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Category: Vintage Treasures

A Jumble Sale of Fascinating Ideas: The Science Fiction of Arthur C. Clarke

A Jumble Sale of Fascinating Ideas: The Science Fiction of Arthur C. Clarke

Across the Sea of Stars and From the Ocean, from the Stars,
two omnibus collections by Arthur C. Clarke (Harcourt, Brace & Co, 1959 and 1961)

I’ve just about finished trimming and sorting my SF collection. It’s a pretty eclectic assortment: some of these books have personal meaning for me, some strike me as interesting for their cover art or their connection to the history of the genre, some are just old friends I’ve carried around for decades. Most fall into the category of post-war English-language SF up to about 1980, though there are more recent titles among them. I have other and more current titles elsewhere in the house, but this is where my heart is. (Maybe you can’t love a genre quite so wholeheartedly once you start publishing in it.)

All of which prompted me to re-read some classic SF, since I probably can’t trust the opinions I formed when I encountered these books at the age of 14 or 15. Case in point: Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, as I originally discovered it: in the omnibus collection Across the Sea of Stars.

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Vintage Treasures: The Starhammer/Vang Trilogy by Christopher Rowley

Vintage Treasures: The Starhammer/Vang Trilogy by Christopher Rowley


Starhammer, The Vang: The Military Form and The Vang: The Battlemaster
(Del Rey, 1986 – 1990). Covers by David Schleinkofer and Stephen Hickman

I’m a huge fan of modern science fiction, and I find no shortage of new novels and and series to coo over here. But there are times when I miss the old-school SF of last century, rooted in the Cold War paranoia of the 50s and 60s. The Golden Age of invaders from space, all-consuming blobs, and gooey alien parasites that have their sights set on your lower G.I. tract.

In the late 80s Christopher Rowley, author of the popular Battle Dragons series from Roc, had a hit with his Vang novels, a space opera/alien parasite hybrid. Clearly inspired by the author’s love of Alien and pulp-era SF by A.E. Van Vogt, Jack Vance, Eric Frank Russell, and others, the trilogy — Starhammer, The Vang: The Military Form and The Vang: The Battlemaster — had the sweep of epic space opera crossed with the gritty realism of James Cameron’s Colonial Marines.

The story of The Vang begins when the asteroid miner Seed of Hope, illegally prospecting in a Forbidden Sector of the Saskatch system, finds a billion year-old vessel containing an alien horror, the last vestige of a race nearly annihilated in an ancient conflict that convulsed the galaxy. It’s an encounter that will plunge humanity into a desperate war of survival.

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Vintage Treasures: The Naphar Trilogy by Sharon Baker

Vintage Treasures: The Naphar Trilogy by Sharon Baker


Quarreling, They Met the Dragon, Journey to Membliar, and Burning Tears of Sassurum
(Avon, 1984, 1987, and 1988). Covers by Wayne Barlowe, Paul Lehr, and Ron Walotsky

Sharon Baker died in Seattle in June 1991, at the much-too-young age of 53. She began writing in her 40s, while she was busy raising four sons. In a Gale Contemporary Author interview in 1986 she said

I felt like a car appliance [and] to remind myself that I was not, I signed up for a weekly writing class… On good days, I no longer feel like an appendage of my station wagon or anything else. I feel like me. And I like it.

Her first novel was Quarreling, They Met the Dragon, published in 1984, and it drew immediate attention. In Trillion Year Spree, Brian Aldiss praised it as evidence of “An original mind at work on an ingenious world.” Gene Wolfe said “Sharon Baker is better than good… [she will be] one of the field’s most important author’s by the close of this decade,” and Publishers Weekly compared her to Samuel R, Delany.

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A Strange Song of Unknown Places: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft

A Strange Song of Unknown Places: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft

HPL’s original manuscript

Three times Randolph Carter dreamed of the marvelous city, and three times was he snatched away while still he paused on the high terrace above it. All golden and lovely it blazed in the sunset, with walls, temples, colonnades and arched bridges of veined marble, silver-basined fountains of prismatic spray in broad squares and perfumed gardens, and wide streets marching between delicate trees and blossom-laden urns and ivory statues in gleaming rows; while on steep northward slopes climbed tiers of red roofs and old peaked gables harbouring little lanes of grassy cobbles. It was a fever of the gods, a fanfare of supernal trumpets and a clash of immortal cymbals. Mystery hung about it as clouds about a fabulous unvisited mountain; and as Carter stood breathless and expectant on that balustraded parapet there swept up to him the poignancy and suspense of almost-vanished memory, the pain of lost things and the maddening need to place again what once had been an awesome and momentous place.

HP Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a man who seems to have never been fully comfortable in the world. His racism, most unpleasantly, but also, his old-fashioned affectations and his adamant refusal to bend his artistic desires to the least sort of commercial demands, all these, I believe, indicate a severe unease with the way the world was (he even turned down the editorship of Weird Tales because he refused to move to Chicago “on aesthetic grounds.”) The old America, peopled by the heirs of the original colonial families, had been washed away on a tide of industrialization and immigration. It was decadent and in decline and he would not be a part of it.

From his earliest days, Lovecraft was plagued by strange dreams and nightmares. Many of these would serve as the basis of stories later in life. A tragic family life — his father died in an asylum of late-stage syphilis and his family slowly slipped into poverty — and an innate nervous disposition probably had much to do with his attitudes. At the heart of the horror stories for which he’s most famous is the belief that mankind is insignificant and powerless in the face of a vast and uncaring Universe. While I don’t think he was mentally ill or anything, I do believe he longed for some intangible, more fantastic and better world.

Not finding one at hand, he created one in a series of related tales that culminated with The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath in 1927 (though it wouldn’t be published until 1943). Typically referred to as his Dream Cycle, Lovecraft was greatly influenced in writing these tales by Lord Dunsany‘s lush stories. The stories are filled with dense descriptive passages, surreal imagery, and the illogical logic of dreams.

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Thomas M. Disch: Love and Nonexistence

Thomas M. Disch: Love and Nonexistence


334 by Thomas M. Disch (Avon, October 1974). Cover artist unknown

In the last page of Thomas M. Disch’s novel 334, the family matriarch, Mrs. Hansen, has finished explaining why she should have the right to die. “I’ve made sense, haven’t I? I’ve been rational?” she asks her unseen auditor, a civil servant taking an application. “They’re all good reasons, every one of them. I checked them in your little book.” She has indeed given reasons why her life is no longer worth living, with disconcerting thoroughness, and makes clear that if her application is turned down, she will appeal. “I dream about it. And I think about it. And it’s what I want.”

What is remarkable about this scene is not the defense of suicide (which does not take place in the text — the book ends with Mrs. Hansen’s summation), but an articulated yearning for nonexistence. The three elements of this nexus — the voiced eloquence, the fiercely focused desire, and the prospect of nothingness — constitute three compass points of Disch’s art. There is a fourth, always present but harder to see, which we will come to in a moment. For now, let us consider these elements, vividly present throughout Disch’s fiction and widely remarked upon, but also widely misunderstood, especially in the SF genre, where he began his career and which he never fully left.

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Vintage Treasures: New Arrivals, Old Encounters by Brian Aldiss

Vintage Treasures: New Arrivals, Old Encounters by Brian Aldiss


New Arrivals, Old Encounters (Triad/Granada, August 1983). Cover by Tim White

New Arrivals, Old Encounters was Brian Aldiss’s 17th collection, an incredible accomplishment no matter how you slice it. It contains ten stories published between 1966-78, plus two originals.

The book is crammed full of classic Aldiss, including spacefarers who return after a century to find a radically transformed Earth, a society that worships computers, the Tahiti underworld, dream research, the future of human evolution, and missionary clones on a distant planet. There’s adventure, thoughtful speculation, dark comedy, and bleak satire all wrapped up in a tight package, as only Aldiss could do it.

Thomas M. Wagner wrote a detailed (and highly enthusiastic) review 25 years ago for SF Reviews; discussing each of the tales. Here’s the highlights.

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Haunted Trains and the Rock-and-Roll Afterlife: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series X, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

Haunted Trains and the Rock-and-Roll Afterlife: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series X, edited by Karl Edward Wagner


The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series X (DAW, August 1982). Cover by Michael Whelan

The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series X was the tenth volume in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories, copyrighted and printed in 1982. A whole decade for this anthology thus far! This was the third volume edited by horror author and editor Karl Edward Wagner (1945–1994). Michael Whelan’s (1950–) artwork appears for an eighth time in a row on the cover. This is one of his eeriest and best yet. The same cover would later appear on the 1989 omnibus Horrorstory: Volume Five, a collection of volumes XIII-XV of this series from Underwood Miller.

Of the eighteen different authors in The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series X, all but two were male, with one story cowritten by a male/female team. (G. W. Perriwils is the pen name for Georgette Perry & William J. Wilson.) Eleven were American, the other seven were British. Of the fifteen stories included seven were from professional magazines, four from books, three from fanzines or booklets, and one was original to this anthology, though was to appear shortly afterward in another periodical.

I enjoyed the first volumes in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories edited by Richard Davis (Series I–III) and Gerald Page (Series IV–VII). I would not say that these editors were “stale,” but Wagner does seem to bring a fresher vitality. I think this is due primarily to his introductions, which operate more as “state of horror field” yearly addresses, and his short bios before each story. I’m sure all good editors put forth their best efforts, but Wagner’s passion, I think, really shows itself in these volumes.

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Alexei Panshin, August 14, 1940 — August 21, 2022

Alexei Panshin, August 14, 1940 — August 21, 2022


The Anthony Villiers by Alexei Panshin: Star Well, The Thurb Revolution,
and Masque World (Ace Books, 1968-1969). Covers by Kelly Freas

Alexei Panshin has died. He was one of the first SF critics I read — I read both Heinlein in Dimension and SF in Dimension as a teen. At the time I took his words as Gospel — in times since I have learned to question a lot of what he said, but what he said was well considered and an advance in understanding science fiction.

He was also a novelist of considerable ability. I don’t like his Nebula winner Rite of Passage as much as many, in part for the petty reason that I felt its Nebula undeserved in the presence of novels like the Hugo winner Stand on Zanzibar, Joanna Russ’ Picnic on Paradise, and above all one of my favorite novels ever, Samuel R. Delany’s Nova. But as I said that’s petty — Rite of Passage is an accomplished and enjoyable novel, a triumph as a first novel; and if I would argue with it that’s OK — I think it was arguing with itself (something I failed to perceive when reading it as a young teen.)

But for me his prime achievement is the three novels about Anthony Villiers: Star Well, The Thurb Revolution, and Masque World. These are not perhaps deathless fictional masterpieces, but they are supremely entertaining.

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Random Reviews: “Twelve-Steppe Program,” by Esther Friesner

Random Reviews: “Twelve-Steppe Program,” by Esther Friesner

Cover by Tristan Elwell
Cover by Tristan Elwell

Last week’s story, “The Birth of A.I.” was a humorous short story which led up to a single punchline. This week’s story, Esther Friesner’s “Twelve-Steppe Program” is a longer humorous short story that rather than serve as the delivery system for a joke, focuses on the situations Friesner establishes to find its humor rather than punchlines.

The eunuch Nir Mung-Mung has been ordered to travel to the Garikkh horde to retrieve Princess Anuk’ti so she can become the bride of Prince Floats-like-dandelion-fluff-upon-the-scented-waters. Unfortunately for Nir Mung-Mung, he is entirely aware of the political machinations of the Chief Eunuch who is less interested in establishing a marriage between Prince Fluffy and Princess Anuk’ti and more concerned with holding onto his role as Chief Eunuch and making sure that any of his rivals, of whom he includes Nir Mung-Mung, are removed from contention to replace him.

For her part, Princess Anuk’ti is not the demure bride that Nir Mung-Mung was expecting to escort. Among her first interactions with him was an attempt to seduce him, not recognizing that he was a eunuch. In any event, Anuk’ti has her own agenda and once Nir Mung-Mung and Anuk’ti begin listening to each other, they come up with the beginnings of a plan to ensure both of their survivals in a court that is designed to be inhospitable to them.

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Vintage Treasures: Tales from the Spaceport Bar edited by George H. Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer

Vintage Treasures: Tales from the Spaceport Bar edited by George H. Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer


Tales from the Spaceport Bar and Another Round at the Spaceport Bar
(Avon Books, 1987 and 1989). Covers by James Warhola and Doug Beekman

Science fiction has a rep for being serious stuff. Tales of dystopias, climate catastrophes and environmental collapse, dire warnings about worrying trends, that’s SF in a nutshell. Even dressed up in its best story-telling adventure garb, Star Wars or Mad Max-style, it’s still often perceived as all about desperate battles in apocalyptic settings.

Of course, science fiction is much broader and richer than that, and most of its best writers have amply demonstrated their love of whimsy and fun. One of SF’s best-loved sub-genres is the Club Tale/Bar Story, exemplified by Arthur C. Clarke’s famous Tales From the White Hart, L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt’s long-running Gavagan’s Bar stories, Lord Dunsany’s Jorkens tales, Isaac Asimov’s Black Widowers mysteries, Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s Bar, Larry Niven’s spacefaring tales of Draco Tavern, and many others.

In the late 80s Weird Tales editors George H. Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer assembled a collection of the best such stories, Tales from the Spaceport Bar. It made the Locus Award list of Year’s Best Anthologies (in 11th place), and was quickly followed by Another Round at the Spaceport Bar. Both books are a fine antidote to anyone who’s dabbled just a little too long on the dark side of science fiction.

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