Aaron's Book of the Week :: Nerves by Lester del Rey

The Book of the Week is the 1956 paperback original edition of Nerves by Lester del Rey, with cover by legendary artist Richard Powers (with a less surreal illustration than most of his).

Nerves is a great example of a prophetic science fiction story. It concerns an accident at a nuclear power plant, similar to the Chernobyl disaster. The book describes the awful effects of radiation sickness in detail, and raises the concern that a nuclear accident might contaminate a large swath of the countryside. That would be impressive enough for a 1956 book, but the magazine version of the story first appeared in 1942. Lester del Rey was writing a cautionary story about the dangers of a nuclear power plant accident many years before the first commercial nuclear power plant was built.

The Book of the Week was published by Ballantine Books, one of the major science fiction publishers of the time. In 1977, the Ballantine SF/F line was renamed "Del Rey Books," in honor of Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn, who had become the lead editors at Ballantine. The Del Rey imprint remains one of the major SF/F publishers to this day. Next week, however, we will return to the much smaller Regency Books, with my favorite from that odd publisher's list.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Tales of the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Completing our tribute to the late Arthur C. Clarke, the Book of the Week is Tales of the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke. This is a paperback original, published in 1957, cover art by Richard Powers.

Tales of the White Hart reflects Sir Arthur's lighter side, a collection of tall tales related by the patrons of the White Hart tavern. It is one of the most successful examples of the "space bar" subgenre, bizarre science fiction or fantasy stories swapped by the regulars of a particular pub, almost always to comic effect. (As Tales of the White Hart demonstrates, this subgenre long predates the space bar scene in the original Star Wars film.) My personal favorite space bar collections will appear in future BOTW's, but first we will pay tribute to an outstanding science fiction artist who passed away last week.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Reach for Tomorrow by Arthur C. Clarke

Continuing our tribute to the late Arthur C. Clarke, the Book of the Week is Reach for Tomorrow, a collection of early Clarke short stories.

This is a first printing, paperback original, published in 1956. The book is notable for its very unusual cover art by legendary SF illustrator Richard Powers. The cover is horizontally, not vertically, oriented, so you have to turn the book sideways to view it correctly. For next week's BOTW, we will have the pulp magazine that contains the first appearance of the Arthur C. Clarke short story that was later expanded into 2001: A Space Odyssey. You will see that the cover of that magazine has far less artistic merit than the cover of this week's BOTW.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke

Science fiction lost a legend last week when Sir Arthur C. Clarke passed away at the age of 90. To begin our tribute, the Book of the Week is the 1954 first paperback printing of Sir Arthur's first book, Against the Fall of Night, cover art by Richard Powers.

Set far in the future on an Earth mired in decay, Against the Fall of Night tells of a young man named Alvin, who sets out to recapture past glories. The novel was first published in shorter form in the pulp magazine Startling Stories in 1948. Even though the book was well received when republished in the early 50's, Sir Arthur was dissatisfied with it, and entirely rewrote it as The City and the Stars, which first appeared in 1956. Such is the power of Clarke's imagination that both versions remained in print for many years.

As discussed in a prior BOTW about Childhood's End Arthur C. Clarke is best remembered outside the science fiction genre as the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, while his most influential book within the genre was Childhood's End. But perhaps his greatest contribution to humanity was originating the concept of placing communications satellites in geosynchronous orbits -- to this day often called "Clarke orbits" in his honor.

An underappreciated aspect of Clarke's career is his outstanding short fiction. You will see the first appearance of my personal favorite Arthur C. Clarke short story next week.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

The Book of the Week is the first paperback printing of Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke, published in 1953, simultaneously with the first hardcover edition, cover art by Richard Powers. This is the third in our sequence of all-time classic science fiction novels first published in 1953, a year the fans at the World Science Fiction Convention neglected to present Hugo Awards.

Arthur C. Clarke is a living legend of science fiction. (Still living at 89, no doubt, because he has never signed any books for me - he has had to hole up in Sri Lanka to avoid me.) He will probably always be best known to non-SF insiders as the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but most SF fans regard Childhood's End as his greatest novel. Childhood's End tells of the arrival of an alien race, here to assist humanity in its transition to a more advanced state of being, assistance not everyone is excited about.

Incidentally, in 1945, Clarke was the first person to propose the use of satellites in geosynchronous orbits to facilitate telecommunications. To this day, geosynchronous orbits are often called "Clarke orbits" in his honor. If he had thought to patent his idea, he might well have become the richest person in the world.

We will return to Arthur C. Clarke in future BOTWs, but first we will see another classic of the field from 1953, by another of the legends of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

Completing our tribute to the late Kurt Vonnegut, the Book of the Week is More Than Human by science fiction great Theodore Sturgeon. Kurt Vonnegut publicly stated that Theodore Sturgeon was the inspiration for his fictional sci-fi author Kilgore Trout -- although really, aside from having the name of a fish, Kilgore Trout bears far less resemblance to Sturgeon than to Vonnegut himself.

This is the first paperback printing of More Than Human, published in 1953, simultaneously with the extremely rare hardcover first edition. The cover is by famed SF artist Richard Powers. Theodore Sturgeon was one of the leading SF authors from the 1940's through the 70's, although for whatever reason he never caught the attention of the general public as Kurt Vonnegut did. In addition to his fiction, Sturgeon is widely remembered in the genre for announcing the principle that came to be known as Sturgeon's Law: "90% of all science fiction is crap. But then, 90% of everything is crap."

More Than Human, about a small group of misfits who prove to represent the next step in human evolution, is widely regarded as Sturgeon's best novel. Next week's Book of the Week will be my personal favorite Sturgeon novel.