Edmund A. Emshwiller – Literary Art and Illustration

All the authors! – Marvel Science Fiction (November, 1951) [Hannes Bok], and, Galaxy Science Fiction (October, 1952) [Edmund A. Emshwiller]

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.

Even our former publisher [World Editions, Inc., 105 West 40th St., New York, N.Y. – not this contemporary World Editions!] became infected with that attitude, and the resulting internal conflicts were no joke at all. But now:

• 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!

THE HYDRA CLUB

Text by Judith Merril

(Illustration by Harry Harrison)

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

George Price, at…

… Britannica.com

… Art.com

… Invaluable.com

Hydra Club, at…

… Dark Worlds Quarterly

… File770.com

… That’s My Skull (Judith Merril’s article, and, accompanying illustration)

… Wikipedia

Amazing Stories – July, 1963, featuring “Redemption”, by Robert F. Young [Edmund A. Emshwiller] [Updated post…]

Originally created in July of 2019, this post – showing the July 1963 issue of Amazing Stories – now includes Edmund Emshwiller’s illustration for part two of Jack Sharkey’s novella “The Programmed People”. The cover and interior art of the June issue can be viewed here.

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Illustration by Edmund A. Emshwiller, for “The Programmed People“, by Jack Sharkey (pages 82-83)

7/15/19 234

Amazing Stories – June, 1963 (Featuring “The Programmed People”, by Jack Sharkey) [Edmund A. Emshwiller] [Updated post…]

Jack Sharkey’s two-part novella, “The Programmed People”, from the June and July of ’63 issues of Amazing Stories, while a strong example of world-building, envisions a future – the result of an odd confluence of social and technological developments – that for all the tale’s intricacy and complexity is simply not that engaging. The plot is based upon a rebellion within self-contained, subterranean civilization Earth, the society a cross between the worlds Brave New World and 1984, and even resembling (and perhaps inspiring?!) Logan’s Run.

The protagonist – a young woman; Grace Horton – and secondary characters are all clearly “drawn” in terms of their roles within the story, but they’re neither too deeply individuated nor that compelling in terms of emotion or personality, as people. To be fair, it’s a worthwhile one-time read, but not at all the kind of tale – unlike, for example, anything in the oeuvre of Cordwainer Smith – that would draw your attention for a second (or third (or fourth?)) reading, let alone contemplation. It’s not been anthologized, either.

Withal, Edmund Emshwiller cover art for the June issue – below – and interior illustrations are great; perhaps the best parts of the story. Aside from their spandexy outfits, the most notable aspect of the painting is the punch-card slots superimposed on the man and woman, a reminder of computer programming in the 1960s.

The cover and interior art of the July issue can be viewed here.

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Lead illustration for “The Programmed People”, on pages 6 and 7.

Programming!… A superb illustration from page 34, showing Grace Horton, a robot, and a bank of computers, encircled by a perforated computer tape.

7/12/19 – 216

The Hand of Zei, by L. Sprague de Camp – 1963 (Astounding Science Fiction 1950-1951) [Edmund A. Emshwiller]

In space, they say,
Lies The Hand of Zei.
A strange adventure,
Far, far away!

The Search For Zei is found this way…

The Search for Zei, by L. Sprague de Camp – 1963 (Astounding Science Fiction, 1950-1951) [Edmund A. Emshwiller]

What can one say,
About The Search for Zei?
A colorful cover,
On display!

The Hand of Zei, not far away…

Video Time!: Planet Stories, January, 1954, featuring “A Sound of Thunder”, by Ray Bradbury [Frank Kelly Freas]

The theme of time travel, and specifically its implications in terms of causality, free will, parallel universes, and paradoxes, has been the basis of innumerable stories in science fiction, and to a lesser extent, fantasy. A prominent example of the genre is Ray Bradbury’s 1954 tale “A Sound of Thunder” in the January, 1954 issue of Planet Stories, which popularized the concept of the “butterfly effect“, though the general idea had been the subject of discussion among scientists and philosophers even in the 19th century.

While I don’t think that Frank Kelly Freas’ resounding cover illustration for the issue has a direct relevance to any story within…

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… Edmund Emshwiller’s lead illustration (pages 4-5) for “A Sound of Thunder” certainly does! Note the notorious butterfly making a prominent appearance at lower right.

Audio!

“A Sound of Thunder – Ray Bradbury”, narrated by Zach Walz (September 30, 2018)

While Bradbury’s short story has been the basis of a 2005 movie by the same name, unfortunately, as indicated at Rotten Tomatoes, the picture has fallen flat (or should I say “fallen splat“?), with a Tomatometer rating of 6%, and an Audience Score of 18%. Here’s the trailer, at TheSciFiSpot (December 12, 2010) You can read more about the film at the IMDB.

Working Title: “A Sound of Blunder”?

And even more, at…

A Book:

Ash, Brian (editor), The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Harmony Books, New York, N.Y., 1977 (Emshwiller illustration on page 148)

A Thunderous Sound, at…

… Wikipedia

… GoodReads

… Interesting Literature

… SUNY Stone Brook Astronomy (full text)

… Physics Forums

… Internet Speculative Fiction Database

… Tim Weed – Writer

… Ellen Smith Writes (#TIMETRAVELSTORIES REVIEW: A SOUND OF THUNDER)

… The Spirochaete Trail (Scampy’s blog)

… Fangoria

… The Philadelphia Inquirer (The Physics of Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder”)

Frank Kelly Freas, at…

Wikipedia

SFE – The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

FindAGrave

Field Guide to Wild American Pulp Artists

Internet Speculative Fiction Database

GoodReads

Wikimedia Commons (Cover Art) – 47 images

Comic Art Fans – some classic, “clickable” (relatively) full-size cover art

Dangerous Minds

invaluable – The World’s Premier Auctions and Galleries – original art for sale

Mad Magazine Covers by Frank Kelly Freas – Doug Gilford’s Mad Magazine Cover Site

World Without Men, by Charles Eric Maine (David McIlwain) – 1958 [Edmund A. Emshwiller]

British writer Charles Eric Maine (David McIlwain) authored at least sixteen novels and four screenplays, as well as detective thrillers under the pen names Richard Rayner and Robert Wade. He may be best known for the dystopian 1958 Ace novel World Without Men, which features cover art by Edmund Emshwiller. Regardless of one’s opinion about the novel’s literary merits, this has to be one of the most striking covers ever published by Ace, let alone among the very many works created by Ed Emshwiller. His model for the startled red-irised lady was his wife Carol, who appearance was the template for the features of women in many of Emsh’s paintings.

Purple Hair? – check!

(Green Hair? – check!)

Silver Lipstick? – check!

~~Bullet Style~~ Artillery Shell Top? – check!

Jane Jetson style geometric flat-top collar? – check!

Below is Ed Emshwiller’s original painting. The subtleties of shading and color are here much more obvious than in the cover as printed. Particularly interesting are the eye-like red sphere at the upper right – shades of HAL 9000! – and, the antenna-like set of wires and rods set against a pink background, in the upper center. I don’t recall where I actually found this image; it might have been at Heritage Auctions. (Well, maybe. It’s been a while.)

– Mrs. Jane Jetson –

The book was republished in 1972 under the title Alph. Dean Ellis’ cover art connotes the novel’s theme far more sedately, and perhaps more effectively, than that of Ace’s 1958 edition.

For Further Digression, Distraction, and Diversion

World Without Men, at…

… Schlock Value (strongly con)

… The Last Man on Earth (con)

… GoodReads (semi – sort of – maybe a little – pro)

… The Brussels Journal – review by the late Professor Thomas F. Bertonneau (strongly pro)

Alph, at…

… (once again) Schlock Value

Charles Eric Maine (David McIlwain), at…

… Internet Speculative Fiction Database

… Wikipedia

… The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

… Andrew Darlington Blogspot (extensive discussion)

The Alley God (“The Alley Man”), by Philip José Farmer – The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction – June, 1959 [Edmund A. Emshwiller] / Ballantine Books – 1962 [Richard M. Powers]

Ballantine Books’ 1962 edition of Philip José Farmer’s The Alley God bears a singular example of Richard Powers’ cover art. But, before we get to that…

Here’s the cover of the June, 1959, issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction where the story first appeared, under the title “The Alley Man“. This cover’s by EMSH – Edmund Emshwiller. As described in Brian Ash’s The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, “…[the story] is in some ways akin to “Flowers For Algernon”, though on a more personal level. A mental and physical throwback, who believes himself to be the last of the Neanderthals, tries to come to terms with the modern world, and, in particular, with the intellectual superiority of the girl he loves.”

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Sidgwick and Jackson’s imprint (the only hardcover printing featuring the story), with cover art by David Hardy, appeared in 1970. This is the only appearance of the story in English-language book format other than Ballantine’s paperback edition. As in Ballantine’s prior imprint, the title is The Alley God. Via the ISFDB, “Sidgwick and Jackson was originally established in 1908 and acquired by Macmillan in the 1980s. It’s now an imprint of Pan Macmillan.”

This edition also includes “The Captain’s Daughter” and “The God Business”. The former is a variant of “Strange Compulsion” from the October, 1953 issue of Hugo Gernsback’s Science Fiction +, which is accompanied by six (count ’em, six) illustrations by Virgil Finlay, two of which are particularly outstanding, with a level of – um – er – uh – s y m b o l i s m (yeah, that’s it, symbolism!) that’s rather direct and unambiguous. I’ve not actually read the tale, but from what I vaguely know of it anecdotally and elsewhere – and as much as I admire Farmer’s body of work – I don’t think I’d want to. (!) As for “The God Business”, the story originally appeared in the March, 1954 issue of Beyond Fantasy Fiction.

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And so, we come to Ballantine Books 1962 Edition, which has content identical to that of the later Sidgwick and Jackson printing.

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Amidst a scene of urban desolation (notice the pebbles and stones scattered across the landscape?), under a violet and ochre sky – the colors work marvelously together! – the sun fixed above, are two human-like figures. One, kneeling, resembles the shattered remnants of a demolished building. The figure to the left is altogether different: Unlike anything else in the scene, it’s formed of a single, multiply folded bronze-like sheet, and props itself against the kneeling figure, to face the sun. (With longing? With fear? In worship? In wonder?) Where did it come from? Where is it going? For what is it searching?

Is it the only one of its kind?

Alley, (lower case) god, and man.

Easily one of Powers’ best works, I’m glad Ballantine’s design department left the image “as is”, without title or publisher’s logo printed upon it. Suitable for framing?

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There is no classifying PHILIP JOSE FARMER…

He has moved with equal ease from the rollicking adventures of “The Green Odyssey” to the weird ingenuity of “Strange Relations” to the sensitive poignancy of “The Lovers”.

Now, in the three novelets that comprise THE ALLEY GOD, he combines something of each of those qualities, using as central themes the universal concept of worship and the taboos that surround the human reproductive process.

Some people have, in the past, been shocked by the frankness of Farmer’s writing – but then, human experience is itself frequently shocking, and Farmer’s stories are of the very essence of human experience. No matter how wild the setting, nor how imaginative the circumstances, reality – human reality – is the motive power behind the foibles exposed, the shibboleths exploded, the secret dreams recalled.

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Other Neat Places to Visit

The God of the Alley…

…at GoodReads

… at Wikipedia (“The Alley Man”)

…at Philip José Farmer Philip José Farmer International Bibliography

…at The Hugo Awards (1960)

…at L.W. Currey, Inc. (…going for $350!…)

A Book…

Ash, Brian, The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Harmony Books, New York, N.Y., 1977

Philip José Farmer…

…at Wikipedia

…at pjfarmer.com

…at Philip Jose Farmer

…at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Travel In Time, Travel Through Time: “Bring the Jubilee”, by Ward Moore – The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction – November, 1952 [Edmund A. Emshwiller] / Ballantine Books – 1953 [Richard M. Powers]

A central theme of science-fiction and fantasy has long been time travel, which – if a story of that genre is fully developed – can entail an exploration of the nature and implications of parallel universes, in terms both literary and historical. Among the myriad of such stories, one of the best by far (well, the best I’ve ever read) is Ward Moore’s Bring the Jubilee, which takes a very novel approach (pardon the pun!) to the concepts of time travel and alternate history.

The novel is very well described at Wikipedia and elsewhere, so I won’t rehash it in detail here. Suffice to say that in terms of plot – taking for granted the reality of time travel, of course! – the most original aspect of Moore’s story is that the world we “know” from 1863 onwards – and thus the very world are living in, here, now, today in 2023 and thus into our future, exists because of the irrevocable alteration of a pre-existing and now-extinguished timeline in which the Confederacy achieved victory over the Union. This change – the novel’s Jonbar hinge – commences in that timeline’s year of 1952, when protagonist Hodgins “Hodge” McCormick Backmaker travels back to July 2, 1863 with the intention of observing the Battle of Gettysburg in general, and the fight for Little Round Top, in particular. Fully interacting with the world of the past – his past – not a passive observer, his presence changes the Confederate Victory of his timeline to the Union victory of ours, eventuating in a course of events – both domestic and international; for good, ill, and yet unknown – that we know today. And with this, Backmaker is forever trapped in our world, the involuntary, tragic, and solitary exile from a timeline and universe that no longer exists, and which from our perspective never existed to begin with: Even if a time machine were to be invented in our world, there is nothing for him to return to.

All Backmaker knew is gone; all those he has known only exist in memory: His memory.

One could write far more about this exceptional work. Suffice to say that in terms of plot, world-building, historical insight (welll… at least insight into the history of our world!), character development, philosophical depth, and straightforward literary quality, Bring the Jubilee is more than excellent. Unlike the sense of humorous novelty inherent to some time-travel and alternate universe stories, Moore’s book is serious, philosophical, and ends on a note of true and deep pathos. (Which shouldn’t dissuade you from reading it – it’s that good!)

To the best of my knowledge it has never been adapted for film or video, but it would be more than worthy of such treatment.

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Edmund Emshwiller’s cover art for the November, 1952 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction – Ward’s novel encompassing pages 24 through 112, and thus most of this issue’s content – is somewhat different in style from other examples of his paintings, where human facial expressions and technology are presented in great detail. Here, protagonist Hodgins Backmaker’s face is hidden from us. We see him backlit from behind as as he enters the time machine, illuminated by a glowing ring of light suspended in the device’s center. This shadowed anonymity lends the scene an aura of adventure, power, and above, connotes the awareness of an impending step into the unknown. And, around the door to the time machine? Symbols of the Civil War and Confederacy: foggy silhouettes of soldiers; cavalry; artillery pieces; a steam-powered minibile.

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Here are the covers of Moore’s story in novel form, issued by Ballantine Books one year later. You can immediately tell that it’s by Richard Powers, while his signature is at the bottom left corner of the rear cover). Neither an anthology nor a work of science-fiction based on themes like space exploration or extraterrestrials, Powers created a image comprised of symbols and themes directly drawn from the Civil War era: Soldiers in battle, bursting artillery shells, and a map the divided North America in Backmaker’s timeline of 1951. Given that most of the story transpires in the imagined Confederacy of the 1950s – the world descended from the Union defeat at Gettysburg – the advancing soldiers shown on the cover are all Southerners, with the Confederate flag flying above. Another touch:

This is one of the very few covers in which Powers includes a recognizable person – Backmaker himself (I suppose…!) at lower right, looking on, looking back, from the future. Whose future? His, or, ours?

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Here’s the full cover, composited via Photoshop… (My own copy.)

The Appeal of Alternate History
Gavriel Rosenfeld

The Forward
April 20, 2007

Few subgenres of literature have been subjected to such longstanding critical scorn as alternate history. Despite the occasional publication of such masterpieces as Philip K. Dick’s 1962 novel, “The Man in the High Castle,” the more frequent appearance of duds like Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen’s much-maligned 1995 novel, “1945,” has reinforced alternate history’s reputation as the domain of armchair historians and literary hacks.

Of late, however, alternate history’s appeal has begun to grow. Historian Niall Ferguson’s 1997 edited volume of counterfactual essays, “Virtual History,” lent the genre new credibility within the field of history, while Philip Roth’s best-selling 2004 novel, “The Plot Against America,” greatly enhanced its reputation within the American literary establishment. Now, Michael Chabon’s provocative new novel, “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” (HarperCollins), promises to help the genre of alternate history take yet another important step toward mainstream legitimacy. But while Chabon’s novel is an intricately plotted, wonderfully imaginative and ultimately successful work of literature, it is a weaker exercise in counterfactual speculation. Indeed, the novel resembles a “lite” version of alternate history that may leave connoisseurs of the real thing less than satisfied.

The best literary examples of alternate history — like Ward Moore’s 1953 novel, “Bring the Jubilee” (where the South wins the Civil War), or Robert Harris’s 1992 best-seller, “Fatherland” (where the Nazis win World War II) — combine a variety of elements: a clear point of divergence from the established historical record; clever and well-paced exposition of the reasons for history’s altered course; a convincing degree of plausibility, and a discernible stance on the question of whether the altered past is better or worse than the course of real history.

But whereas the most convincing works of alternate history tend to concentrate on a single point of divergence (the South wins the Civil War; JFK survives his assassination attempt), “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” features several: The United States decides in 1940 to establish a territorial home for European Jewish refugees in Alaska; the Russians are defeated by the Nazis in World War II (though the Nazis ultimately lose to the Americans anyway); the Cold War never ensues, and the state of Israel is never created, as the Jews lose the 1948 War of Independence and are “driven into the sea.” Aficionados of alternate history will probably carp at the implausibility of the United States staying in the war for very long against a victorious Nazi Germany without the Soviet Union doing most of the heavy lifting on the eastern front. Others will view with skepticism the ideologically fanatical Nazis permitting millions of Jews to leave Europe, unmolested, for their Alaskan refuge.

But perhaps the most telling weakness about “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” as a work of alternate history is the fact that arguably, its basic plot could have unfolded in nearly the same way as a conventional work of historical fiction. While Chabon’s basic allohistorical premise certainly lends the novel its distinctive mood, it is inessential to its basic plot — a noirish, detective-drama-cum-political-thriller whose fundamental contours (as most readers will deduce) have been inspired by today’s real historical headlines.

Few of these criticisms will bother Chabon’s many devoted fans (I remain an enthusiastic one). Most will be absorbed by the book’s engrossing narrative and won’t be bothered much by its diluted allohistorical dimensions. But devotees of alternate history will probably dissent. However much they may welcome the fact that some of America’s most celebrated writers are beginning to appreciate alternate history’s allure, they will likely insist that the genre still awaits its contemporary masterpiece.

Gavriel Rosenfeld is an associate professor of history at Fairfield University and is the author of “The World Hitler Never Made: Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism” (Cambridge University Press, 2005).

Other Stuff to Delight, Distract, and Divert You…

Ward Moore (Joseph Ward Moore)…

… at Wikipedia

… at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

…at FindAGrave

Edmund A. Emshwiller…

… at Wikipedia

… at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

“Bring the Jubilee”…

…at Wikipedia

… at GoodReads

…at The Alternate Historian (“Bring the Jubilee: A Misunderstood Alternate History Masterpiece”)

If the Confederacy had Won the Civil War…

…at History Answers (“American Civil War | How The South Could Have Won”)

…at AlternateHistoryHub (“What if the South Won the American Civil War?”)

Shield, by Poul Anderson – April, 1963 and July, 1970 [Richard M. Powers]

Among the most well-known plot devices of science fiction is the concept of an impenetrable, non-material barrier that can be used for defense or protection, or, as a tool to enhance the effectiveness of offensive weapons. Or to put it quite simply, a “shield”.

Shields first made their appearance in E.E. Smith’s “Spacehounds of I.P.C.”, which was serialized in the July, August (great cover art by Leo Morey!), and September 1931 issues of Amazing Stories, and has been published in book form since 1947. However, the technology is perhaps best known in popular culture from Star Trek, and, Frank Herbert’s Dune, the latter of which reveals serious and impressive thought about the impact and eventual pervasiveness of personal shield technology on warfare and social mores. In both cases, while shields – per se – aren’t entirely central to a story’s theme, they are critical to its plot, specifically in terms of the arc of a character’s experiences, actions, and (one hopes!) survival.

Another appearance of shields – or, should I more correctly say “a” shield? – occurred with the 1962 publication of Poul Anderson’s two-part serial by that name in the June and July issues of Fantastic Stories, the latter of which I purchased some decades ago (seriously – it’s been that long) from a used bookstore near Easton College. Not among Anderson’s strongest or most powerful works, Shield – while an entertaining diversion – is a straightforward tale of physicist Peter Koskinen’s escape, pursuit, adventure, and survival in the face of daunting odds, in which the full implications of shield technology aren’t developed nearly as deeply or strongly as they otherwise might be. Perhaps this arises from the novel’s plot, because the shield unit in Koskinen’s possession – developed by Martians – is the only such device in existence. And so, in the world created by Anderson, shields haven’t yet wrought technological and social change upon civilization that they have in Dune.

However, what Anderson’s story lacks – in either magazine or book form – it makes up for in art. While neither issue of Fantastic bears cover art inspired by the story, Dan Adkins’ leading, interior, and rear cover illustrations for the June issue (see below…) – especially page 60, in all its imagined technical complexity – directly and clearly represent the elements of the tale. The leading illustration from pages 48 and 49 of the June Fantastic was created by downloading the magazine in CBR (Comic Book Reader) format via the Pulp Magazine Archive, splicing the images on those pages, and then editing them as one picture. I’ve included a brief video showing this process step by step, the theme music – pretty recognizable, ain’t it, doc?! – being from Raymond Scott’s Powerhouse.

But wait, there’s more…!

Go to the bottom of this post: You’ll see two of the three covers of Berkley Medallion’s paperback editions of Shield, all of which were created by Richard Powers…

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TARGET: INVULNERABILITY

Koskinen had returned to earth with a strange new “Shield” – a device which enclosed the wearer in a force screen which absorbed all energies below a certain level. Light could come through the Shield, but no weapon known man could penetrate it…

Koskinen had developed the Shield in collaboration with the Martians. From the moment of his return to earth he was in deadly danger. His own country sent men to kill him to prevent the Shield from falling into Chinese hands…

Soon the whole civilized world was searching for this one man – a man armed with the greatest potential military weapon mankind had ever seen… The only question was which power would possess the Shield as its very own?

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Fantastic Stories of Imagination – June, 1962 (George E. Barr)

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Pages 48-49

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Page 60

“His left hand batted out, knocked the gun aside.
It went off with a hiss, startlingly loud beside Koskinen’s ear.”

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Rear cover

“SUDDENLY he realized what he’d not stopped to think before —
he was over a densely populated area.
At his speed he was a bomb.

God, he cried wildly, or Existence, or whatever you are, don’t let me kill anyone!”

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The car jerked.
A square of deeper blackness opened in the hull above – no, there were lights –
“They’re taking us aboard!” Sawyer gasped.

His companion sat rigid, hardly seeming alive except for the blood that trickled from his nose.
“Yeah,” he said. “I was afraid of that.”

His gun swung about.
Koskinen looked down the muzzle.
“I’m sorry, kid,” the agent murmured.

“What do you mean?” a stranger cried through Koskinen’s head.

“We can’t let them have you.
Not if you’re as important as I gather you are.”

“No!”

“Goodbye, kid.”

IT was not Koskinen’s will which responded.
That would have been too slow.
But he had practiced judo on Mars for fun and exercise.
The animal of him took over the learned reflexes.

He had twisted around in the seat to face the agent.
His left hand batted out, knocked the gun aside.
It went off with a hiss, startlingly loud beside Koskinen’s ear.
His right fist was already rocketing upward.
It struck beneath the nose.
The agent’s face seemed to disintegrate.

Koskinen snapped his skull backward.
It banged against Sawyer’s chin.
The man barked.
Koskinen reached over his shoulder, got Sawyer by the neck,
and hauled the agent’s larynx across his collarbone.
He bore down, brutally.
Already oxygen starved, Sawyer made a choking noise and went limp.

Koskinen sagged.
Blackness whirled and buzzed around him.
A quiver through the car stabbed awareness back into his brain.
The hatch was just above the canopy now, like an open mouth.
He glimpsed a man on the edge of it, thermsuited, airhelmeted, and armed with a rifle.
The car would be in the ship’s hold in one more minute.
Then, unencumbered, the ship would have a chance of escaping to wherever it had come from.

Sawyer and the other agent stirred.
For a fractional second, Koskinen thought:

My God, what am I doing? I attacked two MS men …
I’m leaving them here to be captured —

But they meant to kill me. And I haven’t time to help them.

He had already, somehow, unbuckled his safety belt.
He scrambled over the seatback.
The parcel lay on the rear seat.
He snatched it.
His free hand fumbled with the door catch.
The sound of air, whistling from the interior toward stratospheric thinness, filled his universe.

The car bumped over the hatch frame.
Koskinen got the door unlocked.
Swords rammed through his eardrums as he encountered the full pressure differential.
The thermsuited man aimed the rifle at him.

He jumped from the open door, out through the hatch, and started falling.

FIRST you protect your eyeballs. They can freeze.

Koskinen buried his face in the crook of his left arm.
Darkness enclosed him, weightlessness, and savage cold.
His head whirled with pain and roarings.
The last lean breath he had drawn in the car was still in his lungs,
but clamoring to get out.
If he gave way to that pressure, reflex would make him breathe in again.
And there wasn’t much air at this height,
but there was enough that its chill would sear his pulmonary system.

Blind, awkward with a hand and a half available to him,
aided only by a little space experience with free fall —
very little, since the Franz Boas made the crossing at one-fourth gee
of nuclear-powered acceleration —
he tore the paper off his shield unit.
He and it would have different terminal velocities,
but as yet there was so tenuous an atmosphere that everything fell at the same rate.
He fumbled the thing to him.
Now … where was the damn right shoulder strap?

… the unit was adjusted for one-man wear,
and he couldn’t make readjustments while tumbling through heaven —
Panic snatched at him.
He fought it down with a remnant of consciousness and went on groping.

There!

He slipped his arm through,
put his head over against that biceps,
and got his left arm into the opposite loop.
The control panel flopped naturally across his chest.
He felt about with fingers gone insensible until he found the master switch, and threw it.
In one great gasp he breathed out and opened his eyes.

Cold smote like a knife.

He would have screamed,
but his lungs were empty and he had just enough sense left not to try filling them.

Too high yet, too high, he thought in his own disintegration.
Got to get further down.
How long? Square root of twice the distance divided by gee —
Gee, Elkor, I miss you, Sharer-of-Hopes,
when you sink your personality into the stars these nights do you include the blue star Earth?
No, it’s winter now in your hemisphere,
you’re adream, hibernation, hiber, hyper, hyperspace,
is the shield really a section of space folded through four extra dimensions, dimens, dim, dimmer,
OUT!

At the last moment of consciousness, he turned off the unit.

He was too numb to feel if there was any warmth around him.
But there must be, for he could breathe again.
Luckily his attitude wasn’t prone,
or the airstream pounding into his open mouth could have done real damage.
He sucked greedily, several breaths, before he remembered to turn the field back on.

Then he had a short interval in which to fall.
He saw the night sky above him,
not the loneliness and wintry stars of the stratosphere,
which reminded him so much of Mars,
but Earth’s wan sparks crisscrossed by aircar lights.
The sky of the eastern American megapolis, at least; they lay below him still,
though he had no idea what archaic city boundaries he had crossed.
He didn’t see the stratoship.
Well, naturally.
He’d taken the crew by surprise when he jumped,
and by the time they reacted he was already too far down for them to dare give chase.

SUDDENLY he realized what he’d not stopped to think before —
he was over a densely populated area.
At his speed he was a bomb.

God, he cried wildly, or Existence, or whatever you are, don’t let me kill anyone!

The city rushed at him. It swallowed his view field. He struck.

To him it was like diving into thick tar.
The potential barrier made a hollow shell around his body,
and impact flung him forward with normal,
shattering acceleration until he encountered that shell.
Momentum carried him a fractional inch into it.
Then his kinetic energy had been absorbed,
taken up by the field itself and shunted to the power pack.
As for the noise, none could penetrate the shield.
He rebounded very gently, rose to his feet, shaky-kneed,
stared into a cloud of dust and heard his own harsh breath and heartbeat.

The dust settled.
He sobbed with relief.
He’d hit a street — hadn’t even clipped a building.
There were no red human fragments around,
only a crater in the pavement from which cracks radiated to the sidewalks.
Fluoro lamps, set far apart, cast a dull glow on brick walls and unlighted windows.
A neon sign above a black, shut doorway spelled uncle’s pawn shop.

“I got away,” Koskinen said aloud, hardly daring to believe.
His voice wobbled.
“I’m free. I’m alive.”

Two men came running around a corner.
They were thin and shabbily dressed.
Ground-level tenements were inhabited only by the poorest.
They halted and gaped at the human figure and the ruined pavement.
A bar of purulent light fell across one man’s face.
He began jabbering and gesturing, unheard by Koskinen.

I must have made one bong of a racket when I hit. Now what do I do?

Get out of here. Till I’ve had a chance to think!

He switched off the field.
His first sensation was warmth.
The air he had been breathing was what he had trapped at something like 20,000 feet.
This was thick and dirty.
A sinus pain jabbed through his head; he swallowed hard to equalize pressures.
Sound engulfed him — machines pounding somewhere,
a throb underfoot, the enormous rumble as a train went by not far away,
the two men’s shout, “Hey, what the hell, who the hell’re you – ?”

A woman’s voice joined theirs.
Koskinen spun and saw more slum dwellers pouring from alleys and doorways.
A dozen, two dozen, excited, noisy, gleeful at any excitement in their gray lives.
And he must be something to see, Koskinen realized.
Not only because he’d come down hard enough to smash concrete.
But he was in good, new, upper-level clothes.
On his back he carried a lumpy metal cylinder;
the harness included a plastic panel across his chest, with switches, knobs, and three meters.
Like some science fiction hero on the 3D.
For a second he wondered if he could get away with telling them a film was being shot, special effects and —
No.
He began to run.

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Fantastic Stories of Imagination – July, 1962 (“EMSH” – Edmund A. Emshwiller)

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From April of 1963, here’s the first edition of Shield. Since the basis of this painting is a single story; a novel, rather than a collection of tales, Powers’ composition isn’t a melange of spacey, science-fictiony, ambiguous elements as in many of his other works. Rather, the image is directly inspired by Anderson’s story: Sharply outlined shapes (or, is it just one shape, vibrating back and forth? – can’t tell!) in the vague form of human bodies, in red, blue, and, green, are enclosed within a bubble. Surrounding this on all sides are jagged, irregular rods in gray and black. They touch the bubble; the rest against it; they cling to its sides. But, nothing gets through.

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A closer view…

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When Berkley republished Shield seven years later, the artist was the same but his art very different; completely different; utterly different: The shield took on a new shape and appeared in a new setting. Instead of a simple barrier to the outside world, there’s a dark quadrilateral with angular shapes – in purple, red, green, and brown – inside, all cross-crossed by delicate groups of almost spider-web-like lines, almost mathematically placed. The shape floats in a red and yellow sky, above a crowd of people depicted as streamlined, metallic, shining, anthropomorphic shapes in dark gray and greenish black.

And, one shape (if you look closely!) stands out from the rest: The tallest figure – in the middle of the group – more crisply defined than all the others, finished in gold and silver, with a distinct face. Is this the hero of the novel, Peter Koskinen?

No way to tell.

So, here’s the book’s full cover:

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Here’s a cropped view of Powers art:

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Going one step beyond… (Heh heh, double entendre!) The true complexity of this painting is only revealed by tweaking contrast and brightness of the original scan. Otherwise, the cover painting simply looks like a bunch of shiny marbles below a red sky, with a dark brown misshapen kite floating above.

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