf transcendence…’. Doorstep is populated with the usual buffoon characters who apparently have not a scrap of policy or doubt to guide them. The story is efficiently written, well‐constructed and mildly vivid, a story of an alien thing on earth, and the last line is a heavy punch to ethics.
Twenty‐four on Gutenberg of what is possibly more intriguing work than superficial web coverage suggests.
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber was not a typical pulp fiction writer, being linked to theatre, film, and a writer of journalism. He wrote not only sci‐fi, but was knowingly a fantasy man, sourcing the Swords and Sorcery genre. In rough date order… I tried A Pail of Air. It’s a good sci‐fi story, with interesting style and a non‐pulp payoff which stands out a mile. That Fritz Leiber runs on non‐pulp fuel is obvious. His people do not ‘recoil in shock’ or ‘feel faint’ when they hear the words of others. Also Dr. Kometevsky’s Day in which moon‐shattering proposals work out as drawing room comedy. Friends and Enemies is so hooked on symbols it becomes absurdist. SciFi only in trappings, this story of eviction, a bickering poet and scientist, and their subsequent rescue by a violet‐haired woman and earthquake deserves the magazine teaser, “…only Fritz Leiber [in SciFi] could have written….”. Time in the Round starts with dogs and kids, which cuteness I know many are good for but dulls me, before the author sluices in robots, childhood adventure, a more plausible description of time travel than anything else you’ll find, a theatrical reversal into drama and a goofy literary joke—how did he assemble this?
Fritz Leiber also has an inclination towards submerged metaphor, which explodes throughout the descriptions of inter‐planetary travel in The Snowbank Orbit. The story comes to a non‐twist end that most writers would not consider. The 64‐Square Madhouse shows another mark of M. Leiber’s work—like The Snowbank Orbit it is not only deeply researched, but M. Leiber finds ways to turn that research into propositions. This very long short story is particularly interesting because the science has come true, and did not work out as he described. However, before you dismiss the story for not being ‘prophetic’, consider that the dynamics M. Leiber constructed are still being played out today. And they are too‐seldom discussed—read this and you’ll learn something useful and unusual about computing. The Big Engine is a short sketch, psi‐fiction, thought‐provoking and well‐made.
The Green Millennium is a novel, one of M. Leiber’s earlier. It plays out round the question “Where’s the cat?” A spectacular mix of Sci‐Fi and Fantasy where the mix is deliberate, not a muddle. It’s from what Damon Knight called the ‘Gonzo’ school of Sci‐Fi,
Dytie opened in the air a small doorway that was black as ink, and climbed inside. She turned round… urged “Come in, Phil”, and stretched a white arm… down to him.
No reviews anywhere, but with Leiber’s people, colourful writing style and ideas arriving every paragraph, fans shouldn’t hesitate.
And then there is Conjure Wife. This was a serialised novel, likely Fritz Leiber’s first. The basic idea is a sweet spot hit. Witches exist, but rather than being some old‐time sorcery tale, Fritz Leiber proposed witches exist today, so moved his scenario into a modern environment. It’s a rare case of an artwork that can be verified as influential—several films have lifted the basic idea which, knowing or unknowing, remains a source for all ‘modern sorcery’ stories; and it’s not too much of a stretch to claim The Stepford Wives was a sharp recast of Conjure Wife’s psychological base. Nowadays the book’s college‐campus setting is self‐important and, though the characters are lively and their struggles convincing, the text doesn’t escape these limitations. Also a lack of body‐horror, political terror, or dramatic tension make the book more charming than scary. But there is a wealth of idea and human drama and, as Damon Knight wrote,
…the shocker at the end of Chapter 14, I am not ashamed to say that I jumped an inch out of my seat…
As good now as then.
There’s a lot of Fritz Leiber’s work on Gutenberg, though mostly short stories lifted from magazines.
Murray Leinster
Not the most famous of 50’s writers, but successful, Murray Leinster wrote by the yard. For anybody. To give you some idea, he turned out more than sixty novels, and that was before you count the articles, short stories, play scripts, and more. Interestingly, although his writing career pre‐dates the commerce of science fiction, he seemed to like the form—he was not a dabbler or evangelist.
I plucked from the barrel, The Pirates of Ersatz. The book is an adventure story in outer space. It doesn’t have the sharps of Harry Harrison, or the outlandish fantasy some of these novels can create. But it makes up for that with an even‐handed approach to society—the worlds the protagonist crosses vex him. And there is a practicality to the inter‐planetary setting that is thoughtful and maybe original—struggles with equipment and communication, opportunities and setbacks—what might it be like to skim the atmosphere of a planet in a spacecraft?—none of which you will find elsewhere. It’s ‘Biggles in Space’ and I have a place for that. The Ambulance Made Two Trips is from later. The good title delivers an amusing, non‐SciFi mystery from the start—a Police detective at odds with unexpected parcel deliveries—as it plows into an unlikely but interesting resolution on a psychic anti‐weapon, while delivering amusing small‐scale scenes.
Project Gutenberg lists forty‐one works by Murray Leinster, many of them novels, none of which have heavy downloads. It is an academic mystery—who is doing this work? Anyway, there is a load of it, though I can’t vouch for the others.
Stanisław Lem
NB: not represented on Gutenberg
Writer of poems, essays, reviews and philosophical tracts, Stanisław Lem wrote a lot of science fiction. Maybe the best selling Polish author ever, and known throughout the world, he should be mentioned—if only as a representative of a subject not on this list, European SciFi. His work remains largely unavailable in England and America, let alone Gutenberg. Best known film adaption by far, if not the only one, is Solaris.
Frank Belknap Long
Better known, reports say, for horror stories with fantasy monsters, and correspondence with the similarly inclined H.P. Lovecraft. However, this shows why people argued at the time, and still argue, about what SciFi is (your author has his own thoughts. The Cottage starts with a psychological drama unmatched anywhere here (though Ray Bradbury ventured often into such areas and arguably much of his reputation is based there). A cobbled together SciFi explanation sets up a fantasy proposal in which children get a vicious revenge on their abusive father. Overall, a fantasy proposition, almost a dark fairy tale, not speculative but it sticks for me.
Robert A. W. Lowndes
Lowndes was a writer, notably an editor. Damon Knight makes many references to him but offers no criticism… likely because Lowndes wrote little and perhaps because this got Knight as a friend from a jamb. The Troubadour is a micro story, It has an unlikely urbane style and more likely highbow party scenario that lobs in Spengler and the word ‘hetrogeneous’ as it draws breath. The shallow arch and amused style tells a story of a visiting folk singer who sings of Apocalypse, from which arrives moody revelations. I’d drop this into my new category ‘MythFi’, though I’m not at all sure the author is committed—‐Wikipedia reported that when he wrote, he wrote Horror stories.
Four on Gutenberg with a Lowndes credit
Edward W. Ludwig
Sparse coverage by only The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction confirms this writer existed. Juvenile Delinquent is a SocFi story if ever there was one—a future society that discourages reading—‐with the end a small surprise as it challenges story commonplaces. Between the character interaction, of which there is some, and the inventive construction.
The ESF says Edward Ludwig wrote twenty four stories, so the ten returned by Gutenberg is good coverage.
Winston K. Marks
A writer who in this usually well‐annotated area has only the barest sketch of online coverage. The Water Eater uses an Average Joe character to discover an idea somewhat similar to a Robert Sheckley story, but couldn’t be more different in delivery. Where Robert Sheckley keeps delivery clear and precise, and is unapologetic about a fantasy base, Winston Marks finds an amusing, implausible but viable explanation, and delivers in a style thoughtful and present.
It is reported Robert Marks wrote nearly eighty stories, and twenty four are available on Gutenberg, a good sample.
Stephen Marlowe
Stephen Marlowe drove pseudonyms to a new place by taking one on as his real name—he was born Milton Lesser. There’s little else about him online, aside from the fact he wrote thrillers and mystery thrillers mostly, jazzing them with supernatural and SciFi touches. What you make of the long short story Newshound (a magazine lead) may depend on what you are in the reading for. This is an interesting idea—that newspapers may generate news by creating it themselves—and the style is fluid. But the style homes in gleefully on any cliche to hand, the casual assumption of murder is distasteful as opposed to edgy, and when you consider what others have achieved with similar ideas e.g. Philip K. Dick or The Day Today, I suggest the story succeeds on it’s own territory.
Gutenberg has nearly fifty entries for Stephen Marlowe