Poul Anderson – Literary Art and Illustration

Fantastic Universe, October, 1959 [Virgil W. Finlay]

Now, where have we seen a forlorn robot before? Let’s try Edd Emshwiller’s cover for the October, 1955, issue of Astounding Science Fiction … though the robot in that case seems far more in a state of bewildered befuddlement than permanent peril! As, per Virgil Finlay’s cover for the October, 1959 issue of Fantastic Universe. This is entirely unlike Mel Hunter’s cover illustrations for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction during the 1950s and 60s, which were whimsical and ironic in their portrayals of mechanical men.

Fantastic Universe was a regular venue for Virgil Finlay’s interior illustrations during the late 1950s, as per the two examples below. Though the magazine’s digest format by nature restricted the size and impact of his work, what he still created in that limited literary “landscape” was still impressive.

As per the two examples below.

Illustration for “Condemned to Death”, by Poul Anderson

(page 34)

Illustration for “The Planet of Heavenly Joy” by John Ruland

(page 94)

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…

____________________

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?

____________________

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

____________________

Pages 48-49

____________________

Page 60

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

____________________

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!”

____________________

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.

____________________

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

____________________

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.

____________________

A closer view…

____________________

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:

____________________

Here’s a cropped view of Powers art:

____________________

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.

____________________

But wait, there’s more…!

Here’s a scan of Powers’ original art, from Pinterest…

____________________

For Your Distraction and Entertainment…

“Shield”…

…at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

…at GoodReads

Energy Shield…

…at Quora (“Can we make force shield/energy shield like in the science fiction series into the real life?”)

Force Field (Technology)…

…at Wikipedia

Poul Anderson…

…at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

…at Wikipedia

George Barr (George Edward Barr)…

…at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

…at Wikipedia

EMSH (Edmund A. Emshwiller)…

…at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

…at Wikipedia

Dan Adkins (Danny L. Adkins)…

…at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

…at Wikipedia

…at The Comics Journal

…at Comic Art Fans

….at The Beat – The Blog of Comics Culture

…at Two Tomorrows

February 17, 2017

The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction – Sixth Series, Edited by Anthony Boucher – 1955 (1956, 1957) [Unknown Artist – Edmund A. Emshwiller]

Rather than presenting a general “science-fictiony” scene, the cover presents an illustration inspired by Poul Anderson’s “The Man Who Came Early” from appeared in the June, 1956 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and anthologized in this sixth series of stories from the magazine.

Like the great majority of Anderson’s work – at least, what I’ve read of Anderson! – The Man Who Came Early is excellently written, and of greater import, tackles with profound social, psychological, and philosophical questions, all the more impressive in that these are manifested in the form of a short story, rather than a book or novelette. Though ostensibly a tale of science-fiction, themes of technology and science, whether real or conjectural are not really the tale’s focus – this is emphatically not “hard” science fiction! – and only serve as a brief and opening springboard to set the plot in motion. An air of inevitability emerges as the story progresses, and it concludes on a note of pathos, which perhaps makes it all the more effective, and, memorable.

(The copy originally serving as this post’s image – see at bottom; rather bent and worn; I purchased it at a flea market in the 1970s! – has now been supplanted by a scan of a copy in far better condition.)

______________________________

The Cosmic Expense Account, by Cyril M. Kornbluth

Mr. Sakrison’s Halt, by Mildred Clingerman

The Asa Rule, by Jay Williams

King’s End, by Avram Davidson

The Census Takers, by Frederik Pohl

The Man Who Came Early, by Poul Anderson

Final Clearance, by Rachel Maddux

The Silk and The Song, by Charles L. Fontenay

The Shoddy Lands, by C.S. Lewis

The Last Present, by Will Stanton

No Man Pursueth, by Ward Moore

I Don’t Mind, by Ron Smith

The Barbarian, by Poul Anderson

And Now The News…, by Theodore Sturgeon

Icarus Montgolfier Wright, by Ray Bradbury

______________________________

6/19

Sailing to Imagination: The Solar Sail, as Depicted in Amazing Stories (August, 1962) and Analog Science Fact – Science Fiction (April, 1964)

As “no man is an island” – to use a hackneyed but entirely true aphorism – neither is any field of knowledge. The arenas of the arts, humanities, and sciences, disparate as they may be, have long intersected with and influenced one another in ways ranging from the intellectual, to the cultural, to the artistic. And, beyond. Certainly this has long been so in illustrations associated with science fiction, in venues ranging from books, to pulp magazines, to cinema, to the virtual world. By nature and intent, all of these present visions of worlds past, present, and future – and often “parallel” – based on the science and technology rooted in the real (or, ostensibly “real”!) world.

Two interesting examples of this appeared in the early 1960s, as cover illustrations for the August, 1962 issue of Amazing Stories, and, the April 1964, issue of Analog Science Fact -> Science Fiction. Though utterly different in artistic style, both compositions pertain to stories based upon the solar sail, a method of spacecraft propulsion by means of the radiation pressure of sunlight.

The Amazing Stories cover is by the very well-known artist Alex Schomburg, whose actual name (as I discovered when writing this post!) was either Alexander A. Schomburg, or, Alejandro Schomburg y Rosa. His painting presents Jack Vance’s story – well, the title is prominently displayed on the cover! – “Gateway to Strangeness”.

“The ship, its great sail spread to the fading sunlight, fled through space like a ghost – out, always out. There were still a billion miles to travel … a billion miles before they’d know whether they would ever come back.”

The Analog cover is by Harvey Woolhiser (actual name James Harvey Woolhiser) for “Sunjammer”, by Winston P. Sanders. As far as I’ve been able to determine, this was the only cover illustration Woolhiser created for Analog, let alone Astounding. Unsurprising: his forte seems not to have been science fiction, albeit he did create a straightforward cover, in muted tones of blue and green, for the November, 1948 issue of Science illustrated, appropriately for the article “Space Travel – Now or Never?”

But, what about “Sanders”? Who was he? (Hmmm… Certainly not Bernie Sanders… Definitely not Colonel Sanders…) At first, I thought he may have been a “one-shot” or at best an infrequent author. Then, a little searching quickly revealed that “Sanders” was actually one of the pen-names of the wonderfully talented Poul Anderson, under which were published these other stories, primarily in Analog.

Pact (1959)
Wherever You Are (1959)
Barnacle Bull (1960)
The Barrier Moment (1960)
The Word to Space (1960)
Industrial Revolution (1963)
What’ll You Give? (1963)
Say It With Flowers (1965)
Elementary Mistake (1967)

As you can see, not only are the covers different in design, style, and color palette, they’re slightly different in proportion as well: For Amazing Stories, Schomburg’s fits the magazine’s standard digest-size format nicely, while Woolhiser’s conforms to the larger, slick-upscale-coffee-table-ish (Manhattan-advertising-agency? Southern-California aeronautical-engineering-firm? Academic-think-tank? Suburban-office-lounge? University-dorm-room?) format in which Analog was published by Conde-Nast from March of 1963 through March of 1965.

Though both covers depict spacecraft and astronauts – the latter diminutive by virtue of their juxtaposition with spacecraft – I think Schomburg’s image “works” far better, precisely because there’s no central element to the composition: the very center of the scene is “empty” space: Your eye and mind have to “work”, moving from the moon to the earth to the star-mottled indigo blackness of space to the multi-colored sail, its supporting framework, and attached habitation pod. All the colors in the scene balance very nicely against the yellow and black “Amazing” logo at the upper left.

It’s interesting, really.

Though by the 50s and 60s and doubtless much earlier Amazing Stories lacked the gravitas and literary influence of the “big three” – Analog, Galaxy Science Fiction, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction – the magazine’s art and illustrations, both cover and interior, sometimes stood – it seems to me – on a visual footing equal to and on occasion much better than those appearing in those publications. Then again, compared to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction that wasn’t too difficult, at least in terms of interior illustrations, for those appeared in that publication in only few issues from the late 1950s, most notably for Ray Bradbury’s “Fondly Fahrenheit”.

So, anyway: An Analog-ous cover… (Please pardon predictable pun!)

…and, moving in for a closer view:

“The difference between ‘nothing’ and ‘practically nothing’ can turn out to be the most exceedingly practical, because anything whatever is an intolerable contaminant in nothing. And if that sounds like nonsense – read on and find out!”

While these two covers depicted science-introducing-fiction during the early 1960s, today, nearly five decades later, they serve – indirectly, symbolically, and effectively – as fiction-introducing-science: Both can be found at the June, 2019 post LightSail 2 Inspires Thoughts on Fictional Sails, at Paul Gilster’s Centauri Dreams website.

Devoted to the presentation of peer-reviewed academic research on the exploration of deep space, Centauri Dreams, which began in August of 2004, encompasses subjects such as the technology of interstellar propulsion and long-duration space travel; the exploration for and identification of extrasolar planets; investigation of the origin, evolution, and nature of other planetary systems; the search for extraterrestrial life (not necessarily alien civilizations a la the works of Arthur C. Clarke or Carl Sagan (whose writings have distinctly theological overtones, with technology and alien intelligence providing a form of secular salvation) but simply plain ole’ “life”, per se, in any form); lengthy philosophical speculation about cosmology, and, well, far more. The majority of the posts are invaluable in presenting summaries of and excerpts from the latest academic journal papers in the fields of astrophysics, astrobiology, and space research, sometimes with an accompanying illustration or two from the original article, and virtually always with links to the original article in either abstract or open-access form.

Fundamentally, what makes the site so worthwhile is that the sense of curiosity, wonder, and speculation inherent to its ethos and mission is undergirded by an appreciation of and respect for solid science.

Well, why not let the website speak for itself? Thus:

“In Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster looks at peer-reviewed research on deep space exploration, with an eye toward interstellar possibilities. For the last twelve years, this site coordinated its efforts with the Tau Zero Foundation. It now serves as an independent forum for deep space news and ideas.” Refreshingly (whew!)“…Centauri Dreams is not about the existence of UFOs, nor about alien abductions, ‘ancient astronauts,’ electric universe cosmology or other New Age talking points. It is a review of peer-reviewed research.”

However, that disclaimer is a nice (and slightly ironic!) segue to a significant aspect of Centauri Dreams: Though by no means the central focus of the site, its innumerable posts include a sizeable number (as of mid-2020, I count over twenty) directly pertaining to science fiction. These comprise discussions about landmark, significant, or just plain ‘ole interesting films (the posts about “Dark Star”, “Forbidden Planet”, and Howard Hawks’ “The Thing” are great), the history of science fiction (“Astounding in the Glory Years”, and Poul Anderson’s “We Have Fed Our Sea” / “The Enemy Stars”), literature (note the two 2006 posts on Astounding) and the mutual influence of space exploration and science fiction on one another. In a larger sense, many posts at Centauri Dreams are enhanced by science-fiction cover art from books and magazines, which serve as reference points for the topic at hand.

The site’s science-fiction themed posts are below…

2 0 2 0

January 3
Some Thoughts on Science Fiction Visuals

April 3
The Interstellar Ramjet at 60

________________________________________

2 0 1 9

June 10
LightSail 2 Inspires Thoughts on Fictional Sails

May 3
“An Intellectual Carrot – The Mind Boggles!” Dissecting The Thing from Another World

________________________________________

2 0 1 8

April 18
Civilization Before Homo Sapiens?

April 2
2001: A Space Odyssey – 50 Years Later

________________________________________

2 0 1 7

November 19
‘Dark Star’ and Staring into the Cosmic Abyss

September 11
Creating Our Own Final Frontier: Forbidden Planet

________________________________________

2 0 1 6

September 9
Star Trek Plus Fifty

February 5
The Distant Thing Imagined

January 25
Proxima Centauri & the Imagination

________________________________________

2 0 1 5

February 9
We Have Fed Our Sea

January 23
Who Will Read the Encyclopedia Galactica?

________________________________________

2 0 1 3

March 8
Stranger Than Fiction

________________________________________

2 0 1 2

March 9
Science Fiction and the Probe

________________________________________

2 0 1 1

November 18
Science Fiction and the Interstellar Idea

________________________________________

2 0 0 9

August 28
Science Fiction and Interstellar Thinking

January 26
A Science Fictional Take on Being There

________________________________________

2 0 0 8

November 15
Science Fiction: Future Past

________________________________________

2 0 0 7

March 10
Whither the Science Fiction Magazines?

________________________________________

2 0 0 6

September 4
Astounding in the Glory Years

April 15
A Key Paper from an Astounding Source

________________________________________

2 0 0 5

August 30
On the Evolution of Science Fiction

________________________________________

References

Centauri Dreams – Imaging and Planning Interstellar Exploration, at Centauri-Dreams.org

Alex Schomburg (Alexander A. Schomburg / Alejandro Schomburg y Rosa), at Wikipedia

James Harvey Woolhiser, obituary at Legacy.com

Poul Anderson, bibliography at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Tau Zero Foundation – Pioneering Interstellar Flight, at tauzero.aero

“No man is an island,” at phrases.org

Astounding Science Fiction, April, 1957 (Featuring “Call Me Joe” by Poul Anderson) [Frank Kelly Freas]

“Joe roared.”

“Imagine being strong!”

The cover art for Astounding Science Fiction for April of 1957 represented the 19th such illustration for that magazine created by Frank Kelly Freas, his first cover art having been an allegorical illustration for the story The Gulf Between, in the magazine’s March, 1954 issue. Portraying Poul Anderson’s story “Call Me Joe”, Freas’ painting – and his accompanying interior art – fits the scenes, mood, technology (at least, what few technological descriptions there are!), and science (at least, science of the future) marvelously.

Freas’ use of shades of violet, orange, red, and brown for the Jovian sky, in combination with greens and blues for the the planet’s surface and vegetation – finished with a yellowish-red exhaust / re-entry trail for a descending spacecraft – lend an almost iridescent quality to the image.

Of course, you can’t overlook Joe, himself: the metallic green centaur-like creature – a genetically engineered being – silhouetted against the glowing sky, who is a – but not solely “the” – center of the story.

In any event, I’m under the impression that – akin to Arthur C. Clarke’s The Sentinel, which formed a plot element of, but was not the sole and central basis for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Poul Anderson’s story was, to lesser or greater degree, part of the inspiration for James’s Cameron’s 2009 film “Avatar”. (That’ll require some clarification via DuckDuckGo.)

If so – and I think this is so – this would have done a great disservice to the depth, profundity, and originality of Anderson’s story, which is actually an exploration of concepts of identity, individuality, and personality, as well as – to a lesser extent – the ethics and morality surrounding the creation of artificial, sentient life. An example of the latter being “Joe”, on the cover. Another interesting feature of the tale is Anderson’s conception of a temperamental electronic device known as a “K-tube”, which enables real-time telepathic communication between controller Ed Anglesey, and receiver / test subject, “Joe”.

You can read a very nice summary of the story at Wikipedia.

This is unlike Cameron’s film, which – though it has elements and stereotypical tropes of science fiction – (well, hey, oh wow – it’s got fancy technology) is not a work of science fiction, and I think was never intended to be so. Quite the opposite.

“Avatar” is best understood as less science-fiction, and vastly more as an exercise in virtue signalling (to the tune of $237,000,000), by which the technocratic / meritocratic elite of 21st Century Western Civilization – the “ruling class” – validates its ever-uncertain social status, and, affirms its intellectual superiority, moral virtuosity, and spiritual refinement.

(That is, of course, in its own eyes.)

But, that’s for another discussion.

Enough, with the politics.

(For now.)

I hope you enjoy Kelly Freas’ art, and excerpts from Poul Anderson’s text. The symbol in the upper left corner is typical of the cover design of late-1950s issues of Astounding, which featured symbolic or literal representations of objects and concepts having a scientific theme. In this case, “Transformation under heat and pressure.”

_____________________

(Illustration on pages 8-9)

_____________________

For a moment, then, he knew only a crazy smothering wave of panic.
He thought he was back on Earth Station,
floating in null-gee at the end of a cable
while a thousand frosty stars haloed the planet before him.
He thought the great I-beam had broken from its moorings and started toward him,
slowly,
but with all the inertia of its cold tons, spinning and shimmering in the Earthlight,
and the only sound himself screaming and screaming in his helmet
trying to break from the cable the beam nudged him ever so gently
but it kept on moving he moved with it
he was crushed against the station wall nuzzled into it
his mangled suit frothed as it tried to seal its wounded self
there was blood mingled with the foam his blood

Joe roared. (p. 17)

_____________________

(Illustration on page 25)

_________________________

“Imagine walking under a glowing violet sky,
where great flashing clouds sweep the earth
with shadow and rain strikes beneath them.
Imagine walking on the slopes of a mountain like polished metal,
with a clean red flame exploding above you and thunder laughing in the ground.
Imagine a cool wild stream,
and low trees with dark coppery flowers,
and a waterfall, methane-fall … whatever you like … leaping off a cliff,
and the strong live wind shakes its mane full of rainbows!
Imagine a whole forest, dark and breathing,
and here and there you glimpse a pale-red wavering will-o’-the-wisp,
which is the life radiation of some fleet shy animal, and … and – ”

Anglesey croaked into silence.
He stared down at his clenched fists,
then he closed his eyes tight and tears ran out between the lids.

“Imagine being strong!” (p. 26)

_____________________

(Illustration on page 34)

_____________________

“So.
That’s all there is?
You thought I was afraid to come down here and be Joe,
and wanted to know why?
But I told you I wasn’t!”

I should have believed – whispered Cornelius.

“Well, get out of the circuit then.”
Joe continued growling it vocally.
“And don’t ever come back in the control room, understand?
K-tubes or no, I don’t want to see you again.
And I may be a cripple, but I can still take you apart cell by cell.
Now – sign off – leave me alone.
The first ship will be landing in minutes.”

You a cripple … you, Joe Angelsey?

“What?”
The great gray being on the hill lifted his barbaric head as if so sudden trumpets.
“What do you mean?”

Don’t you understand? said the weak, dragging thought.
You know how the esprojector works.
You know I could have probed Angelsey’s mind in Angelsey’s brain
without making enough interference to be noticed.
And I could not have probed a wholly nonhuman mind at all,
now could it have been aware of me.
The filters would not have passed such a signal.
Yet you felt me in the first fractional second.
It can only mean a human mind in a nonhuman brain.

You are not he half-corpse on Jupiter V any longer.
You’re Joe – Joe Angelsey.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Joe. “You’re right.” (p. 37)

– Poul Anderson –

Analog – Science Fact – Fiction, December, 1960 (Featuring “The Longest Voyage” by Poul Anderson) [Frank Kelly Freas]

Yet when we came upon the Ship, toward evening, I forgot my weariness.
And after an amazed volley of oaths,
our mariners rested silent on their pikes.
The Hisagazi,
never talkative,
crouched low in token of awe.
Only Guzan remained erect among them.
I glimpsed his expression as he started at the marvel.
It was a look of lust.

Wild was that place.
We had gone above timberline.
The land was a green sea below us, edged with silvery ocean.
Here we stood among tumbled black boulders,
cinders and spongy tufa underfoot.
The mountains rose in steeps and scarps and ravines,
on to snows and smoke,
which rose another mile into a pale chilly sky.
And here stood the Ship.
And the Ship was beauty.

I remember.
Its length
– height, rather, since it stood on its tail
– it was about equal to our caravel,
in form not unlike a lance head,
in color a shining white,
unvarnished after forty years.
That was all.
But words are paltry, my lords.
What can they show of clean soaring curves,
of iridescence on burnished metal,
of a thing which was proud and lovely and in its very shape aquiver to be off?
How can I conjure back the glamour which hazed that Ship whose keel had cloven starlight?

– Poul Anderson

Illustration by Frank Kelly Freas (p. 24)

Astounding Science Fiction – November, 1950 [“Choice”, by David Pattee]

______________________________

Illustration by Ward, for James H. Schmitz’s story “The Truth About Cushgar” (pp. 30-31)

______________________________

Illustration by Edd Cartier, for H.B. Fyfe’s story “In Value Deceived” (p. 39)

______________________________

Illustration by Miller, for Raymond F. Jones’ story “Tools of The Trade” (p. 48)

______________________________

Illustration by Miller, for Raymond F. Jones’ story “Tools of The Trade” (p. 55)

______________________________

Illustration by Miller, for Raymond F. Jones’ story “Tools of The Trade” (p. 63)

______________________________

Illustration by Edd Cartier, for Poul Anderson’s story “Quixote and The Windmill” (p. 95)

The Best of Fritz Leiber, Introduced by Poul Anderson – 1974 [Michael Herring]

“I’ll take the big dive.”

Sanity, Astounding Science Fiction, April, 1944

Wanted – An Enemy, Astounding Science Fiction, February, 1945

The Man Who Never Grew Young, Avon Fantasy Reader #9, 1948

The Ship Sails at Midnight, Fantastic Adventures, September, 1950

The Enchanted Forest, Astounding Science Fiction, October, 1950

Coming Attraction, Galaxy, November, 1950

Poor Superman, Galaxy, July, 1951

A Pail of Air, Galaxy, December, 1951

The Foxholes of Mars, Thrilling Wonder Stories, June, 1952

The Big Holiday, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January, 1953

The Night He Cried, 1953

The Big Trek, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October, 1957

Space-Time For Springers, 1958

Try and Change The Past, Astounding Science Fiction, March, 1958

A Deskful of Girls, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April, 1958

Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-Tah-Tee, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May, 1958

Little Old Miss Macbeth, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December, 1958

Mariana, Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, February, 1960

The Man Who Made Friends With Electricity, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March, 1962

The Good New Days, Galaxy, October, 1965

Gonna Roll The Bones, 1967

America the Beautiful, 1970

______________________________

From “Gonna Roll The Bones”, in Dangerous Visions, October, 1967

…”Joe Slattermill, you still have something of value to wager, if you wish.
Your life.”

At that a giggling and a hysterical tittering and a guffawing and braying
and a shrieking burst uncontrollably out of the whole Boneyard.
Mr. Bones summed up the sentiments
when he bellowed over the rest of the racket,
“Now what use of value is there in the life of a bummer like Joe Slattermill?
Not two cents, ordinary money.”

The Big Gambler laid a hand on the revolver gleaming before him
and all the laughter died.

“I have a use for it,” the Big Gambler whispered.
“Joe Slattermill, on my part I will venture all my winnings of tonight,
and throw in the world and everything in it for a side bet.
You will wager your life, and on the side your soul.
You to roll the dice.
What’s your pleasure?”

Joe Slattermill quailed, but then the drama of the situation took hold of him.
He thought it over and realized
he certainly wasn’t going to give up being stage center in a spectacle like this
to go home broke to his Wife and Mother and decaying house
and the dispirited Mr. Guts.
Maybe, he told himself encouragingly,
there wasn’t power in the Big Gambler’s gaze,
maybe Joe had made his one and only crap-shooting error.
Besides, he was more inclined to accept Mr. Bones’s assessment
of the value of his life than the Big Gambler’s.

“It’s a bet,” he said.

“Lottie, give him the dice.”

Joe concentrated his mind as never before,
the power tingled triumphantly in his hand, and he made his throw.

The dice never hit the felt.
They went swooping down, then up,
in a crazy curve far out over the end of the table,
and then came streaking back like tiny red-glinting meteors
towards the face of the Big Gambler,
where they suddenly nested and hung in his black eye sockets,
each with the single red gleam of an ace showing.

Snake eyes.

The whisper, as those red-glinting dice-eyes stared mockingly at him:
“Joe Slattermill, you’ve crapped out.”

Using thumb and middle finger – or bone rather – of either hand,
the Big Gambler removed the dice from his eye sockets
and dropped them in Lottie’s white-gloved hand.

“Yes, you’ve crapped out, Joe Slattermill,” he went on tranquilly.
“And now you can shoot yourself”
– he touched the silver gun
– “or cut your throat”
– he whipped a gold-handled bowie knife out of his coat
and laid it beside the revolver
– “or poison yourself”
– the two weapons were joined by a small black bottle
with white skull and crossbones on it
– “or Miss Flossie here can kiss you to death.”
He drew forward beside him the prettiest, evilest-looking sporting girl.
She preened herself and flounced her short violet skirt
and gave Joe a provocative, hungry look,
lifting her carmine upper lip to show her long white canines.

“Or else,” the Big Gambler added,
nodding significantly towards the black-bottomed crap table,
“you can take the Big Dive.”

Joe said evenly, “I’ll take the big dive.”