Posted on by jameswharris · 10 Comments

How My Buddies Judged Science Fiction Back in High School

Group Read 92 (#06-08 of 25)

“The Certificate” by Avram Davidson (F&SF, March 1959)

“To See the Invisible Man” by Robert Silverberg (Worlds of Tomorrow, April 1963)

“A Two-Timer” by David I. Masson (New Worlds 159, February 1966) (Amazon)

Back in the sixties, in high school, my friends and I would argue endlessly over science fiction short stories. We didn’t remember them by their title or author, but by whatever neat idea they imagined. I still remember my friend George telling Connell and me about a humorous short story, where a human crewed military spaceship tries to get cooperation from a human colony world where the social norms and economy were wacky. The colonists kept telling the crew “myob” to everything asked. I didn’t learn until years later that this was a famous story by Eric Frank Russell called “… And Then There Were None.” Another story George told us was about an Earthman who fell in love with a girl, and she wanted him to tell him he loved her. But the guy didn’t want to use such a trite phrase, so he left Earth and went all over the galaxy to learn about the preciseness of language. Eventually, he returns to the girl and says, “My dear, I’m rather fond of you.” Of course, the girl was hugely disappointed and rejected the guy. When the guy told his language guru what happened, the guru said, “Lucky devil, vaguely enjoyable was the best I could ever find.” I didn’t discover until decades later that it was “The Language of Love” by Robert Sheckley.”

The point of all this was that we judged science fiction solely on the ideas in the stories, not the plot, characterization, or writing. George read the most and was the best at retelling a story. I think he mainly read anthologies. I read anthologies and magazines. I was more into neat inventions. For example, I told them about the ecologariums in “The Star Pit” by Samuel R. Delany. Connell and I loved Mindswap by Sheckley, and we told everyone about the Theory of Searches. We worked at the Kwik Chek in Coconut Grove, Florida. At the time, its park was a gathering place for would-be hippies. The odds of meeting someone you knew from all over Dade County were increased if you came to the park on Saturdays. That fit Sheckley’s idea that there were optimal places to go if you were searching for someone.

The last three stories we read for the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Facebook group were all idea stories, the kind my buddies and I would have discussed at Connell’s house on Vista Ct.

“The Certificate” by Avram Davidson is a tight little story about alien invaders who take complete control over humanity, making us their slaves. The aliens create a vast bureaucracy that’s impossible to fight. The aliens also punish us severely if we don’t cooperate. To make matters worse, they have altered us so we heal immediately, so they can torture us over and over again.

The story’s protagonist is Dr. Roger Freeman, who desperately wants a new winter coat. To apply for one involves going through an obstacle course that takes years. But Freeman is finessing the system.

Back in high school, this story would have caused us to argue about how we’d overthrow those aliens. Being young guys, we’d probably claim to know how to start a rebellion, even though Davidson sets up the story to suggest no rebellion is possible. When I read this story this week, the idea didn’t appeal to me much. The story is well-written, with an O. Henry surprise ending. However, it doesn’t offer anything to me as an older reader.

“To See the Invisible Man” by Robert Silverberg seems like a reply to Damon Knight’s classic short story, “Country of the Kind.” Like the Knight story, Silverberg sets up a society with a unique liberal form of punishment. The unnamed first-person narrator is sentenced to a year of invisibility for being cold and detached. He’s not actually made invisible. He’s just branded on the forehead, so anyone who sees him should act like he doesn’t exist. The story is about the psychological changes this character undergoes during the year. The narrator learns that he can steal whatever he wants or visit women’s locker rooms and be completely ignored. But he gets lonely, even desperate for someone to talk to. Silverberg takes us to a different place in his story. His character rebels in a different way by being compassionate.

My buddies and I would have had a lot to say about this story, with each of us coming up with how to handle the punishment. We’d probably argued over whether or not we’d go into the women’s locker room. I would have said that my solution would have been to read science fiction for a year. We did know of “Country of the Kind,” so we would have compared the two, but only about what the two criminals did, not about the writing, plotting, or characterization. Science fiction was about setting up a situation that you could argue over.

“To See the Invisible Man” is a good story. It’s tightly told, immediate, and works. However, it is not nearly as dramatic as “Country of the Kind,” and thus won’t be as memorable.

There’s little likelihood we would have read “A Two-Timer” by David I. Masson in the 1960s because it came out in a British SF magazine. Also, the idea behind this story is probably too subtle for three teenage boys in the 1960s. Joe, the narrator, is a guy from 1683 who steals a time machine and visits 1964. Of course, he doesn’t know it’s a time machine when he discovers it, or comprehends the idea of time travel. He just sees a guy walk away from a weird enclosed chair. He gets in and sees all kinds of dials and buttons labeled with words he doesn’t understand. He pushes a button and goes to 1964. Eventually, Joe figures out how the machine travels in time and space, like the DeLorean in Back to the Future.

The real point of this story is Joe, with his Middle English mind, describing 1964 to the reader. That might have entertained us back in the sixties, but I’m not sure. Old man me, found it very creative. There’s little action in the story. The piece is Masson’s playground for showing off his knowledge about language and history. Present-day me was disappointed that Joe wasn’t inspired to explore time based on his 17th-century knowledge.

I’m getting old and jaded. I find it hard to discover science fiction that thrills me in the remaining years of my life. I’ve loved reading science fiction magazines my whole life, but most of the stories were aimed at readers like my younger self. Masson’s exploration of language is more ambitious and mature than the other two stories, but Masson built his story on a lame plot.

Even though I’ve been reading science fiction for over sixty years, I still want to find stories that thrill me to the same degree as I was at 13. I’m not sure that’s even possible. Breakthrough science fiction novels like Hyperion are rare. But it’s interesting to note that Hyperion would have been a novel that thrilled me and my high school science fiction buddies.

Obviously, many of the stories that wowed me as I grew older would have also thrilled the younger me. For example, “Think Like a Dinosaur” by James Patrick Kelly or “Beggars in Spain” by Nancy Kress.

On the other hand, would “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang have inspired our younger selves? We would have avidly talked about translating an alien language, but would we have appreciated the advanced plotting and exceptional writing?

And could we have appreciated “Loneliness Universe” by Eugenia Triantafyllou without having lived through the social media era? Or could my younger self appreciate “Two Truths and a Lie” by Sarah Pinsker, which moved my older self? Wasn’t I mainly moved by the writing? I’m not sure high school Jim could have.

What if we could have read “Press ENTER ■” by John Varley in 1966? Would it blow us kids away like it did me in 1984? Did we need to understand computers and know about the technological singularity first?

I have to assume certain stories in the 1960s were relevant because of my age and current events. That’s why Dangerous Visions was exciting in 1969 but painful to read last year.

I keep looking for old science fiction I missed back then that will thrill me as much now as it would have thrilled me back when — if I had discovered it when I was young. One such book was The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis. The trouble is, I think George, Connell, and I would have all thought that story was dull. Isn’t that novel better for the old and jaded?

I need to find cutting-edge science fiction for today that would have thrilled me as a 13-year-old but also a 73-year-old.

By the way, my 1964 self expected a much different 2025 than the one I live in now. There are many nonfiction books about current affairs that, if I could send to my 1964 self, would read more like science fiction than science fiction.

James Wallace Harris, 5/9/25

Posted on by jameswharris · 11 Comments

What is the Shelf Life of Science Fiction?

My library constantly discards science fiction from its holdings. I know that because I see those books in the Friends of the Library book sale stamped DISCARD. Often, they are books I would consider SF blasts from the past. Evidently, if they aren’t checked out for a certain period, they get discarded. I used to believe libraries were supposed to preserve the past, but I don’t think that’s true anymore.

But that’s not my only clue that science fiction has a shelf life. At the used bookstore I visit every week I see the same old books week after week – no one is buying them. It’s the newer books that come and go so quickly.

For years now, I’ve been watching people review science fiction books on YouTube. I can sense that many authors and their books are falling out favor over time. A major example is Robert A. Heinlein. When I was growing up, he was considered the #1 science fiction author. He was my favorite SF writer. I still love his books published before 1960, but the ones after that haven’t aged well with me. Reviewers generally pan Heinlein nowadays. I often see critical comments about Heinlein on Facebook. He’s just not popular anymore. I see many of his books at the used bookstore, but only a couple at the new bookstore.

Whitney at the YouTube channel Secret Sauce of Storycraft has been reviewing old Hugo winning novels by decades. She didn’t like over half of the winners. Five of the ten (The Wanderer, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, This Immortal, and Lord of Light) have stopped working for me too.

If I gave the Hugo Award now for the 1960s, my list would be:

  • 1960 – STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert A. Heinlein
  • 1961 – ROGUE MOON by Algis Budrys ( for A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ)
  • 1962 – STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert A. Heinlein
  • 1963 – THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE by Philip K. Dick
  • 1964 – THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH by Walter Tevis (for WAY STATION)
  • 1965 – THE MARTIAN TIME-SLIP by Philip K. Dick (for THE WANDERER)
  • 1966 – DUNE by Frank Herbert
  • 1967 – FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON by Daniel Keyes (THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS)
  • 1968 – no award
  • 1969 – STAND ON ZANZIBAR by John Brunner

I thought there would be hundreds of science fiction books that would be Hugo worthy from the 1960s, but there weren’t. I used CSFquery.com and ISFDB.org to look at each year 1960-1969 and there just was’t that many older books that’s being read today that people still admire.

I love A Canticle for Leibowitz still, but it’s a fixup novel, and I mostly love it for the first story. And reviewers aren’t as wowed as they used to be for it. I kept Stranger on the list even though I no longer like it, because it’s so ambitious for the times, and historically, it is the standout novel of the year. I love Way Station, but I don’t think people still read it much. The Man Who Fell to Earth has grown in popularity since 1963. The Martian Time-Slip is way better than The Wanderer, and people still read it. I definitely think Flowers for Algernon has aged better than Mistress. I’d give No Award over Lord of Light, or any other novel I remember from 1967.

All the books on my list are in print, and all are available as audiobooks. That’s a good indicator that they are still being read.

I was shocked by how few science fiction books from the 1960s I still admire. Twelve years ago I wrote a series about the best SF books from each decade. Looking at my essay for the 1960s shows damn few books that people still read.

I remember back in the 1960s when old guys would gush about E. E. “Doc” Smith books from the 1920s and 1930s. I tried them, and they were horrible. I guess today’s young readers would feel the same about most of the books I loved back in the 1960s. Is anyone still reading Keith Laumer, John Boyd, Mack Reynolds, A. Bertram Chandler, etc.

Here is a list of 242 popular SF books from 1920-1990. How many do you think are still being read?

What are the best science fiction books from the 1960s that you still read and think young people should try?

You might like to read An Information History of the Hugo Awards by Jo Walton. This was first published at Tor.com and many of the comments from readers are included.

James Wallace Harris, 5/5/25

Posted on by jameswharris

“Watershed” by James Blish

Group Read 92 (#05 of 25)

“Watershed” by James Blish was first published in IF Worlds of Science Fiction (May 1955). You can read it online here. “Watershed” became part of James Blish’s The Seedling Stars, a collection of short stories about adapting humans to new environments. The most famous story of the collection is the classic “Surface Tension.” Unfortunately, “Watershed” is not in print except for Supermen: Tales of a Posthuman Future, a 2002 anthology edited by Gardner Dozois.

“Watershed” is a rather preachy tale, not a thrillingly dramatic story like “Surface Tension.” Capt. Gorbel of the spaceship R.S.S. Indefeasible is traveling to Earth to deliver new colonists, but it’s not what you think. Humans have long colonized the galaxy, and the environment of Earth can no longer sustain “standard form” humans. Gorbel is going to Earth to deliver colonists that look like seals, but are considered just as human as we are, well, that’s by the standards of political correctness of their day.

The adapted human is Hoqqueah. He likes to sit in the forward greenhouse and stare into space as the ship approaches Earth. However, the standard form crew considers itself superior to the adapted humans. Averdor doesn’t like that Hoqqueah spends so much time in the greenhouse, and is annoyed by his constant talking. Averdor tries to convince Gorbel to forbid the adapted humans from using the greenhouse.

Hoqqueah knows of this prejudice, and he tells the Captain a story about Earth. He explains that Earth was the original home of all humans. He also tells how humans have found many planets that couldn’t support the standard human body, so they adapted humans to new forms. The concept is called pantropy. (That link gives several classic examples in SF.)

However, this is 1955, and we must ask ourselves if this story is about space exploration. The famous civil rights case, Brown v. Board of Education, happened in 1954. To be fair to James Blish, he had been exploring pantropy since 1942. But then Blish has Hoqqueah tell Captain Gorbel about prejudice against dark skin humans on old Earth.

The kicker to this story is that the standard form is now the minority.

“Watershed” has nice sentiments, but not much of a story. It’s told, not shown. It would have been far better if it had been dramatized. We don’t get to know Hoqqueah or what it’s like to be a seal person. And why, if standard form humans can’t handle Earth, how can the adapted men of his kind handle the spaceship with Gorbel and Averdor?

I recommend reading “Surface Tension” to understand what I mean by telling the story with drama. You can read it in the August 1952 issue of Galaxy Magazine.

James Wallace Harris, 4/30/25

Posted on by jameswharris · 5 Comments

“The Last Day” by Richard Matheson

Group Read 92 (#04 of 25)

“The Last Day” by Richard Matheson was first published in the April-May 1953 issue of Amazing Stories. You can read it online here. Or you can buy The Best of Richard Matheson in various media editions here. Or look at its reprint history to see if you already own it in an anthology.

Our reading group is reading 25 short stories recommended by five group members. They are stories we haven’t read as a group, but ones the five people thought we shouldn’t miss. I didn’t submit this time, but “The Last Day” would have been one of the stories I would have submitted. Three of my favorite SF short stories from 1953 are “The Last Day,” “Lot” by Ward Moore, and “Deadly City” by Paul W. Fairman. I admire these stories because they were so gritty, even brutal.

Science fiction has often dealt with post-apocalyptic stories but “The Last Day” is about the end of the world. Some astronomical object is about to crash into the Earth. It’s not specified. The story begins in the morning of the last day and ends in the evening just before the end of everything on Earth.

I have often read and thought about surviving an apocalypse. I have often contemplated my own death. And I’ve always been fascinated by stories about people with a terminal illness and what they did with their remaining days.

But I haven’t thought about what I would do if everyone had just one day to live. It’s a neat concept to ponder. After reading “The Last Day” I’m not sure I’d need to read another story on the same idea. “The Last Day” gets the job done so nicely that I can’t imagine anyone topping it.

For this reading, I read the story with my eyes and then listened to it with my ears. I was impressed by its drama. Richard Matheson is famous for writing over a dozen episodes of The Twilight Zone. Many of Matheson’s stories and novels were adapted for television and the movies, and he wrote many screenplays. Matheson knows how to create drama.

“The Last Day” begins with Richard waking up in a room full of passed-out people. Several are naked, and it’s obvious that a drunken orgy had taken place the night before. When Richard goes into the bathroom to clean up a bit, he finds a dead man in the tub. Richard enters the kitchen where a friend, Spencer, is frying eggs. By now, we’ve realized that life on Earth is about to end.

Richard wishes he were with Mary, a woman he loved but didn’t commit to. His friend Norman comes into the kitchen and tells Richard he wants to go see his mother. Norman asks Richard if he wants to see his mother. Richard dreads the idea because he knows his mother will preach religion at him, and he doesn’t want to hear it.

After Spencer leaves to have more sex with a woman who wants everyone to watch, Norman begs Richard to drive him to his mother’s house. We learn that riots are going on all over the city. Many people have committed suicide, but others run wild, murdering each other.

All of this is amazingly adult for a science fiction story in 1953, especially published in a magazine mostly read by young adults. That issue seemed atypical for Amazing Stories. It also had stories by Robert A. Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, and Murray Leinster. It was edited by Howard Browne. I feel I need to reevaluate that era of the magazine. 1953 was a boom year for science fiction magazines. I’ve written about it before. I believe the Cold War had a significant impact on the genre that year. Just look at some of the other notable stories from 1953.

Richard eventually finds his mother at his sister’s house. There’s a poignant scene of his sister and her husband getting their daughter to take sleeping pills, and Richard watching all three commit suicide. And finally, Richard has a moving moment with his mother while they wait to die.

The story is cleanly told. Direct. It covers many bases without getting wordy. 5-stars.

James Wallace Harris, 4/29/25

Posted on by jameswharris · 1 Comment

“The Rose” by Charles L. Harness

Group Read 92 (#03 of 25)

“The Rose” by Charles L. Harness was first published in Authentic Science Fiction Monthly (No. 31, March 1953). You can read it online here. Our Facebook group is discussing 25 stories suggested by five members that we haven’t discussed before. Paul Fraser has recommended “The Rose” in comments, but it’s never been up for a group discussion. I’ve tried to read “The Rose” twice before but got bogged down. The story is long, a novella, and it’s dense.

“The Rose” is one of the most ambitious science fiction novellas I’ve ever read. I’m glad that I finally finished it. This is exactly what I was hoping for from our member-recommended group read, a standout science fiction work I haven’t read. One good enough to merit rereading.

The story reminds me of what other writers explored in the years after 1953, works by Theodore Sturgeon, J. G. Ballard, Robert Silverberg, Jack Vance, and Roger Zelazny. “The Rose” has seldom been reprinted, but the most significant anthology to remember it is The Science Fiction Century, edited by David G. Hartwell.

“The Rose” is available as The Rose, a standalone Kindle novel for 99 cents. They say it’s 192 pages, but I can’t tell if it’s expanded from the novella. The UK edition says it’s just 88 pages, so it’s probably the same as the novella.

But for $1 more, you can get the Kindle edition of The Ornament of His Profession for $1.99, which includes “The Rose” and several other stories by Harness. I just discovered I already own that edition in my Kindle Library. Probably, I bought it when Paul recommended “The Rose” the first time.

Both have the same introduction to “The Rose:”

Because “The Rose” appeared in Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, I thought Harness was British, but his Wikipedia page says he was American. I recommend taking the time to read his entry because it made me want to read more of what Charles L. Harness wrote. His science fiction sounds fascinating, but I’ve only read a couple of his shorter works. I may, or may not have read Flight Into Yesterday/Paradox Men. I also recommend reading “The Novels of Charles Harness” by Rich Horton.

Describing “The Rose” is going to be difficult. Anna van Tuyl is a psychiatrist. She’s also a ballet dancer, composer, and choreographer. Anna was once beautiful, but now she is hunched back and has two horn-like structures growing from her forehead. The story is about Anna’s efforts to finish the score for a ballet called Nightingale and the Rose. As the introduction tells us, it’s plotted around a short story, “The Nightingale and the Rose” by Oscar Wilde. Anna is mentally blocked from composing the score’s climax.

Anna’s friend, Max Bell, a psychogeneticist, recommends Anna to Martha Jacques, wife of Ruy Jacques. Martha is a brilliant scientist working on an advanced weapon, and Ruy is an artist. Ruy has also become disfigured by a hump and horns, and recently lost the ability to read and write. Max Bell tricks Anna into meeting Ruy Jacques, where she falls in love with him. Ruy is an over-the-top, outrageous character — narcissistic, insane, and brilliant to the nth degree.

It turns out that Martha is obsessively jealous of Ruy and is hesitant to hire Anna. Throughout the story, Martha and Ruy have one never-ending argument about art versus science. This is one of the many reasons “The Rose” is so dense to read. Harness throws out all kinds of ideas and theories about art and science. Ruy believes artists have long known everything scientists eventually discover.

To complicate the story further, Ruy and Anna are emerging supermen, or examples of Homo superior. They are developing psychic powers, but these are strange powers. Harness has taken on the task of showing how advanced humans will think. Much of his speculation is psychobabble and pseudo-science, but there’s a kind of elegance to his thinking. Harness uses 1953 art theory, combined with a fair knowledge of classical music, ballet, and other arts, to contrast with scientific and mathematical ideas of the time. Reading Charles L. Harness suggests he was a cultured man, better educated than the average science fiction writer. But then, science fiction writers are often great autodidatics and bullshitters. Harness had degrees in chemistry and the law and worked as a patent attorney.

Harness also complicates his story by paralleling the plot of the novella with the plot of the fictional ballet. And Ruy and Anna work to live out their own artistic creation.

It took me a while to embrace Harness’s prose. You have to read it slowly because he intends so much with each sentence. Here’s one sample.

“The Rose” is definitely a story I look forward to rereading someday. I’d love to hear a professional narrator read it in an audiobook. “The Rose” doesn’t emotionally enchant me like “The Star Pit” by Samuel R. Delany or “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” by Roger Zelazny does. It’s about as intellectually impressive as “The Darfsteller” by Walter M. Miller, Jr., another long science fiction story about artists and performers I admire but don’t quite love.

My opinion might change with another reading of “The Rose.” Right now, it doesn’t quite make the five-star rating. I think the density of the prose keeps me from embracing the characters. I never liked Anna or Ruy, only admired them as interesting characters. This might be due to the story being too tightly plotted. Harness wanted his characters to act out a ballet they were creating, and you get the feeling that Anna and Ruy are acting for Harness, not themselves.

James Wallace Harris, 4/26/25

Posted on by jameswharris · 4 Comments

CAMP CONCENTRATION by Thomas M Disch

The first time I read Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch, I was around 20 and proud of myself for reading one of those New Wave science fiction novels I had been reading about in fanzines. It wasn’t much fun to read. It was overly intellectual – well beyond my level of comprehension. After reading thousands of other books over the last fifty-plus years, Camp Concentration made much more sense. I actually enjoyed the story. I enjoyed it a lot. But please, don’t buy a copy without carefully reading this review.

It’s important to know that Camp Concentration first appeared in the July, August, September, and October 1967 issues of New Worlds. It suggests it was written in 1966 or early 1967 and published first in England, in a magazine that promoted the New Wave. To fully appreciate this novel, you must remember when it was written and what happened in the United States in 1966 and 1967. The first hardback came out in England in 1968, and it wasn’t until 1969 when it was published in America. I didn’t read it until after the 1971 Avon paperback, cover shown above.

I’d love to hear an audiobook version of Camp Concentration. However, a highly skilled narrator would be needed to handle all the accents, poetry, foreign language quotes, and characterizations. It would also make a wonderful movie. Unfortunately, the audience for either the audiobook or film would be small.

Back in the 1970s Camp Concentration was greatly admired. Philip K. Dick loved the book so much he promoted to friends and suggested it be made into a movie to a producer interested in his own work. But there’s a bizarre story here. Dick, who was paranoid, started seeing things in Camp Concentration and wrote a letter to the FBI claiming it had secret intel. You can read that letter here. Eventually, Disch found out about this and didn’t take it kindly. Wikipedia describes what happened:

I mention this early in the review because it helps set up how strange Camp Concentration is as a novel. It’s quite readable, but it has so many references to literature, music, philosophy, poetry, etc., that you might feel it has some deeper message. Even though I just finished the novel, I’m already looking forward to rereading it again. However, before I can do that, I need to study first. At minimum I should read Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus, and Thomas Mann’s novel Dr. Faustus. In fact, I need to go through Camp Concentration, make a list of all the works Disch mentions, and at least read their Wikipedia pages about them.

Louis Sacchetti is a conscientious objector, and Camp Concentration is the journal he writes while imprisoned in two locations. Disch wrote the novel while LBJ was president, and before Nixon. The story is set somewhat in the future, and Robert McNamara is President. McNamara was the Secretary of Defense under JFK and LBJ. McNamara played a major role in promoting the Vietnam War. To get the fullness of Camp Concentration, you need to read the Wikipedia link to McNamara. It also helps to see The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, a 2003 Academy Award winning documentary.

Camp Concentration is a deeply cynical view of the United States in 1967. Louis is a war resister, at first imprisoned in an ordinary prison. He accepts that. But the novel is about when he is transferred to another prison, a military prison, where an experimental drug is used on the inmates by the U.S. Army. Most of the prisoners had committed crimes while in the Army, but Louis is a special civilian prisoner. The army believes it has synthesized a drug that will enhance intelligence. It was derived from a strain of syphilis.

The U.S. Army conducted experiments with LSD from 1955 to 1967. From 1932 to 1972, the U.S. government studied the effects of syphilis on black people after telling them they were being treated. These are just two examples of unethical experiments by our government. It’s not hard to believe the setup for Camp Concentration.

Camp Concentration reminds some readers of Flowers for Algernon because it’s about a treatment that makes people smarter. Over one hundred journal entries, we see Louis and the other prisoners change and become brilliant. I felt the characters did change, but my friend Mike, who got me to reread the novel, says he didn’t. Writers find it hard to describe humans with superintelligence. I’ve written about that recently. I thought Disch pulled it off, Mike didn’t.

Most of the novel is intellectual discussions about art, literature, poetry, theater, music, religion, philosophy, Alchemy, and other medieval beliefs. Mike thought all this discussion was boring, I was fascinated. I feel it helps to have a classical education to appreciate Camp Concentration. I don’t, but I’ve read enough to wish I had.

While reading Camp Concentration I was reminded of another book I read in the 1970s, Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics and Transcendence in Post Industrial Society by Theodore Roszak. I’m not saying the two books are about the same things, but as the characters evolve intellectually, they start sounding like Roszak.

Read Disch’s Wikipedia entry, you’ll see that Thomas M. Disch and Louis Sacchetti have much in common. Louis is a poet, and Disch wrote The Castle of Indolence: On Poetry, Poets, and Poetastes.

In the novel, the drug makes the test subject smarter, but it also kills them within months. As the characters grow more brilliant, they realize they have much more to live for and become bitter. Disch appears to equate higher IQ with depression and cynicism.

Disch does not suggest that superintelligence leads to super-powers. The test subjects only become more academic in their communication with each other. As they evolve mentally, their use of intellectual ideas to express themselves becomes more dense. This is subtle, and it may be hard to believe they are more intelligent. It seems that most of their references are to ideas covered in Classical studies or Medieval studies.

If you are prone to depression, I would not read this novel. If you are among the faithful, I would not read this novel. If you prefer tightly plotted stories, that are easy to read, and enjoy action, don’t buy this book.

On the other hand, if you’re into the history of science fiction, the New Wave, or the 1960s, Camp Concentration might be a good one to read. Science fiction changed in 1967-1968. I believe several young prodigies like Disch and Delany took the genre in new directions, and older writers like Silverberg, Brunner, and Ellison decided they were tired of where science fiction was going too.

Camp Concentration is available at Amazon.com (Kindle $5.99, Trade paper $15.00)

Reviews:

New Worlds (December 1968)

Amazing Stories (January 1970)

Analog (March 1972)

Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels by David Pringle ($1.99 Kindle)

James Wallace Harris, 3/11/25

Posted on by jameswharris · 5 Comments

A Unique History of Science Fiction (1945-1975)

From 1945 to 1975, P. Schuyler Miller reviewed science fiction books for Astounding Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction. He died in October of 1974. I stumbled upon an online PDF collection of those reviews from 1945-1967. You can download that file here. (Warning – it’s 235MB.)

Unfortunately, the individual reviews aren’t dated and the run is far from complete. However, the PDF is searchable, and you can use ISFDB.org to date an individual review. Just look up the book title, then scroll down to the Reviews section, and find the one for Miller. Someday I’d like to create a file of all of Miller’s reviews from 1945-1975.

I put this PDF on my iPad and read it like a book. It’s wonderful. The reviews start before science fiction was regularly published in book form. Whoever collected these reviews evidently picked those they thought interesting to modern readers. Collectively, they have a history of science fiction published before 1968. For example, the early reviews cover books published before science fiction was a genre. Then we started seeing books from Gnome and Fantasy Press, essentially fan publishers. After that, we slowly see big name New York publishers take chances on the genre along with the rise of mass market paperback publishers.

We get to read the original reviews of books now remembered as genre classics and books that have since been forgotten. Often I read reviews of forgotten books that sound interesting enough to track down.

The first two reviews are books by Vardis Fisher: Darkness and the Deep and The Golden Rooms (April 1945). These books imagine life when Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon coexisted. Popular writers like H. G. Wells, Jack London, and Stephen Vincent Benet, also wrote on this theme. It wasn’t considered science fiction then, but our genre has claimed that theme since.

Here’s that first review:

Most book reviews in science fiction magazines are short blurbs. Miller writes comprehensive essays. As the years progress, Miller’s reviews become more elaborate, longer, often beginning with some science fiction history. The next review is of The Time Stream by John Taine (March 1947). Miller does more than describe and react to the novel, giving the background of how that story fits in the genre, and biographical information on the author. He compares Taine’s work to A. Merritt’s, and points out how Taine’s work originally appeared in hardback, while Merritt’s stories were serialized in magazines first. I’ve not read Taine or Merritt, but I’ve often read about both in histories of science fiction. This review makes me want to try The Time Stream. These reviews also give me information about collecting original editions. (Amazon has a Kindle edition of The Time Stream for $2.99.) Here’s Miller’s review.

I decided to jump to June 1954 and read the review for The Lights in the Sky are Stars by Fredric Brown, the science fiction novel I’m currently reading. By now Miller’s columns are longer. He reviews more books each month, so each review is shorter. That’s because far more SF books are being published every month. Since October 1951, they come under the title “The Reference Library.” (That’s where I steal the image above for this post.) Miller often begins his columns with a digression exploring topics related to current publishing.

I thought I’d test Miller on something hard. This is his review for Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein from the January 1962 issue of Analog. I’m including his essay in the introduction as a sample of how he composed his columns.

That should give you enough examples to decide on downloading the entire collection of Miller’s reviews. If you’re reading on a computer with a large monitor, I have a page I’m working on that links to Miller’s reviews in issues of Astounding and Analog at Archive.org. You can read each column one at a time on screen.

P. Schuyler Miller also wrote some science fiction. I own this first edition of The Titan with a beautiful Hannes Bok cover.

James Wallace Harris, 3/5/25

Posted on by jameswharris · 7 Comments

INHERIT THE STARS by James P. Hogan

The original paperback, Inherit the Stars by British writer James P. Hogan (1941-2010), had a terrific cover – the kind that made you buy the book. The artwork appears to show astronauts on the Moon finding a dead astronaut, but that is deceptive. Hogan creates a scientific mystery because the dead astronaut has been there for 25,000 years.

I first read Inherit the Stars in 1992 but after seeing Whitney’s review on YouTube, I wanted to reread the story. I went to Amazon but couldn’t find the book. Was it out of print? I did find it on Audible. Later, I discovered that Inherit the Stars and its sequel The Gentle Giants of Ganymede are now being sold together as The Two Moons for the Kindle. A bargain for $6.99, especially since Whitney also praised the second book. It turns out that there are five books in the series being sold as three Kindle editions. The series is called Giants. Only the first three novels are available on Audible. The Science Fiction Book Club once published the first three novels as The Mirnervan Experiment. Ballentine also published a paperback called The Giants Novels that contains all three.

Before anyone rushes out to buy Inherit the Stars, I need to describe it more, but not enough to give spoilers. Hogan’s story is the kind you want to figure out for yourself. It kept me guessing for the entire novel even though I had read it before. That worried me. Why wasn’t it more memorable? Was that an indication it was a bad book? I don’t think so. How the story is told isn’t very memorable, but the ideas are big-time fun. I did remember some of those, but not connected to the book.

Inherit the Stars is basically scientists talking about one mystery after another. There’s no real plot. A lot happens, but it’s not dramatic. With each discovery, there’s a new puzzle, which makes you think and try to guess what caused each mystery. Inherit the Stars is science fiction focused on ideas and not storytelling. I’ve told you the first mystery, but I don’t want to give away any others.

However, I will give you some fun clues. Inherit the Stars reminds me a lot of Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. Hogan’s prose is similar to Clarke’s. At one point, the story reminded me of the classic short story “Omnilingual” by H. Beam Piper. The novel also triggered memories of Gateway by Frederik Pohl. At other times it reminded me of the Winston Science Fiction, a series of young adult SF that came out in the 1950s, especially the entries where the protagonists find relics of ancient alien technology. If you love alien archeology stories, you might like Inherit the Stars.

I call Inherit the Stars Pre-NASA Science Fiction, by which I usually mean science fiction written before Mariner 4 photographed Mars in July 1965. Until NASA started exploring the solar system with robotic probes, many people hoped that we would find life, even intelligent life somewhere on other planets in our solar system. For example, Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land from 1961 imagines Mars being inhabited by a dying race. However, after Mariner 4, serious science fiction assumed we were alone in the solar system. (I must admit, that I still love Pre-NASA science fiction. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, I desperately wanted us to find Martians.)

I consider Hogan’s 1977 Inherit the Stars Pre-NASA Science Fiction because Hogan maintains the hope that we had neighbors. However, some readers might feel Hogan’s ideas might come across like those of Erich von Däniken, who wrote Chariot of the Gods? Another reviewer dismissed this book as unbelievable. Personally, I find Erich von Däniken’s theories to be insulting to humanity. But I consider Hogan’s speculation to be great science fictional fun.

James Wallace. Harris, 3/1/25

Posted on by jameswharris · 12 Comments

Gimme That Old Time Science Fiction

Whitney at the Secret Sauce of Storycraft YouTube channel recently reviewed several science fiction books she called Just D@mn Good Vintage Science Fiction Reads. She intentionally avoided books considered classic science fiction and defined the kind of books she was looking for in used bookstores as vintage science fiction. She defined vintage science fiction as books published before barcodes appeared on their covers. That would be the mid-1980s. This would be science fiction her parents and grandparents would have read.

She reviewed these books (Links will bring up the video at YouTube):

I have read most of these books with Empire Star and Downward to the Earth being two of my Top 25 science fiction novels. Whitney’s reviews made me think about all the old books I found in used bookstores that weren’t famous but were fun reads. Maybe not outstanding examples of the genre, but the fun kind of science fiction that made you forget about your worries.

Her video makes me want to make my own list of Vintage SF Gems. Books to look for at library book sales that maybe no one is buying. Books you don’t see reprinted in new editions at new bookstores. If you don’t want to hunt used editions, these vintage SF titles are often reprinted as Kindle books at Amazon, sometimes for just $1.99. Kindle and Audible editions are the best sources for finding vintage science fiction today after the demise of the mass-market paperback.

My favorite science fiction books back in the 1960s were Heinlein’s Juveniles. Robert A. Heinlein’s reputation is fading, and I think that’s partly due to online reviewers reviewing the wrong books. Heinlein wanted to be remembered for Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. And those are generally the titles found on new bookshelves and often reviewed. But they are also Heinlein’s novels that many people dislike including myself. And the novels written after that are even worse.

I wish modern reviewers would review Heinlein’s work from the 1950s. If you see old copies of these books give them a try. These science fiction books have given me the most fun over my entire lifetime. I’ve reread them many times. They are how I epitomize science fiction. All by Robert A. Heinlein.

  • Have Space Suit-Will Travel
  • Tunnel in the Sky
  • Time for the Stars
  • The Rolling Stones
  • Farmer in the Sky
  • Citizen of the Galaxy
  • Starman Jones
  • The Star Beast
  • Double Star
  • The Door Into Summer

After this plug for Heinlein, I want to remember those vintage science fiction titles I believe deserve more readers. I’m just going to post images of the covers I fondly remember. Hopefully, you might spot these books at used bookstores, charity shops, and friends-of-the-library sales in their funky old editions. For me, old covers are essential to the vintage science fiction experience.

These are just a handful of books I could recall from memory this morning.

James Wallace Harris, 2/23/25

Posted on by jameswharris · 3 Comments

THE HEADS OF CERBERUS by Francis Stevens (Gertrude Barrows Bennett)

Most science fiction stories seem to go stale after a couple decades. This week, I listened to The Heads of Cerberus by Frances Stevens, initially published 106 years ago. The story had passed its expiration date decades ago, but I still found it mildly enjoyable as a historical curiosity.

If you’re not fascinated by the evolution of science fiction, I’ll understand you leaving this essay now. The Heads of Cerberus is not a forgotten classic. It gets points for being an early example of time travel and dystopian fiction written by a woman, but it’s not a good example. At best, it’s a sample from 1919, the kind that MIT Press is reprinting in its Radium Age science fiction series.

Gertrude Barrows Bennett (1884-1948) published several fantasy and science fiction stories between 1917 and 1923 as Francis Stevens. This makes her a pioneering author in the pre-Amazing Stories era, especially as a woman writer, but she is practically forgotten today. I just learned about Francis Stevens by reading a two-part review of “Sunfire” on Science Fiction and Fantasy Remembrance (Part 1, Part 2) by Brian Collins. That review inspired me to research her, and what I learned inspired me to read The Heads of Cerberus.

The Heads of Cerberus was first serialized in five 1919 issues of The Thrill Book. It was first printed in hardback in 1952. It’s been reprinted at least a dozen times since.

I listened to a free copy on LibriVox. There are several public-domain ebook editions available, here is one at Gutenberg Australia. Lisa Yaszek who edited The Future is Female! series for the Library of America recently published a collection of Francis Stevens’ stories at MIT Press Radium Age series called The Heads of Cerberus and Other Stories. Gertrude Barrows Bennett is getting rediscovered. However, she’s been rediscovered before, it just never sticks.

The Heads of Cerberus is about three people from 1918 Philadelphia traveling to Philadelphia in 2118. Bob Drayton is a disbarred lawyer. Terry Trenmore is his Irish friend who is a powerfully built giant. And Viola Trenmore, Terry’s beautiful little sister, and just seventeen. In 2118 they find a dystopian society run by a handful of weird characters. The story is painfully simple, although I enjoyed it somewhat. The fun in reading these old science fiction tales is not the storytelling, but seeing how people imagined science fictional ideas before the concept of science fiction was invented.

The 19th century had several tales of people traveling to the future that could have inspired Bennett, each with a unique method of time travel. In “Rip Van Wrinkle,” Washington Irving has his title character sleep for twenty years after drinking potent liquor. Edward Bellamy had Julian West sleep for 113 years via hypnosis in Looking Backward. Frances Stevens has her characters jump ahead two hundred years by sniffing grey dust from a vial of mysterious ancient origins. The vial’s stopper is shaped like Cerberus.

As I said, The Heads of Cerberus isn’t very sophisticated. Its tone reminded me of the Oz books by L. Frank Baum, which were for children. Those books were often about ordinary people meeting extraordinary beings in strange places. Bennett’s imagined future is minimalistic, and somewhat goofy, reminding me of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. However, Stevens lacks the creative imagination of Baum and Carroll.

Edward Bellamy created a complex economic system for his future society that inspired many readers in the 19th century to form over five hundred Nationalist Clubs based on socialist ideas in Looking Backward. Francis Stevens imagines an economy based on the number of hours worked. Her society was ruled by an elite called The Superlatives. Ordinary people didn’t have names but numbers, and the Superlatives had names based on cardinal virtues like the Loveliest, The Bravest, the Fastest, the Strongest, etc.

The main problem with Stevens’ science fiction is her future society isn’t a philosophical idea she believed in or promoted, but merely conjured up quickly to fit a plot. Bennett was a young widow, with a child and mother to support after her dad died. She was a stenographer but made extra money by writing for the pulps. She quit writing after her mother died. The Thrill Book that serialized The Head of Cerberus was a low-paying market, but Stevens sold three novels to Argosy, a much-admired pulp after it. They were Claimed, The Citadel of Fear, and Possessed: A Tale of the Demon Serapion. Even though they are dark fantasies, a genre I’m uninterested in, I should try one to see if her writing improved. Her first serial, The Labyrinth, was to All-Story in 1918, another legendary pulp.

James Wallace Harris, 2/21/25