Aaron's Book of the Week :: Some Will Not Die by Algis Budrys

Completing our tribute to Algis Budrys (1931-2008), the Book of the Week is Some Will Not Die, cover art by Leo and Diane Dillon. This is the 1961 paperback original edition of Some Will Not Die, which is a revised and expanded version of last week's BOTW, False Night.

Some Will Not Die was published by Regency Books, a very small but interesting publisher, many of whose books are now prized collector's items. Algis Budrys was an editor with Regency and became editor-in-chief, taking over from Harlan Ellison, shortly after Some Will Not Die came out. Regency was the highbrow imprint of Greenleaf & Company, which made most of its profits from pornography (much of which was written by ridiculously good authors, often under pseudonyms, as I may work up the nerve to describe in greater detail in forthcoming BOTWs).

Regency Books deliberately sought novels that brashly addressed controversial topics of the day, including drugs and race relations. Next week's Book of the Week will be my favorite Regency Book, a novel involving race issues by one of my favorite science fiction authors making his first foray out of genre.

Aaron's Book of the Week: False Night by Algis Budrys

Continuing our tribute to Algis Budrys (1931-2008), the Book of the Week is his first novel, False Night, published by Lion Books in 1954. Like all of Budrys's early books, False Night was a paperback original. Because Lion Books was a small publisher (whom BOTW devotees may recall for its early edition of Frankenstein ), this edition has become hard to find. Even harder to find, however, is the revised edition published under the title Some Will Not Die, next week's Book of the Week.

False Night / Some Will Not Die is a post-apocalyptic tale set after most of America's population has been wiped out by a plague. In its bleak and gritty approach to this subject matter, the novel prefigured Cormac McCarthy's recent Pulitzer Prize winner The Road, published over 50 years later. Of course, False Night is science fiction and The Road is not, for reasons that will make sense to you if you squint really hard and slap yourself sharply across the face three times.

Aaron's Magazine of the Week :: Astounding November 1952

Continuing our tribute to Algis Budrys (1931-2008), the Magazine of the Week is the November 1952 issue of Astounding, cover art by Charles Schneeman. When published, the highlights of this issue were the second part of Isaac Asimov's serialized novel The Currents of Space and "Last Blast," a novelette by popular author Eric Frank Russell. But in hindsight, this issue was most important for launching the career of Algis Budrys, with his first story "The High Purpose."

Algis Budrys went on to become an important science fiction author for about the next ten years. After that, he wrote only sparingly -- although his 1977 novel Michaelmas was very well-received, and its premise of a media mogul who manages to assume control of global politics is perhaps more relevant today than ever -- focusing his energies instead on editing and reviewing. He was a long-time reviewer for F&SF and the Chicago Sun-Times. In recent years, he was the editor of Tomorrow magazine (where he rejected the first story I ever tried to sell, a truly dreadful piece that did not at all deserve the gentle note he sent me). He also managed the L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future contest, which under his leadership became a very useful resource for aspiring writers, discovering such major authors as Stephen Baxter, Karen Joy Fowler, James Alan Gardner, Robert Reed, and Patrick Rothfuss, despite the Scientology baggage the Hubbard name carries.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Who? by Algis Budrys

The Book of the Week is Who? by Algis Budrys, in honor of Mr. Budrys, who passed away Monday at the age of 77. (Incidentally, it was not really my intent to use BOTW as an SF/F obituary column, but it seems there are just too many authors, editors, and artists I admire who are now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s to avoid it.)

This is the first printing, paperback original of Who?, published exactly 50 years ago, with cover art by Robert V. Engel. In Who?, an American scientist traveling behind the Iron Curtain is badly injured, and Soviet doctors use cybernetic technology to save his life. But when he returns home, no one is sure if he can still be trusted or if the Soviets have brainwashed, modified, or even entirely replaced the man they knew. In its use of cybernetics, Who? prefigured The Six Million Dollar Man, but Budrys applied the concept to craft a political thriller with some interesting commentary on the Cold War mentality. The Cold War featured prominently in much of Budrys's writing, no doubt because it profoundly affected Budrys's life. Budrys was born in Lithuania and came to the United States in 1936 when his father was consul-general. His family was then exiled in America when the Soviet Union seized control of Lithuania.

Who? was made into a film starring Elliott Gould, originally called Who? but re-released under the absurd title Robo Man. This is one of two films based on Algis Budrys works; the other is To Kill a Clown, starring Alan Alda as a Vietnam vet who goes berserk. Both films are now rather obscure -- I couldn't find either at Netflix.

Who? was a nominee for the Hugo Award for Best Novel of 1958, reflecting Budrys's rapid emergence as one of the leading authors of the science fiction field. Budrys had only a few years earlier sold his first story, appearing in next week's Magazine of the Week.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Rendezvous by D. Alexander Smith

Continuing our tribute to artist John Berkey, the Book of the Week is Rendezvous by D. Alexander Smith, cover art by Berkey.

This is a first printing, paperback original published in 1988. It is not much of a collector's item, but I chose it for this week's BOTW because it is a typical example of John Berkey's renowned spaceship art, and because Rendezvous is an old favorite of mine. Rendezvous is the middle volume of the Marathon trilogy, but while the middle book is the weakest in many trilogies, here it is far and away the strongest book of the series. This is because the Marathon trilogy examines mankind's first contact with a strange alien species, and Rendezvous is the volume where the first contact actually occurs. Rendezvous was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award. Unfortunately, D. Alexander Smith has written little since the Marathon trilogy, including only one further novel (In the Cube), so the Marathon series has become unjustly neglected.

As for the cover art, John Berkey delighted in painting large gleaming spaceships, which were sometimes scientifically implausible (Do I see railings on that big ship? It is hardly ever a good idea to go check out the view from the balcony of your starship.) but always visually impressive.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: VALIS by Philip K. Dick

The Book of the Week is VALIS by Philip K. Dick. This is in tribute to the cover artist, John Berkey, who passed away recently at the age of 75.

Published in 1981, VALIS is a paperback original by Philip K. Dick, one of the few science fiction authors whose talents have been widely (albeit posthumously) acknowledged by academe and the mainstream review press. You will see many more Philip K. Dick books in future BOTW's. Printed only a year before his death, VALIS is representative of Dick's late work, which combines science fiction with a surreal and mystical examination of religion and metaphysics. The protagonist of VALIS, Horselover Fat, undergoes a series of bizarre visions and occurrences that Dick claimed to have actually experienced, prompting many readers to speculate to what degree Dick's later works were pharmaceutically enhanced.

John Berkey was among the leading science fiction illustrators for decades, painting countless pieces of cover art and developing artwork on films such as Star Wars and King Kong. Outside of SF, he is perhaps best known as the artist behind the "Old Elvis" postage stamp. The cover of VALIS is my personal favorite of the many John Berkey covers in my collection, but he was better known for his knack for painting large spaceships. Next week's BOTW will be an example of Berkey's spaceships, the cover art for an underappreciated first contact story.

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 Magazine of the Week :: Ten Story Fantasy, Spring 1951

Continuing our tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, the Magazine of the Week is the first and only issue of Ten Story Fantasy, published in the Spring of 1951. The artist who drew the absurd and misogynistic cover is uncredited.

Ten Story Fantasy is what we call a one-shot, a magazine that only lasted for a single issue. The magazine died quickly despite having an accomplished editor, Donald A. Wollheim, the creator of DAW books, which continues to publish to this day. What's more, unlike most one-shots, this issue actually contains an impressive list of contributing authors, including John Wyndham (writing under the pseudonym John Beynon, apparently in no hurry to claim credit for writing the cover story "Tyrant and Slave Girl on Planet Venus"), A.E. Van Vogt, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, C.M. Kornbluth, Lester Del Rey, and August Derleth.

But by far the magazine's greatest claim to fame is that it contains the very first appearance of the Arthur C. Clarke story "Sentinel of Eternity" (later renamed "The Sentinel"), which eventually became the basis for the film and novel 2001: A Space Odyssey. While 2001 is typical of the type of science fiction for which Arthur C. Clarke is best remembered, SF with big ideas and profound speculations on the destiny of mankind, he also had a lighter side. We will complete our Clarke tribute next week with his best humorous book.

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 Magazine of the Week :: Infinity Science Fiction November 1955

Continuing our tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, the Magazine of the Week is the very first issue of digest magazine Infinity Science Fiction, dated November 1955, cover art by Robert Engle. This magazine contains the first appearance of my personal favorite Arthur C. Clarke story, "The Star." It follows a Jesuit priest having a crisis of faith after studying the artifacts of an entire race of aliens wiped out when their sun went nova. "The Star" won Arthur C. Clarke the first of his three Hugo Awards (although he may have won more if the Hugos had been created a few years earlier).

Infinity, edited by Larry T. Shaw, was one of a bumper crop of digest science fiction magazines that appeared in the mid-1950's. This inaugural issue contains stories by some of the best writers of the day, including Robert Bloch, James Blish, and William Tenn. At the same time, publishers were beginning to print collections of short stories all by a single popular author. Next week's Book of the Week will be an early collection of Arthur C. Clarke short fiction, notable for the unusual orientation of the book's cover.