Science Fiction Magazines – Science Fiction Adventures

Science Fiction Adventures, November, 1952 [Henry Richard Van Dongen]

On perusing the contents of this first issue of Science Fiction Adventures, I realize that of the issue’s eight stories, I’ve only read one: “Make Mine Mars”, by Cyril M. Kornbluth. Even with that – Kornbluth being one of my favorite science fiction authors – I’ve not actually read that tale. According to the ISFDB it’s never been anthologized, not even appearing in the Nelson Doubleday / Ballantine mid-70s anthology, The Best of C.M. Kornbluth.

Well, no matter. One judges a writer by his strongest works, not his weakest. (Assuming he has strong works!)

Regardless, Henry Richard Van Dongen’s cover art is as clever as it is original. It has the typical-ish ’40s and ’50s elements of revealingly attired female space explorer (would you really explore an unknown world in such skimpy attire?), desolate and seemingly lifeless planetscape, V-2-ish spacecraft standing atop its tale, and, energy pistols. But, it’s the perspective of the scene – the woman’s reflection in the man’s pistol, whose face is almost entirely concealed, as the two stand in a “draw” – that grabs your attention. Though the illustration is unrelated to the stories within the magazine, it could easily provide the inspiration for a short tale, in and of itself.

And further?

Science Fiction Adventures, Volume 1, Number 1, at…

… Internet Speculative Fiction Database

… Wikipedia

… Science Fiction Encyclopedia

Henry Richard Van Dongen, at…

… Artnet

… The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

… Pulp Artists

… FindAGrave

Fantastic Adventures, June, 1952 – “The Woman in Skin 13”, by Paul W. Fairman [Walter R. Popp]

Well, this is interesting…

A green-skinned woman (note her otherwise red pumps and equally red lipstick, as well as her strawberry-blond hair?) holding a pistol, is restrained by a guy in a skin-tight purple body-suit, while a red-headed (also) green warrior approaches upon a duck-billed-sort-of-pterodactyl, followed by reptile reinforcements? And behind all, three massive, almost-featureless, gray towers? And, what’s with that green-skinned guy laying in the foreground?

Gadzooks, what is going on here?

Well, there’s an explanation: Walter Popp’s cover art for the June, 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures is a representation of “The Woman in Skin 13”, a tale by Paul W. Fairman. Strangely though, the cover lists the author’s name as “Gerald Vance”. This is an odd, for the magazine’s table of contents and the leading page of the story itself (it starts on page 8) clearly list the author as Fairman. Likewise, the Internet Speculative Fiction Database indicates that “Vance” was the pen-name for Randall Garrett, William P. McGivern, Rog Phillips, Richard S. Shaver, Robert Silverberg, and Henry Slesar – not a single “Paul W. Fairman” among them.

I first noticed this cover art some years back, I think (?) in Brian Aldiss’ compilation Science Fiction Art: The Fantasies of SF, published by Bounty Books (New York), back in 1975.

The scene depicted stands out as much for its strangeness as its GGA – “Good Girl Art” – qualities, the latter being manifested in much of artist Popp’s oeuvre.

In light of Fantastic Adventures, akin to many other science-fiction pulps now having been digitized and thus being immediately available at the Luminist Archive, and, the Pulp Magazine Archive, I thought it’d be interesting to read Fairman’s original text which was the basis of Popp’s painting. I wanted to see how the genre was presented in periodicals whose cover art has typically been – in retrospect! – far more memorable than their literary content. (Of course, with exceptions.) At least, as opposed to stories published in higher-tier pulps in the genres of 40s and 50s era science-fiction and fantasy, such as Astounding Science Fiction, Galaxy Science Fiction, and, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

So, Fairman’s story, while hardly great, is not bad, either; I think apt words would be “adequate” and “serviceable”. It is an entertaining and mild diversion. But, while competently written, it doesn’t at all possess the degree of originality in terms of plot and theme, let alone character development, that would makes one “pause” and ponder the tale, whether in the midst of reading it, or afterwards. It’s not at all great, by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not altogether bad, by any stretch of the imagination.

The plot is based on an alien invasion of Earth which begins in and expands from Chicago, by human-appearing – and, for all practical purposes, biologically human – invaders known as the Argans, who arrive aboard a generation-ship made of steel (yes, steel) known as the Narkus, with the goal of colonizing the earth. The males and females of this species, “…according to the refugees and the counter-attackers, were of two colors. The males were of a violet hue; the females, all the same shade, of green. Physically, both sexes were, according to Earth standards, magnificent specimens. They wore little clothing, but seemed entirely comfortable even in the comparative chill of night and early morning.”

The story centers around an effort (solely on the part of the United States, despite Chicago only being the starting point of a global invasion) to conduct an offensive against the Argans in order to regain captured territory, and, drive the aliens away. This action hinges on the infiltration of the Argans by one Mary Winston (the green-skinned woman on the cover), upon whose mind the memories and particularly the personality of a captured Argan female have been superimposed and imprinted. This process is the basis of the story’s title: “Skin 13” refers to the 13th effort (the prior 12 having been unsuccessful) to create a formula capable of dying human skin green in order to simulate the skin color of Argan females.

Paralleling Mary’s clandestine infiltration of Argan forces, her significant other – one Mark Clayton (the purple-suited guy on the cover) – leads a team of commandos into the heart of Argan-controlled territory, with the eventual goal of reuniting with Mary and returning her to Earth forces. En route, there are interactions with “zants” and “zors”. The former are a caste of Argan slaves, their control maintained by forces addiction to “dream pellets”; the latter (featured on the cover) are flying reptiles of a sort.

The ending – a bittersweet twist – I will not give away!

In sum, we have two oft-used plot elements of science-fiction: Extraterrestrial invasion, and, mind transference. It is the latter that’s really the crux of the story, and which Fairman develops to a great and solid extent.

On reviewing the biography of Paul Fairman at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, it can be seen that “The Woman in Skin 13” has never been anthologized, and it’s only been reprinted once: In Armchair Fiction’s Ace-like double The Venus Enigma / The Woman in Skin 13, the cover of which lists the author as Gerald Vance.

So, given that I read the story, I thought it’d be interesting to turn it into a stand-alone document, should anyone “out there” be curious about Fairman’s now sixty-eight-year-old tale. So, in a roundabout way, I turned the file (from the Luminist Archive) into a stand-alone document (which, incidentally, incorporates the two illustrations appearing in the original text) which you can access here.

Neither great nor bad, the story is a passing and entertaining diversion.

Which, I suppose, is just what Paul Fairman and the publisher of Fantastic Adventures wanted.

Here’s More Stuff to Read…

Paul W. Fairman, at…

… Internet Speculative Fiction Database

… GoodReads

… The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

… OneLimited

Walter R. Popp, at…

… Internet Speculative Fiction Database

… PoppFineArt

… American Art Archives

Fantastic Adventures, at…

… Wikipedia

Good Girl Art (GGA), at…

… Wikipedia

Astounding Science Fiction, December, 1946 (Featuring “Metamorphosite” by Eric Frank Russell) [Alexander Cañedo [Alejandro de Cañedo]]

Now, t h i s is an interesting cover.

I first “noticed” it among six small black & white images illustrating the evolution of the logo and cover design of Astounding Science Fiction – from February of 1935 through April of 1965 – in James Gunn’s Alternate Worlds: An Illustrated History of Science Fiction (specifically, on page 152). Only later, when I started building my collection of issues of Astounding and saw scans of the cover at VISCO (The Visual Index of Science Fiction Cover Art) and Archive.org, was I able to fully appreciate the balance of style and symbolism inherent to the composition.

I first thought that it was created by William Timmins. But, I was wrong.

The painting was created by Alexander Cañedo (Alejandro de Cañedo) who subsequently completed nine other covers for Astounding Science Fiction, encompassing issues published between September, 1947, and July, 1954. Of these nine covers, only one other painting (like that illustrated below) actually pertains to a story published within “its” issue, the other eight covers being purely – very – symbolic and allegorical, such as this cover for August of 1948: The other “literal” cover is for December of 1947, representing Clifford Simak’s tale “Aesop”.

That issue, coincidentally, happens to be my favorite Cañedo cover: The illustration powerfully uses light and shadow (notice that illumination comes from the background?), and a small number of colors (shades of blue, gray, yellow, and orange) to depict four elements inherent to the story: ~~Wobots~~. Robots. (Well, just one ~~wobot~~. I mean robot.) A ~~wabbit~~ rabbit. A dog. (Dogs figure prominently in Simak’s earlier tales.) And, a post-nuclear-holocaust future in which mankind is an afterthought: A mushroom cloud rises in an otherwise empty background.

You can read more about the interestingly incongruous relationship between John W. Campbell, Jr., and Alexander Cañedo, in Alec Nevala-Lee’s October, 2018 blog post, The Beauty of the World.

As for Eric Frank Russell’s tale “Metamorphosite”? It’s been anthologized a number of times since its original publication, perhaps most prominently in the Del Rey / Ballantine Classic Library of Science Fiction’s The Best of Eric Frank Russell, of 1978. Though I’ve not read too much of Russell’s body of work (I’d really like to get around to “Sinister Barrier”, from Unknown, October of 1939), I found it very similar – in respects positive and negative – to “Dreadful Sanctuary”, published in Astounding in June and July of ’48: The plot, premise, and setting of the story are clearly delineated early on, and, genuinely interesting; the events of the story – whether action or contemplation – are crisply paced, without extraneous diversions that would cause the story to “lag” or go flat; the technology sensibly futuristic, yet neither driving the tale nor overwhelming the centrality of the characters. And yet, like “Dreadful Sanctuary” … which I think is the better of the two … “Metamorphosite” suffers from the one-dimensionality of the protagonist and his allies, who confront and overcome challenges and dangers far too easily, leaving very (or no) room for doubt, growth, or change.

Again, though, one point in the story’s favor lies in its premise and conclusion (small spoiler alert!): It posits and is based upon a future in which humanity has extensively colonized other worlds, to the extent that as a result of the enormous variation in the physical conditions of these planets, and the passage of time, speciation has occurred on an interstellar scale, and humanity no longer exists solely as homo sapiens. Though the specifics escape me as I compose this post (!), I think that this topic has been addressed in depth by Isaac Arthur in one of his many SFIA videos.

________________________________________

For a few minutes he stood quietly regarding the shadows and musing within himself.
He was alone — alone against a world.
It didn’t bother him particularly.
His situation was no different from that of his own people who formed a solitary world
on the edge of a great Empire.
He’d one advantage which so far had stood him in good stead: he knew his own powers.
His opponents were ignorant in that respect.
On the other hand, he suffered the disadvantage of being equally ignorant,
for although he’d learned much about the people of the Empire,
he still did not know the full extent of their powers.

“In the awful struggle for life on new and hostile worlds, you, too, sank,” Harold continued.
“But you climbed again, and once more reached for the stars.
Naturally, you sought the nearest system one and a half light-years away,
for you had forgotten the location of your home which was spoken of only in ancient legends.
We were three light-years farther away than your nearest neighboring system.
Logically, you picked that — and went away from us.
You sank again,
climbed again,
went on again,
and you never came back until you’d built a mighty Empire on the rim of which we waited,
and changed, and changed.’’