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When Writing “An Appearance of Life” How Many SF Concepts Did Brian Aldiss Consider?

I’ve written about “An Appearance of Life” twice before. See “‘An Appearance of Life’ by Brian W. Aldiss” and “Who Were the Korlevalulaw?” I’ve read this story four times before, and for this fifth reading I’m looking deeper into what Aldiss was hoping to communicate. I don’t think we get everything with one reading of a story, or even two or three. This essay is about the value of rereading.

You can read “An Appearance of Life” at Archive.org if you have a free account.

For this reading I wanted to observe as many science-fictional concepts Aldiss was presenting in the story as I could spot. I’m doing this for several reasons. First, I want to show how science fiction builds on past science fiction. Second, I want to show how a reader’s previous reading experience can add to the current reading experience. Third, I want to show just how many new situations a science fiction writer must imagine building a new story. Fourth, I want to see if there are things I missed from earlier readings.

  1. Lost ancient alien civilization. I first encountered this theme with After Worlds Collide, but it also made famous with the film The Forbidden Planet. One of my favorite SF themes. The first part of “An Appearance of Life” uses this old theme and Aldiss calls that lost alien civilization the Korlevalulaw.
  2. On the planet Norma, less than a thousand light-years from Earth, a giant museum is being created to house artifacts from countless alien and human civilizations. The planet was once part of the Korlevalulaw galactic civilization. The museum is put inside a giant building that circles the entire planet, dividing it from land area to the north, and ammonia ocean to the south. This idea is new to me, so I’ll credit it to Aldiss’ imagination. However, megastructures are common in science fiction. This one reminds me of a smaller version of Ringworld.
  3. Aliens as demons. Little is known of the Korlevalulaw. Sometimes they are pictured as demons. That reminded me of Childhood’s End. But I’ve read several SF stories over the years that suggested ancient demons were aliens.
  4. Aliens as gods. Sometimes the Korlevalulaw are pictured as gods. This reminds me of Lovecraft’s ancient elder gods, and other SF stories, as well as Chariots of the Gods.
  5. Aliens in SF come from our deepest subconscious thoughts. And like God and gods, we expect them to return, to judge and punish us.
  6. Ultimate evolution. We imagine all the reasons why the Korlevalulaw disappeared. They gave up written language and evolved beyond physical bodies into pure mind, they left this universe, they committed species suicide. All these speculations are common in science fiction stories.
  7. The narrator, called The Seeker, comes from a planet where people seldom see each other, except for when they meet to breed. This reminds me of The Naked Sun.
  8. The Seeker stands next to his spaceship looking up at the giant museum building lying under a purple sun. Such immense vistas are often shown in SF paintings.
  9. An android greets the Seeker. Androids work tirelessly building the museum’s collections. Twenty human women supervise them. The androids provide the Seeker with a vehicle to ride inside the museum. The giant building is made of a single piece of imperviable metal, forming a 16,000-kilometer band around the planet. Such indestructible alloy and super-science architecture is common in SF stories. I’m especially reminded me of The Day the Earth Stood Still.
  10. The building feels immense on the inside, and it’s mostly empty though the humans have been piling up exhibits for ten centuries. The Seeker feels a sense of infinity inside the building. SF writers in the 1930s and 1940s liked to imagine giant awe-inspiring scenes. Even though this story was published in 1976, after Aldiss had gone through his New Wave period, it harkens back to the 1930s and Thrilling Wonder Stories. In some ways he’s following in the footsteps of Stanley Weinbaum.
  11. The Korlevalulaw building gives the Seeker a sense of infinity, causing him to feel insignificant and “clausagoraphobia.” Interesting made-up word by Aldiss.
  12. The Seeker has specialized training in concepts we don’t understand, but it gives him the power to see connections that others don’t. Humanity has created countless subdivisions in every discipline, and the Seeker can envision relationships across boundary lines. Heinlein often created generalists in the age of specialists.
  13. The Seeker came to the museum with several research assignments from institutions, universities, and individuals. For example, one assignment was to study whether the human voice was getting quieter over the centuries.
  14. The Seeker spends days studying the museum, living out of his car. At one point, he talks to a female android who is setting up an exhibit of extinct micro-organisms. I wonder why the android is female. Are there male androids. And why are the supervisors human females? Does Aldiss picture this place like many old science fiction movies from the 1950s where human males discover societies run by females. Does Aldiss visualize his scenes or expect his readers to visualize them? Is the Seeker male? Is Aldiss suggesting all posthumans are female?
  15. The Seeker contemplates the umwelt of androids. He assumes their sense of reality is much larger than ours. He also assumes their activities make them happy. This is the first time I can remember a SF writer considering the umwelt of anything.
  16. On the fifth day the Seeker studies ships and experiences nosthedony. This is a word Aldiss coined to mean “the pleasure of studying old objects.” See this blog post.
  17. The Seeker talks about the First Galactic Era, where men and their wives explored the galaxy in primitive machines. The Seeker notes this was also the time that human pair-bonding broke down and humanity began to mature.
  18. While exploring a five-person spaceship where all the occupants had died of a malfunction of the oxygen producing system, he finds a small gold band with a crude inscription. He wonders if it was a contraceptive device. Of course, we assume it’s a wedding band.
  19. The Seeker asks an eye about the ring. The eye appears to be something like security camera/Alexa/AI able to answer questions about things in the museum. He is told the band is a wedding ring, and what wedding rituals were.
  20. The story shifts from the Korlevalulaw to ancient humans. We assume the Seeker is a posthuman. This is a neat trick. I’ve always loved reading science fiction about extinct alien civilizations, and now I’m reading about extinct humans.
  21. The Seeker thinks of the ring as a form of communication. It signals a relationship status. He also wonders if the pair bonding broke when the occupants of the ship died.
  22. The Seeker finds a photograph of a couple, we assume connected to the ring. The Seeker notes the photograph is flat, suggesting they have higher tech photographs. He also notes their appearance wasn’t bad looking, as if ancient humans looked different from posthumans. This reminds me of “The Time Machine.” Was Wells the first writer to deal with posthumans?
  23. The Seeker remembers being told by another Seeker, a woman, that the secret of the universe might be locked away in the museum. Our Seeker told the woman Seeker the secret would be more likely found after the museum is complete. She argues that it would be better to find it now, when there is less to look through. He argues back the idea that there is a secret to the universe is a human construct. She replied, human or from the mind that created humans. I don’t remember contemplating this short bit of conversation before. Humans do believe that there is a secret to the universe, and some humans believe it comes from God. It’s interesting that Aldiss suggests that posthumans will no longer believe in such secrets. It’s also interesting to think posthumans will be two degrees from God or the concept of God.
  24. On the sixth day the Seeker explores the ships of the Second Galactic Era. They are up to five kilometers long. Reading the words “on the sixth day” reminds me of The Book of Genesis. I wonder if Aldiss intended that.
  25. The Seeker talks about how in the Second Era humans tried and failed to create galactic civilizations but failed because distance and relativity wouldn’t allow it. He said it was then that humans became comfortable being who they were. It was a time when the species put away its childish things. Aldiss is very philosophical and speculative here. He’s also taking a swipe at science fiction, but it infers a lot of cherish science fictional fantasies are childish.
  26. The Seeker surveys shelves of possessions these people had. He noted that during the childish period humans were overwhelmed by possessions. The Seeker thinks: “These long-dead people had seemingly thought of little else but possession in one form or another; yet, like androids in similar circumstances, they could not have recognized the limitations of their own umwelt.” This is fascinating. I did not notice this in my earlier readings. Last year I read An Immense World by Ed Yong, and it was all about the umwelt in people and animals. That book made me think a lot about the concept of umwelt, which I had heard of before, but never studied. It’s fascinating that Aldiss was focused on the concept back in 1976.
  27. The Seeker finds a cube with a button. When pressed, the cube says, “You are not my husband, Chris Mailer. I talk only to my husband. Switch off and set me right way up.” The Seeker tells the cube her husband died 65,000 years ago.
  28. The Seeker asks the museum about the cube and is told it is a “holocap.” That a copy of the woman’s brain has been embedded into the cube. Downloading brains has become quite a common theme in science fiction over the last several decades. It’s been around at least since the Professor Jameson stories from the 1930s.
  29. The Seeker is told the cube was taken from a small armed scout ship orbiting the planet Scundra. It had been to the planet and was returning to its mother ship when it blew up. Scundran extremists had planted a bomb on it. In retaliation, the planet was sterilized by a virus from the mother ship. The virus got loose on the mother ship, and everyone died. The planet, scout ship, and mother ship had been ignored for centuries. The cube had come from the scout ship.
  30. The museum gives him a history of the planet. At one time the Soviet India had settled it, but there had been a war. The planet was currently unhabituated and was an automated farming planet.
  31. The Seeker contemplates the destruction of Scundra and eventually wonders if something similar could have happened to the Korlevalulaw. That Scundra had died over fighting for possessions.
  32. The Seeker also wonders about the relationship between the organic and the inorganic of the universe.
  33. The androids are unpacking objects taken from Scundra and the Seeker unwraps one from the apartment of a married couple, Jean, and Lan Gopal. It was another holocap, but a much more sophisticated one. It lit up when the Seeker accidentally pressed a small button. It gave the impression of a man’s head. It said, “This holocap is intended only for my ex-wife, Jean Gopal. I have no business with you. Switch off and be good enough to return me to Jean. This is Chris Mailer.” This holocap projected the appearance of Chris Mailer.
  34. The Seeker contemplated the coincidence. Noted that Jean had been young, and Chris much older. He decides to reunite them. Jean’s cube had been found on the planet and Chris’s cube was found on the scout ship. They had been on opposing sides of a war.
  35. After 650 centuries he put the two cubes together on a shelf about a meter apart. Aldiss dismissed the unbelievable coincidence because the androids were unpacking crates from the same locations.
  36. We are told of the conversation. We’re also told the Seeker did not understand the dynamics of the relationship because they are primitive beings. Jean’s cube was older, and her holographic head wasn’t as well defined as Chris’s holographic image. But Jean appeared younger. She apologized for breaking up the marriage but claimed to have been young and foolish.
  37. For Jean, it’s been 12 years. Chris talks about regret and Jean’s affair with Gopal. Chris speaks of receiving her holocap fifteen years ago. So, it’s been at least twenty-seven years since they broke up. Jean appears to want to get back together. Chris hopes that Gopal made her forget him. Chris admits they are enemies in the conflict. Then we learn that Jean sent her holocap from Earth. Evidently, in the subsequent years she and Gopal moved to Scundra.
  38. Eventually, the Seeker comprehends the two holocaps were not conversing, but merely repeating their messages. Jean’s message had been recorded before the divorce, while Chris’s message was recorded long afterwards. Chris had been traveling with Jean’s holocap for years. He had joined space mercenaries after the divorce.
  39. The Seeker saw that they could not get beyond their limited roles in life. And understanding those roles might be beyond him. And understanding the Korlevalulaw might be the same too.
  40. This revelation makes the Seeker say he had found the secret of the universe. That humans were just a projection of the Korlevalulaw, without free will. That humans are like the two holocaps. They really can’t communicate with each other, only say what they’ve been programmed to say. This was a powerful insight for Aldiss, but not for me. I still not sure I “got” the story as he intended.
  41. The Seeker starts doubting this insight. Then Aldiss says something absolutely true. We contain an umwelt but not a universe. This is an interesting distinction about our senses. We don’t look out onto reality, but instead model reality inside our head with limited sensory input. Basically, our sense of reality is biological VR. Is that what Aldiss was getting at in 1976?
  42. In the end, the Seeker leaves Norma but does not go home. He finds a planet without people to exile himself. He’s afraid his insight is a virus that could infect all of humanity and destroy it. It’s damn strange that I’m ending on #42, after the Seeker has found the meaning of the universe. Did the Seeker leave humanity on the seventh day?

“An Appearance of Life” is one of my all-time favorite science fiction stories. However, you probably won’t be able to find a copy. It’s rarely been reprinted. I considered violating copyright law and making a pdf for you all, but I’m afraid the estate of Brain W. Aldiss would sue me.

I hope I have shown that this story requires a deep experience of science fiction to appreciate. I also hope I have convinced you of the value of rereading. If you’ve only read “An Appearance of Life” once, did you get all of this?

James Wallace Harris, 10/13/23

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Could I Write a Science Fiction Story at 72?

In my teens, twenties, and thirties I desperately wanted to be a science fiction writer. At least I thought I did until I got married and got a job I liked. I still took creative writing classes and even attended Clarion West in 2002 when I was fifty-one. However, I never could stick with writing until I had a polished story. I’m just too lazy. Writing science fiction has always been more of a fantasy than a reality. I turn seventy-two next month, and I wonder if I’m too old to even dream that old dream. Why hasn’t it just faded away? (I wish it had — I could use the peace of mind.)

In recent years, I’ve often wondered if I could make myself write one story worthy of an editor’s acceptance? I have ideas, lots of ideas. Lots of finished but unpolished stories. I don’t know if I have any talent, but I do know I lack focus and perseverance to stick with writing a story until it’s worth submitting. But let’s imagine if I could muster up some discipline, what would I write about?

I no longer like science fiction the way I liked it when I was younger. For the most part, I don’t even like reading modern science fiction. And I’m not talking about plot ideas or prose styles. I always assumed I could never completely finish any of my stories because I didn’t like them enough.

It looks like I have two desires: one to write a story I love, and second to write a story an editor will buy. But that’s wrong too. Maybe I shouldn’t be thinking about editors and instead just try to please myself.

Putting it that way, I can see why I’ve always given up. I love very few stories. Writing something I loved will take a huge effort, maybe even an impossible one. Is this an ego problem I’m having, or am I just chicken about rejection? Probably all writers who got published just wrote stories until they found an audience and didn’t worry about who would like them. I should do that too, but I don’t know if I can. Knowing that advice is not enough to inspire me to keep working.

I’ve read many books advising would-be writers. They all say to not wait for inspiration, but just develop the discipline to write daily. This probably explains my failure. I don’t like writing fiction, it’s demanding work. The people I know that became successful fiction writers started writing stories early in life and always kept at it. They couldn’t stop writing. Evidently, wanting to do something is much different from doing something.

I’ve tried to forget this desire to write fiction for most of my life. It won’t go away. It just keeps gnawing at me. I knew one woman who had a science fiction story published and then never tried again. I wonder if that would free me too.

When I was young, I wanted to be a successful writer to make money, so I wouldn’t need to work a 9 to 5 job. But I’m retired now, and money and jobs aren’t an issue. At 72, I’d be writing just to write. I do write by blogging. Evidently, there’s something special about fiction that blogging doesn’t satisfy.

Is it an urge to create? To leave something behind? I’ve always been fascinated by those writers I find on ISFDB.org that have just a few stories listed. A fitting example is “The Short Life” by Francis Donovan which I wrote about last time. Donovan has one published story. Did he encapsulate everything he wanted to say about reality with that one fictional statement? That might come closest to explaining my urge to write a science fiction story. I want to say something that will be remembered.

Of course, having a science fiction story published isn’t like writing hieroglyphics on a pyramid. Still, I think I’ve dug up a clue about my life-long hankering to crank out a science fiction story. And it might also explain why I’d need to love it. Who wants to write a crappy epitaph for themselves?

I wish I could write something like “The Star Pit” by Samuel R. Delany. Or “An Appearance of Life” by Brian W. Aldiss. Or “Vintage Season” by C. L. Moore. Or even something short, like “The Light of Other Days” by Bob Shaw. Those would all be epitaph-worthy stories.

[Thank you for being my psychiatrist or priest and listening to my confessions.]

James Wallace Harris

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“Vintage Season” by C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner

I’ve always wanted to visit the future — but what if the future visited me? “Vintage Season” by Lawrence O’Donnell (C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner) is about people from the future visiting the present. We don’t know when and where this story takes place, but we identify with it as now. The sense of wonder “Vintage Season” generates comes from imagining visitors from the future and why they would hang with us.

Science fiction’s foundation is built on four pillars: space travel, time travel, aliens, and robots. Two stories get closest to the heart of time travel. The first is, “The Time Machine,” by H. G. Wells. The second is “Vintage Season.” I’m not sure any other time travel story even comes close.

There is a mystery about “Vintage Season” — who wrote it — Moore or Kuttner or both. Does it really matter? Can’t we consider the couple one creative god and let it go at that? I have read accounts of how Catherine and Henry would leave a story in a typewriter and either one of them would stop and work on it. I’m not sure if I believe that myth, or at least how it stands.

In writing classes, they talk about two kinds of writers: pantsers and plotters. Pantsers write by the seat of their pants just letting stories unfold and go where they want. Plotters are writers who outline before they start writing. “Vintage Season” was written by a plotter. It’s a three-dimensional puzzle that depends on every piece fitting together perfectly, and it does. Leaving a story in a typewriter for whomever to finish is a pantser technique. Generally, when I read Kuttner stories they feel like a pantser story. When I read a Moore story, they feel like a plotter story. It reminds me of Moore’s “No Woman Born” and maybe “Greater Than Gods”

“Vintage Season” is story #51 of 52 from The World Treasury of Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell (1989), an anthology my short story club is group reading. Stories are discussed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. “Vintage Season” was first published in Astounding Science-Fiction (September 1946).

“Vintage Season” is an outstanding story. To me, it’s the absolute best science fiction story from the Golden Age of Astounding Science-Fiction in the 1940s. I’ve read it many times over many decades. I also consider “Vintage Season” one of the best science fiction stories ever written.

I love listening to the narration of it from the audiobook edition of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, v. 2a. In fact, I feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t listened to that audio edition of “Vintage Season” — it was pitch perfect. As I listened to it, I marveled at how “Vintage Season” was so damn well-written.

One of the hardest things to write in science fiction is what readers can’t know — what the future is like, how an alien thinks, or how an artificial mind will relate to us. Science fiction writers must make those things up. This is why I believe Moore and Kuttner were so successful in “Vintage Season.” Start reading with “Oliver was searching” and read until “The music broke off.” Oliver goes into Kleph’s room where she’s playing a work of art composed by a fellow time traveler. We need to remember this was written in 1946 and most people did not know about most science fiction concepts. Moore, and I believe she wrote most of “Vintage Season,” especially the parts about people’s emotions. Think of this passage as someone trying to describe an LSD trip, and how hard it would be to put it into words. Moore does a fantastic job.

Few science fiction writers attempt anything like this. Everything in the story led to Oliver being able to experience that moment. It’s also key to the ending. Everything in the story is built to support every other part. We need Oliver’s experience with the euphoria tea. We need the tension over Sue wanting Oliver to sell the house. We need all the clues Oliver is picking up. We need Oliver to be attracted to Kleph. Every bit of this story leads up to the ending.

And if Kuttner wrote the last story I reviewed, “The Proud Robot” by himself, it shows nothing of that kind of writing. Kuttner wrote a series of scenes, each one a little battle of wits. He keeps giving us scenes with conflicts and solving them. Eventually, he wraps things up. He tells us Gallegher invented Joe the robot as a can opener. It fits with the other scenes, but the other scenes don’t require that ending. And almost any scene could be removed, and the story would still work. That’s how pantser plotting works.

I wish I had the time and psychic energy to mind map “Vintage Season” and show how tightly connected every element of the story is with the other elements. But such an effort could take days. Just read the story.

I wish I had the time and psychic energy to be more of a literary scholar. I could spend weeks analyzing “Vintage Season.” Instead, I write these essays over a couple of hours hoping to say just enough to get people to read the story. I write these essays to focus my mind and organize my thoughts about a story. If I didn’t exercise my mind this way, I think it would deteriorate.

When I listened to “Vintage Season” this time the reading experience was something significant. I wish I could put that into words. Reading science fiction has been an essential part of my life, but not all science fiction reading is essential. Most of it is a waste of time. “Vintage Season” is not. Understanding why would tell me something. Maybe I’ll write about that someday.

James Wallace Harris, 8/31/23

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1955: Amazing Stories

For our Best of 1955 group read I thought I’d look over some of the less successful science fiction magazines published that year. I started with Amazing Stories. Howard Browne had been editing the magazine since 1950 but would leave in 1956 to move to Hollywood to become a moderately successful TV scriptwriter (Maverick, Cheyenne, Bourbon Street Beat, 77 Sunset Strip, Mission Impossible, Mannix, The Rockford Files). Browne helped Amazing Stories transition away from the pulp format and its obsession with the Shaver Mystery. He began 1955 with this editorial:

In the following issue Browne promised further improvements which included a book review column and a fanzine review column. Throughout 1955 the letter column kept growing, and it was apparent that Amazing Stories had its faithful fans. To help members of my reading group get a sense of the magazine, I made a .pdf file that had the covers, table of contents, book reviews, fanzine reviews, and some letters of comments from the seven issues of Amazing Stories from 1955. Get the file: 1955: Amazing Stories Overview. If you want, you can read the seven 1955 issues at the Internet Archive.

Despite Amazing Stories being the first magazine devoted to publishing exclusively science fiction, and its fame in science fiction history, damn few stories have been reprinted from its pages. In its early years, Amazing mostly published classic reprints by Wells, Verne, and others. Just look at the table of contents from two anthologies devoted to collecting the best of its stories:

Amazing Stories: 60 Years of the Best Science Fiction (1985) edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg.

  • The Revolt of the Pedestrians • (1928) • novelette by David H. Keller, M.D.
  • The Gostak and the Doshes • (1930) • short story by Miles J. Breuer, M.D.
  • Pilgrimage • (1939) • novelette by Nelson S. Bond
  • I, Robot • (1939) • by Eando Binder
  • The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton • (1939) • short story by Robert Bloch
  • The Perfect Woman • (1953) • short story by Robert Sheckley
  • Memento Homo • (1954) • short story by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
  • What Is This Thing Called Love? • (1961) • short story by Isaac Asimov
  • Requiem • (1962) • short story by Edmond Hamilton
  • Hang Head, Vandal! • (1962) • short story by Mark Clifton
  • Drunkboat • (1963) • novelette by Cordwainer Smith
  • The Days of Perky Pat • (1963) • novelette by Philip K. Dick
  • Semley’s Necklace • (1964) • short story by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Calling Dr. Clockwork • (1965) • short story by Ron Goulart
  • There’s No Vinism Like Chauvinism • novelette by John Jakes
  • The Oögenesis of Bird City • (1970) • short story by Philip José Farmer?
  • The Man Who Walked Home • (1972) • short story by James Tiptree, Jr.
  • Manikins • (1976) • short story by John Varley
  • In the Islands • (1983) • short story by Pat Murphy

The Best from Amazing Stories (1973) edited by Ted White

  • No Charge for Alterations • (1953) • novelette by H. L. Gold
  • The Augmented Agent • (1961) • novelette by Jack Vance
  • The Misfit • (1963) • short story by Roger Zelazny
  • The Dowry of Angyar • (1964) • short story by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Placement Test • (1964) • novelette by Keith Laumer
  • The Horn of Time the Hunter • (1963) • short story by Poul Anderson
  • Phoenix • (1963) • short story by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Ted White
  • Rogue Psi • (1962) • novelette by James H. Schmitz

Not exactly classics, are they? And most of the stories by well-known authors were early works. So, I wasn’t expecting much when I went looking through the issues that came out in 1955. I found that most of the stories have never been reprinted since their publication in Amazing in 1955. And those few that were reprinted were reprinted in Amazing or other cheap reprint magazines.

I’ve always wondered why stories from Astounding/Analog, F&SF, and Galaxy have dominated the table of contents of anthologies published before 1970. Still, since my reading group will be discussing the best science fiction short stories from 1955, I thought I’d give Amazing Stories a look over. The first story of 1955 was:

I read “. . . now you don’t” by James Leland, to get the feel for things. You can read it online. This story is Leland’s only entry in ISFDB.org, and it gives no biographical data, so I don’t know how old he was. In 1955, most of the stories in Amazing were written by just a few writers, with several of them also packing the issues with pseudonyms. I’m guessing Leland was made up name. Since many of the stories have a New York City connection, and written by a small group of writers, I’m assuming they all knew each other and the editor. They appear to be young, smart, and precocious, but not very experienced or sophisticated. Maybe a little street wise, or trying to pass that off.

The writing for “. . . now you don’t” is not good, but it is readable, and even fun. I’d call it good bad writing. Leland has obviously seen the Frank Capra film, You Can’t Take It with You, and builds the setting and mood of “. . . now you don’t” around it. To add science fiction, he took H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man and spiced it up with some Thorne Smith naughtiness. The story is just a tiny bit risqué, throwing in a few bits of innuendo. Leland tries to sound well-read by throwing in references to novels people read in college, but the story really reflects being well-read in pulp fiction.

I get the impression from looking through the stories that these guys were mostly would-be writers and used Amazing Stories as a practicum. Quite a few famous writers got their start with Amazing, but quickly moved on. There were no famous names in the 1955 issues, but there were in the 1954 and 1956 issues — such as Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert.

The writer I was most interested in was Paul W. Fairman, who would become the editor of Amazing and Fantastic after Browne left in 1956. He was also the first editor of If. Fairman sometimes used the house name Ivar Jorgensen, which other writers also used. Using the Jorgensen name, Fairman published “Deadly City” in the March 1953 issue of If. That was one of my favorite stories from 1953, and it was made into the film Target Earth in 1954. That was one of the first science fiction movies I saw as a kid back in the 1950s. Fairman also wrote about twenty forgotten SF novels, many coauthored with Lester del Rey.

Fairman had seven stories published in 1955, three in Amazing and four in Fantastic. I figured I would start with those three stories to see if any of them were worth remembering in 2023. Amazing Stories was a decent place to start a writing career but a terrible place to be left behind.

Fairman published “The Cosmic Frame” in May, a story about two teenagers on a date who run over an alien in a Packard. The alien’s companions take an interesting revenge on the kids. In September, Fairman wrote about a more complicated alien invasion in “One Man to Kill.” Finally, in November, he told a man from Mars story, “The Man in the Ice Box” — although the superintelligent alien in this story wasn’t really from Mars. Because the four stories I’ve read by Fairman all involve invasions from space I could think of him as Mr. Alien Invader.

The three Fairman stories from 1955 Amazing were all readable and entertaining enough if you shut your critical eye. They were about as good as an average TV show from the 1950s. All three would have made middling episodes of The Twilight Zone, especially “The Man in the Ice Box,” which started out like a humorous TZ but ended with a nice philosophical punch. “The Cosmic Frame” would have made a TZ episode with a horrifying twist ending.

However, none of the stories I’ve read out of Amazing from 1955 have any sparkle or pizzazz. They were okay hack writing. Back in the 1960s when I first discovered Amazing and Fantastic, it was in used bookshops, and I could get them for a dime. I like the ones edited by Cele Goldsmith. Then I started buying the new ones edited by Ted White. They were never as good as F&SF, Galaxy, or Analog, but they were fun. I don’t know if I should admit it, but I found the stories from Amazing 1955 more entertaining than many of the intellectual/literary stories in The Big Book of Science Fiction or The World Treasury of Science Fiction — both anthologies that tried to impress that science fiction is sophisticated, worldly, and diverse.

If you liked the old Winston Science Fiction series from the 1950s, you might like Amazing Stories from the 1950s too.

I haven’t found a story yet that I’d make a case it was one of the best SF stories of 1955. I’d rate them all 2+ stars, which is my way of saying they were less than professionally written, but likeable. I consider 3-stars to be competent and professional. A plus means I found a story likeable. I’m going to keep reading from 1955 Amazing for a bit longer.

James Wallace Harris, 8/26/23

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“Nobody’s Home” by Joanna Russ

“Nobody’s Home” by Joanna Russ is story #48 of 52 from The World Treasury of Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell (1989), an anthology my short story club is group reading. Stories are discussed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. “Nobody’s Home” was first published in 1972 in New Directions II, an original anthology edited by Robert Silverberg.

“Nobody’s Home” is one of those science fiction stories where the author tries to cram in as many speculative ideas into each sentence and paragraph as possible. Joanna Russ paints us a picture of a utopian future where the Earth’s population is vastly smaller, and everyone is rich enough to do whatever they want. The whole of humanity routinely wanders across the face of the Earth via teleportation booths, seeing sites, having casual affairs, pursuing hobbies, whims, and vocations. If they wanted, they could view twenty-five sunsets from various locations around the world in one twenty-four-hour period. And they can choose any environment, no matter how extreme, in which to build their abodes.

Janina, our main character, is highly intelligent and lives in a family commune that includes numerous kinds of marriage arrangements, hookups, and parent-child relationships. Their family name is Komarov. This reminded me of the group marriages in “The Star Pit” by Samuel R. Delany. Household members speak in clever repartee that challenge each other in verbal games. The parents are all geniuses, and their children are even smarter.

So, what kind of problems mar this bright future? Well, the commune gets a visit from a young woman named Leslie Smith, who is ordinary. I assume Leslie is like one of us from the 21st century. She’s not that smart, not that good looking, not that clever. She can handle monotonous work tasks and enjoys herself by pursuing boring solitary activities. She can’t play the verbal games, nor can she pick up on the household’s carefully crafted social customs. Leslie is a bringdown to have around. The group tries to be kind to her, but in the end, they decide to pass Leslie on, like so many others have done with her before.

I’m curious why Russ wrote this story. Russ was a highly intelligent woman, so I wondered if the story was inspired by having to deal with a dull house guest. Or did she imagine a far-out future and wanted to point out that present-day plebians like us wouldn’t fit in with the hoi polloi of the future.

I know I couldn’t keep up with the future world of “Nobody’s Home.” I struggled to read the story slow enough to decipher all the alluded to ideas that Russ presented.

But, what about the title “Nobody’s Home?” Could Russ have intended something different? Could the unease the Komarov family felt when Leslie shows up be caused by them recognizing their own lack of purpose? That instead of no one being at home in Leslie’s head, that there’s no one home in their commune, or even Earth?

Joanna Russ is famous for her feminist fiction, but I didn’t feel this story was about feminism. This is the third time I’ve read this story and I’m still not sure what it’s about. It could be an attack on the high-tech fantasies science fiction writers love to give to the future. I imagine if you’re a science fiction reader who feels like a Slan, then maybe you see there’s nobody home regarding Leslie. But if you’re a critic of science fiction, you might think there’s nobody home with these Eloi-like beings of this future.

James Wallace Harris, 8/23/23

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“Weihnachtabend” by Keith Roberts

If not read carefully, “Weihnachtabend” by Keith Roberts will come across as just another alternate history about Hitler winning WWII. “Weihnachtabend” is more subtle, it’s an alternate history where England and German never fought, but made an alliance, and eventually ruled over Europe together. They called their alliance the Two Empires, graphically symbolizing it with the Lion, and the Eagle.

I have read many books and watched many movies and television shows set in England in the mid-20th century. And one historical event that has come up often is when Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement in 1938. Roberts imagines what if peace between Germany and England had played out, and, if the English fascists had come to power. In the alternate history timeline of this story the Munich Agreement is The Cologne settlement.

Roberts writes beautifully, painting with impressionistic details rather than flatly telling us what happened.

“Weihnachtabend” by Keith Roberts is story #44 of 52 from The World Treasury of Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell (1989), an anthology my short story club is group reading. Stories are discussed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. “Weihnachtabend” was first published in New Worlds Quarterly 4 (1972) edited by Michael Moorcock. You can read it here. “Weihnachtabend” is also in The Grain Kings, which collects seven of Keith Roberts stories. It’s currently available for $1.99 at Amazon for the Kindle edition.

I highly recommend reading “Weihnachtabend” before reading my essay for two reasons. First, this story is a masterpiece of alternate history and is well-worth reading. Second, it’s a test of reading ability. The story is not hard to read, but instead of just telling what’s happening, Keith Roberts gives us pieces to put a mental jigsaw puzzle together. The story is dense with clues and implications about history and people.

“Weihnachtabend” tested my reading ability, and I didn’t do very well on my first reading. The title means Christmas Eve — I had to look that up. I read the story slowly, trying my best to understand it, but it wasn’t until afterwards that all the subtle aspects were revealed when I read Paul Kincaid’s review. I was further enlightened by Joachim Boaz’s review.

Clarity came with my second reading, and even then, I’m not sure I saw everything Roberts intended. I’m learning in old age that fiction needs two readings before you begin to understand it. It’s a shame that knowledge has come so late in life. No matter how hard I try to become a better reader, and I’ve been trying my whole life, the only thing I keep learning is how bad my reading ability still is and how much more I need to learn.

Keith Roberts’ fiction is a great test for understanding what you read. I’ve read his fix-up novel Pavane and a couple other stories. His prose is dense with layers and depth. Roberts also has a great imagination and creates beautifully visual scenes. If only someone would film his stories.

“Weihnachtabend” opens as Richard Mainwaring and Diane Hunter approach Wilton Great House while riding in a chauffeured Mercedes. Right from the beginning Roberts presents the constant presence of paranoia. Richard notices that the communication channel between the back of the car and the chauffeur is always open, and the chauffeur is listening. Before they get to the country house — I picture it as a manor house of the aristocracy, they come to a wall with watchtowers and pillboxes, and guards with machine guns. The guards speak German.

Richard gives his identity card which says: “Die rechte Hand des Gesandten.” We learn that Richard is the right-hand man of the messenger, and we’re eventually told his title is “Personal Assistant to the British Minister of Liaison.” The identity card also tells the guard Miss Hunter is from his department. (I’ve completely forgotten my high school German, so I had to depend on Google to translate. Knowledge of most of the German phrases in the story aren’t needed to understand the story, but not all.)

Diane is extremely nervous, but then so is Richard. Why is he nervous if he’s a top dog in the ruling political party? Diane is a beautiful blonde who Richard had known long ago. She belongs to someone he knew, a man named James, but for this trip, she is with him.

As the story progresses, we learn we’re in England, but it’s years after the period we know as WWII. England and Germany rule Europe. They fear America. But for some reason, the alliance is dominated by Germany, and the English leadership speak German. There is unrest in England and elsewhere, but the leadership maintains order much like the authoritarian rule in Nineteen Eighty-Four. At the top is King Edward VIII and a Fuehrer named Ziegler (I think. It’s confusing about what happened to Hitler, or who is the Fuehrer. Hess is deputy Fuehrer.) We know it’s decades later because they have large screen televisions, and rollneck shirts. I assume this means a turtleneck which was trendy in the 1960s, and around the time Roberts wrote the story.

Roberts doesn’t have a specific message in this story. He just paints a tableau. Richard, in the end, has something to say to the reader, but what he says, we’ve known all along from our history.

What makes the story compelling to read is figuring out what is happening to Richard. At first, it’s just a Christmas Eve party for extraordinarily rich people. Richard is given a Lamborghini by his boss. There is a description of a brutal hunt, and a bizarre Christmas tradition for children. Richard and Diane have sex, and we feel they are old lovers who are finally going to get together. Then Diane disappears and Richard becomes unhinged, eventually confronting his boss with a Lüger.

As I’ve said, the story has many layers. Like in Philip K. Dick’s novel, The Man in the High Castle, there’s a meaningful-to-the-story book like The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. However, instead of being from another timeline, Toward Humanity is from Richard’s own timeline. The writer’s name is Geissler, and his book is banned. Richard finds this dangerous volume planted in his room. It’s published by the Freedom Front. Richard doesn’t know if his party is testing him or if the opposition is trying to recruit him.

And Richard wonders why he’s so lucky to suddenly acquire a beautiful blonde. Is she who she says she is, or is she a plant from his party to test him, or an agent of the Freedom Front? Blondes are a reward to good party men, easily bought and traded. When Richard’s blonde goes missing everyone wants to pretend, she never existed.

Along the way, we are given clues about this world with quotes from Toward Humanity. Here are three quotes:

The Cologne settlement, though seeming to offer hope of security to Jews already domiciled in Britain, in fact paved the way for campaigns of intimidation and extortion similar to those already undertaken in history, notably by King John. The comparison is not unapt; for the English bourgeoisie, anxious to construct a rationale, discovered many unassailable precedents. A true Sign of the Times, almost certainly, was the resurgence of interest in the novels of Sir Walter Scott. By 1942 the lesson had been learned on both sides; and the Star of David was a common sight on the streets of most British cities.

---

In 1940, her Expeditionary Force shattered, her allies quiescent or defeated, the island truly stood alone. Her proletariat, bedeviled by bad leadership, weakened by a gigantic depression, was effectively without a voice. Her aristocracy, like their Junker counterparts, embraced coldly what could no longer be ignored; while after the Whitehall Putsch the Cabinet was reduced to the status of an Executive Council …

 
---

Against immeasurable force, we must pit cunning; against immeasurable evil, faith and a high resolve. In the war we wage, the stakes are high; the dignity of man, the freedom of the spirit, the survival of humanity. Already in that war, many of us have died; many more, undoubtedly, will lay down their lives. But always, beyond them, there will be others; and still more. We shall go on, as we must go on, till this thing is wiped from the earth. Meanwhile, we must take fresh heart. Every blow, now, is a blow for freedom. In France, Belgium, Finland, Poland, Russia, the forces of the Two Empires confront each other uneasily. Greed, jealousy, mutual distrust; these are the enemies, and they work from within. This, the Empires know full well. And, knowing, for the first time in their existence, fear …

We doubt Richard is persuaded by this political rhetoric. The ending of the story is quite dramatic. The final scene also reminds me of the final message of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I must wonder if Keith Roberts was commenting on the current political climate in England of 1972 when and where he wrote “Weihnachtabend.”

I know in 2023 there is much distrust of government everywhere. Was Robert’s paranoia any different than an average citizen? Who really controls us?

James Wallace Harris, 8/16/23

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How Should We Judge Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land in 2023?

I recently watched a devastating “review” of Stranger in a Strange Land on YouTube. (Watch it below.) The short film summarized the plot of the novel, but in a way that made the story ridiculous. When I first watched it, I didn’t think the sarcasm and satire was unfair. I first read Stranger in 1965 when I was thirteen, and I loved it. I’ve reread it many times over the decades, but with each rereading I became more disappointed with the story. So, the criticisms made by Overly Sarcastic Productions resonated with the memories I have of listening to the audiobook version in 2004, and my last reading in 1991. Even though Robert A. Heinlein is still my favorite science fiction writer; I haven’t liked his books published after 1959 for a long time. However, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t reevaluate that dislike.

Today, I started reading A Martian Named Smith by William H. Patterson, Jr., the man who wrote a two-volume biography of Heinlein and who edited The Heinlein Journal. I wouldn’t call Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century an official biography, but it was written with the support of Virginia Heinlein. Patterson makes a great case that Heinlein was trying something quite different with Stranger, and it shouldn’t be judged like traditional science fiction. Patterson considers Stranger to be a classic satire, and that the satire has a different structural form than the novel.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Stranger in a Strange Land might have been the most famous science fiction novel. It was a cult classic on college campuses and embraced by many in the counterculture. I’m not sure Heinlein liked that. It was also embraced by the growing libertarian political movement. The more Heinlein was embraced by the Right, the more readers on the Left moved away from his works. That put me in a bind. I’m liberal. What eventually happened is I focused on his books published before 1960.

But I thought of something today. Stranger in a Strange Land could be considered an early work of New Wave Science Fiction, at least by some of its goals. The New Wave movement wanted science fiction to move away from pulp writing, escape from the old tropes in science fiction, embrace the latest literary standards, experiment in new forms of writing styles, deal with emerging social issues, and be more relevant. Heinlein was obviously doing all that with Stranger in a Strange Land. The New Wave was mostly out of England, and on the left politically. Heinlein made public proclamations that divided the science fiction community between conservative and liberal, so no one considered him New Wave at the time.

Patterson, in A Man Named Smith makes a very intellectually grounded case that Stranger in a Strange Land works on multiple levels, some of which are deep and seldom observed. What if Patterson is right? What if my liberal leanings are prejudicing me from giving the novel a fair chance? To find out I’ll need to reread the book, even both versions, and read Patterson’s book, along with other critical works and studies on the novel. That will be a huge project. That means this blog post will have another ongoing series — and I have too many of those unfinished right now. I’ve been meaning to get back to my Rereading Heinlein project. I expected to reread Stranger in a Strange Land after I read everything Heinlein wrote before it. I’m still stuck in 1940, where I planned to read “The Devil Makes the Law” (renamed “Magic, Inc.”) next.

I also got inspired to reread Stranger in a Strange Land this week when I watched the above video review. Then I read an essay on Book Riot where the writer was proposing to replace eight classic literary novels, four of which are among my favorites. I wrote about this on Auxiliary Memory, where I criticized younger writers for wanting to replace older books they hated, with newer books they loved. I said, if you want to replace a classic, it should be from the same years as the original work and cover the same thematic territory — that classics are how we view the past.

Then I read Joachim Boaz’s review of Davy by Edgar Pangborn. He called it a masterpiece. That led me to finding my copy of Davy and begin reading. It’s quite an impressive novel, but what’s interesting is its overlap with Stranger in a Strange Land. Both are about young males and their education before they become revolutionaries and try to create new social systems. Both these books precede the counterculture of the 1960s by just a few years. At first, I wondered if modern woke readers would accept Davy as a substitute science fiction classic for Stranger in a Strange Land. But if you read my essay linked above, you’ll see that I don’t believe in removing classics from the canon, but adding works that will supplement that.

I believe Stranger in a Strange Land, Davy, and The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis make an interesting trilogy of works that reflect the early 1960s in science fiction. To write that will be another huge writing job that will take a lot of researching, reading, and writing. And I unfortunately have dwindling physical and psychic energy.

When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s Heinlein was considered the top science fiction author by most readers, even if they didn’t like his books. He was just that successful. He was made the first Grand Master by the SFWA in 1974.

Ever since Stranger in a Strange Land was first published, it was considered controversial, and even polarizing. Since the 1960s, Heinlein’s reputation has been in decline, but that might be relative. So many new writers have had so much success that Heinlein just had much more competition. However, in the 21st century there does seem to be a growing dislike of Heinlein among younger readers.

I love studying how books become popular and how they are slowly forgotten. Is Heinlein and Stranger on their way out? Or is there something to that novel that will keep people reading it for another century? I want to think about that.

Right now, people focus on Heinlein’s flaws. But what about Heinlein’s virtues?

I also want to think about the differences between what makes a literary novel a classic and what makes a science fiction novel a classic. There is an overlap in reasons, but each form has its unique qualities that determine whether they will become a classic novel. I believe literary novels must give significant insight into their story’s physical setting, and both the time in which the story is set, and when it was written.

We judge science fiction stories over their plots and ideas. But what if what makes a classic science fiction novel the same as what makes a classic literary novel? What does Stranger in a Strange Land say about America in 1961, and the decade before when Heinlein was writing it? My guess is it is something like what Pangborn and Tevis were saying. It’s going to take a lot of deep reading for me to find out.

James Wallace Harris, 8/12/23

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Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill

I’ve been craving a new science fiction novel, at least something less than ten years old. I admit, I’ve been stuck in mid-20th century science fiction, and I’m mostly out of touch with 21st century science fiction. I have read forty or more science fiction novels that were published after 2000 — the more famous ones — but there’s been thousands of science fiction novels published since then. I’m feeling out of touch with current science fiction. I keep hoping to find a new science fiction novel that will dazzle me like the science fiction novels I discovered as a kid in the 1960s. I’m beginning to feel that won’t ever happen again.

Sea of Rust as Sci-Fi

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill came out in 2017. I picked it to read because I watched a couple YouTubers review it positively, and because it’s about robots after humans have gone extinct. I love that concept. It’s slowly growing into a mini-sub-genre. One of the earliest stories on this theme is “Rust” by Joseph E. Kelleam from 1939. (See my short review.) Another is “Who Can Replace a Man?” by Brian W. Aldiss from 1958. Of course, the real classic is City by Clifford D. Simak, but the theme is only used in the fictional intros that tie stories together. Those intros describe a world without men occupied by robots and intelligent dogs. There’s also “Three Robots” an episode in the Netflix series Love, Death + Robots based on a John Scalzi short story, and the more famous film, Wall-E. And Rudy Rucker’s Ware Tetralogy eventually gets into this theme too. There are many more.

Sea of Rust is a fun adventure story about a cadre of armed robots helping a robot, Rebekah, on an important mission to save free robots from an OWI (One World Intelligence – think Borg for bots). Their destination is in a wasteland called Sea of Rust, formally, the American Rust Belt. That’s the territory were crazy robots go, and where poachers go to kill the crazy robots and harvest their parts. Sea of Rust feels a bit like a Mad Max film, but instead of people surviving a harsh desert post-apocalyptic environment, it’s robots. It especially reminded me of Mad Max Fury Road, only because it becomes an endless race of good guys being chased by bad guys.

The main POV character is Brittle, who started out as a caregiver robot for humans, but after their extinction, becomes harden, surviving by killing other robots for their parts. Her nemesis is Mercer, another caregiving robot who is also a poacher. They want to kill each other to survive. When the OWI, CISSUS, attacks a holdout for free individualistic robots, these two joins up with Rebekah, 19, Herbert, One, Two, Doc, and Murka. At first Brittle goes along to survive another day, but eventually believes in Rebekah’s mission too.

Sea of Rust also feels like a western, with parallels to The Magnificent Seven, because of a group of diverse misfits, some of which aren’t so nice, work together for a noble cause. Each has their weapon of choice. Sea of Rust also remind me of many war movies where a squad of soldiers are on a suicide mission, and one by one get killed off.

I recommend Sea of Rust to readers who like action-oriented science fiction like what they see on television or at the theater. It’s fun. It’s nowhere near as fun as We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennie E. Taylor or Hail Mary by Andy Weir. But it’s like them in that Sea of Rust is breezy and entertaining.

When I ask myself why We Are Legion (We Are Bob) and Hail Mary are better books, it’s because I admire their main characters, and envy their skills. They are positive. Brittle is a mass murderer of humans, and robot con artist and murderer. It’s strange how much modern fiction features heroic bad guys.

— Beyond Here Lie Spoilers —

Don’t read beyond here because I’ve going to be critical of Sea of Rust, but most of my criticism doesn’t apply to the average science fiction reader, especially those who only read for fun and don’t want to get overly analytical. It might seem like I’m attacking Sea of Rust but I’m using it as an example, to explain the kind of science fiction I want to read.

Sea of Rust as Speculative Fiction

I like science fiction that speculates about real possibilities. Very few science fiction novels do this. Most science fiction takes a fun theme and produces a new variation. Sea of Rust is about robots, but the robots in science fiction aren’t like the robots we see in the real world. Nor are fictional robots anything like what current robots will evolve into. I find that disappointing.

In Sea of Rust all the robots act like humans wearing robot suits. There is some minor speculation, but science in the novel seemed inspired by the average PC user, and not computer scientists. The technical terminology doesn’t go beyond CPU, RAM, memory, hard drive, and core. It’s just a fun story, a light-hearted thriller with lots of guns, and gun battles. Similar visually to what people see in video games.

All the robots in this story have human qualities, and that’s my main critical issue. I’m disappointed that science fiction writers don’t or can’t imagine robots with non-human qualities. I can’t think of any robot story where the robot isn’t anthropomorphized. Is that some kind of barrier writers just can’t break through?

The idea of intelligent robots existing after humans is extremely fascinating. What kind of civilization would they build? I can’t believe it would be a cliche Mad Max post-apocalypse. I doubt robots will ever have gender or even be able to comprehend it. I doubt robots will have emotions or be able to comprehend them. None of the experiences we get from being biological creatures will be understandable by AI minds.

I’m waiting for science fiction writers to imagine states of mind that robots will evolve. I’m waiting for science fiction writers to speculate how robots will think differently from us. Sure, this will be hard, as hard as humans imagining the umwelt of octopuses.

Now that I’m an old science fiction fan, I’m beginning to see the limits of what science fiction can achieve. What I want probably needs to come from speculative nonfiction, and not speculative fiction.

My other major problem with Sea of Rust is its use of guns. We live in a culture that has a lust for guns. It’s a kind of pornography. But the use of guns in fiction is a kind of crutch, at least to me. Too much fiction is based on gun violence. Too much plotting and plot motivation centers around gunplay.

Conflict is vital to fiction, but too many writers depend on gunplay as their basis of conflict. Consumers of books and movies can’t seem to get enough of fiction with gunplay, so it might be silly to criticize the use of it. But I’m bored with gunplay-based conflict. I’m also reading Raymond Chandler books this summer, and they have extraordinarily little gunplay in them, and they are considered the gold standard for hardboiled detective mysteries.

Sea of Rust would have impressed me if Cargill had imagined robots involved in some kind of conflict that was realistic for evolved AI minds, and that didn’t involve guns or kill or be killed. I’m guessing robots won’t be violent like us because they won’t have our genetic disposition for xenophobia, greed, reproduction, and territory.

It could be, at 71, I’m finally outgrowing science fiction. I don’t want that to happen. I’m like a religious person that’s lost all their faith, and should be an atheist, but I can’t give up my upbringing. What I want is science fiction that will validate my belief in science fiction again, but Sea of Rust didn’t provide that. I know many young people consider this a 5-star read, and I do recognize it has the qualities that would appeal to many readers. So, don’t take my reaction as a buyer’s guide.

I wrote this review using Sea of Rust to explain where I’m at and what I want from science fiction. Thinking about novels about robots, I’m not sure science fiction has ever dealt with them in a realistic way. Asimov, Williamson, and Simak certainly did not. Neither did Philip K. Dick.

Living in the 2020s has brought us real robots and Artificial Intelligence, as well as commercial space exploration. Reality is leaving science fiction in the dust. I keep waiting for science fiction to catch up to reality and leap into the future again. I’m starting to think that might not even be possible.

Yes, I hunger for new science fiction that realistically speculates about the rest of the 21st century, but I just can’t find any. I’m beginning to wonder if science fiction has ever realistically speculated about the future.

James Wallace Harris, 7/25/23

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Adult Science Fiction

John Brunner was the James Burke (Connections) of science fiction about the near future. Brunner was a polymath who used his diverse sources of knowledge to write four novels (Stand on Zanzibar (1968), The Jagged Orbit (1969), The Sheep Look Up (1972), and The Shockwave Rider (1975)) that extrapolated on everything he knew to envision the early 21st century. No one can predict the future, and Brunner gets all the details wrong in these novels, yet they eerily foretell the problems we face today. They are sometimes called Brunner’s Club of Rome Quartet, inspired by the famous Club of Rome from the 1960s, a think tank devoted to global problems of that day. Its most famous report, The Limits of Growth has been vilified over the decades, but time has proven it wasn’t wrong.

Brunner obviously wanted us to confront those problems before they happened. Of course, we haven’t. Even though some of Brunner’s novels won critical praise when they came out and Stand on Zanzibar won a Hugo, they were never popular. Brunner aimed as high as George Orwell, but his books never reached Nineteen Eighty-Four‘s impact. The Jagged Orbit was nominated for the Nebula and won the BSFA award, The Sheep Look Up was nominated for the Nebula, and The Shockwave Rider came in 2nd for the Locus Award for SF Novel. These four novels were mostly respected by critics, but they never became popular with science fiction readers. And as many brilliant science fiction writers know, science fiction gets no respect outside the genre.

I’ve always considered those Brunner novels to be adult science fiction and most science fiction fans don’t want adult literature. Most science fiction fans read science fiction for fun, for escape, and aren’t looking for serious speculation about present-day life or the near future.

When I use the term adult science fiction, I don’t mean Sci-Fi with X-rated content. Young adult fiction has become very popular and successful, even with adult readers. Young adult fiction usually means protagonists are in their teens. But I think the label should apply to any theme or subject that mostly appeals to young adults. Most science fiction is aimed at adolescent readers, or older readers who prefer not to grow up. And in our society, adolescence has extended into the twenties, and even later for many people. There are some awfully big kids still playing with their Star Wars toys.

To me, adult literature deals with the problems of being an adult in our current reality. That apparently doesn’t leave much territory for adult science fiction since it’s usually not set in our current reality. But let me give you an example of how a novel set in the future can be adult science fiction.

The Shockwave Rider came out in 1975, and its setting is the United States in the early 21st century. In other words, our current reality. Now I don’t mean adult science fiction is only stories set in our current day, the setting can be anytime or place in the universe so long as the reader finds something useful in the story that gives insight into being an adult. The Shockwave Rider was adult science fiction in 1975 and will probably continue to be for years to come. Unfortunately, after decades of knowing about the problems presented in the novel, we ignore them. We don’t want to grow up.

Brunner’s novel is extrapolation. He was inspired by the 1970 nonfiction book, Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. Brunner asked: how can humans survive in a world that is growing ever more complex and stressful, living with ever more information, coexisting with computers and automation, dealing with environmental decline, epic natural catastrophes, growing insanity, political corruption, constant surveillance, and ever-changing job requirements. Exactly, what we’re experiencing now. Brunner asks how society and citizens cope?

The plot of The Shockwave Rider deals with Nick Haflinger, who is a computer hacker on the run. He was a prodigy raised by the government to be an elite leader in the future, but he rejects that upbringing, and escapes. The plot is complicated by flashbacks. Part of the narrative deals with Nick being psychoanalyzed after being recaptured. While he is on the run he meets Kate Grierson, a brilliant young woman who gets Nick faster than he gets himself. While they are on the run they live in two different utopian communes that offer alternative lifestyles to what the cyber-controlled government wants.

Throughout the course of the novel, Brunner throws out concepts and gadgets he thinks will be developed by the early 21st century. He was right in imagining we’d have a gadget-oriented future, but for the most part, he pictured us with different kinds of gadgets. However, Brunner almost imagines the smartphone. He pictures a palm size with a flip-up screen. Nick does much of his hacking on such a device. People do have desktop-type computers too in The Shockwave Rider, but Brunner pictures them as smart network terminals. That’s because in the 1960s and early 1970s time sharing computers were all the rage. He doesn’t foresee the laptop.

Even though The Shockwave Rider was hard to read, confusing at times plotwise, and with less than fully developed characters, it is chock full of brilliant speculation. Reading it made me realize just how hard Brunner thought about the future, and how hard we should have been thinking about it too. The tragedy of our times is we knew all this bad stuff was coming and we didn’t do shit about it.

Cli-Fi is becoming more common now, but it’s not always handled in a serious way. Often it’s just a setting for young adult adventure. The best current example, which I would consider an adult science fiction novel is The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.

The Shockwave Rider is not the kind of science fiction most science fiction fans want to read. They want adventure, rebellion, thrill rides, etc. Young people love blows against the empire stories. If you’re reading a story about zooming around the galaxy, then you’re reading young adult fiction. If you’re reading about surviving in dystopia, that’s not ours, then you’re reading young adult fiction. If you’re reading about being an old person whose mind is downloaded into a clone body, then you’re reading young adult fiction. Most far-out science fictional ideas are ones that appeal to the young adult in us. And I’m not being critical. I still love that stuff too, and I’m 71.

The Shockwave Rider is hard to read. Not just because it explores surviving in this reality, but because its storytelling structure is convoluted and hard to understand. Today, this novel is mostly unknown, but what little fame it does have, is because it’s credited as a work of proto-cyberpunk fiction. And Brunner gets credit for the term “computer worm.” But it’s much more than that.

Brunner was one of those writers who was way smarter than his readers. He was smarter than most people. Unfortunately, being smart doesn’t bring happiness. From 1968-1975, Brunner wrote a series of novels in which he seriously worried about life in the 21st century. There’s a monograph on Brunner in the Modern Masters of Science Fiction series called John Brunner by Jad Smith that I found rewarding. In some ways, Brunner comes across as a tragic figure in this study.

Brunner’s books are full of ideas, and reading about them made me want to read them. Unfortunately, they often fail to entertain. And I think that’s why most adult science fiction fails. It’s hard to pull off a serious book about serious problems and still be entertaining. It can be done. Nineteen Eighty-Four is an excellent example. So is Earth Abides by George R. Stewart.

True adult literature tends to come across as biographical because becoming an adult involves becoming mature. In adult novels, we learn so much about the main character and their growth that we feel we know them. Brunner never could bring this off. His characters are adults, and they struggle with adult problems, but we never feel them growing or even being real. They are puppets Brunner uses to act out situations he wants to intellectually explore.

Science fiction writers have the problem that they are seldom taken seriously by the literary world. They often complain that this lack of recognition keeps them from becoming financially successful. This was true of Brunner too. Despite winning awards and gaining a certain amount of respect and fame within the genre, his writing never provided the kind of money and respect he thought he deserved. I’ve wondered if it’s time to reevaluate Brunner’s work.

I found it very difficult to get into The Shockwave Writer. I had to try several times. I had to push myself to keep reading, but as I went along it became more rewarding. The Shockwave Writer is not a page-turner. But neither are Edith Wharton and Henry James. I don’t think his work will ever appeal to science fiction fans who crave young adult science fiction. And I don’t think there are many fans of adult science fiction. Kim Stanley Robinson writes adult science fiction and gets a certain amount of recognition. But his books just aren’t fun to read like the science fiction books that are popularly discussed on YouTube.

Ultimately, I’m not sure science fiction is the venue for adult literature. Brunner should have written speculative nonfiction. Science fiction works best at delighting our youthful sense of wonder. Aging makes us cynical and realistic.

For now, my favorite example of adult science fiction is Earth Abides. Its main character, Isherwood Williams, grows throughout the novel, and the ending is especially adult. But I’m open for you to leave comments about SF novels you think are adult in the comments.

James Wallace Harris, 7/18/23

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Which Writers Would Be Included In A Group Biography/History of 1950s Science Fiction?

The World Beyond the Hill by Alexei and Cory Panshin and Astounding Alec Nevala-Lee were two huge histories of science fiction in the 1940s. Both books focused on the magazine Astounding Science-Fiction, where John W. Cambell was a genre-shaping editor. The Panshins concentrated on three writers: Heinlein, Asimov, and van Vogt, while Nevala-Lee dwelt on Heinlein, Asimov, and L. Ron Hubbard. The Panshins volumes were more about the stories, with some biographical details. Nevala-Lee spent more words on the biographies of the four men, with less prose about their stories. Combined, the two volumes make a great overview of Astounding Science-Fiction in the 1940s.

What if a similar group biography/history was written about science fiction in the 1950s? I already own a bookcase full of books about science fiction but they aren’t the kind I want. The book I ache to read is a biography/history on the impact of science fiction in the 1950s that’s as impressive as biographies/histories written by Walter Isaacson, Robert A. Caro, or Doris Kerns Goodwin. I want to read a biography/history that would make the subject interesting to the general reader. I just finished Tune In by Mark Lewisohn, a giant history of The Beatles that only covered their career until 1962. That’s the kind of high-quality biography/history of 1950s science fiction I want to read.

Alec Nevela-Lee’s biographies approach that league. He could write the book I want, but I don’t think he would because he probably knows the market for such a volume isn’t very big. And I wonder if science fiction fans would want a history of science fiction in the 1950s by him. His books Astounding and Inventor of the Future were hard on his subjects. I thought them honest appraisals, but he may have done in John W. Campbell’s reputation, and he didn’t help Heinlein’s or Asimov’s. I ended up feeling Buckminister Fuller was brilliant but not very successful, and a bit of a nut or crank after reading Inventor of the Future. However, any honest biography of the influential science fiction writers of the 1950s is going to unearth some worms.

The whole phenomenon of science fiction in the 1950s could be fascinating to the general reader if it was written in the right way. Look how pervasive science fiction has become. Science fiction as a subculture actually had a far more lasting cultural impact than The Beats in the 1950s and The Hippies in the 1960s, yet those movements are more studied and written about. Organized science fiction fandom has since inspired many other forms of organized fandoms. There are connections between science fiction and the space program and computers, both of which also started in the 1950s. And as a pop culture art, science fiction might be bigger than rock. Rock music is fading, while science fiction is still big business.

So, who were the movers, shakers, and creators of 1950s science fiction? I don’t think the major players are as obvious as they were in the 1940s.

As a science fiction fan back in the 1960s I was commonly told that Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke were the Big Three Authors of science fiction. Looking at our CSFquery database, which uses various forms of citations to remember short stories and novels, I’m not sure it backs up that common knowledge. Look at the results. I’ve set the citation level at 3 or more citations. (Short stories are within double quotes, and novels are italicized. Clicking on the number of citations will show you the individual citations.)

The three writers with the most citations were Heinlein with eleven, and Bradbury and Asimov with eight each. However, some of those cited stories first appeared in the 1940s. After that, three authors have six titles on the list: Alfred Bester, C. M. Kornbluth, and Fritz Leiber.

Before looking at this data, I would have said Philip K. Dick, Alfred Bester, John Wyndham, and Walter M. Miller, Jr. were the breakout science fiction authors of the 1950s. Another indication of their popularity is how many photographs I can find of these men, especially ones taken in the 1950s. I’m guessing since photographs are hard to find, then details about their lives will be just as hard to find. That suggests any history of science fiction that focuses on anyone other than Heinlein, Bradbury, and Asimov will be covering events in the shadows of history.

If we alter the search to allow any work with two or more citations we see other authors standing out, but I’m not sure if it would change the overall apparent rankings. Thirteen women writers are on this list, but none have very many stories listed. I’m afraid the 1950s was still a male-dominated decade for science fiction.

And what about editors? Many histories of science fiction claim that John W. Campbell wasn’t as influential in the 1950s. But who was then? H. L. Gold at Galaxy is often mentioned. Anthony Boucher, and maybe J. Francis McComas at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. There were dozens of science fiction magazines published during the 1950s, and I’m not sure if any other editor stood out. But then I haven’t researched it. However, I would say the 1950s were still a magazine-driven era for science fiction.

The Panshins and Nevala-Lee had Astounding Science-Fiction to anchor their history/biographies of the 1940s. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy, and Astounding Science Fiction dominated the 1950s, but there were many other magazines that published significant science fiction and influenced the genre. I don’t know if a history of science fiction of the 1950s could be as focused as The World Beyond the Hill and Astounding. The genre just exploded in too many different directions.

The small press or fan press science fiction publishers of the 1950s are legendary, especially to collectors, but I don’t know if any of their editors had that much influence. I would think the editors at Doubleday and the Science Fiction Book Club could be a consideration if I knew who they were. Another consideration is Donald A. Wollheim. His work at Ace Books was both influential and widespread.

If a single volume could be written about science fiction in the 1950s it might need to be divided into twelve chapters, one for each year, or into 120 chapters, based on the months. A linear progression through the decade might be the best way to capture the history of science fiction in the 1950s. And the book would have to be big, maybe a thousand pages.

There is one significant book about science fiction history in the 1950s that I know about, Transformations: The Story of the Science Fiction Magazines – From 1950 to 1970 by Mike Ashley. I have quite a few other books that cover that era in science fiction, but none are of the scope I’m talking about. I wish Ashley’s books were available in cheap Kindle editions so more people would read them.

And should we also add the impact of the movies and television? Should we consider George Pal and Rod Serling as movers and shakers of 1950s science fiction, for this book I want to read? An Astounding-like biography/history of science fiction in the 1960s would include Gene Roddenberry and one for the 1970s would have to include George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

I wish I had the skill and stamina to write a history of science fiction in the 1950s. I’m in awe of the work done by the Panshins and Nevala-Lee. I would love to read a book about 1950s science fiction like I’ve described, so if you’re a writer looking for a topic, here’s one. I don’t know how many copies it would sell. Sadly, the audience for such a history is getting old and dying. I wrote this essay to gauge interest in such a book, but I’m not finding much so far. However, a good biographer can make any person or topic into a page-turner.

James Wallace Harris, 7/11/23