What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading? + Update No. XXVI
- A selection of read volumes from my shelves
What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading or planning to read next month? Here’s the August installment of this column.
The Power of the List. I adore lists. I’ve compiled lists of science fiction stories on my site about generation ship stories, immortality (abandoned), overpopulation (abandoned), and sports and games (abandoned). I religiously update my SF Novel and Short Story Review index and the Best SF Novels I’ve reviewed index. In your exploration of genre, I imagine you’ve encountered a “Best Of” list that horrified you — they tend to generate controversy, argument, and all sorts of impulsive takes. Lists can be dangerous. Lists can suggest canon. Lists exclude. Lists can be incomplete. Lists can motivate. Ian Sales, a long-time critic, author, and visitor to my site, created the SF Mistressworks (unfortunately, also abandoned) website in response to an egregious list that demonstrate utter ignorance about the wonderful SF written by women.
In its incubative form, a thematic list might suggest an encyclopedic possibility — i.e. ALL of the science fiction on a particular topic. You could create patterns and arguments about the nature of the contemporary genre vs. the past without realizing how incomplete a list might be. This, perhaps irrational, fear motivates me to track down pre-1985 stories for Olav’s wonderful Organized Labor in Science Fiction list at the Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog. I recently went full deep dive into the strange territories of pre-WWI utopian and dystopian literature about unions (inspired by my recent history reading noted later in this post). I certainly hadn’t heard of Nensowe Green’s One Thousand Years Hence (1882) or E. A. Johnson’s Light Ahead For The Negro (1902). Over the last two years or so I imagine I’ve added a good 80 stories and novels to the list. I even maintain a list of the works I’ve added to the list.
Lists are exciting!
Before we get to the photograph above and the curated birthdays, let me know what pre-1985 SF you’re currently reading or planning to read!
The Photograph (with links to reviews and brief thoughts)
- Knut Faldbakken’s Twilight Country (1974, trans, Joan Tate 1993) is a spectacular Norwegian SF vision of moody, dystopian urban gloom, intermixed with powerful images of transformation. Highly recommended. If there’s a press out there that wants to bring back a lost classic, this is it!
- Gerard F. Conway’s Mindship (1974). While I’m allergic to ESP stories, I found Conway’s take space as a landscape of psychological trauma and broken men and women and the evocation of a sinister “aura of violence” that permeates the titular mindship intriguing.
- Christopher Priest’s Inverted World (1974). One of my favorite SF novels from the 70s — unfortunately, never managed to review it.
- Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan (magazine 1970, book 1971). An enjoyable fantasy read from my youth. As I’ve mentioned before, I judged everything at the time against the vast bloated fantasy series that dominated the shelves (Tad Williams, Robert Jordan, L. E. Modesitt, Jr., etc.). I’m not sure I appreciated Le Guin’s more minimal take.
What am I writing about?
I’ve had a lull in writing in the last few months. That said, I’ve managed to post a review of George H. Smith’s “The Last Days of L. A.” (1959), for my ongoing undeclared “series” on nuclear terror, and “In the Imagicon” (1966), for my media landscape of the future series. I also posted short reviews of Joe Haldeman’s fix-up All My Sins Remembered (1977) and Burt Cole’s strident anti-war novel Subi: The Volcano (1957).
What am I reading?
My reading exploration of leftist thought of all different forms continues! I’m currently tackling Robert C. McGrath, Jr.’s American Populism: A Social History, 1877-1898 (1993). The Populists attempted to challenge the status quo of the Reconstruction south and the power of the railroads in the West. This brief political third party nabbed a few electoral votes. I wish more Americans knew the history of pragmatic socialism (in this instance, co-opts of all different shapes and sizes) amongst the rural working class. Fascinating stuff.
In the same, more utopian vein, I finished Edward K. Spann’s Brotherly Tomorrows: Movements for a Cooperative Society in America, 1820-1920 (1989). Also highly recommended — Fouriest-inspired American takes on socialism are diverse, bizarre, and relentlessly interesting. I can’t wait to visit more Harmonist sites. I still haven’t visited New Harmony, Indiana despite its relative proximity to my home in Indianapolis. And if I wasn’t traveling with my dog last week, I would have stopped by Old Economy Village, PA on my trip to Pittsburgh.
I also recently acquired on pre-order Oscar Winberg’s Archie Bunker for President: How One Television Show Remade American Politics (2025). Winberg explores the “intersection of television entertainment and American politics during the 1970s.” Count me in. Can’t wait to read this one.
A Curated List of SF Birthdays from the Last Two Weeks [names link to The Internet Speculative Fiction Database for bibliographical info]
September 23rd: Wilmar H. Shiras (1908-1990). is best known for her short stories in the Children of the Atom sequence–starting with “In Hiding” (1948)–about hyper-intelligent mutant children and a well-meaning psychiatrist who brings them together. I reviewed the majority of her early work here.
September 23rd: Richard Wilson (1920-1987). I’ve only reviewed Wilson’s controversial “Mother of the World” (1968). I have his lesser known, and I assume quite average, story “Strike” (1953) on my list to review for my labor in SF series.
- Jack Gaughan’s cover for the 1969 edition of Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
September 24th: Artist Jack Gaughan (1930-1985). While he’s never been one of my favorite big name artist of the era, I find an occasional cover or interior art appealing. His cover for the 1969 edition of Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) is a great example.
September 24th: David Drake (1945-2023).
September 24th: John Kessel (1950-).
September 25th: J. Hunter Holly (1932-1982).
September 26th: Douglas R. Mason (1918-2013).
September 28th: Michael G. Coney (1932-2005). I really enjoy Coney’s work. Check out my reviews of “Those Good Old Days of Liquid Fuel” (1976), “The Mind Prison” (1971), and Hello Summer, Goodbye (variant title: Rax) (1975) if you’re new to his work.
September 30th: Artist Oliviero Berni (1935-).
September 30th: Vance Aandahl (1942-) wrote a range of short stories across the best SF magazines of the 60s (and more intermittently into the 90s). Read any of his work? He’s an unknown to me.
October 1st: Futurian, author, and editor Donald A. Wollheim (1914-1990).
October 1st: Artist Richard Corben (1940-2020).
October 2nd: Jack Finney (1911-1995). Best known for the Cold War paranoid thriller The Body Snatchers (1955). I need a copy.
October 2nd: Jan Morris (1926-2020). I acquired a copy of Last Letters from Hav (1985) a few years ago. I completely forgot about it until I saw the birthday notice!
October 3rd: John Boyd (1919-2013).
- Uncredited cover for the 1972 edition of Messiah (1954)
October 3rd: Gore Vidal (1925-2012). Wrote a handful of novels that could be classified as speculative or science fictional. I own a copy of Messiah (1954).
October 3rd: Ray Nelson (1931-2022). Best known for “Eight O’Clock in the Morning (1963), the source material for John Carpenter’s They Live (1988).
October 4th: A. M. Lightner (1904-1988).
October 4th: Gerald Jonas (1935-). Yes, I still need to read “The Shaker Revival” (1970)!
October 5th: Artist George Salter (1897-1967).
October 6th: David Brin (1950-). I adored Uplift sequence as an older teen — in particular The Uplift War (1987).
October 7th: H. H. Hollis (1921-1977).
October 7th: Jane Gallion (1938-2003). A poet best known for “gonzo pornography” occasionally on SF themes such as the post-apocalyptic nightmare Biker (1969), not an easy to find work. I want a copy due to her commentary, according to SF Encyclopedia, on “hippy culture gone haywire.”
October 8th: George Turner (1916-1997). I’ve only read Beloved Son (1978), but could not write a review. I have mixed memories of the book.
October 8th: Frank Herbert (1920-1986).
October 8th: Ted Reynolds (1938-).
- Richard Hescox’s “Fetch!”, 1980s.
October 8th: Artist Richard Hescox (1949-).
October 9th: Artist and Doubleday Press Art Director Margo Herr (1937-2005). If you want to know more about her time at Doubleday, check out my 2016 interview with artist Emanuel Schongut.
- Wojtek Siudmak’s cover for Fiction, #200, ed. Alain Dorémieux (1970)
October 10th: Artist Wojtek Siudmak (1942). I adore his early work. The cover above is a spectacular example.
October 11th: G. C. Edmondson (1922-1995).
October 11th: Doris Piserchia (1928-2021).
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1950s #1960s #1970s #avantGarde #bookReviews #ChristopherPriest #GerardFConway #GoreVidal #history #KnutFaldbakken #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction #UrsulaKLeGuin #writing
