Reprinted and updated from “The Biographies of Philip K. Dick” at SF Signal (April 2016)
Back in 2016 I went on a Philip K. Dick binge, reading several of his novels and a stack of biographies. I wrote an article about the biographies before I burned out of that binge. I’m back to binge-reading on PKD again and I went looking for my article, “The Biographies of Philip K. Dick” at SF Signal, but it’s been taking down. The link above is to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. I decided to reprint it here and update it with any book that would help me get to know Philip K. Dick, including interviews and letters. I also put links to Amazon (I earn a small fee) to those that are in print. The books that are out of print are getting extremely expensive to buy used.
Philip K. Dick inspired more biographers than any other science fiction writer. Were those biographers drawn to Dick’s strange life, or did they hope to learn more about his books? For anyone wanting to know Philip K. Dick, picking a biography can be hard. A definitive biography has not yet emerged, and each of the existing biographies have their own unique appeal. I’ve been reading books about PKD for almost forty years and find they’re revealing in two ways. First, PKD was an exceedingly complex person. Even if you’ve never read one of his novels, his personal story is as far out as his fiction. Second, if you do have a passion for PKD’s work, you’ll want to read the biographies, because Phil often weaved his own experiences into his plots and characters, making those stories deeper if you learn how and why.
But which biography to pick? The latest? The longest? PKD had five wives, two of which wrote memoirs, as well as one lady friend. I loved In Search of Philip K. Dick by Anne R. Dick (married to PKD 1959-1965) because she influenced The Man in the High Castle. And Tessa B. Dick, (married to PKD 1973-1977) offers insight into Phil’s later mystical writings. I wished Kleo Apostolides (married 1950-1959) and Nancy Hackett (married 1966-1972) had also written biographies, so we’d have complete spousal coverage of Dick’s writing years.
Paul Williams and Greg Rickman’s books are out of print, yet very worthy of tracking down. Divine Invasions is excellent, but older, still a top contender. If you’re attracted to Dick’s weirdness, consider Anthony Peake’s book. However, if you only read one, a good place to start will be I Am Alive and You Are Dead by Emmanuel Carrère, a French writer. Be warned though, reading one biography of PKD can draw you into the black hole of PKDickian addiction.
Philip K. Dick: In His Own Words by Gregg Rickman (1984)
Philip K. Dick: The Last Testament by Gregg Rickman (1985)
“Stranger Station” was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1956. You can read it on Archive.org. It is story #20 of 22 for The Best SF Stories of 1956 group read. “Stranger Station” was a selection for Judith Merril’s SF:’57: The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy and Asimov/Greenberg’s 1988 anthology The Great SF Stories # 18 (1956). It’s often reprinted. This is my fourth reading of the story, and the third for the Facebook SF short story reading group. It was tied for fourth place for the most cited SF short story of 1956 in our citation database.
I think it’s important to note that Damon Knight published two of the most remembered science fiction short stories of 1956: “The Country of the Kind” and “Stranger Station.” I think it’s also important we should note that both were about hate. We must ask, “Were they positive or negative?”
I’m a big believer in rereading fiction, but can a story be reread too much? With this fourth reading, I got even closer to what Knight was creating. In the first half of the story, I marveled at Knight’s hard science setup. The story was more vivid than my previous readings. I admired everything Knight wrote, and I was quite impressed. The second half of the story, especially the ending, still puzzles me. Had Paul Wesson truly figured out the motives of the aliens from Titan? Was his reaction, right? Was Wesson’s solution supposed to leave us feeling ambiguous about what Wesson figured out?
The basic plot is Paul Wesson, an astronaut working on a space station near Earth volunteers to spend months on a distant space station, called Stranger Station, reserved for meeting an alien from Titan every twenty years. Both aliens and humans have trouble being near each other. Nearness causes a deep sense of psychological dread in each species. However, it also causes the aliens to exude a golden liquid from their bodies that humans have discovered has life extending properties for our species. The aliens agree to meet every two decades at a space station far from earth. Just one human and one alien. The fear of being around humans causes the alien to sweat longevity chemicals which they freely give to the humans. But what do the aliens get in return? That’s a mystery.
There is a cost to the human who volunteers for this mission. They go crazy, losing the ability to communicate, and change physically in horrible ways. It might be a form of adapting to the aliens. But Wesson doesn’t know that. It’s another mystery. But all of humanity gets to live another twenty years longer. This reminds me of Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”
Paul Wesson’s only companion is an AI he calls Aunt Jane. The creation of Aunt Jane was brilliant speculation by Damon Knight in 1956. Paul tries to learn as much as possible about his fate from Aunt Jane, but she is restricted by what she can tell. This relationship slowly reveals the mysteries, and maybe the solutions. However, in the end, we’re not sure what happened to Paul. It appears he’s about to die. And he’s killed the alien. It also implies that humanity’s longevity serum supply will be cancelled. Was Paul Wesson, right? Did he save humans from a fate worse than death, or merely act on his own hatred and xenophobia?
Wesson believes the aliens are fighting us with love because they know we’ll eventually overrun the solar system, go interstellar, and destroy them in the process. Paul believes the aliens give the humans their golden sweat to make us addicted, thus protecting themselves. Wesson then assumes hate is the only way to fight back.
I’m still not sure what philosophical stance Knight makes in this story? Is he saying xenocide is ethical? Or that cooperation or even a symbiotic relationship with aliens is evil? Is he promoting human purity, a kind of interstellar racism? Up until the arrival of the alien at the station, the story is very pro-space, pro-technology, pro-future. Then it gets weird. Is hate the solution, or just Wesson’s solution, or even Knight’s solution?
My friend Mike didn’t have much to say about the story, but he sums it up precisely:
“Stranger Station” has a pervasive underlying element of apprehension and dread. I think Knight is forcing us to confront the stark reality of alien contact. He discards the facile Hollywood model and thrusts us into the bewilderment and dread and menace that will surround an alien contact event. The stakes will be enormous; our survival as a species will be at risk.
Personally, I don’t believe we can have contact with aliens of any kind. I assume that each evolved planetary biological ecosystem will be deadly to all other planetary ecosystems. That was the same conclusion as The World of the Worlds by H. G. Wells and more recently by Kim Stanley Robinson in his novel Aurora. Knight doesn’t seem to be worried about deadly microbes, only of hating each other. Knight is suggesting that there will be psychic barriers that will keep us separate from beings from other worlds. But again, is that Paul Wesson, or Damon Knight?
I tend to think it’s not Knight, but Knight suggesting it’s true about us.
“And Now the News…” was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1956. You can read it on Archive.org. It is story #19 of 22 for The Best SF Stories of 1956 group read. “And Now the News…” was a selection in Asimov/Greenberg 1988 anthology devoted to the best SF of 1956. It’s often reprinted. This is my second reading of the story.
This story has quite a punch, so go read it. Be warned. I’m going to give away the ending.
“And Now the News…” isn’t really science fiction, nor fantasy. It’s about a man named MacLyle who was addicted to the news. To break that addiction, his wife sabotaged the radios and televisions, and destroyed his newspaper. MacLyle divorced his wife, moved out into the woods, and forgot how to use language. His wife hired a psychiatrist who tracked him down and “cured” him. On the way home, he went berserk, killed four people before he was killed himself.
For a story that came out in 1956, it feels quite relevant to 2024. I haven’t read much by Sturgeon, a couple of novels, maybe a dozen stories. He wrote much more. I’d love to read a biography about him. Wikipedia says Sturgeon wrote a bit of an autobiography, Argyll: A Memoir, which was an 80-page pamphlet. Abebooks.com and eBay.com list no copies for sale.
Wikipedia said Sturgeon was married three times and had two other long-term relationships and fathered seven children. He worked at many kinds of jobs. And his stories reflect a certain strangeness. Sometimes I wondered if he led a Beat life or was some kind of bohemian. Other times, because psychiatry is so often mentioned in his stories, I wonder if Sturgeon didn’t have mental problems.
If you read “And Now the News…” I think you’ll also wonder about his mental state. The story seems to be an attack on psychiatry, and even mundane life. Go read it, to see what I mean.
My friend Mike had a lot to say about the story. He hoped I had answers. I don’t. Mike summarizes stories much better than I do, so I won’t repeat what Mike gave me. I’m trying to get Mike to become a blogger because he’s good at reviewing fiction.
I might as well come clean and admit that I don't understand "And Now the News..." I can't fit the pieces together.
The story can be divided into three acts.
Act One
In the first act, we are introduced to MacLyle:
"He had habits and he had hobbies, like everybody else and (like everybody else) his were a little different from anybody's. The one that annoyed his wife the most, until she got used to it, was the news habit, or maybe hobby."
It seems that MacLyle is obsessed with the news and justifies his preoccupation by quoting Donne: "...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind..."
Sturgeon takes pains to emphasize that "...MacLyle was, outside his peculiarity, a friendly and easygoing character. He liked people and invited them and visited them..." At this point, it feels a little like a Clifford D. Simak story.
Then MacLyle's wife Esther decides to sabotage the radios and tv sets so MacLyle can't access the news. When he asks for the newspaper, Esther confesses that she "...hadn't ordered it and wouldn't again." She reveals what she has done and "...realized too late that the news was so inextricably part of her husband that in casting it out she cast him out too."
So the end of Act One results in MacLyle leaving home and going to an attorney to arrange support for his wife and children. The lawyer "...might have entertained fears for MacLyle except for the fact that he was jovial and loquacious throughout, behaving like a happy man..."
Act Two
MacLyle is now on his own. Suddenly, when he tries to read the morning paper, he realizes that he can no longer read. Soon, he realizes he can't speak and can't understand speech. What are we to make of this? Is this a metaphorical transformation? Is it an actual physical manifestation? Why?
MacLyle retreats to a remote cabin and builds a new life.
Act Three
Esther's psychiatrist tracks down MacLyle. He finds him playing his ophicleide, "...the craziest-looking man he had ever seen." Before long however "...the warm good humor and genuine welcome on MacLyle's sunburned face drove away fright and even caution..." MacLyle shows the psychiatrist his cabin, replete with his paintings and sculptures. It's obvious that MacLyle has worked very hard to build a new life in this remote setting.
"Watching him, the psychiatrist reflected suddenly that this withdrawn and wordless individual was a happy one, in his own matrix..."
The psychiatrist is appalled and realizes that he must "...find a way to communicate with MacLyle, and when he had found it, he must communicate to him the error of his ways." Is the psychiatrist a straw man? Is society the real force that cannot tolerate difference, cannot abide alternatives? Is this a commentary on psychiatry or society?
Eventually, the psychiatrist secretly drugs MacLyle and then injects him with a cornucopia of drugs. In a drugged haze, MacLyle is spirited away by the psychiatrist. MacLyle regains the ability to read and speak.
MacLyle tells that psychiatrist that "Damn foolishness diminishes me because I am involved. People all the time pushing people around diminishes me. Everybody for a fast buck diminishes me...I just had to get uninvolved with mankind before I got diminished altogether, everything mankind did was my fault. So I did and now here I am involved again." Why did MacLyle think that what mankind did was his fault? What led him to that conclusion? Why is he diminished by the actions of others?
Finally, MacLyle reveals "Why, I'm going out there and diminish mankind right back." We learn that "He killed four people before they got him." How do we connect the dots? Throughout the story MacLyle has been described as kind and easygoing and genuine. Now he's suddenly a rampaging murderer? Is Sturgeon trying to make a broader statement about societal forces that warp perceptions? Does MacLyle represent nonconformity, while the psychiatrist represents the hidebound cultural norms that constrict our lives?
Too many questions. Not enough answers. I'm hoping Jim has some answers.
Theodore Sturgeon has something philosophical to say in “And Now the News…” but I’m not sure what it is. At first, we think of the title referring to MacLyle’s early addiction to the news, but what if the story we’re reading is the news Sturgeon is tell us?
What if Theodore Sturgeon felt like I do now when I look out at the world? When I was young, I read several biographies of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and I was troubled by how bitter Clemens became in old age. I told myself back then that I didn’t want to become embittered by life like Clemens. However, now that I’m old I realize my attitude toward humanity is far from positive. I can only assume “And Now the News…” is Sturgeon having a Mark Twain moment, and this story could be included in Sturgeon’s own collection of stories that could also be titled Letters From the Earth. Maybe the John Donne quote was written when Donne was young, and Sturgeon was sneering at it. I don’t know.
I have a tremendous interest in Philip K. Dick because he was a tortured soul. There’s not enough written about Sturgeon to really say, but I get the feeling that Sturgeon and Dick had a lot in common. I’ve lost count of the number of biographies written about PKD. I think if serious biographies were written about Sturgeon, he might be more famous, and his fiction would get more attention.
James Wallace Harris, 1/10/24
p.s. Sorry for slowing down on reviewing these stories. I’m just running out of energy. However, we’re almost done. Just three more to go.
“2066: Election Day” was first published in Astounding Science Fiction, December 1956. You can read it on Archive.org. It is story #18 of 22 for The Best SF Stories of 1956 group read. “2066: Election Day” was a selection for Dikty’s SF anthology covering 1956-57 published in 1958 and for Asimov/Greenberg 1988 anthology devoted to the best SF of 1956. It’s also been reprinted in several interesting theme anthologies.
I read Michael Shaara’s famous novel about the civil war, The Killer Angels back in the 1970s, so I’m surprised to see his name here. However, I have discovered other famous writers who got their start writing science fiction. Shaara published several SF stories before moving on.
“2066: Election Day” is about a future America where we elect the president by selecting the most qualified person using a network supercomputer called UNCLE SAM. Anyone can take the test to see if they qualify. The story is about the 2066 election when SAM considers no one qualified.
I’ve always wondered why we don’t have more requirements for the job of United States President other than being a natural born citizen that is at least 35 years old. When I was in my early twenties, I took and passed a civil service test to get a temporary job at the IRS as a data entry clerk. I genuinely doubt Donald Trump could have passed that test, or any civil service exam.
I’ve always thought we should have more qualifications for the job of president. I would suggest either a law degree, or a doctorate in political science or history, and having served at least one term as a state governor, or two terms as a U.S. senator, or a minimum of ten years as a major of a U.S. city with a population over one million.
In “2066: Election Day,” Shaara has the requirement of taking a test that covers knowledge in many subjects, including economics, taxes, military, political science, etc. I’m not sure book learning should be the sole qualification, but meeting minimum scores on such tests could be part of the requirements too.
“2066: Election Day” doesn’t have much of a plot, being mainly an essay about an idea, but Shaara does show Harry Larkin going through a few different emotional states. That’s a big plus for this story.
I was surprised by Shaara repeatedly stating the process was aimed at finding the best “man” for the job. No mention of women. That would have shown more foresight. (There is a hint that women could be president, because there’s a little old lady is taking the tests at the beginning of the story.)
My friend Mike told me he didn’t think this story had anything worth discussing. And it is the kind of science fiction story where the author contorts the short story form to express ideas they want to promote. But to paraphrase that adage, “If you have a message, use Western Union.” I would say, “If all you’ve got is an idea, write an essay.” Shaara added a minimal story as a wrapper for his ideas.
For “2066: Election Day” to be a genuine short story, we’d have to experience Harry Larkin going through a struggle, developing as a person while overcoming obstacles. A good short story should produce a cathartic emotional reaction in the reader, even an epiphany. I thought Shaara tried but didn’t make it. Everything came to Harry Larkin, he never worked for anything in the story.
How do literary scholars of Philip K. Dick’s fiction determine which of his novels are masterpieces and which are his hackwork? They all seem equally bizarre, and even confusing. Library of America selected four novels for their first volume in 2007 devoted to PKD. The years given are when they were (written, published).
The Man in the High Castle (1961,1962)
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1964,1965)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1966, 1968)
Ubik (1966, 1969)
The second volume came out in 2008 recognized:
The Martian Time-Slip (1962, 1964)
Dr. Bloodmoney (1963, 1965)
Now Wait for Last Year (1963, 1966)
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1970, 1974)
A Scanner Darkly (1973, 1977)
The third volume in 2009 highlighted:
A Maze of Death (1968, 1970)
VALIS (1978, 1981)
The Divine Invasion (1980, 1981)
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1981, 1982)
Are we to assume these are Dick’s best novels? My personal favorite, Confessions of a Crap Artist wasn’t included. Neither was The Simulacra which I just read and found fascinating and fun. I think some of the Library of America selections are better than The Simulacra, such as The Man in the High Castle, The Martian Time-Slip, and VALIS, but I’d also claim The Simulacra is not a lesser novel to the others. However, using our citation database system, it gets only one citation. Twelve of the twenty-seven PKD novels in our database only got one citation. The novels in the first LOA volume received 9 to 32 citations, which supports the LOA editors.
The only reason The Simulacra received one citation is because it was part of the SF Masterworks series. All the science fiction magazine reviewers ignored it when it came out. As far as I can tell, none of the reprint editions got reviewed either. The Simulacra just isn’t well-known. It’s often disliked when I see it mentioned.
I liked it. And I want to make a case that it’s worth reading. However, it will be hard to even describe. I’m afraid most readers will be turned off by The Simulacra because it has multiple plot lines with over a dozen main characters. And I can imagine many readers calling it stupid too — but that could be true for a lot of readers coming to PKD work. However, if two of the five novels Dick wrote in 1963 made it into the Library of America, why shouldn’t the other three? What divides them? What makes one novel “good” and another “bad?”
The Simulacra‘s complexity might keep readers from liking it, but that complexity might hide many novelistic virtues. Just because I admired this novel, doesn’t mean others will. I’m writing this essay hoping people will read The Simulacra and give me their opinion. I’m curious if I’m a total outlier. I got a big kick out of the story.
According to Samuel Johnson, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” Dick complained in several 1963 letters found in The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick: Volume One: 1938-1971, that his wife Anne constantly hounded him to make more money. On the other hand, Dick wrote eleven literary (non-genre) novels from 1952-1960 hoping to become a recognized mainstream writer. All were rejected. He then wrote The Man in the High Castle in 1961 which bridges the literary and science fiction world and won a Hugo award for best novel. Dick then wrote twenty-one science fiction novels from 1962 to 1969, five of them in 1963 alone. He obviously needed money and had to crank out the manuscripts.
After 1970, Dick only published six more novels before he died in 1982. Five of which are included in the Library of America editions. That suggests that the novels he took more time writing fared better with the critics. So, the five novels written in 1963 were among the fastest he wrote, suggesting they shouldn’t be as good. Yet, two were selected for the Library of America.
As much as I like The Simulacra, I do see that it’s flawed. It doesn’t have a main character which most readers prefer. Nor does it jump back and forth between two main characters, which can be quite successful with some readers. And it’s not even one of those experimental stories where we follow several unrelated characters that all come together in the end. Readers find that structure confusing but forgive it if the ending brings everyone together in a satisfying way. I’m not sure The Simulacra wraps up nicely.
We might call the plotting of The Simulacra an example of characters doing parallel play. Dick might have aimed for creating a collage of future American scenes. My guess is Dick banged away on his typewriter, vomiting up The Simulacra onto typing paper. The results are fascinating because the novel is one big pile of imagery from PKD unconscious mind — and what a mind! It begs to be psychoanalyzed. And I’m sure, it parallels his personal life, especially regarding insanity, psychoanalysis, and troubling wives and women.
The Simulacra is not satire even though it often feels like the film Dr. Strangelove, nor is it a fantasy even though everything is unbelievable. And I wouldn’t call it surreal or dreamlike, or avant-garde even though it was written in 1963 when trendy artists were creating pop art and post-modern fiction. It’s straight science fiction, meant to be taken as realistic, even though it’s bonkers. The Simulacra has the existential absurd horror of The Tin Drum or The Painted Bird. I don’t even think Dick was making fun of science fiction with its comic book level wild ideas. Dick had crazy ideas, and he saw the world being just as crazy.
The Simulacra pictures future America where psychic abilities are accepted as real, that time travel has been perfected, where people and animals can be artificially created and the results indistinguishable from real people and animals, that colonies exist on Mars and the Moon, and alien lifeforms can be commercialized. In other words, all the crap ideas that science fiction fans and fans of the occult believed in the 1950s. Everything they thought possible, became possible.
The hardest part of this essay is describing what happens in The Simulacra. I wrote about that trouble already for my Auxiliary Memory blog, where I explained I had to read the book and listen to the audiobook to get the most out of The Simulacra. In fact, I’m still picking up the book, or putting on the audiobook, and enjoying random parts of the novel. I can’t seem to leave this story. I’m still finding new insights into whatever scene I stumble upon. I’ve decided the best way to describe the story is by mind mapping the characters. The number given is the number of times the character is mentioned in the story.
I’m trying not to give away too much of the plot. Each of the first level characters involves a subplot. For example, Dr. Egon Superb is the last legally practicing psychiatrist after the pharmaceutical industry pushed through the McPhearson Act that made drug therapy the only legal form of treatment for mental illness. One of his patients is Richard Kongrosian, a psychic pianist who uses telekinesis to play the piano instead of using his hands. Nat Flieger is a sound engineer who wants to record Kongrosian, but he and his crew of Molly Dondoldo and Jim Planck can never track down the man. Ian Duncan and his old friend Al Miller want to perform classical music as a jug band at the White House for Nicole Thibodeaux. Nicole Thibodeaux, the First Lady, but maybe the true ruler of The United States of Europe and America (USEA) wants to negotiate with Hermann Goering via a time machine to get the Nazis to not kill the Jews. Vince and Chic get involve with making the next president, an android, which will replace Nicole’s current husband. Wilder Pembroke, Anton Karp, and Bertold Goltz all vie for power behind the scenes.
If the novel has a main character, it could be Nicole Thibodeaux. Dick’s original draft was called The First Lady of Earth. Since this book was written in the summer of 1963, I assume Dick was inspired by Jackie Kennedy because Nicole spends most of her time charming people, decorating the White House and gardens, and putting on nightly cultural events. Everyone loves Nicole. Yet, out of the public eye, Nicole is also ruthless enough to have people summarily executed. Evidently, she wields unlimited power because of her access to time travel.
The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic future, decades after China attacked the U.S. with missiles with atomic warheads. This gave rise to a population of mutants, similar in appearance to Neanderthals. People ride in self-driving cars. Ads are living creatures that can invade your home and car and must be killed. Richard Kongrosian believes he has a terrible body odor because a deodorant ad infected him with a jingle. The Sons of Job are a neo-fascist political party. People live in giant communal apartment complexes and are required to take civics tests to stay in them. Many people want to escape this totalitarian society by immigrating to Mars. People buy android nuclear families just to have normal friends.
I could go on. There are several layers of political and corporate intrigue in The Simulacra. Dick evidently thought there were conspiracies everywhere. Later in life, Dick would get into Gnostic religion, which is a very paranoid belief system. This novel has many traits of Gnosticism. The Simulacra was written after The Man in the High Castle, We Can Build You, Dr. Bloodmoney, and The Martian Time-Slip, and before The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? There are many similar themes and obsessive ideas that run through all of them. I wish I had the time and energy to study all those novels and plot all the connections. Why did PKD fixate on certain ideas repeatedly? Was it a lack of imagination to explore unfamiliar territory, or were they ideas PKD just could let go of?
“The Last Question” was first published in Science Fiction Quarterly, November 1956. You can read it on Archive.org. It is story #17 of 22 for The Best SF Stories of 1956 group read. “The Last Question” was a selection for Asimov/Greenberg anthology devoted to the best SF of1956 — but I’ve got to wonder, if it was at Asimov’s request? He’s often said “The Last Question” is his favorite among his own stories. I’ve reviewed the story before, for when the group read The Big Book of Science Fiction.
We’ve had two Isaac Asimov stories from 1956 – “The Last Question” and “The Dead Past.” I thought “The Dead Past” was flawed but I was impressed with Asimov’s ambition to write an emotional story. I know other people who consider it Asimov’s best short story. Neither are my favorites.
On one hand, “The Last Question” is a famous, often loved, science fiction story. On the other hand, it’s a gimmick story without traditional story elements. It’s more of an essay disguised as a short story. I’ve gotten tired of reading gimmick stories, and I’ve gotten tired of reading “The Last Question.” Once you know it, it’s not much fun to reread. I like stories where I get behind a character who is struggling to overcome an emotional problem. And I like stories that get better on rereading. “The Last Question” isn’t that kind of story. I’m thinking that Asimov wasn’t big on writing that kind of story either. However, I need to reread “The Ugly Little Boy.” If I remember right, it does have character development and an emotional punch to the gut.
This morning, I got a text from my friend Mike about the story, he wasn’t too kind:
I think that “The Last Question” is a gimmick story with cardboard characters. But this story is beloved, so I guess that leaves me out in the cold. I don’t really want to dump on Asimov, but I don’t think much of his favorite story.
It has the repetitive plot and thin characters of “Compounded Interest.” I’ve never been a fan of gimmick stories. I need characters that I care about.
I have to say I completely agree with Mike. “The Last Question” is a gem of a story for a gimmick story, but a letdown for when you’re wanting a vicarious emotional experience. I had the same problem with “Compounded Interest” by Mack Reynolds. However, as I mentioned in my review, I found another Mack Reynolds story from 1956 that had all the elements I love in a good dramatic short story. Read: “After Some Tomorrow.”
The genre has room for all kinds of stories, but I’m getting old and sappy, and want to be moved by what I read. I must wonder if the twenty-two stories we’ve selected to read from 1956 are mostly remembered because of their ideas and gimmicks. I wonder if there are loads of emotional stories that weren’t well remembered because they had ordinary science fictional ideas, but ones I would like better for their emotional and dramatic qualities — that is, if I could find them, like I did with “After Some Tomorrow.”
“The Doorstop” was first published in Astounding Science Fiction, November 1956. You can read it on Archive.org. It is story #16 of 22 for The Best SF Stories of 1956 group read. “The Doorstop” was a selection in both the Merril and Asimov/Greenberg anthologies devoted to the best SF of1956, but the story hasn’t been widely anthologized otherwise.
I believe Reginald Bretnor is most famous for his Ferdinand Feghoot pun stories. He wrote three books about science fiction, and besides writing a fair number of science fiction short stories, also liked to write about weapons and war. See his ISFDB entry.
“The Doorstop” is a pleasant mood piece about a country doctor discovering an alien artifact, one his wife bought to use as a doorstop. The story doesn’t have much of a plot, mainly a discussion by scientists and military men, a cliche for science fiction stories and movies, especially in the 1950s. However, what stands out in this story is the doctor’s state of mind. Dr. Cavaness stands between the old world where stars were romantic lights in the sky, with life having a certain order, and a new paradigm, something much different, even threatening and horrifying. (I’m reminded of the Fredric Brown title, The Lights in the Sky Are Stars. I might need to read it.)
Writing “The Doorstop” in 1956, I can imagine Bretnor worrying about all those ordinary people who were about to experience the sense of wonder that science fiction readers and writers cherished. He recognized the mental state of the world was changing, and imagined for many, it might not be wanted.
My friend Mike emailed me his notes for the story, and he was quite taken with it — as was I.
On the surface, the plot of "The Doorstop" is very simple.
Ellie, the wife of Dr. Cavaness, buys a doorstop: "Oh, that. I got it today from Mrs. Hobbs. It's...well, it's a doorstop."
Cavaness soon realizes that the doorstop "...was no simple artifact. Alien to him and strange, it was a mechanism, a machine."
Cavaness takes the doorstop to Ted Froberg, "...an electronics engineer working behind the ramparts of Security." Froberg reveals the doorstop "...wasn't made in any country here; it wasn't even made on Mars or Jupiter. It's from the stars."
But there is another story to be considered, an existential drama that unfolds in the mind of Dr. Cavaness. He desperately longs for an ordered existence, a carefully circumscribed life. His mind is comforted by the "...pages of the past, pages of friends and fishing trips, or midnight calls to childbirth, hypochondria, surgery--pages of precious trials and triumphs and routines. That was his life, the busy hours, the days succeeding days, the months, the seasons, the gently moving years, all encompassed by his family, his patients, and his town."
He clings fiercely to his English garden world and calls "...on God to drive the mystery out, extinguish it..." Cavaness poignantly prays:
"Voicelessly, in a despairing language without words, he prayed to a parochial God to make this all untrue, to wipe it out, to let his world remain as it had been. Oh God, preserve these small peripheries against all things incomprehensible; I am my world; its limits limit me; allow the stretches of eternity, the darknesses, to stay unreal; oh, God, deny this living proof that life unthinkable teems in those depths and distance, that they exist--"
Finally, when it's made clear to Cavaness that the doorstop is alien, "...he stared straight ahead--facing the majesty of God, facing a new maturity for man, facing the open door."
What Bretnor doesn't reveal is what comes next for Cavaness. Does he accept the new reality, or does turn away and retreat into his walled city?
I like that “The Doorstop” is about a coming change in our group mind and questions the genre I grew up with and love. It’s not a particularly well-written story, yet I like it quite a lot. But that fondness is for the story’s central insight. I wonder how many people now would like to go back to a pre-SF world where we didn’t think about aliens, an infinite multiverse, and all the other insights science fiction has given us, to when the universe was only as big as The Old Testament?
“Compounded Interest” was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1956. You can read it on Archive.org. It is story #15 of 22 for The Best SF Stories of 1956 group read. “Compounded Interest” was a selection in both the Merril and Asimov/Greenberg anthologies devoted to the best SF of1956, but the story hasn’t been widely anthologized otherwise. I considered “Compounded Interest” an entertaining enough story for a magazine issue but considered it disappointing to read it in a best-of-the-year anthology. It’s a time travel story, yet it’s never been anthologized in any time travel themed anthology, and there have been many. That might tell us something.
The story is rather simple, a time traveler arrives back in the early days of Venice and deposits ten gold coins in a bank with special instructions. He returns every century with new instructions. If you wish to know what happens, read the story. The whole story is merely a fun little idea, with a somewhat punchy ending, so I won’t spoil it. However, the story does have a big “which came first, the chicken or the egg” problem.
“Compounded Interest” is so slight I almost didn’t write about it. Mack Reynolds was a rather prolific science fiction writer. Sadly, I’ve never read much of his work. I have a vague memory of reading a couple of his stories, and reading about Reynolds in Wikipedia, which I just did again. He sounds like an interesting guy, and I’d like to read more of his science fiction. It’s just that his work isn’t remembered. Like I said, I have a rather vague memory of reading one of his stories and sort of liking it, but just can’t remember what it was.
I’d want to think there were dozens of science fiction stories better than “Compounded Interest” published in 1956 yet to be discovered. I just don’t have the time to go read over a hundred issues of SF magazines to find them. And so far, no one else in our reading group has found any forgotten gems either. I’m tempted to go read the five other SF stories Reynolds published in 1956 just to test the waters:
“After Some Tomorrow” – If (June)
“The Triangulated Izaak Walton” – Fantastic (June)
“Case Rests” – Science Fiction Quarterly (August)
“Fair Exchange” – Fantastic (August)
“Dog Star” – Science Fiction Quarterly (November)
Maybe Reynolds didn’t hit his stride until the 1960s. I remember seeing him a lot in Campbell’s Analog during that decade. Even when I was subscriber back then, I passed over his stories. Reynolds never hooked me, but like I said, reading about him in Wikipedia shows he had a fascinating life and should have written at least a few interesting stories.
“Compounded Interest” is the kind of story that’s just okay. Evident Judith Merril and Asimov and Greenberg, but not T. E. Dikty found it just interesting enough to reprint in their best of 1956 anthologies. But is it padding? My guess, few years produce enough stories to fill an anthology with exceptional stories.
By the way, Mr. Mike wasn’t too kind to this story either, but he was less verbose than I in saying it:
Compounded Interest is a tissue paper thin story with a repetitive plot and uninteresting characters.
As soon as Professor Alan Shirey is introduced toward the end of the story we realize that he must be the mysterious Mister Smith.
It's a nonsensical and tedious story.
James Wallace Harris, 12/31/23 – Happy New Year
UPDATE:
I just read “After Some Tomorrow” in the June If. Now, this is the Mack Reynolds story that Merril, Asimov/Greenberg, and Dikty should have collected as one of the best of 1956. Follow the link to read it online. It’s about gender role reversals after the apocalypse. And the plot has some nice twists. Plus, it’s quite gritty for a magazine aimed at young readers. Rating: ****+
“A Work of Art” was first published in Science Fiction Stories, July 1956 as “Art – Work.” You can read it on Archive.org. It is story #14 of 22 for The Best SF Stories of 1956 group read. Asimov and Greenberg picked “A Work of Art” for The Great SF Stories #18 (1956). It was widely reprinted. Its quality is inferred by the fact that I own “A Work of Art” in seven anthologies:
Science Fiction Showcase (1959) edited by Mary Kornbluth
The Worlds of Science Fiction (1963) edited by Robert P. Mills
The Best of James Blish (1979)
Science Fiction of the Fifties (1980) edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Joseph Olander
The Great SF Stories #18 (1956) (1988)
The Science Fiction Century (1997) edited by David G. Hartwell
Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century (2001) edited by Orson Scott Card
“A Work of Art” is James Blish’s third most cited story in our database after “Surface Tension” and “Common Time.” James Blish isn’t very well known today, but he had a fair reputation when I was growing up in the 1960s. Among writers who knew Blish, he was remembered for being a scholarly intellectual writer. Older science fiction fans know him for the novel A Case of Conscience and the series Cities in Flight.
I first encountered Blish with his paperback series that converted the original Star Trek episodes into short stories. That was fun reading when I was a teen watching the show back in the 1960s, but it gave me the wrong impression that Blish was a hack writer. It took me decades to throw off that prejudice. “A Work of Art” offers me new hope for Blish.
It’s funny how we start off in our adolescence following a few writers as our favorites, and then years or even decades later, we learn that we should have read more of their contemporaries. Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke dominated my formative years of science fiction reading. Now in my fading years, I’m discovering the 1950s and 1960s had other interesting science fiction writers — ones I should have been reading.
“A Work of Art” is the first story by Blish that backs the reputation I’ve gotten from reading about Blish. I’ve read A Case of Conscience twice, but I never considered it great, just particularly good. And I never liked the Cities in Flight stories. I keep hoping to discover more by Blish that matches the reputation he has with other readers. I’ve bought Black Easter and The Day After Judgment but haven’t read them yet. I’ve read “A Work of Art” twice and feel it’s closer to Aldiss and Ballard, which makes me want to try harder at finding the better Blish stories.
My friend Mike has been emailing me his thoughts on the Best SF Short Stories of 1956 and I’ll quote his comments to describe “A Work of Art” because I think he’s done a better job than I would have of summing up the story.
In James Blish's "A Work of Art," the mind sculptor Dr. Barkun Kris has "...superimposed memories..." of Richard Strauss onto Jerom Bosch, who "...had no talent for music at all..."
At first, "A Work of Art" seems little more than Blish's satirical take on modern music. For Strauss (Bosch), "Music was, he quickly began to suspect, a dying art, which would soon have a status not much above that held by flower arranging back in what he thought of as his own century." Composers "...openly used a slide-rule-like device called a Hit Machine..."
Strauss composes a new opera with the intention to "...strike out afresh..." and not depend on his "...old tricks..."
During the opera's premiere, Blish introduces an epiphany for Strauss, who realizes during the performance that there "...was nothing new about the music. It was the old Strauss all over again--but weaker, more diluted than ever."
Strauss's anguish is palpable: "Being brought to life again meant bringing to life as well all those deeply graven reflexes of his style."
"His eyes filled; his body was young, but he was an old man, an old man. Another thirty-five years of this? Never."
The audience is ecstatic about the result of the mind sculpture. But Jerom Bosch has a depth of understanding that Dr. Kris never suspects. Bosch knows that the Strauss that Kris created "...was as empty of genius as a hollow gourd. The joke would always be on the sculptor, who was incapable of hearing the hollowness of the music..."
Bosch's moment of epiphany adds depth and dimension to the story by creating a nuanced character who will soon be returned to his regular life even though he feels that "I am Richard Strauss until I die, and will never be Jerom Bosch, who was unable to carry even the simplest tune." We feel his grief when Kris "...turned to him to say the word that would plunge him back into oblivion..."
One reason I like “A Work of Art” is it deals with an alternative to mind downloading that I think might be vaguely possible. Mind downloading/uploading has been a popular theme in SF for several decades, but I’ve never thought it possible. However, I’ve wondered if we could create an AI personality based on all the works of a famous person. In “A Work of Art” Dr. Kris sculpts minds in living people. I guess it’s a kind of temporary brainwashing. I don’t think that’s possible, but it’s a good enough idea for the story.
“A Work of Art” gives Blish the opportunity to show off his knowledge of classical music, something I know next to nothing about, but always wished I did. And Blish gets to speculate about the nature of personality, both real, and copied. Richard Strauss’ artificial personality struggles to create a new opera but is faced with two problems. The first is he’s old and has done everything already, so he tends to repeat himself. But the second, and the revelation of the story, is because he’s a copy his creativity is limited by what’s known about him. It begs the question: Can creative work be used to be creative? That’s pertinent today regarding LLM AIs.
Now Mike focuses on something I missed, or something Mike has added to the story. He sees Bosch as being a participant in this mind sculpting artwork. I didn’t. I assumed Bosch had temporarily left the building, so to speak, while the Strauss personality occupies it. Mike evidently saw mind art as a blend of the two. Mike assumes Bosch had the final epiphany, while I think the Strauss personality had it before it was erased.
Even though I disagree with Mike’s take, I like the idea of Bosch being there all along too, being part of the art. I’ll need to read “A Work of Art” for a third time to see if I see clues for that. That’s the fun thing about exceptional stories, that they can be interpreted in diverse ways.
“Horrer Howce” was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1956. You can read it on Archive.org. It is story #13 of 22 for The Best SF Stories of 1956 group read. Asimov and Greenberg picked “Horrer Howce” for The Great SF Stories #18 (1956) and it was also included in Galaxy: Thirty Years of Innovative Science Fiction, which was our Group Read #9. You can read our original discussion thread here.
I know nothing about Margaret St. Clair. Except for reading “Horrer Howce” before in the Galaxy anthology, I can’t recall reading any of her other stories. Wikipedia reports she wrote over 130 fantasy and science fiction stories, and ISFDB,org lists quite a few. She only has two books and five stories cited in CSF, with none getting more than two citations. I once owned a copy of this Ace Double, but I got it for the Philip K. Dick story. St. Clair has been reprinted in a several anthologies devoted to rediscovering women science fiction writers, such as The Future is Female! edited Lisa Yaszek, which I own, but haven’t read.
Unfortunately, I didn’t think much of “Horrer Howce.” The story is about a man named Freeman who tries to sell exhibits to amusement parks featuring haunted houses. He’s having trouble selling his exhibits because they drive his potential clients mad with fear, or even kills them. At first, I thought this might be an oddball fantasy like those Shirley Jackson wrote, but “Horrer Howce” appears to have a science fictional basis. Although, at one point, Freeman consults books like a conjurer. Even after two readings, I was never sure if Freeman was opening gateways to other dimensions or using magic to open fantasy portals. In either sense, I didn’t think such gateway/portals were suitable for amusement parks. The early ones were just scary dark holes, but Freeman expected visitors to enter the world of the Vooms, and it was much too big to be a fake thrill ride.
I can see where “Horrer Howce” has a certain appeal but just not to me. I thought it reasonably good enough for a magazine story, but I find it disappointing for a best of the year or retrospective anthology. My friend Mike summed it up nicely in an email:
Margaret St. Clair's "Horrer Howce" is an effective horror story. It invokes feelings of fear, dread, and dismay.
We shouldn't ask "Horrer Howce" to be anything more. Examining the characters and plot seems like a fool's errand. We enjoy the creepiness of the Vooms and are left wishing that we could see Freeman's future tableau: A Horrer Howce for the Voom.
I didn’t feel fear, dread, or dismay. I could see how St. Clair worked to create those responses, but her efforts seemed too basic or simple to me. Because of the horror angle, it was out of place in Galaxy — at least for me. I thought it would have been more suited for F&SF, Fantastic, or Fantastic Universe.
I should give Margaret St. Clair another chance. Does anyone know of a better story of hers to recommend?
Classics of Science Fiction 