Black Gate

Citizen in Space (Ace Books, December 1978). Cover by Dean Ellis

Robert Sheckley isn’t discussed much these days. But he had a towering reputation as an SF short story writer in the mid-20th Century. He sold his first story in 1951, and quickly became one of H.L. Gold’s stable of writers at Galaxy, one of the leading science fiction magazines of the 1950s.

Sheckley was a very prolific writer of satirical SF, and he produced hundreds of short stories in his career. His first collection, Untouched by Human Hands, was published by Ballantine in 1954, followed by Citizen in Space (Ballantine, 1955), Pilgrimage to Earth (Bantam, 1957) and two in 1960: Notions: Unlimited and Store of Infinity, both from Bantam.

Many of Sheckley’s best collections were reprinted in the late 70s by Ace books, which is when I discovered them. They made very entertaining reading then, and they still do today.

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Strange Ports of Call (Berkley Books, June 1958). Cover artist tragically unknown

August Derleth is remembered these days primarily for his stewardship of the works of H.P. Lovecraft. He founded Arkham House (with Donald Wandrei) in 1939 to bring Lovecraft into print in hardcover, and over the next 30 years he contributed steadily to Lovecraft’s foundational Cthulhu Mythos, both in his own writing, and by publishing numerous books in the cycle from other horror notables. He was also (as Bob Byne is constantly reminding me) the creator of the popular Sherlock Holmes pastiche Solar Pons, and the author of a great deal of historical fiction, including the Sac Prairie Saga.

But for me, Derleth’s greatest contributions were as an editor. He assembled some 30 horror and science fiction anthologies, including Sleep No More (1944), The Other Side of the Moon (1949), Far Boundaries (1951), The Outer Reaches (1951), Beachheads in Space (1952), Night’s Yawning Peal (1952), and many more. Many of them are highly collectible and hard for the casual collector to get their hands on — but the paperback reprints, by Berkley Books, Sphere, Signet, Four Square Books, and many others, are much easier to come by.

In the late 50s Berkley Books reprinted seven of Derleth’s early SF anthologies in handsome paperback editions including his first, Strange Ports of Call. These books helped introduce thousands of American readers who didn’t read magazines to science fiction for the first time. Here’s a look at all seven.

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Dreamships (Tor paperback reprint, July 1993). Cover by Tony Roberts

Melissa Scott burst onto the scene with The Game Beyond in 1984 (a nominee for the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel), and followed that quickly with the first two novels in the Silence Leigh trilogy (Five-Twelfths of Heaven and Silence in Solitude, featuring the first polyamorous triad I can remember encountering in SF) and A Choice of Destinies. In 1986 she capped off that impressive run by winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (now known as The Astounding Award, so it’s no longer associated with a racist loon.)

But Scott didn’t really grab my attention until her 1992 novel Dreamships, her hardcover debut and a thoughtful examination of FTL and A.I. in a far-future setting. She followed it with a single sequel Dreaming Metal five years later; that one made the long list for the Locus Award for Best Novel. Dreamships is set in a universe in which the FTL drive that rockets travelers across impossible distances relies on a dreamspace navigated using a virtual reality landscape created by the pilot. Scientists in this future are on the brink of achieving true artificial intelligence, and these two advances drive the plot.
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