The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin
(trade paperback reprint from Perigee Books, 1980). Cover by Michael Mariano
I’m not a big fan of literary criticism in any field (although I have committed some), but one of my big books from my late teens onward was Le Guin’s The Language of the Night (1979), especially for the essays “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie” and “A Citizen of Mondath.”
Le Guin has some great passages in “Citizen” about what she liked to read as a kid, and how she liked it.
Cover for He Who Shapes by Wayne Barlowe Cover for The Infinity Box by Royo
He Who Shapes was originally serialized in Amazing Stories between January and February, 1965. It won the Nebula Award, tying with Brian W. Aldiss’s The Saliva Tree, which appeared as half of Tor Double #3. He Who Shapes is the first of three Zelazny stories to be published in the Tor Doubles series. Zelazny’s original title for the story was The Ides of Octember, which was changed before its initial publication. He eventually expanded the novella to the novel length The Dream Master and the original title was used on the story when it was reprinted in 2018 in the collection The Magic.
The story focuses on Charles Render, a neuroparticipant therapist, and drops the reader into a session, in which Render is creating a reality for his patient, in which the patient is Julius Caesar in a world in which the assassins kill Marcus Antonius while Caesar/the patient longs for martyrdom. Following the session, Zelazny introduces Render and his techniques to the reader in a manner which leaves no room to doubt that Render may be adept and the technical part of what he does. But his bedside manner leaves much to be desired.
The Warrior of Mars trilogy by Michael Moorcock: Warriors of Mars (DAW, January 1979), Blades of Mars (as by Edward P. Bradbury; Lancer, 1966), and Barbarians of Mars (DAW, March 1979). Covers by Richard Hescox, Gray Morrow, and Richard Hescox
Quite a few writers who went on to bigger names in other genres wrote some of their earliest books in Sword & Planet. Michael Moorcock was one of these. He’s mostly known for his Elricseries. Elric is a kind of anti-Conan. But in 1964, at around the age of 25, he wrote three Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiches set on Mars. In the introduction to a later release of these books he mentioned his early infatuation with ERB, and that after the publication of the first Elricbook he was asked by another publisher to do a fantasy series for them.
He offered several possible author names and titles, and the books were published in 1965 under the name Edward Powys Bradbury as Warriors of Mars, Blades of Mars, and Barbarians of Mars. Later they were republished as City of the Beast, Lord of the Spiders, and Masters of the Pit under his own name. The hero is an earthman named Michael Kane and the adventures are very ERBian.
Cover for Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by Ron Walotsky Cover for Souls by Dieter Rottermund
Houston, Houston, Do You Read? was originally published in Aurora: Beyond Equality, edited by Susan Janice Anderson and Vonda N. McIntyre and published by Fawcett Gold Medal in May, 1976. It won the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award. Houston, Houston, Do You Read? is the second of three Tiptree stories to be published in the Tor Doubles series, with only three female authors previously published in the series (four, if you include Joanna Russ in this volume), Tiptree is the first woman to have a second story included.
Major Norman “Dave” Davis, Captain Bernhard “Bud” Geirr, and “Doc” Orrin Lorimer are completing a year-long mission to orbit the sun in a spacecraft, the Sunbird. Upon nearing Earth, they are surprised, and annoyed, to hear women’s voices on the channels normally reserved for Mission Control in Houston. It becomes clear to the readers, if not the characters, that they have entered a Buck Rogers situation. Their orbit around the sun has resulted in their spaceship being catapulted into the far future.
The first six books in the Gor series, all from Ballantine Books: Tarnsman of Gor, Outlaw of Gor, Priest-Kings of Gor, and Nomads of Gor (all 1976), Assassin of Gor (1970), and Raiders of Gor (1976). Covers by Boris Vallejo (#1-4 and 6) and Gino D’Achille (#5)
The most controversial of the second generation of Sword & Planet authors was certainly John Norman, which is the pseudonym for author John Lange, a philosophy professor. The first book, Tarnsman of Gor, was published in 1966 and then generally one a year until a break after 1988. There are a total of 37 books at last count but I’ve only personally read up to #23 and don’t own the rest.
From this series, I first read book 2, Outlaw of Gor, which has the main character, Tarl Cabot, enslaved. He must lead a revolt to free himself and other prisoners. Strangely enough, given the later reputation of this series, I found this book in my small town library in Arkansas, in the Bible Belt. That should tell you that the early books in this series were pretty standard fantasy. I found the book quite well written and enjoyable, and began to seek out more. (It was quite a few years until I was able to mail order a copy of Book 1.)
Greyhawk Adventures: Saga of Old City (TSR, October 1985)
Greyhawk…
A cruel city.
A harsh, pitiless city for a young orphan boy with no money and no friends — but plenty of enemies!
Enter the Old City of Greyhawk, that marvelous place where dreams — and nightmares — come true. Travel through the world of Oerth along with Gord, the boy who becomes a man as he fights for his survival in a world of mysterious wizards, fearsome monsters, dour dwarves, and beautiful women. …
Galactic Empires, Volume One and Two (Orbit, October 1976). Covers by Karel Thole
My fellow Canadian James Nicoll continues to be one of my favorite SF bloggers, probably because he covers stuff I’m keenly interested in. Meaning exciting new authors, mixed with a reliable diet of vintage classics.
But my favorite of his recent reviews is his story-by-story breakdown of Brian W. Aldiss’s massive two-volume anthology Galactic Empires, which made me want to read the whole thing all over again.
Swordsmen in the Sky (Ace, 1964). Cover by Frank Frazetta
Swordsmen in the Sky, edited by Donald Wollheim
If our genre has a holy grail to find, this would be it. I read this collection as a kid. Found it in our local library. And loved every single story in there. Took me a while to find a copy as an adult but it’s one of my pride and joys.
The Hobbit first edition dust jacket (1937). Cover by JRR Tolkien
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
Chapter 1, An Unexpected Party – The Hobbit
Fifty years ago, when I first read this book, I didn’t imagine I’d still be reading it so many years later. Heck, I doubt I could have even imagined being as old as I am now. But I do reread it every few years. When I revisit The Hobbit, my journey is bathed in nostalgia as much as with the simple enjoyment caused by reading a charming book that I happen to know inside out, from the opening line above on through to the very end.
In my initial article on half a century of reading Tolkien back in January, I described my dad trying to get our first color tv in time to watch the Rankin & Bass The Hobbit. Remembering that again last week left me thinking more of my dad, now gone nearly 24 years, than the book. He was ten years younger than I am now when the movie first aired, which makes me feel incredibly old at the moment. For such a conservative man, he was excited to see it — admittedly, in a restrained way. I think we liked it well enough, but leaving out Beorn irked us both. Beyond Tolkien’s books, our fantasy tastes rarely coincided (I’ve got a shelf full of David Eddings books he bought, if anyone’s interested), but with The Hobbit and LOTR, we were in complete agreement.
What’s there to say about The Hobbit here on Black Gate? Nothing, really. I imagine most visitors here have read it, many more than once, and have their own ideas on it. It’s one of the most widely read books in the world. Instead, I’m going to discuss some adaptations of the book. But first, a summary.
Cover for The Ugly Little Boy by Alan Gutierrez Cover for The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff by Carol RussoThe ninth Tor Double collects novellas by Isaac Asimov and Theodore Sturgeon, the only entries by either author. The Asimov’s story is The Ugly Little Boy and Sturgeon offers the oddly titled The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff. This volume is the first to include two stories that did not win, or even receive a nomination, for any awards. Leigh Brackett’s story in the previous volume wound up winning the 2020 Retro Hugo Award.
Theodore Sturgeon’s The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff was originally published in F&SF in November, 1955. The strange title is entirely fitting for the strange story Sturgeon has to tell. Just as two of the words in the title are framed by brackets, the story has a science fictional device framing it, in the form of a report by two aliens visiting Earth. In their report, which partly looks at whether or not “Synapse Beta sub Sixteen” exists in humans (and whether the species can survive without it), but also serves as an indictment of one of aliens by the other, the aliens set words in brackets when there is no exact English equivalent for what they are attempting to say.
