Gutenberg Sci-Fi 8
Richard Matheson
NB: not represented on Gutenberg
Writer also for TV and film, he wasn’t a SciFi but a real‐world fantasy and horror writer—he did get magazine publication. Well‐known adaptions are The Omega Man, The Incredible Shrinking Man and Duel.
Judith Merril
Organiser and anthologist, politically active and co‐writer of a few novels and a handful of short stories… Judith Merril was important without necessarily being a writer. The Lonely shows some of what she was. First, it has a inlaid document structure which is not of Sci‐Fi culture, more literary. And makes alien comments about sexuality. I don’t think either of these make it a better story, but what does tell is the dose of realism which makes the story more, not less, ambiguous and mysterious.
Only two Judith Merril entries on Gutenberg, but there’s not much out there.
Abraham Merritt
Not the earliest writer on this list, but Abraham Merritt predates Fifties Sci‐Fi by thirty years. His work is often categorised as a source of the boom. If The Moon Pool is typical, then that’s a claim that needs to be explained. See, this is a hidden world story. It’s true that, while describing it’s hidden world, the text shows a concern to reference scientific plausibility. It would take more knowledge than mine to tell you if Mr. Merrit’s science was good for the time. Or how much scientific reference was a feature of the time, though I know the idea of social class was making it’s way everywhere. Anyway, Mr. Merrit spins and weaves stuff like,
I took out the two Bequerel ray‐condensers… I had found them most useful in making spectroscopic analysis of luminous vapours… had found them most useful… splendid results… in collecting the diffused radiance of the nebulae…
On the one hand, that is a reference to science of the time. On the other, it’s pebbledash to avoid investigation of rough fantasy. I’m not holding this against Merrit’s work, because much early Fifties Sci‐Fi was ‘hidden world’, except the ‘hidden world’ was outer space. But then the Fifties work, at it’s most terse and involving became more—scientific speculation—which Merrit’s work is not. Merrit’s lost world is Empire fantasy, all silk, marble, and dangerous natives—though with a view generous that there may be also knowledge unknown and human drama. Readers will get this kind of writing,
I turned and faced an immensity of crimson waters… A breeze blew, the first real wind I had encountered… the surface, that had been a molten laquer, rippled and dimpled. Little waves broke with a spray of rose‐pearls and rubies. The giant Medusae drifted—stately, luminous kaleidoscopic elfin moons.
Merrit’s work is, it is said, ‘Not much read now’ but he was a bestseller of the age. I say he’s good style, that the characters of Goodwin and O’Keefe are nicely set against each other—Goodwin is a scientist with some hazy superstition, O’Keefe believes superstition as fact, but has no time for the inexplicable. I’d say also that Merrit’s stream of drama and image has invention—impressive—but The Moon Pool shows how basic premises have weight—this book’s love/slavery drama has no modern resonance.
Sam Merwin
Considering he lead a long career as author and editor, there’s not much information on Sam Merwin. Admittedly, he was an earlier writer, WWII into Fifties, which will reduce information. And The Final Figure will not explain why. The story is only vaguely Sci‐Fi and perhaps better for that, as it’s a story with a mild twist, modest characters, involves war‐models and is well‐assembled. Arbiter is one of those jolly lets‐fix‐this American types, with a more‐than‐usual complex background and subtle solution. You know, spaceships, they crash… and whose fault is that?
There’s maybe seven Sci‐Fi stories by Sam Merwin on Project Gutenberg. If you find mystery and romance stories by ‘Samuel Merwin’… not the same person.
Catherine L. Moore
Usually disguised as ‘C. L. Moore’. Also a university lecturer in creative writing, and for a while television scriptwriter. As noted not only here, but every public mention, prising her work from Henry Kuttner is still a subject today. The editors of Gutenberg must know or suspect something, because Juke‐Box is credited to C. L. Moore, yet the transcription credits to ‘Woodrow Wilson Smith’, a cover‐name for Henry Kuttner. Bewildered?! Anyway, the story starts with ok character and action, low‐key, in a scenario that is not SciFi, about a communicative jukebox. Then detonates a small bomb, before reaching the end it should. I found myself hovering, especially until the bomb arrives, over a story loaded but not explored with potential for allegory and fantasy. Still, a well‐made story about something other than interplanetary flight. Song in a Minor Key is a micro story. I’d sure like to have sat and talked with Catherine Moore about if this is a story in form—I’d say there is a case it is, but most would see it as a psychological moment. Anyway, it’s the stuff of interplanetary hoodlums dumped into rural idyll, which is amusing and pretty. The Tree of Life is a short story of wizardry and Empire that would usually make me grit my teeth, but the author finds enough new things in it, mostly the inverse effect of the central image and the insecurity of the central character, to keep me reading.
Very little on Gutenberg, currently two stories, but note the connection with Henry Kuttner.
Larry Niven
NB: not represented on Gutenberg
Personal name Laurence Niven, comment says his work mined can‐do heros and technological optimism while others went New‐Wave. Best known for the novel Ringworld and many connected works, also frequently cited for Tales of Known Space. I can only guess that Niven’s work is absent due to the interconnectedness of his large output, because there have been repeated attempts to bring ‘Ringworld’ to the screen (even if they failed) and, perhaps, because in the near‐past, Larry Niven worked as an advisor to the US government.
Andre Norton
Andre Norton has good coverage online, possibly because there were many books, possibly because they sold readily, possibly because (finally) they received awards. Andre Norton was Alice Mary Norton, but changed her name to become this pseudonym. Like another writer with the same device, Leigh Brackett, Andre Norton sometimes wrote stories of adventure in other‐worlds. But Leigh Brackett wrote Westerns, or most of what I have read of her on Gutenberg is Westerns, with fantasy monsters. Whereas in the book Star Hunter Andre Norton writes smaller‐scale character and while her monsters are fantasy they are present within a physical realism. This may seem limiting, but in practice frees the author to engage in character and dramatic development, not to mention extending the adventure sequences. In the end I’d say this kind of thing isn’t Science Fiction, but it is what people would think of as the model of pulp SciFi. And Andre Norton was the best of it, only Harry Harrison’s wry politics are any kind of match for this …unless we admit later writers like Ursula Le Guin. Oh and Andre Norton is a nifty writer too, delivering a range of sentences in neat and dense construction. Jolly good, and stands today.
Much Andre Norton on Gutenberg, but her work covered several genres, so I can’t vouch for other books.
Alan Edward Nourse
Also a medical journalist. Letter of the Law is about some hairy apes who don’t have much by way of a justice system, coerced by international agreements into giving a fair trial to a not‐so‐wonderful member of the human race. Disregarding science fiction, I find an assumption of alien stupidity awkward leaning to smug, but admit the story is well‐handled—I suspect the author can do better.
Thirty two by this author, a good showing.
Edgar Pangborn
A writer who somewhat predated the sci‐fi boom, and who published some of it’s first novels. I’ve not read enough, but truth is his writing seems tangential to sci‐fi, but firmly in a position of wonderous fantasy. I read a full‐length book, West of the Sun, an alternate planet setup, which is written in a home‐brew style I found likable. His work is not pulpy in scenario, only concept.
If it helps, one of Mr. Pangborn’s stories, pretty famous, is the title of an album by the rock group Gong—‘Angel’s Egg’. And it’s on Gutenberg. I recall someone saying somewhere that Angels Egg was hugely popular. Not sure what that means. Angel’s Egg is presented as science fiction, but is fantasy. As usual, the utopian future is pastoral. Is it well‐turned and does the author earn his charm, not trade it it? Yes. The Good Neighbors is a very short story from the Age of Sci‐Fi. It takes the idea of alien invasion in a direction of misunderstanding, good intention and erratic diplomacy. In that it seems close to reality, as it’s shadow drifts towards an end absurd and oddly moving.
H. Beam Piper
A lesser‐known writer from the early SciFi age (1950’s), H. Piper was a working man, self‐taught and thoughtful. Graveyard of Dreams uses the common stock of planetary travel and American can‐do with unusual subtlety of personal and political thought, which makes for drama. A story of the impossible dreams that support common life, a journey that doesn’t work out, and a resolution that is at least practical. If short of Poul Anderson’s towards‐realism, it’s a tightly‐written example of the rise in pulp fiction standard without stepping from it’s origins. Dearest shows how Piper’s ideas and placement are more thoughtful than those of others. In this case a tale of an old man—generously if conventionally imagined—who begins to hear a voice that may be real, with a bloody end a reader can nonetheless side with. Time and Time Again is a time‐travel effort. It ducks the nonsense involved, instead pitching for emotional history and wish‐fullfillment. In this, though the characters and subjects are entirely different, it achieves the effect of the script for the much‐loved film ‘Back to The Future’. Damon Knight noted this story as part of a collection translated into German, and further noted that the stories selected were ‘excellent’.
Little Fuzzy is a novel which strikes on a wonderful SciFi, and science fiction, premise that a race of ‘animals’ is discovered which display maybe emerging human mental ability. This allows an exploration of what it means to be human, through concepts like consciousness, kinds of reasoning, and so forth. Piper delivers this story in his no‐nonsense way without sentiment, mysticism or academia. He reveals an ability which is perhaps a mild surprise—he can summon a childlike sense of wonder. Put together with simple character drama this makes one of the key events, small in scale but huge in meaning, unlikely in how moving it is. I tell you—I put the phone down and for a while stopped reading. But you don’t need my word for it, the book spawned several sequels and other spin‐offs.
Reportedly through copyright loss, but also likely archival enthusiasm, there are thirty‐nine entries for Piper work on Gutenberg—I can’t vouch for all of it, but surely worth a look.
Frederik Pohl
Mentioned elsewhere, it’s curiously difficult to find anything about Frederik Pohl. He must be as well‐archived as anyone—I think there’s an autobiography somewhere. And he was an editor and frequent collaborator—maybe that tells you something about him? Anyway, My Lady Greensleves had me checking the date, which is 1957. The date, why is the date a riddle? Because the story fully meets my Sturgeon/Dick definition of SciFi, a plausible scientific/technological ‘if’ used to create key components of the story. On this list, only some of the work of Fritz Leiber and Philip K. Dick, in their own ways, meets this definition. As for this one, it’s a tale of a prison break, set in the future. The story is extended, the telling neat and, guesswork but I think probable, it was written with research. The story also gains from not having the modern obsession with physical demonstration. Ironic, given that this is pulp fiction so the story moves on a physical conflict or two. Yes, but not obsessing over the physical conflict lets the teller concentrate on drama and moving the story along. Clearest example yet of a new form.
The Hated is a psychological dig, with only the trappings of space exploration. I find it’s premise unconvincing (not the sci‐fi, the psychology). But if you can live with the premise, this is a story told well, a casual introduction and tidy end. It’s on the boundary of styles from the culture of Sci‐Fi—with no mention of other planets, it would pass as a good short story.
Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth
Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth collaborated now and then, through perhaps seven years. I tried a short story The Engineer. Hard to prise apart at this distance, but an easily sketched and vaguely symbolic future environment occurs in other writing by Cyril Kornbluth, yet the not‐a‐twist end, which is low‐key and a conclusion of drama, may come from elsewhere. Good story.
M. Pohl and Kornbluth together wrote a handful of novels. Of these, Reach For The Stars (magazine‐serialised as Gravy Train) is famous—it shifted maybe 10 million copies. That book is not available on Gutenberg, but to this day is recommended as one of the best SciFi novels. A later novel, Search The Sky is available, and is impressive even now. Ok, the characters are sketchy, but they exist; and the character interaction is melodramatic, but amusing and inventive. The density of exploration in scenario is remarkable, beats near anything listed here. However, liking the book could depend on the plot—a ramble through three or four speculative societies. The end relies on a dubious biological premise, though it could be reworked as an argument for multi‐culturalism.
WolfBane is the last novel M. Pohl and Kornbluth wrote together. It’s usually called a novel, and after serialisation was published as such, but with a central character and shorter length I make it more of a long‐short story or ‘novella’. At base it has a common theme of the time, the importance of American Entrepreneurialism. France‐wise, as America is, this is individualistic. But the first chapters stick out from other writing here because of point‐of‐view writing in opposition. It’s rare enough to see this technique here, let alone in work convincing, sympathetic and inventive. The following chapters suffer from a problem I recall Damon Knight talking about in The Chrysalids by John Wyndham—a creepy beginning, with submerged wrongness, is exposed as plot, which kills the effect. However, Alfred Bester‐like, the authors then make a spectacular set of turns, leading to other moments and images that verge on horror. I’d also note that, despite the reputation of Sci‐Fi writing, this is only the third story on this list with aliens. Aliens way spookier and convincing than anything I have seen in film—script‐writers take note. If you want your Sci‐Fi weird, but can’t get on with Philip Dick, strongly recommended.
Five of the collaborations are available.