GALAXY’S EDGE MAGAZINE: A LOOK BACK (CONT.) ISSUE TWO

A couple of weeks ago, we shared a look back to Issue One’s: The Editor’s Word by Mike Resnick. In that article, Mike shared some of the “colorful” history of the Science Fiction world and then promised to return in Issue Two with a story or two about the writers and editors who make up this genre.

Keep reading for a look back and a little fun.

~~~

From the end of the last Editor’s Word by Mike Resnick:

“Mike here again. Okay, now you know a bit about the magazines. Next issue I’ll tell you about some of the writers and editors who make up this colorful field.”

And now …

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THE EDITOR’S WORD
by Mike Resnick

~May 2013~

Welcome to the second issue of Galaxy’s Edge. Like the first, and all future issues, this one is a mixture of new stories and reprints, reviews and columns. The reprints are stories you may have missed by very-well-known authors, and the new stories are by authors who we expect to join the ranks of the well-known somewhere up the road.

And while I’m on the subject of well-known authors …

We have quite a coup this issue. The magnificent C. L. Moore has been one of my two or three favorite authors for the past half century, and I assure you I’m not alone in this regard. She broke into print in her early twenties, and her very first story, “Shambleau,” which appeared in a 1933 issue of Weird Tales, is an acknowledged classic.

Well, “Shambleau” was her first professional story, but it turns out that her very first published story was “Happily Ever After,” which appeared in the November 1930 issue of The Vagabond, a student magazine published by Indiana University. It’s quite short, but it shows that she had the right stuff even then. And with this issue, Galaxy’s Edge is thrilled to be able to present—for the first time in 83 years—C. L. Moore’s very first story. Thanks to Catherine for writing it, and to Andrew Liptak for unearthing it.

And why (I hear you ask) was she “C. L.” rather than “Catherine”? The general assumption is that she was hiding her gender in what was an almost all-male field. Logical, but wrong. She was hiding her name from her employer, a bank president who viewed the pulps with total loathing.

An interesting historical tidbit?

Yes, it is—and it’s just one of many.

So many people are so interested in the giants of our field—many, alas, no longer with us—that I thought I’d share some memories of them with you before they’re all forgotten by me and others.

***

The late Robert Sheckley was my good friend, and even my collaborator the year before his death.

Bob occasionally suffered from Writer’s Block, but he had an infallible way of beating it. He set himself an absolute minimum production of 5,000 words a day. If he couldn’t think of anything else, he told me, he’d write his name 2,500 times. And on those days he was blocked, he’d sit down and force himself to start typing. And to quote him: “By the time I’d typed ‘Robert Sheckley’ 800 or 900 times, a little subconscious editor would kick in and say ‘Fuck it, as long as you’re stuck here for another 3,300 words, you might as well write a story.’”

According to Bob, it never failed.

***

E. E. “Doc” Smith was the first pro I ever met at a con, back in 1963. Sweet man, very fond of fandom, very accessible to anyone. I always thought his greatest invention (other than the Lens and the Lensmen) was the seasonal Ploorians. Doc’s daughter, Verna Trestrail, became a good friend, and I used to see her every year at Midwestcon and Rivercon. She once remarked that she helped her dad from time to time. So I asked how, and she replied that, among other things, she had invented the Ploorians.

(Verna also created the planet where Clarissa had to function in the nude. She told me that Doc bought a gorgeous painting of it—and Mrs. Doc took one look at it and consigned it to the attic for the next 25 years.)

***

I met Robert A. Heinlein only a couple of times, at the 1976 and 1977 Worldcons, so I have no personal anecdotes to tell you about him—but Theodore Sturgeon had one. There was a point in the mid-1940s where Sturgeon was played out. He couldn’t come up with any saleable stories, his creditors were after him, and he was terminally depressed…and he mentioned it to Heinlein in a letter. A week later he got a letter from Heinlein with 26 story ideas and a $100 bill to tide him over until he started selling again. And, according to Sturgeon, before the decade was over he had written and sold all 26 stories.

***

I never met Fredric Brown. I know he grew up in Cincinnati, where I have lived the past 37 years, but no one here remembers meeting him. And I know he spent a lot of time working in Chicago, where I spent my first 33 years, and I never met anyone there who knew him either. But I do know he had a habit, especially when writing his mysteries (which far outnumbered his science fiction) of getting on a Greyhound bus and riding it for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles, until he had his plot worked out to the last detail. Then he’d come home, sit down, and quickly type the book he’d already written in his head while touring the countryside.

***

Phil Klass (who wrote as “William Tenn”) told this one on a panel I moderated at Noreascon IV, the 2004 Worldcon where he was the Guest of Honor.

He was dating a new girl, and he mentioned it to Ted Sturgeon when they were both living in New York. Sturgeon urged Phil to bring the girl to his apartment for dinner. He and his wife would lay out an impressive spread, and Ted would regale the girl with tales of how talented and important Phil was. Phil happily agreed.

What he didn’t know was that Ted and his then-wife were nudists. So Phil and the girl walk up to the door of Ted’s apartment, Phil knocks, the door opens, and there are Ted and his wife, totally naked. They greet them and start leading them to the dining room.

Phil’s girl turns to him and whispers: “You didn’t tell me we had to dress for dinner!”

***

Speaking of dinners …

At our first Worldcon, Discon I in 1963—I was 21, my still-beautiful bride Carol was 20—Randall Garrett invited a bunch of new writers and their spouses out for dinner—his treat. Then, during dessert, he excused himself to say something of vital importance to his agent, who was walking past the restaurant. He left the table—and we never saw him again. The rest of us got stuck with the tab (it was an expensive restaurant, we were broke kids, and Randy himself had the most expensive dish and wine on the menu).

Move the clock ahead three years. Randy spots Carol and me at Tricon (the 1966 Worldcon in Cleveland) and offers to buy us dinner. We say sure. During dessert Carol excuses herself to go powder her nose, and I remember a phone call I have to make. We meet and walk out, leaving Randy with the tab he had promised to pay (but, according to Bob Bloch, Bob Tucker, and others I’d spoken to before going out with him, had no intention of paying).

Move the clock ahead one more year, and we’re at NYcon III, the 1967 Worldcon in New York. On opening night Randy spots me across the room, turns red in the face, and yells: “Resnick, I’m never eating dinner with you again!”

I got an ovation from every pro and fan he’d ever stuck with a dinner check.

***

And let me end with one about a living giant, just to be different—my friend, Nebula Grand Master, Worldcon Guest of Honor, and contributor to this issue, Robert Silverberg.

When Bob started submitting to Astounding, John Campbell turned down his first few stories, and Bob’s sometime collaborator Randy Garrett (they wrote as “Robert Randall”) suggested that Campbell disliked Jewish names, so Bob submitted one under the name of “Calvin M. Knox,” and Campbell bought it.

Over the years he sold to Campbell as both “Knox” and Silverberg. Some years later John Campbell asked him why he’d used the Knox name. Bob gave him an honest answer. Campbell’s reply: “Did you ever hear of Isaac Asimov?”

Then, as the conversation was drawing to a close and Bob was about to leave, Campbell asked him why of all the pseudonyms in the world he chose Calvin M. Knox. Bob replied that it was the most Protestant-sounding name he could think of.

Finally, as he’s going out the door, Campbell asks him what the “M” stands for.

Bob’s answer: “Moses.”

***

How can you not love this field?

~~~

We agree, Mike. We agree. ♥

Join us next week when we share Part 2 of some snippets of the twenty-two stories gracing Galaxy’s Edge magazine’s last issue.

~~~

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GALAXY’S EDGE MAGAZINE FINAL ISSUE: STORY TEASERS ~ PART I

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It was Mike Resnick’s hope in starting Galaxy’s Edge magazine that: “Most of the new stories are by less-well-know (but not less talented) authors.” In keeping with that spirit, our Editor Lezli Robyn filled this final, and extra-large issue ~ Issue Sixty-Two: May 2023 ~ with twenty-two spectacular stories.

This week we’re bringing you a taste, a teaser, an amuse-bouche of the first eleven stories of those stories, and our hope? That you’ll read on and find your next favorite author! ♥

~~~

MOON AND SKY, FEATHER AND STONE
by Rebecca E. Treasure

Rebecca grew up reading in the Rockies and has lived in many places, including Japan & Germany. Rebecca’s short fiction has been published by or is forthcoming from Flame Tree, Zooscape Magazine, Galaxy’s Edge, and others. Fueled by cheese-covered starch and corgi fur, Rebecca is an editor at Apex Magazine and a writing mentor.

***

Lora never fit where she was. When the moon bells rang and everyone’s eyes turned glassy, hers stayed dull and hollow. When Mother made blackberry tea, Lora snuck warm goat milk from the bucket. When Father sang the morning song and Ella cried with faith and passion, the music jangled in Lora’s ears.

The closest she’d ever been to belonging was right here, mud squishing between her toes and her little brother’s hand in hers as they prepared to jump.

Lora looked down into Oran’s eyes. “Ready?”

He shared her grin, nodding. They scrambled up the steep granite over the swimming hole, a miniature mountain. Their breathing deepened, drawing in delicate perfume from lilacs surrounding the clearing. Three steps—Lora shortened hers so they leapt together—and they flew.

Lora knew where she’d fit, but it was in a place she’d never been, with people who were not hers …

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THAT SUNDAY ON THE TRAIL WITH THE MEREST BREATH OF SEA
by Beth Cato

Nebula Award-nominated Beth Cato is the author of A Thousand Recipes for Revenge from 47North plus two fantasy series from Harper Voyager. She’s a Hanford, California native now residing in a far distant realm. Follow her at BethCato.com and on Twitter at @BethCato

***

Rosamund had hopes that the family reunion wouldn’t completely suck after her mom told her it’d take place in Cambria, right on the California coast, but as Mom drove up a narrow winding road flanked by squished-tight houses, Rosamund’s enthusiasm withered up like a three-year-old raisin.

“Mom! I can’t even see the ocean!” Rosamund twisted around to look, the seatbelt strap threatening to strangle her.

“You’ll be able to smell the ocean from the camp, I’m sure. Now face forward.”

Rosamund flung herself around. “This is going to be awful. They don’t even like me.”

“Stop that. My family loves you.” Mom glanced at her in the rear-view mirror.

“But they think I’m a freak.”

Mom sighed and didn’t argue. Rosamund glowered out a window that showed only pines as the road dipped and snaked through a small patch of forest. A tall wooden archway, adorned with balloons, announced their arrival at Camp Carraway …

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THE LAND OF PERMUTATIONS
by Tatsiana Zamirovskaya
translated by Julia Meitov Hersey

Tatsiana Zamirovskaya is a writer from Belarus, who moved to Brooklyn in 2015. She writes metaphysical and socially charged fiction about memory, ghosts, hybrid identities, and borders between empires and languages. Tatsiana is the author of 3 short story collections and a novel about digital resurrection, The Deadnet, which was published in 2021 in Moscow, receiving great critical acclaim. She is also a journalist and essayist, writing about art, traumatic memories, dictatorships and dreams.

Born in Moscow, Julia Meitov Hersey moved to Boston at the age of nineteen and has been straddling the two cultures ever since. She spends her days juggling a full-time job and her beloved translation projects. Julia is a recipient of the Rosetta Science Fiction and Fantasy Award for Best Translated Work, long form (2021).

***

A terrible rumbling noise woke us up at nine in the morning.

It was the fieldour field.

We took off as soon as we heard it, obviously, because it was our field. Everything that happened there was ours, and only ours. That’s where Nielle and I met the brown earthen witch in her mushroom apothecary cap. That’s where, breathless with terror, I summoned the White Dog on the fifth moonrise, and the Dog came, and brought us ten-day-old pups in a basket, just for cuddles. Every day these pups, blind and sweetly hairless like dandelions after a storm, grew thinner, their skin more pink and transparent, until on the tenth day they morphed into a pile of quietly wiggling skin bubbles, and then the White Dog came and took them back into her womb. That’s where Nielle dug a grave for the forest devil and did such a great job that, when the forest devil died, he came and lay in his new grave because he had no other refuge, no other place to go. That’s where we searched for the meat fern flower on a July night, and eventually we found it and put it under Uncle Volodya’s pillow. The next morning he won the lottery—a three-room apartment somewhere on the outskirts of our town. He stays in that apartment drinking day and night, and now we know we should have put that flower under his ex-wife’s pillow, not his. It was our field, our feral, bloody, boggy, alive land, and our hair sat within it, and the amber half moons of our nails, our incantations, and the summer rhymes we composed for Death. (It was Nielle’s idea to write special verses for Death so She would stop by the edge of the field and listen for a moment. The verses were to have these special white spots, flickering agony, arrhythmical Cheyne-Stokes rattle, pools of cloudy morning water in lamb hooves, an attentive stare of a bewitched snipe at sundown—we couldn’t break the spell, but at least we tried.) …

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THE INCONSTANT HEART
by Kary English

Kary English is a Hugo and Astounding finalist whose work has been published by Galaxy’s Edge, The Grantville Gazette, Wordfire Press, Writers of the Future, and Tor Nightfire.

***

Once upon a time in the spring of the world, a young man named Edwin set out to seek his fortune. Edwin’s coat was thin and threadbare, and his boots were more patches than leather. His purse held only a few small coins, but his back was strong and his heart was pure, so off he went into the wide world with a pack over one shoulder and his bow over the other. He walked for several days until the fields gave way to wilder lands, and the road dwindled to a dusty track. On the eve of the seventh day, he came across a cottage of wattle and daub nestled against the edge of a dark forest.

Night was falling. A chill wind out of the east sliced through Edwin’s coat like a scythe through wheat. His stomach rumbled, for he’d had nothing to eat or drink but water from a nearby stream. Warm firelight flickered through the cottage window, and when Edwin drew near, he could smell the cottager’s supper cooking inside. Barley stew, he thought, and bannocks baking on the hearth. If Edwin had heard even half the tales about enchanted forests and the misadventures of widow’s sons, he might have turned away from the cottage and slept on the cold ground instead …

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THE WEREWOLF
by Jonathan Lenore Kastin

Jonathan Lenore Kastin (he/they) is a queer, trans writer with an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. His short stories can be found in On Spec and Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, as well as the anthologies Ab(solutely) NormalTransmogrify! and Queer Beasties.

***

It was late April when Amelia realized that she was a werewolf. She was reading in her room one evening and as the moon came out from behind a cloud it fixed her with a pale, trembling beam of light. She froze at once, sniffed the wind, and took off her skin. Underneath grew a radiant coat of fur and one by one her senses came alive to the night.

The next day she tried to tell her mother.

“I’m a werewolf,” she said, picking leaves out of her golden hair.

Her mother patted her on the head. “That’s nice dear. Maybe Aunt Matilda will make you a costume for Halloween.”

“No,” said Amelia. “I’m a real werewolf. With fur and claws and everything.”

“Well,” said her mother. “As long as you don’t stay out in the woods too late.” She went back to her magazines …

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FRUITING BODIES
by Xauri’EL Zwaan

Xauri’EL Zwaan is a mendicant artist in search of meaning, fame and fortune, or pie (where available). Zie lives and writes in a little hobbit hole in Saskatoon, Canada on Treaty 6 territory with zir life partner and two very lazy cats.

***

There was a strange plant in Mrs. Edgerington’s garden.

The plant looked like a tiny clamshell sprouting up out of the ground. It had a smooth surface, glistened with a dull silver sheen, and ended in a sharp knife-like ridge. It didn’t look like anything she had ever seen before. In fact, it hardly looked like a plant at all, though it certainly grew like one. Mrs. Edgerington had her grandson look on the internet to see what it was, but he couldn’t find anything matching the description. He told her she should dig it up and burn it, but Mrs. Edgerington liked weird plants, and she decided to let it grow and see what happened.

The plant slowly got bigger and bigger over the next few months. Neither water nor lack of water affected its rate of growth, nor did shade or sun. It eventually grew to about a foot in height and half a foot in width …

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XI BOX
by T. R. Napper

T. R. Napper is a multi-award winning science fiction author, including the Australian Aurealis twice. His short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Interzone, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and numerous others, and been translated into Hebrew, German, French, and Vietnamese. Before turning to writing, T. R. Napper was a diplomat and aid worker, delivering humanitarian programs in Southeast Asia for a decade. During this period, he received a commendation from the Government of Laos for his work with the poor. He also was a resident of the Old Quarter in Hanoi for several years, the setting for his debut novel, 36 Streets. These days he has returned to his home country of Australia, where he works as a Dungeon Master, running campaigns for young people with autism for a local charity.

***

The first thing Joshua Lee did was whisper his dreams into the Xi Box. Snatching up those fragments running around the plughole of his hippocampus, before they faded from view. Before they could be absorbed into the back fabric of his mind.

After his dreams, he confessed his feelings. His fears, mainly.

The little things, to start with. The Infected woman at work who’d accused Joshua of stealing her lunch. He’d told her no, even though he had; he’d eaten it all, container perched on his lap in a darkened file room. Then the slow-burning fear: he’d fail to pass probation in his new position. Corollary: the already unsustainable mortgage on their two-bedroom apartment burying them.

Then the biggest fear.

Jess would go over. That part of her wanted to become Infected. Like so many others. The simplicity of it, the relief of being able to join the Children of Heaven, though she would never admit it …

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KRISTIN, WITH CAPRICE
by Alan Smale

Alan Smale is the double Sidewise Award-winning author of the Clash of Eagles trilogy, and his shorter fiction has appeared in Asimov’s and numerous other magazines and original anthologies. His latest novel, Hot Moon, came out last year from CAEZIK SF & Fantasy. When he is not busy creating wonderful new stories, he works as an astrophysicist and data archive manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

***

He did not ring the bell. Strange enough to have to knock on his own front door, when the key was in his pocket. He heard a strange bleating sound from within, quickly suppressed. Then footsteps, and his heart began to thump a little harder.

Kristin opened the door and stared at him. Her hair was in a bandanna and she wore an old softball tee-shirt. Around her eyes were traces of yesterday’s makeup. House-cleaning, then. Scrubbing away the last of him.

She looked so gorgeous he wanted to cry.

“I came for my things,” he said.

“If you’d called, I could have been out.” She stood aside to let him in. Reluctantly.

“That’s not necessary,” said Paul. “You don’t have to do that. You look great.”

“Yes, it is,” she replied. “Yes, I do. No, I really don’t. Your stuff’s in the spare room.” She walked into the kitchen and he heard the strange squeal again. Perhaps the sound of a sponge against the inside of the oven? …

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THE DREADNOUGHT AGAMEMNON, ON COURSE TO CONQUER THE PEACEFUL MOON OF RE
by Dafydd McKimm

Dafydd McKimm is a speculative short fiction writer whose stories have appeared in publications such as Flash Fiction OnlineDaily Science FictionDeep Magic, The Cafe Irreal, and elsewhere. He was born and raised in Wales but now lives in Taipei, Taiwan. You can find him online at www.dafyddmckimm.com

***

As when an airship, streaming westward soon after dawn into the city, is silhouetted by the sun and dilates like a pupil as it makes its final approach with the slow, steady pace of massive things;

so the dreadnought Agamemnon, on course to conquer the peaceful moon of Re, awoke;

and as when you descend the gangway and take your first steps along the city’s arabesque of streets, not knowing where you are going, for you’ve never visited this city before and have no friends or place to stay or any idea of how to speak the language that permeates the air like the chatter of strange insects wherever you go, or what you will do now that you’re here, thinking for a moment that perhaps you should go back, back to where you came from and the safety of it, the security of its familiar pathways and customs, the blissful boredom of doing things the way you’ve been told for so long they’re second nature; but no, no, you’ll never go back to that—never—and so you walk on, wandering the city without a destination, not understanding a word, not knowing what food is good to eat or indeed how to ask for it, and even when you do manage to get something onto a plate in front of you, worrying that you might commit some awful impropriety so that those around you, those people who have known this city and the ways of this city from birth, will laugh at you and mock you as stranger, foreigner, and yet finding small comfort in knowing that at least your old life is behind you, that you have shed your past like the pale, translucent skin of a snake and can begin anew here, in this city, which is so beautiful, with its painted houses perched on forested hills and markets full of sweet temptations and patterned fabrics and parks dotted with statues of creatures from myths you’ve never heard of and noisy processions that pop and fizzle and chime with the ring and crash and keening of unfamiliar instruments and temples to so many different gods …

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PABLOVISION
by Deborah L. Davitt

Deborah L. Davitt was raised in Nevada, but currently lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and son. Her poetry and prose have appeared in over fifty journals, including, F&SFAnalog, and Lightspeed. For more about her work, including her novels, poetry collections, and her recent chapbook, From Voyages Unending, please see www.edda-earth.com

***

The object of backpacking through Europe in your twenties is to see strange things—or at least to look at the world through new eyes. You only get so many chances to paint old walls and ruined fortresses; to capture the patina of time itself.

Drew took a bus into Spain, figuring he would hike the Pyrenes while the weather remained good; the driver woke him in the gray of dawn and turfed him in a village that Drew’s phone informed him was Santa Pau. His phone further told him that the ancient walls he saw, which captured the dawn’s light so enchantingly, had been built in the thirteenth century.

Enraptured, he set up his easel in an out-of-the-way spot. He had charcoals with him, and he wanted to capture some of the spirit of this place, before he lost this magical moment. Maybe even mix some watercolors, try to catch the evanescent colors on paper so that when he had an opportunity to work on canvas later, it would be easier for his late-dreaming mind to recall what his eyes saw now …

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A FEAST OF MEMORIES
by R.D. Harris

R.D. Harris lives with his family of four in Arizona and works as a biomedical technician by day. He loves the Carolina Tarheels, time with his kids, and SpongeBob. His work has appeared in Little Blue MarbleTerraform[Motherboard], and Galaxy’s Edge magazine.

***

We were hidden in his garden, where he wanted to die. The garden in our hollow where he taught me about life and how to be a man.

“Dad,” I said, tears blinding me, “you know where we are?”

His fading cognition and memory broke my heart. My hero and life-long role model couldn’t remember who I was half the time.

Eyes half-open, tired, Dad said, “On the ground,” with a mustered grin.

I couldn’t help but laugh. It was bittersweet, though, as the shimmering caterpillars squirmed from their vegetable meals to my dad’s girth atop the tilled soil. They scaled his body from all sides and froze on his stomach, waiting until it was time.

I cradled his half-bald head and whispered, “We’re in the garden like you wanted.” I kissed his forehead.

“The mimics?” he uttered, eyeing the larvae that patiently waited for him to pass on. Dad’s memory was serving him well. I hoped it would serve the mimics too …

~~~

Last week we posted Mike Resnick’s very first Editor’s Word where he shared some colorful history on science fiction magazines. Now, join us next week when we hear from Mr. Resnick again as he regales us with stories about some of the writers and editors who made up our favorite fiction field.

~~~

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GALAXY’S EDGE MAGAZINE: A LOOK BACK TO ISSUE ONE

Ten years ago, Mike Resnick started Galaxy’s Edge magazine with a desire to share “some pretty good stories.” Today, we take you back to that inaugural issue for a look back on the history of science fiction magazines as told by Mr. Resnick in the very first Editor’s Word. ~Enjoy!

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THE EDITOR’S WORD
by Mike Resnick

~ March 2013 ~

Welcome to the premier issue of Galaxy’s Edge. We’ll be coming around every two months with a mixture of new stories and reprints, reviews and columns. Almost all the reprints will be by very-well-known authors; most of the new stories will be by less-well-known (but not less talented) authors.

We’re very proud to be the latest addition to the pantheon of science fiction magazines, which have a pair of histories—one long and glorious, the other just as long but inglorious (and infinitely more interesting).

You think not?

Let me share some of it with you before the last of us Old Guys (and Gals) pass from the scene and there’s no one left to remember the Untold History of the Science Fiction Magazines anymore.

***

The Shaver Mystery

In 1938, Ray Palmer, an undersized hunchback with a pretty thorough understanding of his readership, took over the editorship of Amazing Stories. At the time, John Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction, featuring the best of Heinlein, Asimov, Sturgeon, Hubbard, van Vogt, de Camp, Simak, and Kuttner, ruled supreme among the magazines—but then Palmer came up with a gimmick that changed everything: the Shaver Mystery.

He ran a novel—rather generic, rather poorly written—called I Remember Lemuria! It was all about these creatures called Deros that lived hidden away from humanity but were preparing to do dire things to us. Nothing special in any way—

—except that Palmer swore to his readers, who consisted mostly of impressionable teen-aged boys, that the story was true, and that Richard Shaver was forced by the Powers That Be to present it as fiction or no one—including Ziff-Davis, Palmer’s bosses—would dare risk publishing it.

Sounds silly, doesn’t it?

Well, the really silly part came next: while Palmer was running another dozen or so “Shaver Mystery novels”—each worse than the last—from 1945 to 1948, his circulation skyrocketed. Amazing passed Astounding, spread-eagled the field, and became the top-selling science fiction magazine, not only of that era, but of any era.

I’ll tell you a little story about the Shaver Mystery. Back when I was editing men’s magazines in Chicago in the late 1960s, I used, among others, a very talented artist, slightly older than myself, named Bill Dichtl. One day we got to talking, and found out we were both science fiction fans, and Bill told me about his adventures with the Shaver Mystery.

He was a 14-year-old subscriber to Amazing in the late 1940s, living in Chicago (where Amazing was published), and one day he got a mysterious phone call, asking if he would like to help in the secret war against the Deros. Of course he said he would. He was given an address to go to that Friday night, and was warned to tell no one about this assignation.

So on Friday night, Bill sneaked out of his house and dutifully went to the address, which happened to be the building that housed the Ziff-Davis publishing empire. He took the elevator up to the appointed floor, found himself in a darkened corridor, saw a single light coming out from beneath a door at the far end of it, walked to the door, saw it was the room number he had been given, and entered. There was a long table, and maybe a dozen other earnest teen-aged boys were sitting at it.

Bill took a seat, and they all waited in silence. About ten minutes later a little hunchbacked man entered the room. It was Ray Palmer, of course. He explained that the Deros would soon be making their move against an unsuspecting humanity, and it was the duty of the boys in that room to spend the rest of the night warning as many people as possible of the coming struggle so they wouldn’t be caught unaware.

He had lists of thousands of addresses, which the boys dutifully copied onto blank envelopes. He had thousands of folded and stapled “warnings” that they stuffed into the envelopes. He had thousands of stamps that they licked and stuck onto the envelopes. They finished at sunrise, and Palmer swore them all to secrecy and thanked them for helping to save humanity.

Bill had stuffed a copy of the warning into his pocket to give to his parents, just in case they had somehow been omitted from the mailing list. On the subway home, he opened it and read it—and found out that Palmer had duped the boys into mailing out thousands of subscription renewal notices.

By 1949 Palmer was gone. He started Other Worlds, hired a gorgeous Cincinnati fan, Bea Mahaffey, to edit it for him, and even brought Shaver along. (To this day, some people think Palmer was Shaver. They were wrong; he was actually seen with Palmer by some fans and pros. Someone purporting to be Shaver wrote some letters to Richard Geis’ Hugo-winning fanzine, Science Fiction Review, in the 1970s, but no one ever saw him or followed up on it.)

Palmer’s gimmick at Other Worlds was to get readers to pressure Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. to hire his discovery, “John Bloodstone,” as the legal successor to Burroughs. (“Bloodstone” was actually Palmer’s pal, hack writer Stuart J. Byrne, who had written a copyright-infringing novel, Tarzan On Mars, that Palmer wanted to publish.) ERB Inc. refused, and that was the end of that, and pretty much the end of Other Worlds (though you can still find illegally-photocopied copies of Tarzan On Mars for sale here and there).

Palmer’s final stop was at Fate Magazine, begun in 1949, where he got rich one last time off a gullible reading public.

As for Shaver, not a single word of the million-plus that he wrote remains in print.

***

The Prediction Issue

The November 1948 issue of Astounding was typical of its era. It was not the best issue that John Campbell edited that year, nor was it the worst, and like all other issues of Astounding prior to 1950, it was far superior to its competitors.

Astounding’s letter column was (and still is) “Brass Tacks,” and in that particular issue there was a cute letter by a Richard A. Hoen who, like most fanboys, went over the most recent issue story by story, explaining in goshwowboyoboy fashion what he liked and disliked and why. Robert A. Heinlein’s “Gulf” was pretty good, though not quite up to Beyond This Horizon, opined Mr. Hoen. He ranked it second best in the issue, just ahead of A. E. van Vogt’s “Final Command,” with Lester del Rey’s “Over the Top” coming in fourth. He wasn’t much impressed with L. Sprague de Camp’s “Finished,” which was fifth, and he absolutely hated Theodore Sturgeon’s “What Dead Men Tell,” ranking it last. Mr. Hoen also had words of praise for the cover painting by Hubert Rogers.

Only one problem: he was ranking the stories in the November 1949 issue, and of course none of them existed. It was a cute conceit, everyone got a chuckle out of it, and everyone immediately forgot it.

Except Campbell, who went out of his way to make it come true.

The November 1949 issue of Astounding featured the first part of Heinlein’s serial, “Gulf”; Sturgeon’s “What Dead Men Tell”; de Camp’s “Finished”; van Vogt’s “Final Command”; and del Rey’s “Over the Top.” And of course it had a cover by Rogers.

There was only one place the prediction fell short. Mr. Hoen had ranked a story called “We Hail,” by Don A. Stuart, first. Don A. Stuart was Campbell’s pseudonym when he was writing works of ambition (such as “Twilight”) rather than space opera, and was taken from his first wife’s maiden name, Dona Stuart. Well, Campbell didn’t write a story for the issue—but in its place he ran the first part of “And Now You Don’t,” the three-part serial that formed the climax of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. I don’t imagine anyone had any serious objections to the substitution.

So when you hear writers like me say that science fiction isn’t really in the predicting business, just remind us of the November 1948 Astounding.

***

The Magazines are Officially Noticed

Science fiction tends to cry and carry on because no one pays any attention to it, that it’s a ghetto beneath the notice of the New York Literary Establishment and most of the Powers That Be in academia.

And yet science fiction has been officially Noticed (and more than once) by the United States Government, and that was long before that government started naming weapons and defense systems after rather silly science fiction movies.

Back in the Good Old Days of the pulps, more often than not the cover art showed a partially-clad (or, if you prefer, a mostly-unclad) girl, usually at the mercy of aliens who seemed more interested in ripping off the rest of her clothes than doing anything practical, like killing or communicating with her.

The thing is (and I refer you to the two introductory articles in my anthology, Girls For the Slime God), only one magazine actually delivered the salacious stories that went hand-in-glove with those cover illos, and that magazine was Marvel Science Stories. The first issue, back in August of 1938, featured Henry Kuttner’s “The Avengers of Space,” a rather pedestrian novella to which I suspect he added all the sex scenes after it had been turned down by the major markets. Then out came issue number two, and there was Kuttner with another novella of the same ilk: “The Time Trap.”

What was the result?

Well, there were two results. The first was that Kuttner was labeled a debased and perverted hack, and had to create Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O’Donnell, his two most famous pseudonyms (but far from his only ones) in order to make a living, since it would be a few years before the top editors wanted to buy from Henry Kuttner again.

The second was that the United States government, through its postal branch, gave science fiction its very first official recognition. They explained to the publisher that if the third issue of Marvel was as sexy as the first two, they were shutting him down and sending him to jail.

And with that, Marvel Science Stories became the most sedate and—let’s be honest—dull science fiction magazine on the market. It died not too long thereafter, the first prozine to be slain by the government.

But the government wasn’t quite through Noticing the prozines. Move the clock ahead five years, to March 1944, which was when Astounding, under the editorship of John Campbell, published a forgettable little story called “Deadline,” by Cleve Cartmill.

It became one of the most famous stories in the history of the prozines—not because of its quality, which was minimal, but because it brought the prozines to the official notice of the government for the second time.

We were embroiled in World War II, and in early 1944 the Manhattan Project—the project that resulted in the atomic bomb—was still our most carefully-guarded secret.

And Cartmill’s story, which used knowledge and facts that were available to anyone, concerned the construction of an atomic bomb that used U-235.

Cartmill was visited by the FBI and other select governmental agencies the week the story came out, each demanding to know how he had managed to steal the secrets of the bomb. He pointed out that his “secrets” were a matter of public record. He was nonetheless warned never to breach national security again, upon pain of truly dire consequences.

The government representatives then went to Campbell’s office, where he explained to them, as only Campbell could, that if they were not uneducated, subliterate dolts they would know exactly where Cartmill got his information, and that Astounding had been running stories about atomic power for years. They tried to threaten him into promising not to run any more stories of atomic power until the war was over. Campbell didn’t take kindly to threats, and allowed them to leave only after giving them a thorough tongue-lashing and an absolute refusal to censor his writers.

So the next time you hear a writer or editor bemoaning the fact that science fiction doesn’t get any notice, point out to him that there were actually a couple of occasions in the past when we got a little more official notice than we wanted.

***

Vietnam and the Magazines

Nothing since the War Between the States aroused more passions on both sides than did the Vietnam War. In 1968 Judith Merril and Kate Wilhelm decided to do something about it: they enlisted a large number of writers—the final total was 82—and took out ads against the war in the March issue of F&SF and the June issues of Galaxy and If. Included in their number were most of the younger New Wave writers such as Harlan Ellison, Barry Malzberg, Norman Spinrad, Robert Silverberg, Philip K. Dick, Terry Carr, and Ursula K. Le Guin, as well as a smattering of old masters like Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Fritz Leiber.

Word got out—the rumor is that it was leaked by Fred Pohl, Merril’s ex-husband—and the pro-war faction also ran ads in all three magazines. (Pohl had them on facing pages in his two magazines.) Included in the ads were Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, John W. Campbell Jr. (the only then-current editor to appear on either list), Fredric Brown, Hal Clement, Larry Niven, Jack Vance, and Jack Williamson. The pro-war ads contained only 72 names, leading the anti-war faction to claim that they had “won.”

Pohl was editing both Galaxy and If, and he offered to donate the ad revenues to the person who came up with the best “solution” to the Vietnam War. It was won by Mack Reynolds, but Pohl never published his “solution”; runners-up were Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon.

***

Saving the Lensman

E. E. “Doc” Smith was clearly the most famous and most popular writer of the late 1920s and most of the 1930s as well. He broke new ground with the Skylark series, but it was the four Lensman books upon which his fame and adoration rests. (Yes, four; the first two in the six-book series were afterthoughts, Triplanetary being expanded and rewritten to become the chronological first in the series, First Lensman written last of all to fill a gap between Triplanetary and the four Kimball Kinnison books.)

Doc introduced Kimball Kinnison, the Gray Lensman, to the world in 1937, with Galactic Patrol, which ran in Astounding from September 1937 to February 1938—just about the time a young John Campbell was beginning his lifelong tenure as editor and preparing to reshape the field. This was followed in a few years by The Gray Lensman and then Second Stage Lensman.

But while Doc was slowly completing the saga of the Kinnison clan, Campbell was bringing Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Theodore Sturgeon, and A. E. van Vogt into the field, and finding room for Fritz Leiber, Clifford D. Simak, and L. Sprague de Camp.

Doc was many things as a writer, but graceful wasn’t one of them, and subtle wasn’t another. It didn’t matter when he was competing against the likes of Nat Schachner and Ray Cummings and Stanton A. Coblentz—but against Campbell’s stable he seemed like a dinosaur, thousands of evolutionary eons behind where Campbell had pushed, pulled and dragged the field.

So when he delivered the climactic volume of the Lensman saga, Children of the Lens, Campbell didn’t want to run it. It just didn’t belong in a magazine that had published “Nightfall” and “Sixth Column” and “Slan” years earlier.

One fan had the courage to seek Campbell out and disagree. He’s the one who told me this story, and Campbell later kind of sort of grudgingly agreed that it was pretty much the truth. Ed Wood (the fan, not the movie director), who’d been active in fandom for a few years, and would be active for another 50, cornered Campbell and explained that he owed it to Doc, who had given him the original Lensman story when Astounding badly needed it, to buy Children of the Lens. Moreover, he owed it to the field, for we were not then a book field, and if Doc’s novel didn’t run in Astounding, there was an excellent chance that it would never see the light of day. Campbell finally agreed. The novel appeared without the customary fanfare accorded to a new Doc Smith book, and was the only Lensman novel to receive just a single cover, though it ran for six issues beginning in November of 1947.

So for those of you who are Lensman fans—and tens of thousands of people still are, more than half a century later—you owe two debts of gratitude, one to Doc for writing it, and another to a motivated fan, Ed Wood, for making sure you got to find out how it all ended for Kimball Kinnison and his offspring.

***

How Unknown Was Born

Ask 20 experts (or fans; there’s not much difference) which was the greatest science fiction magazine of all time, and you’ll get some votes for the 1940s Astounding, the 1950s Galaxy, the 1960s New Worlds, the 1970s F&SF, and the 1990s Asimov’s.

Now ask that same group to name the greatest fantasy magazine, and the odds are that at least 19 will answer Unknown. It was that good, that unique, and remains that dominant in the minds of the readers.

How did it begin?

There are two versions.

The first is that John Campbell wanted to start a fantasy magazine, he convinced Street & Smith to publish it, he called it Unknown, and it ran 43 issues until the wartime paper shortage killed it off.

The other version, which has been repeated in dozens of venues, is that Campbell was sitting at his desk at Astounding, reading submissions, and he came to a novel, Sinister Barrier, by Eric Frank Russell. It was too good to turn down, but it didn’t fit into the format he had created for Astounding, and hence there was nothing to do but create a brand-new magazine, Unknown, which could run stories like Sinister Barrier and Fritz Leiber’s Gray Mouser stories, and Theodore Sturgeon’s “Yesterday Was Monday” and Robert A. Heinlein’s Magic, Inc., and that’s how Unknown came into being. A number of histories of the field have reported that this was the start of Unknown.

Which version is true?

The first one, of course—but the second one is so fascinating and evocative that I suspect it’ll never die, and if we all keep repeating it enough, why, in another 60 years or so, it’ll be History. (See my novel The Outpost to discover how these things work.)

***

Walter Who?

It all began with a radio show hosted by a mysterious male character known only as the Shadow. The show was owned by Street & Smith, the huge magazine publisher, and when it became increasingly obvious that the Shadow was far more popular than the show, they decided they’d better do something to copyright and trademark him before it was too late—so they decided to publish a one-shot pulp magazine about a crimefighter known as the Shadow.

To write the story, they hired magician and sometime pulp author Walter Gibson, and, for whatever initial reason, they decided to have him write it as “Maxwell Grant.”

The rest is history. That first issue of The Shadow sold out in record time. Street & Smith immediately ordered more novels from Gibson—who was getting $500.00 a novel, not bad pay in the depths of the depression—and in mere months The Shadow was selling more than a million copies an issue.

So Street & Smith decided the next step was to go semi-monthly. They called Gibson into their offices and asked if he was capable of turning out a Shadow novel every 15 days. Gibson said he could do it, but since it was no secret that The Shadow had, almost overnight, become the best-selling pulp magazine in America, he wanted a piece of this bonanza. He wasn’t going to be greedy or hold them up for some phenomenal sum. He’d write two novels a month, never miss a deadline, and keep the quality as high as it had been—but in exchange, he wanted a raise to $750.00 a novel.

His loving, doting publishers immediately metamorphosed into businessmen and said No.

Gibson thought he had them over a barrel. You give me $750.00 a novel, he said, or I’ll leave and take my audience with me.

Leave if you want, said Street & Smith, but next week there will be a new Maxwell Grant writing The Shadow for us, and who will know the difference?

It took Gibson ten seconds to realize that far from having Street & Smith over a barrel, they had him inside the barrel. He went back home and continued to write Shadow novels for $500.00 a shot.

This ploy worked so well that when Street & Smith began publishing Doc Savage, which was primarily written by Lester Dent, all the novels were credited to “Kenneth Robeson.”

Rivals saw the beauty in this—Street & Smith didn’t exactly have a monopoly on publishing’s notion of fair play and morality—and thus The Spider novels, written mostly by Norvell Page, bore the pseudonym of “Grant Stockbridge.”

“Kenneth Robeson,” Doc Savage’s author, was so popular that “he” also became the author of The Avenger pulp series.

And so on. Soon all the other “hero pulps”—pulps with a continuing hero and cast of characters, such as the above-mentioned—were written under house names, so that no author could either hold up the publishers for a living wage or leave and force the magazine to close down.

There was only one exception.

Edmond Hamilton wrote most of the 22 Captain Future novels under his own name.

The reason?

He was the only established science fiction writer working for Better Publications, Cap’s publisher, and his employers freely admitted that no one else in the house knew the first damned thing about writing that crazy Buck Rogers stuff.

***

The Mystery of Edson McCann

One day Horace Gold, the editor/publisher of Galaxy, got the notion of having a contest for the best novel by an unknown writer. He offered a prize of $7,000—more than the average American made in a year back then—and was immediately whelmed over by hundreds of booklength manuscripts, 99% of them dreadful and the other 1% even worse. (Ask anyone who has ever read a slush pile. This was nothing unusual or unexpected—at least, not by anyone except Horace.)

Horace had already bought Gravy Planet (later to become The Space Merchants, which eventually outsold, worldwide, just about every other science fiction novel ever written except perhaps for Dune.) When he couldn’t find an even mildly acceptable novel among the entries, he approached Fred Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth and said he’d like Gravy Planet to be the winner. The stipulation, though, was that it had to appear under a pseudonym, since the contest had to be won by an unknown.

Pohl and Kornbluth talked it over, decided they could get $7,000 from normal serial and book rights, and opted to keep their names on it, which disqualified it from the contest.

Now Gold was getting desperate. The deadline was almost upon him, and he still hadn’t found a single publishable novel among all the entries. So he turned to Pohl again.

Pohl and his Milford neighbor, Lester del Rey (a whole passel of science fiction writers lived in Milford, Pennsylvania back in the 1950s) had decided to collaborate on a novel about the future of the insurance industry, called Preferred Risk. Gold begged them to use a pseudonym and let it be the contest winner. Lester was less concerned with receiving credit for his work than Kornbluth was—or perhaps he was more concerned with a quick profit. At any rate, he agreed, and Pohl went along with him.

They divided up the pen name. Pohl chose “Edson” for a first name, and del Rey came up with “McCann”. They invented a whole life for him (for the magazine’s bio of the contest winner), in which he was a nuclear physicist working on such a top secret hush-hush project that Galaxy couldn’t divulge any of the details of his life.

And so it was that Preferred Risk, commissioned from two top professionals by Horace Gold, won the $7,000 prize for the Best Novel By An Unknown.

And why did they choose “Edson McCann”?

Well, if you break it down to its initials, it’s “E. McC”—or E equals MC squared.

***

The No-Budget Magazines

Hugo Gernsback is considered the Father of Science Fiction. That title is more than a little at odds with the facts, since Mary Shelley, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells were writing it long before Hugo came along—but Hugo named the field and was the first publisher to bring out a magazine devoted entirely to “scientifiction” (Amazing Stories in 1926).

Parenthetically, he also guaranteed that we would be inundated with bad science fiction for years to come…because by creating a market for science fiction, he gave it a place where it no longer had to compete with the best of the other categories. Science fiction writers no longer had to fight for spots in a magazine against Dashiell Hammett and James T. Cain and Frank Gruber and Max Brand; now they competed with Ray Cummings and Nat Schachner and Ross Rocklynne. The first—and for years only—science fiction magazine in the world was edited by Hugo Gernsback, an immigrant whose knowledge of the English language was minimal, and whose knowledge of story construction was nil. He felt science fiction’s sole purpose was to interest adolescent boys in becoming scientists, and that was pretty much the way he edited.

The way he published was even worse. He liked to buy stories, but he hated to pay for them. Finally Donald A. Wollheim took him to court for the $10.00 he was owed. Neither Gernsback nor Wollheim ever forgot it.

Now move the clock ahead a few years, to about 1940. Wollheim had helped form the Futurians, that incredibly talented group of youngsters that would someday dominate the field. Among its members were Cyril Kornbluth, Damon Knight, Judith Merril, Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Robert A.W. Lowndes, James Blish, and Wollheim himself (and indeed, in a year or two they’d be editing just about every magazine in the field except for John Campbell’s Astounding).

Anyway, while Pohl edited Astonishing and Super Science on a pitifully small budget, Wollheim picked up two of his own to edit: Cosmos and Stirring Science. Their pages abounded in stories by Futurians Kornbluth, Pohl, Lowndes, and Knight, with illos by the finest Futurian artist, Hannes Bok. Those magazines put many of the Futurians on the map.

And do you know why Wollheim used Futurians almost exclusively?

Because his budget was Zero—not small, not minimal, but zero—and only his fellow Futurians would work for free for the man who once sued Hugo Gernsback for $10 that was owed on a story.

***

Horace Gold Goes Out to Play

Horace Gold returned home from World War II a disabled veteran … but his disability took a most peculiar form: agoraphobia. He was literally afraid to leave the comfort and security of his New York apartment.

It didn’t stop him from selling investors on the idea of Galaxy magazine. And it didn’t stop him from editing it, and turning it into (in my opinion) the only serious rival the Astounding of the late 1930s and early 1940s had for the title of Best Science Fiction Magazine of All Time.

He turned part of his apartment into an office. He worked at home, he ate at home, he slept at home, he wrote at home, he edited at home. Any writer who wanted a face-to-face with Horace visited him at home. He hosted a regular Friday night poker game that included his stable of writers: Bob Sheckley, Phil Klass (William Tenn), Fred Pohl, and Algis Budrys. Lester del Rey occasionally sat in, as did rival editor (of F&SF) Tony Boucher.

And because they were his friends, and they thought they were doing him a favor, this coterie of card-players and writers was constantly urging Horace to go outside, to breathe in the fresh air (well, Manhattan’s approximation of it, anyway), to just take a walk around the neighborhood so that he would know there were no secret dangers lurking beyond the doors of his apartment. They urged, and they cajoled, and they implored, and finally the big day came.

Horace Gold left his apartment for the first time in years—

—and was promptly hit by a taxi.

(There is a second version of this story, in which he actually spent a few evenings wandering around Manhattan, and then got into a crash while riding home in a taxi. Either way, the result was the same. He stopped eating, stopped editing, and was eventually institutionalized.)

Conclusion: the science fiction (and related) magazines have a long and fascinating history. My fondest hope is that if they talk about Galaxy’s Edge twenty or thirty years from now, it will only be to say that we ran some pretty good stories.

***

Mike here again. Okay, now you know a bit about the magazines. Next issue I’ll tell you about some of the writers and editors who make up this colorful field.

~~~

It’s a blessing this Science Fiction/Fantasy story magazine that you started, Mr. Resnick, hung in there for ten lovely years, and we can say with confidence that you and Lezli definitely published “some pretty good stories.” ♥

Join us next week when we share some snippets of those stories gracing Galaxy’s Edge magazine’s last issue … and then, we’ll be back with more history of the magazine as shared with us ten years ago, by our friend and mentor to many, Mike Resnick.

~~~

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GALAXY’S EDGE MAGAZINE: ISSUE 61, MARCH 2023—HIGHLIGHTS

Over at Galaxy’s Edge Magazine, the Penultimate Issue #61 has been released this month. Here are some highlights:

Continue reading “GALAXY’S EDGE MAGAZINE: ISSUE 61, MARCH 2023—HIGHLIGHTS”

5 SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS BY BLACK AUTHORS

February is well and truly upon us now, and as we hurtle toward spring we wanted to take a moment to pause and realize that: this month represents more than just our march out of the cold toward new growth—February is also Black History Month in the United States.

Black History Month is a time to honor the contributions and legacy of African Americans across U.S. history and society—from activists and civil rights pioneers, to leaders in industry, politics, science, culture and more.

Black History Month 2023 Theme

Since 1976, when American president has designated February as Black History Month, they’ve also endorsed a a specific theme for each year.

The Black History Month theme for 2023 is: “Black Resistance.” Which explores how African Americans have resisted historic and ongoing oppression, in all forms, since the nation’s earliest days. 

Could one think of a more powerful way to Resist and be Heard, than through the written word, and the telling of stories that sing in our hearts? After all—as Edward Bulwer-Lytton so aptly put it—”The pen is mightier than the sword.”

Read on to discover some of these voices, in 5 must-read Science Fiction books from Black authors and editors who continue to pull us into their worlds of magic and adventure.

~~

Who Fears Death

by Nnedi Okorafor

—An award-winning literary author presents her first foray into supernatural fantasy with a novel of post-apocalyptic Africa.

In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region. The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means “Who Fears Death?” in an ancient African tongue.

Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu discovers her magical destiny – to end the genocide of her people. The journey to fulfill her destiny will force her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture – and eventually death itself.

~~

Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from The African Diaspora

Edited by Sheree R. Thomas

—This volume introduces black science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers to the generations of readers who have not had the chance to explore the scope and diversity among African-American writers.

~~

The City We Became: A Novel

by N.K. Jemisin

—Three-time Hugo Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author N.K. Jemisin crafts her most incredible novel yet, a “glorious” story of culture, identity, magic, and myths in contemporary New York City.

Five New Yorkers must come together in order to defend their city.
Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She’s got five.
But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.

~~

Africa Risen

Edited by Sheree Renee Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Zelda Knight

—From an award-winning team of editors comes an anthology of thirty-two original stories showcasing the breadth of fantasy and science fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora.

A group of cabinet ministers query a supercomputer containing the minds of the country’s ancestors. A child robot on a dying planet uncovers signs of fragile new life. A descendent of a rain goddess inherits her grandmother’s ability to change her appearance—and perhaps the world.

Created in the legacy of the seminal, award-winning anthology series Dark MatterAfrica Risen celebrates the vibrancy, diversity, and reach of African and Afro-Diasporic SFF and reaffirms that Africa is not rising—it’s already here.

~~

The Black God’s Drums

by P. Djeli Clark

—Rising science fiction and fantasy star P. Djèlí Clark brings an alternate New Orleans of orisha, airships, and adventure to life in his immersive debut novella The Black God’s Drums.

Creeper, a scrappy young teen, is done living on the streets of New Orleans. Instead, she wants to soar, and her sights are set on securing passage aboard the smuggler airship Midnight Robber. Her ticket: earning Captain Ann-Marie’s trust using a secret about a kidnapped Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God’s Drums.

But Creeper keeps another secret close to heart–Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, who speaks inside her head and grants her divine powers. And Oya has her own priorities concerning Creeper and Ann-Marie…

~~

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KINDRED: QUESTION THE TIES THAT BIND THROUGH TIME

While this TV show premiered in December, if you haven’t watched yet, then there’s no time like this minute to join us in celebrating Black History Month, and that these long winter days are drawing to a close, by snuggling up on the sofa of an evening and digging into some Sci-Fi TV show drama.

Kindred, Octavia E. Butler’s celebrated and critically acclaimed novel, has been adapted for television by writer and showrunner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. This American Science Fiction TV Mini Series—available to watch on Hulu—at 8 episodes long, is perfectly binge worthy.

From FX/Hulu: Adapted from the celebrated novel Kindred, by Hugo Award-winner Octavia E. Butler, the FX series centers on “Dana James” (Mallori Johnson), a young Black woman and aspiring writer who has uprooted her life of familial obligation and relocated to Los Angeles, ready to claim a future that, for once, feels all her own. But, before she can settle into her new home, she finds herself being violently pulled back and forth in time. She emerges at a nineteenth-century plantation, a place remarkably and intimately linked with Dana and her family. An interracial romance threads through Dana’s past and present, and the clock is ticking as she struggles to confront secrets she never knew ran through her blood, in this genre-breaking exploration of the ties that bind.

Kindred stars Mallori Johnson as “Dana James,” Micah Stock as “Kevin Franklin,” Ryan Kwanten as “Thomas Weylin,” Gayle Rankin as “Margaret Weylin,” Austin Smith as “Luke,” David Alexander Kaplan as “Rufus Weylin,” Sophina Brown as “Sarah” and Sheria Irving as “Olivia.”

Watch the TV show trailer HERE.

~~~

And when you’ve finished the show but still want more … this worthwhile TV show is backed up by an even better novel. (yessss!)

The TV show Kindred is adapted from the celebrated 1979 novel of the same name, written by Hugo Award Winner Octavia E. Butler.

“Octavia Butler is a writer who will be with us for a long, long time, and Kindred is that rare magical artifact … the novel one returns to, again and again.” —Harlan Ellison

—A Good Morning America 2021 Top Summer Read Pick

The visionary time-travel classic whose Black female hero is pulled through time to face the horrors of American slavery and explores the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.

Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.

***

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GALAXY’S EDGE REVIEW ROUNDUP: JANUARY 2023

Richard Chwedyk sold his first story in 1990, won a Nebula in 2002, and has been active in the field for the past thirty-two years.

BENDING, BLENDING, AND NEVERENDING

Station Eternity
by Mur Lafferty
Ace
October 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-09811-0

Mallory Viridian, P.I., has moved to a self-aware, alien space station because she happens to be too good at her job of solving murders. Her problem is the collateral damage that comes with her success: people close to her keep getting killed. She sees it as a jinx which she might only beat by living in an alien environment. But more humans arrive at the station, and more murders occur. What’s a private eye to do?

~~

The Terraformers
by Annalee Newitz
Tor
January 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-22801-7

I’ve been fascinated with the notion of terraforming since I first encountered it as a very young SF reader. Newitz seems to share that fascination at a number of levels: the reasons for doing it, the practical approaches to accomplishing such a task, and the questions more recently bounced around concerning the ethical nature of terraforming: if we make a planet more “earthlike,” do we mess with the natural ecology of the planet we propose to transform? Or even the natural ecology of space itself? We might declare a proposed planet lifeless or barren, but is it? By what standards do we measure the suitability of a planet to be terraformed? There is a great quote from a made-up environmental rescue team handbook used as an epigram: “Rivers might turn out to be people. Don’t make any assumptions.”

And these questions are very much at the heart of the novel, explored mostly from the perspective of Newitz’s protagonist, Destry. Her family has overseen the terraforming of the planet Sask-E for generations, and the responsibility has now fallen upon her. At a crucial moment, it is discovered that a volcano contains more than the usual exogeological “stuff”: a whole city—a populated city, too.

~~

The Daughter of Dr. Moreau
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Del Rey
July 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35533-6

I will not pretend that I “understand” this miraculous novel—not yet at least. But I may pay it what Vladimir Nabokov considered the highest compliment any reader can give any novel: I was­—am—enchanted by it.

In no way is it a sequel or follow-up or updating, or even a retelling, of that darkest of H. G. Wells’s scientific fables, The Island of Dr. Moreau. The skeleton of the novel is there, moved to a different place and time. An eccentric scientist is conducting research on an estate in the secluded jungles, aided by an overseer named Montgomery Laughton. Moreau’s daughter, Carlota, also lives there. Moreau thinks the isolation is good for her nerves, though the evidence argues otherwise. Along with some servants and a couple of occasional visitors, the only other occupants of the estate are the “hybrids.”

~~

Deathless Gods
by P. C. Hodgell
Baen
October 2022
ISBN: 978-1-9821-9216-7

And in her latest novel, Deathless Gods, you can find yourself recognizing contemporary concerns and attitudes in the midst of a world that otherwise seems so far away from our own, yet does so without conceding to giving characters contemporary idioms or attitudes.

The plot, as usual, is too dense to be summarized here with any justice, but be assured that Hodgell’s storytelling skills will keep you from becoming lost.

~~

Penric’s Labors
by Lois McMaster Bujold
Baen
November 2022
ISBN: 978-1-9821-9224-2

This book, however, seems a good place to start for uninitiated fantasy readers (science fiction readers will need to look elsewhere). Besides, it’s not a novel, but three novellas, and they’re not tied together like the old “fixups” of days of yore. I love novellas, and these especially.

This is the third collection (if I’m counting correctly) devoted to the sorcerer Learned Penric and his temple demon Desdemona. Penric may be no Miles Vorkosigan (but then who is?) but he is an affable, compelling, and fully engaging character. He doesn’t hold a candle to Desdemona, though. The interplay between them would make enjoyable reading enough, but Bujold has engineered these three novellas with more than requisite thrills and wit. Each novella builds on the previous one to expand upon our understanding and appreciation of “Pen and Des” and their world. I can only imagine new readers becoming thoroughly captivated with her storytelling here.

~~

Gunfight on Europa Station
edited by David Boop
Baen
November 2022 (mass market; fp November 2021)
ISBN: 978-1-9821-9227-3

David Boop has gathered some fine work here. Funny, exciting, suspenseful, meditative—a great variety of styles and content. All good stuff. I’m especially fond of Boop’s own contribution, “Last Stand at Europa Station A,” and the stories by Elizabeth Moon, Jane Lindskold, Alan Dean Foster, Martin L. Shoemaker, and Alex Shvartsman. Also of note, as a special favorite, is the collaboration by Cat Rambo and J. R. Martin, “Riders of the Endless Void.”

There’s something here for everyone.

Except my mom.

~~

Sword and Planet
edited by Christopher Ruocchio
Baen
September 2022 (mass market; first printing December 2021)
ISBN: 978-1-9821-9214-3

I started teaching a science fiction litf class last fall. Better late than never. One of the things I’ve discovered is that a significant contingent of my students believe that the term “science fiction” is indistinguishable, nay synonymous, with “space opera.” It has been my goal all term to disabuse them of this erroneous simplification.

However, if they’re going to read space opera, or a brand of it that resembles heroic fantasy with warp drives, and a copy of the David Hartwell- Kathryn Cramer-edited The Space Opera Renaissance isn’t handy, they can do worse than to dig into this compact and absorbing collection of original stories.

Yes, they are mashups of science and magic, but more often than not the science comes out on top, and in a satisfying (and often witty) way.

~~

The Dabare Snake Launcher
by Joelle Presby
Baen
November 2022
ISBN: 978-1-9821-9225-9

Joelle Presby’s novel is about the construction and initial operation of the first space elevator, and it’s located in west Africa. “Dabarre,” we are told at the outset, is a Fulani term that means a piece of machinery fashioned from repurposed parts that either works perfectly—or not at all. So, some sense of the “stakes” is pretty clear as well. The voice and structure of the novel are fairly traditional, but it has a great cast of characters and is an exciting story, filled with all the wit and neat ideas we love to find in good science fiction. This novel left me feeling very optimistic. If not for the planet, then for the form of literature we love so much.

Copyright © 2022 by Richard Chwedyk.

~~~

Find the entire article at Galaxy’s Edge Magazine — where you can read for free until February 28th, 2023.

AND

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INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR QNTM ON HIS LATEST BOOK

Qntm (pronounced “quantum”) is a software developer and a writer known for pushing the limits through his mind-bending stories that incorporate science, horror, science fiction, and alternatives to the reality we live in as humans on Earth. We sat down to chat with qntm about his most recent publication.

Continue reading “INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR QNTM ON HIS LATEST BOOK”

HOLIDAY READS: 5 SPECULATIVE BOOKS TO KICK OFF THE SEASON

Tis the Season here at Signals From the Edge, and since it’s the start of December (and several holiday celebrations), we figured what better to go with those twinkling lights than a few books full of wonder and speculation. So grab a gingerbread cookie or two, toss some marshmallows in your hot cocoa, wrap yourself up in your favorite blanket, and prepare to dive in …

Continue reading “HOLIDAY READS: 5 SPECULATIVE BOOKS TO KICK OFF THE SEASON”

And The Award Goes To …

For the past two years, Galaxy’s Edge magazine and Dragon Con have sponsored an award for new writers, in memorial of the late, great author Mike Resnick.

This past August at Dragon Con in Atlanta, GA, they had the pleasure of announcing the 2022 winner for THE MIKE RESNICK MEMORIAL AWARD for Best Science Fiction Short Story by a New Author:

​WINNER
“What Would You Pay for a Second Chance?”
by Chris Kulp

​FIRST RUNNER-UP
“Seedpod”
by Ellen Parent

SECOND RUNNER-UP
“On the Left”
by Sandra Sigienski

~~~

Chris Kulp

This week we’re shining a spotlight on Chris Kulp, his achievement as this year’s winner of the Mike Resnick Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Short Story by a New Author, and his upcoming publication in Galaxy’s Edge magazine.

Chris Kulp was in attendance at DragonCon this year when the announcement was made. He tells us he was honored to be considered among the finalists, but wasn’t expecting to win!

Chris is a professor of physics at Lycoming College. He teaches physics at all levels, and his research focuses on machine learning and modeling complex systems. He has co-authored a textbook and many peer reviewed scientific articles.

His story, “What Would You Pay for a Second Chance?” is his first published fiction story, and is featured in this month’s issue of Galaxy’s Edge magazine, November 2022, Issue 59.

The story is about a woman who receives a terminal diagnosis. The technology exists to have her consciousness uploaded into a robot, but she can’t afford the cost. She signs up for a government program that will pay for the transfer, and in exchange, she must commit to military service. After being sent to the frontlines of a warzone in her new body, she discovers, the battle is not the only threat she faces.

Chris also has an upcoming novel, set for release in early 2023.

Find out more about Chris’s writing and sign up for his newsletter to keep up to date with his progress at his website: chriskulp.com

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS, CHRIS! We look forward to reading your winning story, “What Would You Pay for a Second Chance?”, and to all your future publications and successes!

A wonderful congratulations to our other winners also.
Keep your eyes peeled for more stories from these talented new authors!

~~~

What is the Mike Resnick Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Short Story by a New Author?

It’s an annual award sponsored by Galaxy’s Edge magazine (Arc Manor Publishing) and Dragon Con in celebration of new authors who have penned a Science Fiction short story.

This award was created to honor author Mike Resnick’s memory and continue on his legacy by spotlighting wonderful new voices in the writing world.

Who was Mike Resnick?

Mike Resnick, along with editing the first seven years of Galaxy’s Edge magazine, was the winner of five Hugos from a record thirty-seven nominations and was, according to Locus, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short fiction. He was the author of over eighty novels, around 300 stories, three screenplays, and the editor of over forty anthologies.

As well as publishing hundreds of books as author and editor, Mike Resnick was known for his “Writer Children”—paying it forward by helping new writers start their careers. When he was not writing, Mike mentored these new authors, and was as dedicated in helping them reach their career milestones as achieving his own.

Submissions for 2023 are now open!

Interested in submitting? Head over to the website and get started HERE.

Submitting is free, open to new authors only, and the judging panel is a star-studded cast, including:
Nancy Kress
Sheree Renée Thomas
Jody Lynn Nye
Lois McMaster Bujold
William B. Fawcett

Finalist Announcement: The five finalists for the 2023 Award will be announced on July 1, 2023.

Award Ceremony: Awards will be handed out during the Dragon Awards ceremony during Dragon Con 2023 to be held in Atlanta from August 31 to September 4. (Specific date of the Award Ceremony night updated once known.)

First Place Prize: The first-place winner will get a trophy, a cash award of $250.00 and have their story bought (at the magazine’s prevailing rate) by Galaxy’s Edge magazine for publication in the magazine.

Runner-up Prizes: The second-place winner will be given a prize of $100 and the third-place winner a prize of $50.