Aaron's Magazine of the Week :: Fantasy & Science Fiction July 1977 issue

The Magazine of the Week is the July 1977 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. This was a special issue devoted to author Harlan Ellison, and so is a fitting way to begin our tribute to Harlan Ellison, recently named Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The delightful cover illustration of Ellison being accosted by the denizens of his own imagination is by outstanding SF illustrator Kelly Freas.

The Grand Master honor is presented annually to recognize the career of one of the greats of science fiction and fantasy. Past Grand Masters have included such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and Ursula K. LeGuin. Harlan Ellison belongs in this group on the strength of his heavily-charged short fiction. Ellison was never much inclined to write at novel length, but has won seven Hugo Awards and a great host of other awards for his short fiction, which includes such all-time classics of the field as "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman", "The Deathbird", and "A Boy and His Dog" (basis for the film starring Don Johnson, pre-Miami Vice). Ellison has also been an influential editor, assembling the landmark anthologies Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions. Early in his career he was an important screenwriter -- he wrote the scripts for what are widely regarded as the finest episodes ever made of both Star Trek ("The City on the Edge of Forever" with guest star Joan Collins) and The Outer Limits ("Demon with a Glass Hand" starring Robert Culp) and was credited with the concept for the film The Terminator (after suing James Cameron for plagiarism) -- but he gradually phased out this aspect of his career, because he could not get along with anyone in Hollywood.

Which brings us to Harlan Ellison's notoriously irascible personality. The Magazine of the Week has some examples of Ellison's excellent writing, including the first appearance of his short story "Jeffty Is Five", which went on to win the Hugo Award for Best Short Story of 1977. But is also features a typical Harlan Ellison essay in which he berates all his own fans. "How boring it would be if all of you were as predictable and dull as so many of you seem to be," he tells his readers. More on Ellison's acidic nature next week.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Logan's Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson

The Book of the Week is the first paperback printing of Logan's Run (1967), by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. This is in honor of Mr. Nolan, who was recently named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

Logan's Run was the basis for the 1976 film, which was weak overall but had some redeeming moments and remains a guilty pleasure for many of us, as well as a 1977-78 TV series, which was unremittingly awful. Logan's Run describes a future world in which young people have seized control and do not suffer anyone to live past the age of 21 (30 in the movie). A remake of Logan's Run is said to be in the works.

While Logan's Run and its sequels (which Nolan wrote alone) remain Nolan's best remembered works, in recent years he has had greater impact in the genre of horror than science fiction and has been named a "Living Legend" by the International Horror Guild. In addition to science fiction and horror, he has published mysteries, thrillers, westerns, mainstream fiction and non-fiction, and has also written many scripts for Hollywood.

William F. Nolan is the tenth author to be named Author Emeritus by the SFWA. The award is a bit of a backhanded compliment, essentially indicating that the author is very good but not quite good enough ever to be named Grand Master, SFWA's highest career honor. Many have denounced the Author Emeritus concept for this reason, including this year's Grand Master, Harlan Ellison. Starting next week, Book of the Week will pay tribute to the distinguished career of Harlan Ellison.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

The Book of the Week is Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. This is a signed and inscribed copy of the trade paperback first printing (cover art by Tim Jacobus), issued simultaneously with the extremely rare hardcover edition.

First published in 1992, Doomsday Book won both the Hugo Award and Nebula Award for Best Novel (sharing the Hugo with Vernor Vinge's excellent A Fire Upon the Deep) and has quickly become a classic of the science fiction field. Doomsday Book tells of a young historian who travels in time to England's plague years. It is perhaps the best example of Connie Willis's remarkable ability to write stories that are both very funny and terribly sad.

Connie Willis is a charming person, a delightful public speaker, and absurdly generous with her time. She has twice traveled out from Greeley to meet with our book group - Denver SF & Fantasy Book Club - and last month came out to talk with a group of 4th and 5th graders at my son's school after the students read Doomsday Book. Ms. Willis is always in great demand as a toastmaster at science fiction and fantasy conventions. Last month she hosted the Nebula Awards banquet, presenting the awards voted upon by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. And with that segue, next week's Book of the Week will be in honor of the writer named Author Emeritus at that banquet.

Return of Dave Itzkoff

Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times Book Review, the SF reviewer who thinks SF sucks, is back with his second column, a review of this year's Nebula Awards Showcase. Itzkoff continues to go out of his way to annoy, for instance putting the spoiler warnings after his spoilers rather than before, just to be clever. His suggestion that few in the SF genre today can hold a candle to Anne McCaffrey gives further evidence of how little contemporary science fiction he has actually read.

Still, this column is a great improvement over Itzkoff's previous effort. At least he raises a topic worth discussing: the fascination with nostalgia in SF, a supposedly forward-looking genre. He also finds one story in the Nebula Awards anthology to praise strongly, "Embracing-the-New" by Benjamin Rosenbaum. One hopes that if Itzkoff starts to catch up on his reading, he will realize how many talented authors there are in the SF genre today and eventually develop into an adequate reviewer.

Book Review Teaser :: Genetopia by Keith Brooke

Aaron recently favorably reviewed for Fantastic Reviews the science fiction book Genetopia by British author Keith Brooke.

From Aaron's review of Genetopia:
"In the next century, advances in biotechnology will dramatically reshape the nature of mankind, statutes against cloning and genetic engineering notwithstanding. In Genetopia, Keith Brooke takes a fascinating look at the consequences when the nature of humanity begins to change at a genetic level....."

"...The plot of Genetopia is deceptively simple: a young man coming of age on a lonely quest. Flintreco Eltarn - meaning Flint of Clan Treco, child of Tarn - searches for his younger sister Amber (Amberlinetreco Eltarn), who he hopes has run away but fears has been abducted."

"If this sounds like something you've read before, it isn't. The strangeness of this disturbing future world is clear from the book's opening scene, when Flint and Amber wander to their village's Leaving Hill, stepping over the bones of infants and youths left to die because they did not look and act enough like True humans...."

To read the entire review: Genetopia

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Fire Watch by Connie Willis

The Book of the Week is the hardcover first edition of Fire Watch, signed and inscribed by Greeley, Colorado author Connie Willis (cover art by Tom Kidd). As nice as it was to find a 100-year-old first edition of The Jungle, this was my most exciting acquisition at the book sale mentioned last week. Connie Willis is an amazing author and one of the most decorated writers in the history of science fiction and fantasy -- she has won Hugo Awards in fiction categories eight times and Nebula Awards six times, both more than any other author ever (and she is a contender for a ninth Hugo Award this year for her excellent novella "Inside Job").

Fire Watch is a collection of short fiction, published in 1984. It was Willis's first solo book (she had previously coauthored Water Witch, a collaboration with Cynthia Felice). Two of the stories in Fire Watch had won the first of her many awards to come -- the title story, about a time traveler caught in the London Blitz of World War II, won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novelette of 1982 and the poignant "A Letter from the Clearys" won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story of 1982 -- yet Willis was still relatively unknown when the book was published. Because of this, and because collections of short fiction generally do not sell as well as novels, the initial print run for Fire Watch was quite small, which is why copies of the first edition (especially signed copies) are highly prized by collectors.

Connie Willis signed my copy of Fire Watch two weeks ago, when she was so amazingly kind as to come to Denver to meet with my son and a group of his 4th and 5th grade classmates, who had just finished reading her outstanding novel Doomsday Book, next week's Book of the Week.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

The Book of the Week is the first edition of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. This book was published exactly 100 years ago by Sinclair's own Jungle Publishing Company. The Jungle was by far the most successful and important of Upton Sinclair's 90+ books. While the socialist state Sinclair tried to promote in The Jungle did not come to pass, the book's nauseating depiction of meat packing plants was instrumental in prompting the Pure Food and Drugs Act and the Meat Inspection Act, important precedents for government oversight of the economy. (Ironically, it was the major meat packers who lobbied for these acts, hoping to counteract the huge drop-off in sales they experienced after The Jungle came out. Sinclair opposed the legislation.)

The Jungle was at first turned down by several publishers put off by its harsh tone ("One feels that what is at the bottom of his fierceness is not nearly so much desire to help the poor as hatred of the rich," said one internal memo at Macmillan), so Sinclair decided to publish it himself. Sinclair received some 5,000 prepaid orders, which allowed him to cover the costs of printing The Jungle himself and also prompted it to be picked up by Doubleday, for whom it quickly became a runaway bestseller. The initial print run by the Jungle Publishing Company included the copies sent to those who made the prepaid orders, with a sticker thanking them for making it possible to publish the book. The Book of the Week does not have this "Sustainer's Edition" label, but has all other points of the first state of the first edition rather than the Doubleday second state: Jungle Publishing and not Doubleday is listed as the publisher on the spine; the cover shows the clasped hands socialist emblem, which was removed from the Doubleday edition; and there is no printer's error on the copyright page as there is in the second state.

First state first editions of The Jungle in fine condition regularly sell for several hundred dollars. The Book of the Week is nowhere near fine condition, with frayed boards, loose hinges and a badly faded cover (you can barely make out the cover image of a smoky factory); still, it is worth plenty more than the two dollars I paid for it. I found this book at a recent sale by a local used bookshop (Books Unlimited on Colorado Boulevard in Denver), which took advantage of a vacancy next door to clear out the books wasting away in boxes in its warehouse. They had two large rooms filled with utter crap, with a couple gems hiding underneath the crap, including this first edition of The Jungle. (The other gem I found will be next week's Book of the Week.)

Such needle-in-a-haystack finds are what bibliophiles like me live for. This is more than a little irrational. I will never read this copy of The Jungle, and if I did, I would find it has all the same words as the copies sitting on the shelves of the Barnes & Noble across the street. This copy is certainly more valuable than those, but since I will never sell it, so what? The best explanation I can give is, if you have a passion for books, dusty old used book stores are sort of like an endless Easter Egg hunt for adults.

Aaron's Magazine of the Week :: Weird Tales September 1937

The Magazine of the Week is the September 1937 issue of Weird Tales, with cover art by legendary pulp illustrator Margaret Brundage. Margaret Brundage was a Chicago housewife who delighted in pushing the limits of the time with her racy covers for Weird Tales. This particular cover illustrates the story "Satan's Palimpsest" by Seabury Quinn. Seabury Quinn was by no means the best of the Weird Tales authors (although his Jules de Grandin supernatural mystery stories were popular at the time), yet he consistently managed to get his stories on the cover. His secret? He made sure each of his stories had at least one nude scene.

During the 1930's, Weird Tales boasted a tremendous array of talented authors, including in particular Robert E. Howard, discussed last week, and hugely influential horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. The September 1937 issue is a good example of the wealth of talent writing for Weird Tales in the 1930's. In addition to Howard and Lovecraft, the issue includes work by such excellent authors as August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Edmond Hamilton, Manly Wade Wellman, and Henry Kuttner.

But from its peak in the mid- to late 1930's, Weird Tales suddenly went into a tailspin. The magazine remained in print through 1954 (and there have been several attempts to resurrect it since then), but Weird Tales never regained its form after the 1930's. The cause of the magazine's sudden decline was the untimely deaths of its editor and its two best writers. In 1936, depressed by his mother's illness, Robert E. Howard committed suicide at the age of only 30. H.P. Lovecraft died of cancer at 46 the next year, and Farnsworth Wright succumbed to Parkinson's disease in 1940. After their deaths, science fiction became the dominant form of fantastic literature, and fantasy and horror largely went into hibernation until J.R.R. Tolkien and Stephen King came along to resurrect the fields decades later. But how differently things might have gone if Howard and Lovecraft and Wright had lived.

Having surveyed the earliest science fiction and fantasy pulps, we will continue our history of the pulp magazines with some pulps outside of the SF/F genre. But first we'll take a break so I can boast of a couple recent book acquisitions.

Aaron's Magazine of the Week :: Weird Tales December 1935

The Magazine of the Week is the December 1935 issue of Weird Tales, with cover art by Margaret Brundage.

First published in 1923, Weird Tales consisted mostly of fantasy and horror, along with a smattering of science fiction. By my reckoning, Weird Tales was thus the very first magazine of fantastic literature. Weird Tales struggled for its first two years, and was on the verge of collapse in 1924 when it printed a story called "The Loved Dead," involving necrophilia. Some outraged readers tried to get the magazine banned and ironically, this controversy is said to have boosted circulation enough to allow the magazine to survive its initial financial trouble. Farnsworth Wright then took over as editor in November 1924, and under his direction the magazine became a great success, printing remarkably high quality fiction. Tennessee Williams made his first sale to Weird Tales, and the magazine started the careers of many other authors who remain widely read to this day.

Among those authors was Robert E. Howard, one of the most successful of all the pulp writers and the creator of many popular characters, including Conan the Barbarian. The cover story of the Magazine of the Week is the first installment of The Hour of the Dragon, a novel-length Conan story (later retitled Conan the Conqueror). If you're thinking that this wimpy guy on the cover doesn't look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, this is a rare instance where Hollywood's rendition is more faithful to the author's intentions -- the Governor is much closer to Howard's description of Conan as a swaggering muscleman. But then, as you can see from this cover, artist Margaret Brundage was always better with sexy women than men. Indeed, one of the secrets to the success of Weird Tales was Brundage's covers featuring half-naked women, or sometimes even fully naked women, as you will see in next week's Magazine of the Week.

Aaron's Magazine of the Week :: Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories June-July 1931

The Magazine of the Week is the June-July 1931 issue of Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories. This was the second and last issue of this magazine. I would tell you about the great significance of Miracle to pulp fiction and to the field of science fiction, but it had none. Indeed, because Miracle was so short-lived, had low circulation, and never printed any stories by any important authors, many collectors have forgotten that it ever existed. But it did, and the proof is sitting in my office.

You have now seen all of the science fiction pulp magazines from the decade after Amazing Stories first appeared in 1926: Amazing, Wonder, Astounding, and Miracle (well, not really, because there were some hero pulps with significant SF elements like Doc Savage and The Secret 6, and there was a British SF magazine called Scoops, but we have to stop somewhere). However, while Amazing Stories was the first science fiction magazine, it was not the first magazine of fantastic literature, which encompasses fantasy and horror in addition to science fiction. Some argue that the first magazine of fantastic literature was Black Cat, which started way back in 1895, or Thrill Book, a short-lived pulp magazine from 1919, but I don't believe either was sufficiently focused on fantasy to qualify. You will see an issue of the first real magazine of fantastic literature next week.