Aaron's Book of the Week :: Jackie Robinson: My Own Story

This Sunday, Major League Baseball will mark the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking baseball's color barrier. In honor of the occasion, the Book of the Week is Jackie Robinson: My Own Story by Jackie Robinson & Wendell Smith, foreword by Branch Rickey. This rare book was published by Avon in 1949, two years after Jackie Robinson began his major league career. This book has no discernible connection to science fiction, but I had to acquire it as a loyal UCLA alumnus.

Years before Robinson broke into major league baseball, he was BMOC at UCLA. Oddly enough, baseball was his weakest sport at UCLA. He was far better known for his exploits in football (he led the nation with absurd averages of 12 yards per carry and 20 yards per punt return) and basketball (he was twice the leading scorer in the Pacific Coast Conference). He was also a star in track & field, a sport he learned to love watching his brother Mack, who won a silver medal in the 200-yard dash at the 1936 Olympics (finishing behind only the legendary Jesse Owens). Robinson was the first UCLA student to earn letters in four different sports.

After leaving UCLA in 1941, Jackie Robinson briefly played semiprofessional sports, which were integrated on the West Coast at the time, until he was inducted into the Army. He was one of the first African-Americans to become an Army officer through Officer's Candidate School (an opportunity he purportedly received through the intervention of heavyweight champion Joe Louis), but he never fought overseas because he was court-martialed for refusing an order to go to the back of an Army bus. He was ultimately acquitted and later honorably discharged, after the Army determined that the order was contrary to Army policy and Lt. Robinson was justified in defying it. From the Army, Robinson went back to sports, competing in semipro football and Negro League baseball, where he was spotted by a scout for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1945, visionary Dodgers owner Branch Rickey signed Robinson to a professional contract, after first obtaining Robinson's solemn oath to forbear for three years from retaliating against any of the racial bigotry he would inevitably face, a promise Robinson kept for exactly three years.

One of the UCLA Athletic Department's greatest sources of pride (along with its 99 NCAA championships, most of any school) is its role in the racial integration of society. UCLA operated a color-blind athletic department from the time the school was founded in 1919. Few people realize that Ralph Bunche, the first black winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, went to UCLA on an athletics scholarship before distinguishing himself even more for his academics, graduating valedictorian of his class in 1927.

While Jackie Robinson is rightly celebrated for breaking baseball's color barrier, not so many remember that his former teammate at UCLA, Kenny Washington, broke the NFL's color barrier. Indeed, because Robinson had to spend a year in the minor leagues before playing for the Dodgers, Kenny Washington actually donned a big-league uniform first, in 1946. The second black player in the modern era of the NFL was another Bruin, Woody Strode, who went on to have a successful acting career. Washington and Strode got the opportunity to play in the NFL when the Cleveland Rams moved to Los Angeles, because the commissioners of the Los Angeles Coliseum insisted that the team be integrated. The Coliseum was apparently embarrassed to host an all-white team, since L.A. was well accustomed to integrated football teams, largely thanks to the successes of Washington, Strode, and Jackie Robinson, both with UCLA and with the local semipro teams, the Los Angeles Bulldogs and the Hollywood Bears.

None of the three men who broke the color barrier in the NBA in 1950 was from UCLA, but Bruin Don Barksdale was the first African-American basketball player to play for the U.S. Olympic team and the first to play in the NBA All-Star Game, in 1948 and 1953, respectively. In 1968, UCLA tennis great Arthur Ashe won the U.S. Open to become the first African-American man to win a Grand Slam tennis tournament. Ashe remains the only black man to win the U.S. Open, Wimbledon (defeating fellow Bruin Jimmy Connors in the finals), and the Australian Open. (Yannick Noah is the only black man to win the French Open, for which we try to forgive his son his annoying tantrums on the basketball court.)

Jackie Robinson: My Own Story is a digest-format book, a bit larger than an ordinary paperback and held together merely with staples rather than glue. Several publishers experimented with this format in the 1940's and 50's, before thankfully abandoning it. We will return to science fiction next week with the most rare digest book in my collection.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle by Michael Moorcock

The Book of the Week is The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, a bizarre punk rock novel published by Virgin Records and written by science fiction and fantasy author Michael Moorcock.

This original 1980 printing of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle was issued in an unusual 11" x 14" format, like a tabloid newspaper. It was printed in connection with the film of the same title about the punk rock group the Sex Pistols, and contains multiple photos of Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten, and the other Pistols.

Michael Moorcock was one of the leading voices of the "New Wave" of science fiction in the 1960's and remains an important figure in the SF/F field to this day. But Moorcock was a musician even before finding success as an author, and he remained involved with the music industry for many years. He wrote several songs for Blue Oyster Cult and collaborated extensively with the band Hawkwind.

The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle is supposedly a novelization of the film, which gave Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren's skewed view of the punk rock phenomenon. Moorcock, however, was contemptuous of McLaren and took significant liberties with the book version, weaving the story into the ongoing chronicles of his own multifaceted recurring character Jerry Cornelius. After this tabloid edition, the book had a small print run in paperback, but remains probably the most obscure entry in Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius series.

From music, next week we will make a quick foray into sports, this time with no SF connection at all.

2007 Hugo Awards nominees for best novel

Blindsight, Peter Watts (Tor)
Eifelheim, Michael Flynn (Tor)
Glasshouse, Charles Stross (Ace)
His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik (Ballantine Del Rey; Voyager as Temeraire)
Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge (Tor)

Aaron's Magazine of the Week :: Analog March 1965

The Magazine of the Week is the March 1965 issue of Analog magazine. This issue contains Part III of The Prophet of Dune (really the sixth out of eight installments of the novel Dune). The stunning cover, depicting one of the giant sandworms of Arrakis, is by far the best out of the many cover images John Schoenherr did for Dune, and I am at a loss to explain why it was not used for any of the book editions.

Schoenherr was able to do a large, detailed cover image for Analog because between March 1963 and March 1965, Analog switched from digest to a glossy, oversized (8" x 11") "bedsheet" format. Bedsheet is the most common format for magazines, but is generally not used for science fiction and other literary magazines. This is because bedsheets are expensive to produce, and thus only make sense for magazines that have a large potential audience -- much larger than the small number of us geeks and weirdoes who read science fiction.

With only a few exceptions, bedsheet magazines are the largest-sized items in my collection. Next week's Book of the Week will be one of those exceptions, a book published in a format like a tabloid newspaper. This rare book is sought by collectors of both science fiction and, would you believe, punk rock paraphernalia.

Aaron's Book of the Year :: Glorifying Terrorism edited by Farah Mendlesohn

The Book of the Year is Glorifying Terrorism, an anthology edited by Farah Mendlesohn (with outrageous cover art by Haylee Fields and Mike Harwood).

The Book of the Year contains the first ever professional work of fiction by yours truly: "Winning Friends" by Van Aaron Hughes begins at page 205.

Glorifying Terrorism is an anthology of science fiction stories, published very recently in England as a political protest. Last year, the British Parliament included in the Terrorism Act of 2006 a provision making it a criminal offense, punishable by up to seven years' imprisonment, to publish any statements glorifying terrorism. This new offense was broadly defined to encompass any publication "indirectly encouraging the commission or preparation of acts of terrorism," including "every statement which glorifies the commission or preparation (whether in the past, in the future or generally) of such acts." The Act expressly states that it is irrelevant whether anyone is in fact encouraged by the statements to commit or prepare a terrorist act. The term "terrorism" is not defined in the Act (one is apparently expected to refer to the extremely broad definition of "terrorism" in the Terrorism Act of 2000), nor is any exception included for fiction or satire.

One need not be a left-wing radical to regard this as an affront to free speech. To protest this new law, respected science fiction editor Farah Mendlesohn (winner of a Hugo Award in 2005 for co-editing The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction) announced that she would edit an anthology deliberately intended to violate the law. While most of the contributors are British, Mendlesohn accepted a few submissions from writers (and at least one person posing as a writer) on this side of the Pond.

Compounding the thrill for me of actually getting something published is the fact that for at least the past decade, a great deal of the best new science fiction and fantasy has been coming from the UK. Appearing in Glorifying Terrorism are some of the very top names in the modern SF/F field, such as Hal Duncan, Gwyneth Jones, Ken MacLeod, Adam Roberts (one of my all-time favorite authors), Charles Stross, Jo Walton, and Ian Watson. The back cover of the book also features blurbs from three more great British Boom writers, China Miéville, Karen Traviss, and Ian McDonald. The McDonald quote is the greatest cover blurb ever:

"This is a bad book. The people who have written it are bad folk. The editor is a bad person. If you buy it, you are bad too. There is only good and bad in the world."

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Dune by Frank Herbert (paperback)

The Book of the Week is the first paperback printing of Frank Herbert's classic novel Dune (1965).

This original paperback edition from Ace Books is a bit uncommon -- Berkley later acquired the paperback rights and sold millions of copies, so the Berkley edition (with an orange cover) is much more frequently seen. Ace was one of the leading science fiction publishers when it printed Dune, and knew enough to stick Frank Herbert's huge glossary of terms in the appendices at the end of the book, so the paperback edition begins where it should, with the immortal line, "In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul." (But Ace marred the line with a typo: "Arrauis" instead of "Arrakis").

Oddly, however, Ace used this rather uninspired cover by John Schoenherr, instead of his superior cover for the first hardcover edition. Even more strangely, no book edition of Dune has ever used the single best cover image Schoenherr did for Dune, which you will see next week.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Dune by Frank Herbert (hardcover)

The Book of the Week is Dune by Frank Herbert. This is the first hardcover edition, but unfortunately not the first printing. When collectors describe a book as a "first edition," what they really mean is "first edition, first printing." The Book of the Week was not part of the very first print run of Dune in 1965, but instead a later print run (the seventh) in 1966. The cover looks exactly the same as the first printing, and the book is distinguishable from the first printing only in that (i) the price on the inside flap is $7.95 instead of $5.95, (ii) it is bound in red cloth instead of blue, and (iii) the copyright page does not have the words "First Edition" and contains a row of numbers beginning with the number "6," indicating that it was printed in 1966. What's the difference? About $5,000 on the collectors' market.

Because Dune was rejected by every major science fiction book publisher, this first edition of Dune was printed by Chilton, a small publisher best known for its auto repair manuals. As a novice SF publisher, Chilton made the foolish mistake of beginning the book with an 18-page glossary of terms used in the novel. Despite this daunting opening, Dune quickly became a huge commercial success (hence the multiple printings) and won Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel.

The cover of the Book of the Week is by John Schoenherr. This same cover art had already appeared on the cover of the January 1965 issue of Analog magazine, which contained Part I of The Prophet of Dune, the second half of the novel. This was much better than Schoenherr's original Dune artwork, but for some reason Schoenherr was asked to do a new cover for the first paperback edition, next week's Book of the Week.

Aaron's Magazine of the Week :: Analog December 1963

The Magazine of the Week is the December 1963 issue of Analog magazine (formerly known as Astounding), containing the first appearance of Frank Herbert's landmark novel Dune. In the early 1960's, before Dune appeared, Frank Herbert was regarded as a second-tier science fiction writer at best, having published only one novel and a couple dozen short stories. When he wrote Dune, it was rejected by every major SF book publisher. It was too long, too confusing and too strange, the editors agreed. The dissenting voice was John W. Campbell, Jr., who saved the novel (and perhaps Frank Herbert) from possible obscurity by purchasing the rights to serialize Dune in Analog, beginning with the Magazine of the Week.

Campbell published the first portion of the novel in three parts under the title Dune World. Even though it was only part of a novel, with no real resolution, Dune World was an instant success, receiving Frank Herbert's first Hugo Award nomination. After the readers' positive reaction, Campbell published the rest of the lengthy novel in five more installments, under the title The Prophet of Dune. The success of the magazine version helped Frank Herbert's agent to find a hardcover publisher for the book, and Dune became one of the most successful SF novels ever printed, both commercially and artistically. It was filmed with mixed results by David Lynch in 1984 and by John Harrison for the Sci-Fi Channel in 2000.

John Schoenherr's cover for the Magazine of the Week really doesn't do justice to the fascinating world Frank Herbert created in Dune, but not to worry--John Schoenherr ended up making a career out of cover art for Dune and got much better with practice. He did the cover art for the first part of The Prophet of Dune serialization, which was also used as the cover for the first hardcover edition of Dune, next week's Book of the Week.

Amy's bookshelf :: A Soul in a Bottle by Tim Powers

"A Soul in a Bottle" by Tim Powers is a book of novelette length from Subterranean Press, copyright 2006. My copy is the deluxe hardcover edition. It has wonderful black & white illustrations on the dust jacket and in the interior by J.K. Potter. The print is large enough to make it run 82 pages. This is probably not something you'd find shelved in the average book store; it's a specialty item for collectors and Tim Powers fans such as myself.

The story goes like this. I think the cover is a bit misleading. In Hollywood, at the Chinese Theater, book trader George Sydney encounters a striking red-headed woman. They share poetry quotes and then a kiss. George longs to see her again. When he does, before they can go to a bar for a drink, she literally disappears. George has fallen in love with a ghost. She, he learns, is the poet Cheyenne Fleming, who accidentally shot herself back in 1969. Cheyenne was angry with her sister Rebecca. Cheyenne wants George's help so she can go back to the past, so she won't have died.

"A Soul in a Bottle" is colorfully told, and memorable. George apparently drinks and Cheyenne isn't an angel. It's not your typical ghost story or love story. I'd recommend as a good, short read.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: The Thing from Another World by John W. Campbell, Jr.

The Book of the Week is The Thing from Another World, a collection of short fiction by John W. Campbell, Jr.

While John W. Campbell, Jr. is best remembered to fans of literary science fiction as an influential editor, his greatest direct impact on pop culture was writing the story "Who Goes There?", which Hollywood filmed as The Thing from Another World in 1951 and again as The Thing in 1982. The Book of the Week is a paperback reprint of the hardcover first edition titled Who Goes There? (1948). While the original hardcover edition predated the first movie, this paperback edition came out afterwards, and the book's title was changed to take advantage of the movie's success. This paperback edition was published by small British publisher Fantasy Books in 1953 (I think -- there is no date listed on the book). Since it appeared only in England with a small print run, this book is actually more difficult to find than the hardcover first edition; on the other hand, unlike the hardcover, it doesn't cost you $500 if you do find it.

Before he reshaped the genre of science fiction as editor of Astounding magazine, John W. Campbell, Jr. was an important influence on the field through his own writing. While he wrote traditional space opera under his own name, the moody and stylish stories he wrote under the pseudonym Don A. Stuart were his most ground-breaking works. The seven stories in the Book of the Week were all originally printed under the Don A. Stuart byline between 1934 and 1938, and they comprise much of Campbell's best fiction.

It is sometimes said that by the early 1950's Campbell had ceased to be an important influence on the field of science fiction. It is certainly true that in the 50's and 60's Campbell did not dominate SF as he did in the late 30's and 40's; however, the idea that he was no longer doing important work as an editor is belied by a single novel that he purchased and serialized in Astounding after every major book publisher had turned it down. The first installment of this landmark novel is next week's Magazine of the Week.