Judith Merril’s SF series: The cover we see is that of volume number three.
This Powers’ illustrationis simple in its elements, but still readily recognizable as a Powers cover: A background that horizontally transitions, as if rising through a planet’s murky atmosphere, from darker shades to light. A weirdly asymmetric spacecraft, techy-looking, flies through space. The crescent of a blue planet floats in the distance. The scene is not busy, but it is bold.
The story that left the strongest impression upon me is Brian Aldiss’ “Let’s Be Frank”, which – though I’m not the most ardent fan of Aldiss’ work – I must admit was clever and humorous. Otherwise, note that the last six of the of entries listed below (in order, as they’re found in the book) from “How Near Is the Moon?” to “Science Fiction Still Leads Science Fact” are non-fiction.
A kind of lopsided looking spaceship, is it not?
Contentz?
Introduction (“SF:’58: The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy”), Essay by Judith Merril
“Let’s Be Frank”, by Brain W. Aldiss, from Science Fantasy, June, 1957
“The Fly” (translation of “La mouche”), by George Langelaan, from Playboy, June, 1957
“Let’s Get Together”, by Isaac Asimov, from Infinity Science Fiction, February, 1957
“The Wonder Horse”, by George Bryam, from The Atlantic Monthly, August, 1957
“You Know Willie”, by Theodore R. Cogswell, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May, 1957
“Near Miss”, by Henry Kuttner (Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore), specifically for this volume
“Game Preserve”, by Rog Phillips, from If, October, 1957
“Now Let Us Sleep”, by Avram Davidson, from Venture Science Fiction, September, 1957
“Wilderness” (The People series), by Zenna Henderson, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January, 1957
“Flying High”, by Eugene Ionesco, from Mademoiselle, October, 1957
“The Edge of the Sea”, by Algis Budrys, from Venture Science Fiction, March, 1958
“How Near Is the Moon?”, Essay by Judith Merril, specifically for this volume
“Transition-from Fantasy to Science”, by Arthur C. Clarke, Essay by Arthur C. Clarke, specifically for this volume
“Sputnik: One Reason Why We Lost”, Essay by G. Harry Stine, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January, 1958
“Going Up!”, Essay by Dennis Driscoll, specifically for this volume
“Where Do We Go from Here?”, Essay by Willy Ley, specifically for this volume
“Science Fiction Still Leads Science Fact”, Essay by Anthony Boucher, specifically for this volume
The Year’s S-F, Summation and Honorable Mentions (“SF: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy: Third Annual Volume”), Essay by Judith Merril
This second volume of Judith Merril’s SF anthology – for 1957 – displays, like volume one, a cover by Richard M. Powers. Emblematic of his work are a distant city-scape comprised of elongated, tapered towers silhouetted against a distant, misty horizon, a “floating”, ovoid metallic shape at upper left (obscured by the “SF” in the title!), and, a random set of diminutive shapes at lower right – organic? machines? both? – dancing in a nondescript foreground. I think this cover so significantly epitomizes Powers’ work that I’ve featured it in the post “A Suspension of Belief: Alexander Calder’s Mobiles and the Art of Richard M. Powers“.
So, what’s in the book?
Though I certainly read each and every story in the volume, at this point in time – some years later – the only tale that really strikes a chord of memory is Zenna Henderson’s “Anything Box”, a wonderful tale from her “The People” saga. Like the majority (all?) of her stories and reflective of her vocation as a public school teacher, the tale centers around the interaction between a female schoolteacher and a certain highly unusual and shy child, who possesses a most unusual toy. That is not, really, a toy at all.
“The Man Who Liked Lions”, by John Bernard Daley, from Infinity Science Fiction, October, 1956
“The Cosmic Charge Account”, by C.M. Kornbluth, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January, 1956
“The Far Look”, by Theodore L. Thomas, from Astounding Science Fiction, August, 1956
“When Grandfather Flew to the Moon”, by E.L. Malpass [Eric Lawson Malpass], (variant of “Return of the Moon Man”, originally from A.D. 2500: The Observer Prize Stories 1954) specifically for this volume
“The Doorstop”, by Reginald Bretnor, from Astounding Science Fiction, November, 1956
“Silent Brother”, by Algis Budrys, from Astounding Science Fiction, February, 1956
“Stranger Station”, by Damon Knight, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December, 1956
“Each an Explorer”, by Isaac Asimov, from Future Science Fiction, #30 (August, 1956)
““All About “The Thing”“ [Parodies Tossed series], by Randall Garrett, (variant of “John W. Campbell, Jr.’s ““Who Goes There?”“), originally from Science Fiction Stories, May, 1956) specifically for this volume
“Put Them All Together”, They Spell Monster, by Ray Russell, from Playboy, October, 1956
“Digging the Weans”, by Robert Nathan, from Harper’s Magazine, November, 1956
“Take a Deep Breath”, by Roger Thorne, specifically for this volume
“Grandma’s Lie Soap”, by George Abernathy, from Fantastic Universe, February, 1956
“Compounded Interest”, by Mack Reynolds, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August, 1956
“Prima Belladonna” [Vermilion Sands series], by J.G. Ballard, from Science Fantasy, December, 1956
“The Other Man”, by Theodore Sturgeon, from Galaxy Science Fiction, September, 1956
“The Damnedest Thing”, by Garson Kanin, from Esquire, February, 1956
“Anything Box” (variant of “The Anything Box”), by Zenna Henderson, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October, 1956
The Year’s S-F, Summation and Honorable Mentions (SF:’57: The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy) – (1957), Essay by Judith Merril
The paths that lead us to different forms of literature are many and varied, but regardless of one’s interests, a singular and central factor may be happenstance. Such, I think, was the origin – or at least a part of the origin! – of my interest in science fiction: In my early teens, no more than 13 years of age; in eighth grade – I was browsing through racks of paperbacks in a bookstore (within a city at one time a center of coal-mining) when I chanced across Volume One of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame. The book immediately attracted my attention. With planets, stars, and “spacey”-sort-of-things framing the title, the minimalistic cover art elicited wonder about distant realms unexplored and unknown to man.
So, I bought the book. Though the tales therein varied immensely in literary style, plot, and theme, let alone the nature of their protagonists and secondary characters, all of them … well, most of them … well okay, at least some of them! … brought forth feelings of surprise, wonder, anticipation, and above all, the sense of the “new” and “unknown”. Previously, I’d been exposed to science fiction and fantasy only a little bit. This took the form of 50s and 60s-era B-movies on broadcast television, particularly a local TV station’s “Dialing for Dollars” show which aired at 4:30 P.M. which with slow predictability seemed to alternate “Tarantula“, “The Mole People“, “The Monolith Monsters“, “The Amazing Colossal Man“, and other black & white flicks on a regular basis. Bookwise, in eighth grade I read H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds; his short, eerie and I think better tale despite its brevity “The Plattner Story” – which had a strangle ambiguous conclusion, and, a chilling and disturbing tale by Saki (the title of which I’ve long since forgotten) – which what I realize in several decades retrospect had subtle but distinctively erotic overtones – about an eerily intelligent cat with near-supernatural powers. But, I didn’t realize that there were actually book-length collections of such tales until I discovered the Hall of Fame anthology.
Volume one of The Science Fiction Hall Fall of Fame and its three successor volumes are still in my library, the titles in each book’s table of contents ranked with penciled-in stars. Their covers are featured at this blog, too.
What I didn’t realize at the time (not that I thought much about it during junior high school!) was that the stories in the collection didn’t spontaneously arise from epistolary ether to randomly condense themselves onto the printed page. Rather – and I only understood this much later – such stories were typically published in magazines, pulp and otherwise, and later assembled by editors and publishers into collections based on theme, subject, or the author who wrote them.
And so, in that context, here are several such anthologies which I’ve read over the decades, whose covers are featured at WordsEnvisioned:
Star Science Fiction ((One (1953), Two (1953), Three (1954), Four (1955), Five (1956), Six (1957), Magazine (1958), Star Short Novels (1954)) – all covers by Richard M. Powers
Of the above anthologies, those most significant to me have been Isaac Asimov Presents … (deep irony here, in that Asimov’s fiction leaves me colder than cold, albeit the series’ truly great strength is its time-span and comprehensiveness), The Best of... (gives one a real and clear flavor for the “world” created by any given author, let alone his literary style), and, The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, the selections for which are consistently strong and smartly chosen.
But, there’s another anthology I’ve thus far overlooked, which now in late 2024 (!) commences with “this” and successive blog posts.
That is, the anthology edited by Judith Merril and published by Dell (Delacorte) from 1956 through 1969, which appeared under titles following the pattern of “SF – The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy“, to “(given number) Annual Edition – The Year’s Best SF“, to simply (with the final two) “SF“.
A list of all the books in the series follows below. This comprises title, date of publication, Dell book number, cover artist’s names, and date of publication of later editions of the same title, with alternate titles – if present – also listed. The information’s primarily derived and simplified from data in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, secondarily from other sources, like WorldCat.org, and of course, by examining my own copies of the books. Immediately obvious is that the covers of the first five paperbacks in the series were created by Richard M. Powers – those for 1956, 1957, and 1961 are truly outstanding and immediately recognizable as products of his work – while the covers of subsequent editions were by a variety of artists. And so, the titles:
S-F: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy, May, 1956 Dell Book Number B103, cover by Richard M. Powers Also… Hardback, July, 1956, published by Gnome Press, cover by EMSH
SF: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy: Second Annual Volume, June, 1957 Dell Book Number B110, cover by Powers Also… Hardback July, 1957, published by Gnome Press, cover by W.I. Van der Poel (Washington Irving Van der Poel, Jr.) Paperback, July, 1957, identical to June edition
SF: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy: Third Annual Volume, July, 1958 Dell Book Number B119, cover by Powers Also… Hardback July, 1958, published by Gnome Press, cover by W.I. Van der Poel (Washington Irving Van der Poel, Jr.) Paperback, October, 1958, identical to July edition
SF: The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy: 4th Annual Volume, June, 1959 Dell Book Number B129, cover by Powers Also… Hardback, June, 1959, published by Gnome Press, cover by W.I. Van der Poel (Washington Irving Van der Poel, Jr.)
The Year’s Best S-F: 5th Annual Edition, January, 1961 Dell Book Number F118, cover by Powers Also… Hardback, September, 1960, published by Simon & Schuster, cover by H. Lawrence Hoffman Paperback, May, 1961, identical to January edition The Best of Sci-Fi 5, published by Mayflower, 1966, 1967, and 1969
6th Annual Edition: The Year’s Best S-F, June, 1962 Dell Book Number 9772, cover by Van Zwienen Also… Hardback, October, 1961, published by Simon & Schuster, cover by H. Lawrence Hoffman Paperback, December, 1962, identical to June edition The Best of Sci-Fi, published by Mayflower-Dell, 1963
7th Annual Edition: The Year’s Best S-F, June, 1963 Dell Book Number 9773, cover by Brillhart Also… Hardback, December, 1962, published by Simon & Schuster, cover by Nick Musi The Best of Sci-Fi, published by Mayflower-Dell, 1964
8th Annual Edition The Year’s Best S-F, June, 1964 Dell Book Number 9774, cover by unknown artist Also… Hardback, December, 1963, published by Simon & Schuster, cover by Lawrence Ratzkin The Best of Sci-Fi No. 4, published by Mayflower-Dell, 1965 and 1967
9th Annual Edition: The Year’s Best SF, May, 1965 Dell Book Number 9775, cover by Three Lions Also… Hardback, The 9th Annual of the Year’s Best SF, published by Simon & Schuster, 1964 and March, 1965 9th Annual S-F, published by Mayflower-Dell, 1967, cover by Hoot von Zitzewitz The Best of Science Fiction 9, published by Mayflower, 1970
10th Annual Edition: The Year’s Best S-F, December, 1966 Dell Book Number 8611, cover by Ziel Also… Hardback, 10th Annual Edition: The Year’s Best SF, published by Delacorte Press, 1965 and June, 1966, cover by G. Ziel 10th Annual S-F, published by Mayflower-Dell, 1967 The Best of Science Fiction 10, published by Mayflower, 1970, covered by David Davies
11th Annual Edition: The Year’s Best S-F, September, 1967 Dell Book Number 2241, cover by Ziel Also… Hardback, 11th Annual Edition: The Year’s Best S-F, published by Delacorte Press, 1966, cover by Ziel
SF: The Best of the Best, August, 1968 Dell Book Number 0508, cover by Adams Also… Hardback: SF: The Best of the Best, published by Delacorte Press, November, 1967 Hardback: SF: The Best of the Best, published by Rupert Hart-Davis, 1968
SF 12, June, 1969 Dell Book Number 7815, cover by Paul Lehr Also… Hardback, SF 12, published by Delacorte Press, August, 1968, cover by Carl Smith The Best of Sci-Fi 12, published by Mayflower, September, 1970, cover by Josh Kirby
What of Judith Merril, the person?
Rather than here re-hash, summarize, re-summarize, let alone rinse and repeat Judith Merril’s story, this post concludes with numerous links pertaining to her biography, literary legacy, and the the ideological influences leading to (and from) her writing. But, photographically speaking, here are five images of – or including – Judith.
The first two, below, are from Frederik Pohl’s 1984 memoir of his involvement in the world of twentieth=century science fiction, The Way the Future Was.
“At the New York Metrocon, 1950“ Lester del Rey, Evelyn Harrison, Harry Harrison, Isaac Asimov, Judith Merril, the author, Poul Anderson, L. Sprague de Camp, P. Schuyler Miller
“Lunacon 1967, New York City“ Judith Merril, Arthur C. Clarke, L. Sprague de Camp, Hal Clement
The following three images are from the Toronto Star’s article of January 4, 2018 (linked below): “Sci-fi author Judith Merril and the very real story of Toronto’s Spaced Out Library”. They’ve been enhanced with Photoshop (cropped and color-adjusted), and, the last two are accompanied by captions that appear in the original Star article.
First: Judith Merril, probably 1969
Second, “Judith Merril poses in front of the collection in 1985. Courtesy Toronto Star Photograph Archive. (Innell, Reg)”
Third, “Science fiction writer Judith Merril in the Spaced-Out Library, then located at 566 Palmerston Ave., 1975. Courtesy Toronto Star Photograph Archive (Dick Darrell)”
The painting Ms. Merril so proudly (justifiably so!) displays is Edmund Emshwiller’s illustration for the cover of the March, 1958 issue of Venture Science Fiction, representing Algis Budrys’ “The Edge of the Sea“. This example of EMSH’s work has all the hallmarks of his style, which is characterized by oft-extremely-intricate-to-complex detail, bright-but-not-overemphasized colors, and above all capturing the mood and essence of a story, as a single scene. From a technical viewpoint, the original painting gives one an appreciation of the degree to which publishers and editors had to effectively “shrink” – as it were – an image to conform to the dimensions of digest-size covers. Here’s how the cover looked (and looks) today in (and on) the actual magazine, sixty-six years later. The colors have held up pretty well in (and on) this copy.
Here’s a snapshot of Judith Merril from James Gunn’s 1973 heavily illustrated history of science fiction, Alternate Worlds, which is replete with photos of then-prominent science-fiction writers and editors, all of which are reproduced in halftone. Though no caption is associated with this or any other such illustration, the text on Merril’s name-tag reads: “FanFair”, suggesting that the picture was taken at a convention in the late 60s or early 70s.
Judith Merril died on September 12, 1997. She had by then become a significant enough figure in literary, cultural, and perhaps even political circles for her obituary to merit appearance in The New York Times, where, written by Gerald Jonas, it was published on September 17. Here it is:
Judith Merril, 74, Science-Fiction Editor and Writer
Judith Merril, one of the first female writers and editors to influence the direction of modern science fiction, died on Friday in Toronto, where she lived. She was 74.
During and just after World War II, Ms. Merril was the only woman associated with a group of young science fiction enthusiasts known as the Futurians, whose members included Isaac Asimov, James Blish, C.M. Kornbluth and Frederick [should be Frederik]Pohl. She and Mr. Pohl were married in 1949 and divorced in 1953.
At a time when science fiction was still dismissed as adolescent escapism by most academic critics, her first published story, in Astounding Science Fiction magazine in 1948, told of a mother’s devotion to a baby horribly deformed by radiation-induced mutation. Her 1950 novel about nuclear war, “Shadow on the Hearth”, was adapted for television under the title “Atomic Attack.”
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You can watch “Atomic Attack” below. (Ooops, I mean the movie, not “an” atomic attack. You know, like with real atomic weapons and stuff.) It’s at MegaDude’s YouTube channel, uploaded on January 29, 2014, and originally televised on the Motorola Television Hour in 1954.
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Ms. Merril, who was born Juliet [?!] Grossman in New York City, adopted the name Judith Merril early in her career. She had lived in Canada since 1968.
She edited a well-received series of anthologies of the best science fiction from 1956 to 1970. In these collections she championed a self-consciously literary approach that became known in the mid-60s as the New Wave. By choosing stories from outside the usual magazines, she helped to broaden the horizons of science fiction writing. As part of her campaign to shift the focus away from scientific hardware, she fought a spirited is losing battle to redefine the genre as “speculative fiction”.
Her 1968 anthology “England Swings SF” introduced many American readers to the experimental fiction of writers like Brain Aldiss and J.G. Ballard. One puzzled reviewer noted that stories like Ballard’s “Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as Downhill Motor Race” were “closer to the world of Kafka and William Burroughs than to Asimov and Bradbury”.
Her donation to the Toronto Public Library of more than 50,0000 books and periodicals formed the basis of the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy, one of the major research libraries in the field.
An observation: Something’s immediately noticeable about the text of the obit: Other than nominally touching upon her age, place of residence at the time of her death, given name and date of birth, the obit is otherwise completely devoid of information about Merril “as a person”; her identity is almost completely defined by her work as a writer and editor, while even the most tangential mention of her relationships with family, friends, and colleagues – however simultaneously happy, mundane, unhappy, challenging, or complex and contradictory – is entirely absent. Why? Brevity? The absence of such information at the time? I’m particularly interested in the impetus for her change of name, and, the source of her adopted surname “Merril”, a topic which doesn’t seem to be directly addressed in any of the websites I consulted for this post … though the subject might (?) be touched upon in anthologies of her stories, biographical material, or her personal papers. If I were to surmise a guess, perhaps the symbolic change in her identity connoted by a name change arose from a variety of factors and influences…
In any event, a cursory dive into Ancestry.com reveals the following about Judith and her immediate family… Born on 1/21/23 in Manhattan, Judith Merril (given / actual name (Josephine) Judith S. Grossman) was the daughter of Samuel Schlomo / Shlomo (6/23/93-4/14/30) and Ethel Libby (Hurwitch) (8/15/88-12/11/60) Grossman. She had an older brother Simcha, who, born on 1/21/19, passed away at the very young age of five in 1924. Her father, born in Allentown, Pa., her mother, born in Russia, and brother are buried at the Knights of Liberty Cemetery in Woburn, Massachusetts, in the same family plot with her mother’s parents, Barnet and Miriam. As for Judith’s own place of burial, that seems unknown.
Getting back to the series, here’s the cover of the first volume: S-F: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy, otherwise known as Dell First Edition B103.
What’s in the Book?
Introduction: “S-F: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy”, Essay by Orson Welles
Preface: “S-F: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy”, Essay by Judith Merril
“The Stutterer”, by R.R. Merliss [Reuben Robert Merliss], from Astounding Science Fiction, April, 1955
“The Golem”, by Avram Davidson, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March, 1955
“Junior”, by Robert Abernathy, from Galaxy Science Fiction, January, 1956
“The Cave of Night” [Station in Space Universe series], by James E. Gunn, from Galaxy Science Fiction, February, 1955
“The Hoofer”, by Walter M. Miller, Jr., from Fantastic Universe, September, 1955
“Bulkhead”, by Theodore Sturgeon, from Galaxy Science Fiction, March, 1955
“Sense from Thought Divide” [Ralph Kennedy series], by Mark Clifton, from Astounding Science Fiction, March, 1955
“Pottage” [The People series], by Zenna Henderson, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September, 1955
“Nobody Bothers Gus” [Gus series], by Algis Budrys, from Astounding Science Fiction, November, 1955
“The Last Day of Summer”, by E.C. Tubb [Edwin Charles Tubb], from Science Fantasy, February, 1955
“One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts”, by Shirley Jackson, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January, 1955
“The Ethicators”, by Willard Marsh, from If, August, 1955
“Birds Can’t Count”, by Mildred Clingerman, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February, 1955
“Of Missing Persons”, by Jack Finney, from Good Housekeeping, March, 1955
“Dreaming Is a Private Thing”, by Isaac Asimov, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December, 1955
“The Country of the Kind”, by Damon Knight, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February, 1956
“The Public Hating”, by Steve Allen, from The Blue Book Magazine, January, 1955
“Home There’s No Returning”, by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, from No Boundaries (book)
The Year’s S-F, Summation and Honorable Mentions (S-F: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy), Essay by Judith Merril
What of the book, and books?
This question is difficult to answer, so I’ll answer it with the proviso that I’m working from memory, having read, skimmed, and otherwise perused the contents of each book in this series … roughly some five years ago. Or, more. Actually, what really sparked my interest in Merril’s series was (unsurprising, given the nature of this blog!) the superb cover art and overall design of the first five volumes. “What great art! Wow, the stories in these books must be equally great!” Not so. That assumption soon proved to be invalid, like judging a record (remember records?) by the album cover (remember album covers?). Taken as a whole, while any volume in this series includes a nominal few good to truly excellent stories – “good” in a literary sense being highly subjective! – collectively, whether for any given volume, or the set as a whole, the content is nowhere near as predictably, reliably strong, as that featured in The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction…, Isaac Asimov Presents…, or, World’s Best Science Fiction…. Likewise, while those three series (and the others mentioned above) maintained a consistent level of quality with each successive volume, the literary quality of the content of successive volumes of S-F… seemed to diminish gradually, and then steeply, through the history of the series, particularly after the first few volumes, the content changing from mostly short stories to a wide variety of very brief non-fiction essays covering a melange of topics, with works of science fiction interspersed. I don’t know if this was because Merril’s skill as a writer did not – necessarily – translate to the realm of identifying and selecting the works of other writers; if reasons of copyright or other legal issues prevented the same story being shared for publication by and among anthologies issued by multiple, competing publishers; if Merril’s efforts, energy, and time were too thinly spread in the mutual realms of publishing and writing – both – to a degree that limited her time for and impeded the quality of SF…
In terms of the stories in this first volume of S-F, listed above, those of which I have the strongest memory are “The Golem”, “Bulkhead”, “Pottage”, “One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts”, and “Home There’s No Returning”, the last of which I very recently (think August-2024-kind-of-recently) re-read in the Kuttner and Moore anthology, No Boundaries. Of these five, “Bulkhead” was great – I’ve always liked Theodore Sturgeon’s work. “The Golem”? – meh. “Pottage” was wonderful, entirely typical of the universally high quality of the stories of Zenna Henderson, whose world of “The People” was crafted with logical consistency, built upon a backdrop of mystery (alas, never too deeply explored), pathos, wonder, and emotional power, all within a framework of moral clarity.
Still, even if mostly unimpressed, I’m glad I gave the series a shot, for it does represent one perspective of the the evolution of the genre from the late 50s through the mid-60s. A literary direction about which I have remained unenthusiastic (though I discovered it a few decades after the awful and unjustifiably romanticized decade of the 60s had become a memory), but which deserves understanding nonetheless.
Here’s the paperback’s full cover, composited via Photoshop from individual scans of front, spine, and back. You can see how (understandably!) Powers used the front “real estate” for the major elements of his painting, while leaving the spine and back as a backdrop of violet, green, and dark gray.
In hardcover..
Here’s the dust jacket of Gnome Press’s hardback edition, released in July of 1956, with great art by Edmund Emshwiller, which has a Richard Powers-ish “air” to it.
A reference for you, a reference for you!
Judith Merril / (Josephine) Judith S. Grossman) , at…
Gunn, James E. (with Introduction by Isaac Asimov) Alternate Worlds – The Illustrated History of Science Fiction, A&W Visual Library (by arrangement with Prentice-Hall, Inc.), Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1973
…and, yet another book…
Pohl, Frederik, The Way The Future Was: A Memoir, Ballantine Books, New York, N.Y., 1978
…and, even another book.
Rubin, Barry, Assimilation and Its Discontents, Random House, New York, N.Y., 1995
This cartoon, by The New Yorker cartoonist George Price, is hilarious, for it takes a commonplace idea – a literary idea – and carries it to an (il)logical conclusion. More than the merely weird idea of assembling all the authors of a anthology’s collected works for a single book signing, the appearance, facial expression, and attire of every individual is unique, exaggeratingly embodying the life experience of every author. It’s this, combined with the hilarity of a collective book signing, makes the cartoon work so well.
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Price’s cartoon reminds me of the cover of the October, 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, which featured depictions of twenty contributors (excluding “Bug-Eye”) who were making the by then two-year-old magazine a success. A very clever idea. The magazine leads with a report to its readers touching upon its successes, challenges, and plans for the future, and mentions upcoming works by Isaac Asimov and Clifford Simak, and, includes a key – reproduced below – identifying the authors and contributors shown on the cover.
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Annual Report to our Readers
The twelvemonth between our first annual report and this, which marks the beginning of our third year, was rammed full of activity for GALAXY. It all boils down to this one astonishing fact, however:
GALAXY has acquired the second largest circulation in science- fiction and is pushing hard toward first place.
For a magazine to achieve this record in so short a time is a tribute to its unyielding policy of presenting the highest quality obtainable; to its readers for their loyalty and appreciation; to its authors for helping it maintain those standards and even advance them.
During the turbulent first year of GALAXY’s existence, other publishers thought the idea of offering mature science fiction in attractive, adult format was downright funny. They knew what sold – shapely female endomorphs with bronze bras, embattled male mesomorphs clad in muscle, and frightful alien monsters in search of a human meal.
• We have the biggest promotion campaign mapped out that any science fiction magazine has ever had. • We are working out the broadest circulation possible. Note that we reach the stands regularly on the second Friday of each month. (Subscribers, however, get their copies at least five to ten days before.) • Better printing, paper and reproduction of art lie ahead. • These new art techniques I mentioned in the past are on their way. They were stubborn things to conquer, but you’ll be seeing them soon. • If you want to find WILLY LEY in a science fiction magazine henceforth, you’ll have to buy GALAXY. As our science editor, he will work exclusively for us in this field. • Last and by far the most important, the literary quality of GALAXY will continue to be a rising curve – as steeply rising as we can manage. Coming up, for example: • November: THE MARTIAN WAY by Isaac Asimov, a novella, that introduces problems and situations in space travel that I have never seen before,. • December: RING AROUND THE SUN by Clifford D. Simak is a powerful new serial with a startling theme and one surprising development after another. • March: After the conclusion of the Simak serial, we have THE OLD DIE RICH by a chap named Gold. Naturally, the story was read by impartial critics – no writer can judge his own work – and they report it’s GALAXY quality. I hope you’ll agree with them.
Yes, it’s been a fine year. Next year looks even better.
– H.L. GOLD
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1 – Fritz Leiber (“Gonna’ Roll the Bones”) 2 – Evelyn Paige 3 – Robert A. Heinlein 4 – Katherine MacLean (Dragons and such) 5 – Chesley Bonestell 6 – Theodore Sturgeon 7 – Damon Knight (“To Serve Man”) 8 – H.L. (Horace L.) Gold 9 – Robert Guinn 10 – Joan De Mario 11 – Charles J. Robot 12 – Cyril Kornbluth 13 – E.A. (Edmund A.) Emshwiller 14 – Willy Ley 15 – F.L. Wallace 16 – Isaac Asimov 17 – Jerry Edelberg 18 – Groff Conklin (anthologist) 19 – John Anderson 20 – Ray Bradbury (“The Fireman” (“Fahrenheit 451”)) 21 – Bug Eye
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But, where did Horace Gold get the very idea to acknowledge people instrumental to Galaxy’s success, in such a clever way?
I don’t know.
But, while perusing the contents of other, lesser known magazines at the Luminist Archive, I came across the November, 1951 issue of Marvel Science Fiction, which features cover art by Hannes Bok, in his own immediately recognizable style…
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…and this two-page cartoon of the members of the by then four-year-old “Hydra Club”, an organization of professionals in the field of science fiction. Though far more “busy” than the scene depicted on the cover of Galaxy, the design is remarkably similar, right down to the number key at the bottom of the cartoon, and, the accompanying diagram of “who’s who” at lower right, the names of “who” are all listed below.
Was this the inspiration for Horace Gold, or, art director W.I. Van Der Poel? Given the timing, could be!
An organization of Professional Science Fiction Writers, Artists and Editors.
Article One: The name of this organization shall be the Hydra Club.
Article Two: The purpose of this organization shall be…
PUZZLED silence greeted the reader as he lay down the proposed draft of a constitution, and looked hopefully at the eight other people in the room.
“The rest of it was easy,” he explained, “but we spent a whole evening trying to think of something for that.”
“Strike out the paragraph,” someone said. “We just haven’t got a purpose.”
And so we did. The Hydra Club was, officially, and with no malice in the forethought, formed as an organization with no function at all. It was to meet twice a month; it hoped to acquire a regular meeting place and a library of science fiction; its membership was to be selected on no other basis than the liking and approval of the charter members, who organized themselves into a Permanent Membership Committee for the new club.
That was in September, 1947. In four years of existence, the club has increased sevenfold. Its roster now lists more than sixty members, and the number is that low only because of the strict stipulation that admission to membership is by invitation only. There is no way for a would-be member to apply for admission; and invitations are issued only after the holding a complex secret-ballot blackball vote.
Of the nine charter members of the club, five are still active on the Permanent Membership Committee. Lester del Rey, who had been absent from the science fiction field entirely for several years, when the club was started, is now once again a leading name in the field. Dave Kyle and Marty Greenberg, who first met each other in the organizational days of the club, have since become partners in a publishing firm, Prime Press. Fred Pohl, who was then still writing an occasional story under the pen-name of James MacCreigh, has developed the then still-struggling Dirk Wylie agency into the foremost literary agency in the science fiction field. And yr. humble correspondent, who had just a few months earlier written her first science fiction story, has since become, among other things, Mrs. Frederik Pohl.
There are half a hundred other names on the rolls, many of which would be completely unfamiliar to science fiction fandom. The Club has never attempted to limit its membership to professionals working in the field. It has endeavored only to gather together as many congenial persons as possible. In the four years of its existence there have been many changes in character, constitution, solvency, and situation. A considerable library has been acquired by gift and donation, but no permanent meeting place or library space has ever been found. Meetings are now held only once a month, sometimes in the studio apartment of the Pratts’, or that of Basil Davenport, more often in a rented hall. From time to time, under the impetus of an unwonted ambition, the club has even initiated major endeavors, and less frequently has actually carried them through.
The single exception to this renewed enthusiasm for purposelessness is the annual Christmas party … perhaps because we have found it possible for all concerned to have a remarkably good time at these affairs in return for an equally remarkably small output of work. The success of the annual parties has rested largely on the willingness of member talent to be entertaining (and the dependable willingness of the guests to amuse themselves at the bar). At such times, there is little holding back. Why watch television, after all, or empty your pockets for a Broadway show, if you can have Willy and Olga Ley explain with words and gestures the structure of the Martian language – or watch your best friends cavort through a stefantic satire devised in the more mysterious byways of Fred Brown’s Other Mind – or listen yearly to a new and even funnier monologue delivered by Philip-William (Child’s Play) Klass-Tenn?
Between this yearly Big Events, club meetings very considerably in character. A member may arrive, on any given meeting date, to find a scant dozen seriously debating the date of publication of the second issue of Hugo Gernsback’s third magazine – or to find seventy-off slightly soused guests and members engaged in the most frantic of socializing, to the apparent exclusion of science fiction as a topic of interest. At these larger meetings, it takes a knowing eye to detect the quiet conversation in the corner where a new line of science fiction books has just been launched, or to understand that the clinking of glasses up front center indicates the formation of a new collaborating team.
Perhaps one of the most unlikely and most pleasant things about the Hydra Club is the way it manages to contain in amity a membership not only of writers and artists, but also of editors and publishers. We like to think that it is due to the “by invitation only” policy, and to the profound wisdom of our P.M.C., that the lions and the lambs have been induced to lie down so meekly all over the place. Even rival anthologists and agents are seen smiling at each other from time to time, and the senior editor of a large publishing house is always willing to pass on advice to newcomer specialist publishers. There are thirty-odd magazine writers in the crowd, and ten or more magazine editors – and still not a fistfight in a barload!
Hydra members are selected for interest, individuality, intelligence, and an inquiring mind, a combination unique among science-fiction organizations in my knowledge, we have now achieved four years of existence without a single major internal feud. What difficulties have arisen in relation to the club, from the outside, appear to be entirely due to the fact that, without trying, Hydra has become an increasingly important group in the professional field. But the business that takes place in and around the Hydra Club remains incidental.
When bigger and better purposes for clubs are found, the Hydra Club will still point happily to its nonexistent Article Two.
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1 – Lois Miles Gillespie 2 – H. Beam Piper 3 – David A. Kyle 4 – Judith Merril Pohl 5 – Frederik Pohl 6 – Philip Klass 7 – Richard Wilson 8 – Isaac Asimov, Ph.D. 9 – James A. Williams 10 – Martin Greenberg (anthologist) 11 – Sam Merwin, Jr. 12 – Walter I. Bradbury 13 – Bruce Elliott 14 – J. Jerome Stanton 15 – Jerome Bixby (Twilight Zone!) 16 – Basil Davenport 17 – Robert W. Lowndes 18 – Olga Ley (Willy’s wife) 19 – Oswald Train 20 – Charles Dye 21 – Frank Belknap Long 22 – Damon Knight 23 – Thomas S. Gardner, Ph.D. 24 – Harry Harrison 25 – Sam Browne 26 – Groff Conklin 27 – Larry T. Shaw 28 – Lester del Rey 29 – Frederic Brown 30 – Margaret Bertrand 31 – Evelyn Harrison 32 – L. Sprague de Camo 33 – Theodore Sturgeon 34 – George C. Smith 35 – Has Stefan Santessen 36 – Fletcher Pratt 37 – Willy Ley (Olga’s husband) 38 – Katherine MacLean Dye 39 – Daniel Keyes 40 – H.L. (Horace L.) Gold 41 – Walter Kublius
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For your amusement…
Here’s the book where I found George Price’s cartoon…
Price, George (Introduced by Alistair Cooke), The World of George Price – A 55-Year Retrospective, Harper & Row, New York, N.Y., 1989
This colorful cover to a Groff Conklin 1960 anthology (one of his many anthologies) is a nice representation of Richard Powers’ work. The layout of his cover design was probably designed to allow for open space for the names of Simak, MacLean, Merril, Asimov, Knight, and Budrys.
On the cover? The figure of an astronaut, set against an alien sky in hues of blue, green, and violet, with a few busy red stars in the background, occupies the center of the page. Like many of the human figures featured in Powers’ science-fiction covers, on close inspection, the astronaut – carrying a long-something-or-other, actually resembles a medieval knight far more than a space explorer.
The remainder of the cover is simpler: There are three swirls of red, orange, and yellow (they look like they were done in water-color), while one of Powers’ trademark organic-looking metalloids floats in the upper left corner, perhaps examining the “DELL First Edition” logo.
Notably, Katherine MacLean’s “Incommunicado” in the June, 1950, AstoundingScience Fiction, was the subject of spectacular cover art by Ron Miller.
Contents
Introduction, by Groff Conklin
“Galley Slave”, by Isaac Asimov, from Galaxy Science Fiction, December, 1957
“Project Nursemaid”, by Judith Merril, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October, 1955
“Final Gentleman”, by Clifford D. Simak, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January, 1960
“Chain Reaction”, by Algis Budrys, from Astounding Science Fiction, April, 1957
“Rule Golden”, by Damon Knight, from Science Fiction, Adventures, May, 1954
