Read the latest piece, on Venture #ScienceFiction for the Koontz...but first, read about the Occupation of the Rock!

https://galacticjourney.org/july-2-1970-matters-of-conscience-august-1970-venture/

Magazine Review: Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (November 1950) (Brown, Asimov, Boucher, Leiber, Knight, Simak) https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/07/02/magazine-review-galaxy-science-fiction-ed-h-l-gold-november-1950-brown-asimov-boucher-leiber-knight-simak/

The 2nd of 116 issues I will cover under Gold's editorship.
#scifi #sciencefiction

Just finished the rough draft of Beta Max today!

At 100,099 words it's a tad longer than I was hoping, but that's what the revision process is for, I suppose. (I'm thinking the final version will be closer to 85,000 words.) It's the sequel to Alpha Max, which you can buy anywhere if you''ve missed it!

Amazon: https://geni.us/AlphaMax
Books2Read: https://books2read.com/u/m0olnY

#maximiliantundra #humor #humour #sf #sff #sciencefiction

Magazine Review: Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (November 1950) (Brown, Asimov, Boucher, Leiber, Knight, Simak)

Preliminary Note: I plan on reading all 116 issues of the influential, and iconic, SF magazine Galaxy under H. L. Gold’s editorship (October 1950-October 1961) in chronological order. How long this project will take or how seriously/systematically I will take it remain complete unknowns.

See my inaugural post in this series for my reasoning behind selecting Galaxy under H. L. Gold.

Previously: the October 1950 issue.

Up Next: the December 1950 issue.

Let’s get to the stories. We have the first Galaxy masterpiece!

• Don Sibley’s cover for Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (November 1950)

You can read the entire issue here.

Fredric Brown’s “Honeymoon in Hell” (1950), 3/5 (Average): The year is 1962. The Cold War heats up. The race for a permanent presence on the Moon takes center stage. Each side “had landed a few men” and claimed it as their own (4). Each side races to construct a space station in orbit to facilitate the construction of a permanent base on the moon. But there’s another worrying world-wide trend–a massive gender imbalance in new births! Not enough boys! Riots. Cults. What’s the plan?

Capt. Raymond F. Carmody, retired from the space service (at age 27) after a successful flight to the Moon, steps into the ring. Resisting an administrative role in the service, he’d chosen a new career: cybernetics, “the science of electronic calculating machines” (9). In his new position, he had access to a powerful computer called Junior, built in 1958, tasked with issues of national security. Alone with the machine, he feeds Junior the data. Junior doesn’t have an answer. But Junior does offer a rare extrapolation that Carmody will be married on the morrow.

And a meeting with the President reveals the nature of the plan to birth a male child on the moon to avoid whatever on Earth is causing the problem! He’ll be legally married before they head to the moon and divorced if the pairing doesn’t work out. The catch? His wife will be Russian and their honeymoon will be Hell Crater.1 The “lucky” woman? Anna Borisovna is also a pilot of “experimental rockets on short-range flights” (16). Alcohol included as “icebreaker” for a “happy honeymoon” (19). The twelve day stay will be “plenty of time to get off before the Lunar night” (18) (Brown certainly intends the pun). And then the story morphs, abruptly, into a first contact story. Or does it?

This is an odd story. At its core it’s about a man and a woman (and mortal enemies) who go to the moon to have sex. But it’s the 50s. They need to be married! And all the references to the act are double entendres. As the ridiculousness fades, Brown settles on a rather enlightened position considering the Cold War terror of the moment–détente with the Soviets, politics and all, remains possible (under some circumstances). The story implies that Carmody falls head-over-heels for Anna due to the similarities of their careers and status as intellectual equals despite their divergent politics. Don Sibley’s issue cover shows her abilities under stressful circumstances. Carmody’s even willing to head to the Soviet Union to be with her! Love trumps all message aside, I am not convinced by the reading experience. Brown relays the strange events that transpire on Mars, and almost all of Carmody and Anna’s interactions, after they occur. It weakens the effect.

Somewhat recommended.

Isaac Asimov’s “Misbegotten Missionary” (variant title: “Green Patches”) (1950), 3/5 (Average): “Misbegotten Missionary” begins from the perspective of an alien entity that slipped onboard a human ship after its barrier faltered for a moment. The alien utterly believes that it is a superior “unified organism” (34) over the “life fragments” that populate the ship (34). Fanatical in its mindset, the shape-shifting alien wants to convert the entire vessel to its ways–without their consent. Slowly the nature of its own world, the purpose of the human vessel, and the fate of a past voyage become clear.

While not a miserable entry in his canon, I am starting to dread the Asimov stories in Galaxy and struggle to write coherently about them. And there’s a serialized novel on the horizon that I haven’t read yet and thus cannot skip– The Stars, Like Dust (1951). While far superior to “Darwinian Pool Room” (1950), “Misbegotten Missionary” defeats its initial success with a laborious exposition of what happened before. I appreciated the Asimov’s attempt to convey alienness of the entity’s perspective. Maybe if you’re interested in the evolution of Asimov’s attempts to write about entire planets as alien consciousness this is worth tracking down.

I reviewed this in 2021 and completely forgot. I was even more cruel in the earlier review!

Anthony Boucher’s “Transfer Point” (1950), 3/5 (Average): Three survivors retreat beneath the Earth’s surface after two apocalyptic events–the release of a new element (agnoton) and an attack by mysterious “yellow bands” (are they light-like? It’s not entirely clear. It’s pulpy on purpose). The scientist Kirth-Labbery constructed the self-sufficient retreat due to his allergies (!). His daughter Lavra spends her time eating fruit grown in the hydroponics bay. And Vyrko, a self-described intellectual poet, observes and writes about the end of the world, pines after his lost love, and reads historical pulp science fiction –including Damon Knight’s “Not with a Bang” (1950) and Robert A. Heinlein’s “By His Bootstraps” (1941). He notices that only one author seems to predict correctly what will happen. And also strange narrative parallels with himself…

I’m a sucker for metafictional science fiction that contains references and quotations from other authors both real and invented. Boucher’s “Transfer Point” serves as a recursive commentary on the nature of genre and its favorite tropes (last man and woman as Adam and Eve, time travel, etc.). Behind the tale’s ultra-pulpy exterior and sappy silliness, Boucher jabs (gently and with a smile) at science fiction’s Campbellian delusion of future prediction. Despite its moments, Boucher can’t approach the heights of Richard Matheson’s “Patterns of Survival” (1955), a far more complex commentary on the power of science fiction.

Somewhat recommended.

Fritz Leiber’s “Coming Attraction” (1950), 5/5 (Masterpiece): I reviewed this story in 2013. I’ve decided to reread it and modify my earlier review.

In Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s influential The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom (1949), a blueprint of the “new liberal self-image,” he describes the post-WWII period as an “age of anxiety” in which “Western man” is “tense, uncertain, adrift.”2 Channeling this sentiment, branded as an “American brand of misery” (83), Leiber imagines an America transformed after a limited nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

The physical landscape mirrors the psychological scars of New York’s inhabitants. “H-Bomb scars” tunnel faces (78). The Empire State Building thrusts out of “Inferno like a mangled finger” (77). In a disturbed attempt to maintain control, a new “puritanical morality” (80) replete with “anti-sex songs” (78) and required masks to cover female faces takes hold. A sinister media landscape manifests the corruption within. Billboards promote “hysterical slogans” in which “the very letters of the advertiser’s alphabet have begin to crawl with sex” (78). New TV gadgets facilitate touch and pseudo-connection (80). Perverse new forms of TV entertainment, in particular male wrestlers pitted against masked women, transfix all audiences.

Wysten Turner, the British narrator, gets caught up in the disturbing changes that have swept the US. He rescues a masked woman from a car driven by youths replete with hooks designed to snag the dresses of passing women.  She embodies loneliness and despair. And he wants to help. Soon he finds himself unable to identify the new erotic and violent rituals of control and release. The games layer on themselves. Our narrator, also manipulated, flees in shame when the bizarre tableau’s true nature is unmasked.

Leiber doles out fascinating and punchy commentary on the anxieties of the modern world. A disturbed, erotic, creepy, and hyper-violent exploration of that reflexive Cold War tendency to equate the inability to control and triumph abroad as caused by internal crisis within society as a whole. A brilliant satire of late 40s/early 50s American Cold War culture.

Highly recommended.

Damon Knight’s “To Serve Man” (1950), 3.5/5 (Good): I reviewed this story in 2023. I decided not to reread it. I’ve reproduced the review below.

The Kanamit, pig-like humanoid aliens, arrive on Earth with a promise to assist humanity that appears to have zero caveats. Their similarity to a human food animal creates a disquieting horror: “when a think with the countenance of a fiend comes from the stars and offers a gift, you are disinclined to accept” (91). The Kanama proclaim that they want “to bring you the peace and plenty which we ourselves enjoy, and which we have in the past brought to other races throughout the galaxy” (92). They introduce fantastic power sources, anti-nuclear explosion shields, and technology to exponentially enhance agricultural productivity. Soon there are no “more standing armies, no more shortages, and no unemployment” (98). But no one can decode their language. And when someone finally figures it out, it will be too late.

I don’t completely understand why “To Serve Man” is one of Knight’s best-known short fictions. It won the 2001 Retro Hugo Award for Best Short Story. I would have voted for Fritz Leiber’s “Coming Attraction” (1950) from the list of nominees! That said, “To Serve Man” is an effective twist-ending story that plays with our expectations but doesn’t have the reflective or incisive impact of Knight’s best — for example “The Enemy” (1958), “You’re Another” (1955), or even “Time Enough” (1960) in Far Out (1961). I’m probably in the minority in this view. 

Somewhat recommended.

Clifford D. Simak’s Time Quarry (variant title: Time and Again) (1950). Serialized over three issues. I will post an individual review after I complete the serialization.

Notes

1. Brown adheres to the theory that the Moon is covered with deep dust. He claims that Hell Crater is a bit more solid than other points. Arthur C. Clarke’s A Fall of Moondust (1961) is another example. ↩︎
2. See Ch. 1 of K. A. Courdileone’s Manhood and American Political Culture in the Cold War (2005) for a discussion of Schlesinger. ↩︎

For book reviews consult the INDEX

For cover art posts consult the INDEX

For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX

#1950s #avantGarde #bookReviews #books #CliffordDSimak #DamonKnight #FredricBrown #fritzLeiber #HLGold #IsaacAsimov #sciFi #scienceFiction #ShortStories

"A New Faith" tinjar.ghost.io/a-new-faith Why $1/year #subscription ? 1. It is a #symbolic #compact between the #author and #reader 2. #Money is not the point of this #endeavor; #engagement is #solarpunk #hopepunk #climatefiction #sciencefiction #bookstodon #books #adaptation #migration #justice

A New Faith

3. Subscription allows for sending #updates to long-term readers when I add new aspects to the #world . Selling your email to a 3rd party - see item 2 above. #Ghost guarantees full #privacy #solarpunk #hopepunk #climatefiction #sciencefiction #bookstodon #books #adaptation #migration #justice

"A New Faith" https://tinjar.ghost.io/a-new-faith

Why $1/year #subscription ?

1. It is a #symbolic #compact between the #author and #reader
2. #Money is not the point of this #endeavor; #engagement is
3. Subscription allows for sending #updates to long-term readers when I add new aspects to the #world .

Selling your email to a 3rd party - see item 2 above. #Ghost guarantees full #privacy

#solarpunk #hopepunk #climatefiction #sciencefiction #bookstodon #books #adaptation #migration #justice

"A New Faith" https://tinjar.ghost.io/a-new-faith

Why self-publish online?

1. #villain #antagonist in the book is the #oligarchy #plutocracy #billionaires - can't hand over control/money to #bezos of #amazon

2. Theme of book is #adaptation to #climatechange - hard to destroy #forests to publish it, hence #online

3. #worldbuilding is easier online with addition of #links over time to #references and #new #stories

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2. Theme of book is #adaptation to #climatechange - hard to destroy #forests to publish it, hence #online 3. #worldbuilding is easier online with addition of #links over time to #references and #new #stories #solarpunk #hopepunk #climatefiction #sciencefiction #booksky #authorsky #books

"A New Faith" tinjar.ghost.io/a-new-faith Why self-publish online? 1. #villain #antagonist in the book is the #oligarchy #plutocracy #billionaires - can't hand over control/money to #bezos of #amazon #solarpunk #hopepunk #climatefiction #sciencefiction #booksky #authorsky #books

A New Faith by TinJar

Ace O'Hara by Basil Blackalle and Conrad Frost
#comicstrip #aceohara #comicstrips #sciencefiction #scifi

New Spielberg scifi?? Squee!

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2025/6/22/spielberg

#scifi #sciencefiction #art #scifiart #fantasy #space #cyberpunk

I have read "The Mercy of Gods" by James S.A. Corey (same as "The Expanse") within a week. I couldn't put it down, and I can't wait for the next one in the trilogy (which isn't out yet). It's great world building, brutal, and has some interesting human characters (and aliens). It's also pretty compact. I would have liked a few more explorations about the human's home world. I do see a plot twist coming, which may be a little too obvious, but let's see.

#mercyofgods #sciencefiction #reading

Want something like Star Wars, but with #lesbians? Try out Ardulum: First Don by J.S. Fields and begin an epic space adventure!
#sapphic #sciencefiction
https://www.spacewizardsciencefantasy.com/book/ardulum%3A-first-don

🚀 Phobos 3 🚀

Die Reality-Show auf dem Mars kippt ins Drama: Gefährliche Enthüllungen, knappe Überlebenschancen & ein Deal, der alles verändert.Die Teilnehmenden stehen vor der Wahl zwischen Gerechtigkeit & Hoffnung – während auf der Erde neue Allianzen geschmiedet werden. Die Science-Fiction-Elemente rücken in den Vordergrund, das Tempo bleibt hoch, & das Schicksal der Crew ist ungewisser denn je.

https://vincisblog.com/comic-phobos-3/

#Phobos #Comic #SplitterVerlag #ScienceFiction #MarsMission #ComicReview

#Comparable #books to "A New Faith" < https://tinjar.ghost.io/a-new-faith >

- Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower”
- Neal Stephenson’s “Termination Shock”
- Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Ministry for the Future”
- Steven Markley’s “The Deluge”
- Amitav Ghosh’s “Gun Island”
- Emily St. John Mandel’s “Station Eleven”

#solarpunk #climatefiction #sciencefiction #books #bookstodon #climatechange #adaptation #migration #humanrights #justice #amwriting #writerscoffeeclub #wordweavers #ScribesAndMakers

#Author #bio for "A New Faith" < https://tinjar.ghost.io/a-new-faith >

For more than two decades, I have worked in the field of #environment, #energy, and #climatechange . I have drawn on a variety of disciplines such as science, engineering, economics, politics, and law. I have served in different roles including analyst, communicator, trainer/lecturer, facilitator, and advisor. I have authored numerous journal articles, technical reports, and book chapters.

#solarpunk #bookstodon #sciencefiction #books

🧮 From basic functions to complex cognition—Factory Protocol documents ToxNet's cognitive development in Book 2 of The ToxNet Chronicles on Royal Road! http://factoryprotocolbook.com/

#AICognition #ToxNetChronicles #RoyalRoad #ScienceFiction #TechThriller #WIP

I have served in different roles including analyst, communicator, trainer/lecturer, facilitator, and advisor. I have authored numerous journal articles, technical reports, and book chapters. /fin #solarpunk #booksky #sciencefiction #books #climatefiction #authorsky #scifi #hopepunk #climatechange