A Deep Look by Dave Hook

The Short: I finally read Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, Sheree R. Thomas editor, 2000 Aspect/Warner Books. It includes 29 works of short fiction and seven essays, from 1887 to 2000. It was a World Fantasy Award winner and Locus Award nomination. Although my favorites were the classic novelette “The Evening and the Morning and the Night” by Octavia E. Butler, Omni, May 1987, and the superlative short story “Aye, and Gomorrah …” by Samuel R. Delany, from Dangerous Visions, Harlan Ellison editor, 1967 Doubleday, I was even more pleased to both discover new fiction by authors I did not know and to read the very educational and interesting essays. My overall, average rating was 3.64, or “Very good”. Strongly recommended.

The Long: I am embarrassed to admit I have had Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, Sheree R. Thomas editor, 2000 Aspect/Warner Books, in my Book Database since July 1, 2000. I suspect I first saw it reviewed in Locus.

For no good reason, I never got around to reading it. Other pretty, shiny books and short fiction got my attention. Periodically I would see it mentioned in various contexts, but I never did anything about it.

Reading The Martian Trilogy (John P. Moore, Amazing Stories, Black Science Fiction, and The Illustrated Features Section), 2025 Amazing Stories, earlier this year (see my review, recommended), the great essay content again mentioned Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora. I vowed that I would read it.

I was lucky enough to get a copy from the Contra Costa County Library via my regional library consortium.

Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, Sheree R. Thomas editor, 2000 Aspect/Warner Books includes 29 works of short fiction and seven essays. There are ebook, hardcover, and paperback editions. It comes in at 441 pages.

The fiction in Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora is a mix of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and more. Fifteen of the short fiction works and essays are reprints, with more original titles than reprints. There are three excerpts from novels.

It starts with an excellent “Looking for the Invisible” essay by Sheree Renée Thomas about why the title “Dark Matter”, how it started to come together, and a number of other important thoughts. She states:

Before I began the research for Dark Matter, I had several goals in mind. The first was simply to introduce readers who had never had the pleasure of reading science fiction to few of my favorite authors. I am speaking of the writers whose words kept me reading in the genre, writers whose visions reflected and critiqued my own culture and inspired me to write on my own. I drew up a second list of non-sf writers—”mainstream” writers whose work, I thought, certainly incorporated speculative themes and perspectives.

After I began my research, however, I realized that there was more to this genre than meets the eye. As the call for submissions was shared throughout the sf and black literary communities, and the postcards—then envelopes, then manuscripts—began flooding in, I was humbled by the response. And just as I had hoped, the critical pieces began to arrive. When I finally spoke with author Charles R. Saunders, who had virtually “disappeared” (as far as the U.S. sf community was concerned) into the far reaches of Canada, Dark Matter began to take on a new shape in my mind. Later, while I was attending the six-week science fiction writing workshop at Clarion West in Seattle, a manila envelope arrived from him. He had forwarded me a photocopy of “The Comet,” the W. E. B. Du Bois short story published in the 1920 collection Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. Dark Matter had acquired critical mass.

Two stories I had read before were my favorites:

1. “The Evening and the Morning and the Night“, a novelette by Octavia E. Butler, Omni, May 1987, rated 4.5.5, or “A classic”.
2. “Aye, and Gomorrah …“, a short story by Samuel R. Delany, from “Dangerous Visions, Harlan Ellison editor, 1967 Doubleday, rated 4.1/5, or “Superlative”.

Just below that were twelve great stories, with only one I had read previously:

1. “The Space Traders“, a novelette by Derrick Bell, from his book Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism, 1992 BasicBooks, rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.
2. “Separation Anxiety“, a short story by Evie Shockley, original to this anthology, rated 3.9/5.
3. “The Pretended“, a short story by Darryl A. Smith, original to this anthology, rated 3.9/5.
4. “Twice, at Once, Separated“, a short story by Linda D. Addison, original to this anthology, rated 3.9/5.
5. “The Goophered Grapevine“, a short story by Charles W. Chesnutt, Atlantic Monthly LX August 1887, rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.
6. “The Comet“, a short story by W. E. B. Du Bois, Darkwater: Voices from the Veil, 1920 Harcourt Brace, rated 3.8/5. I had read this before.
7. “Chicago 1927“, a Gilda Stories short story by Jewelle Gomez, original to this anthology, rated 3.8/5.
8. “Greedy Choke Puppy“, a short story by Nalo Hopkinson, original to this anthology, rated 3.8/5.
9. “Hussy Strutt“, a short story by Ama Patterson, original to this anthology, rated 3.8/5.
10. “Like Daughter“, a short story by Tananarive Due, original to this anthology, rated 3.8/5.
11. “The Astral Visitor Delta Blues“, a short story by Robert Fleming, original to this anthology, rated 3.8/5.
12. “The Woman in the Wall“, a novelette by Steven Barnes, original to this anthology, rated 3.8/5.

There were eight great stories by authors I have never read before, and I will be looking for more by them.

There were eleven very good stories:

1. “Black No More (excerpt)“, short fiction by George S. Schuyler, from his novel Black No More: Being An Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free, A.D. 1933-1940, 1931 The Macaulay Company, rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.
2. “Ark of Bones“, a short story by Henry Dumas, from his posthumous collection Ark of Bones and Other Stories, Eugene Redmond editor, 1974 Random House, rated 3.7/5.
3. “Gimmile’s Songs“, a Dossouye short story by Charles R. Saunders, from Sword and Sorceress, Marion Zimmer Bradley editor, 1984 DAW Books, rated 3.7/5.
4. “Buddy Bolden“, a short story by Kalamu ya Salaam, from Fertile Ground: Memories & Visions, Kysha N. Brown & Kalamu ya Salaam editors, 1996 Runagate Press, rated 3.7/5.
5. “Rhythm Travel“, a short story by Amiri Baraka, from Fertile Ground: Memories & Visions, Kysha N. Brown & Kalamu ya Salaam editors, 1996 Runagate Press, rated 3.7/5.
6. “At Life’s Limits“, an Of Wings, Nectar, & Ancestors novelette by Kiini Ibura Salaam, original to this anthology, rated 3.7/5.
7. “At the Huts of Ajala“, a short story by Nisi Shawl, original to this anthology, rated 3.7/5.
8. “Sister Lilith“, a short story by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, original to this anthology, rated 3.7/5.
9. “Can You Wear My Eyes“, a short story by Kalamu ya Salaam, original to this anthology, rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”.
10. “Tasting Songs“, a short story by Leone Ross, original to this anthology, rated 3.6/5.
11. “The Becoming“, a short story by Akua Lezli Hope, original to this anthology, rated 3.6/5.

I recommend reading all 25 stories above that I rated “very good” or better. I am more of a fan of SF than fantasy, and less of a fan of horror, which influences my reactions. Yours might be different.

I rated two stories as “Good”, which for me means a story I thought was competently written but that I was not that not that excited about. These two stories were:

1. “Butta’s Backyard Barbecue“, a short story by Tony Medina, original to this anthology, rated 3.3/5, or “Good”.
2. “Future Christmas (excerpt from The Terrible Twos)“, short fiction by Ishmael Reed, excerpt from his novel The Terrible Twos, 1982 St. Martin’s/Marek, rated 3.2/5, or “Good”.

Finally, there were two stories that I could not finish, rated 2/5, or “Did not finish”:

1. “Ganger (Ball Lightning)“, a short story by Nalo Hopkinson, original to this anthology.
2. “The African Origins of UFOs (excerpt)“, short fiction by Anthony Joseph, from his novel of the same name, 2006.

I was quite please that I could recommend reading 25 of the stories, including 22 that were new to me.

The rest of the essays were outstanding.

I was pleased to finally read the excellent “Racism and Science Fiction” essay by Samuel R. Delany, The New York Review of Science Fiction, August 1998, which I had heard about. I had somehow missed the story of how John W. Campbell, Jr., editor of Analog, had rejected serializing his superlative novel Nova because “…while he liked pretty much everything else about it, he didn’t feel his readership would be able to relate to a black main character.” This does not surprise me. Delany’s essay is both personal and insightful:

Since I began to publish in 1962, I have often been asked, by people of all colors, what my experience of racial prejudice in the science fiction field has been. Has it been nonexistent? By no means: It was definitely there. A child of the political protests of the ’50s and ’60s, I’ve frequently said to people who asked that question: As long as there are only one, two, or a handful of us, however, I presume in a field such as science fiction, where many of its writers come out of the liberal-Jewish tradition, prejudice will most likely remain a slight force—until, say, black writers start to number thirteen, fifteen, twenty percent of the total. At that point, where the competition might be perceived as having some economic heft, chances are we will have as much racism and prejudice as in any other field.

We are still a long way away from such statistics.

But we are certainly moving closer.

“Why Blacks Should Read (and Write) Science Fiction“, an essay by Charles R. Saunders, original to this anthology, was also thoughtful and informative. After an extensive discussion of “…writers to mine the rich vein of African and African-American experiences for their work”, he provides a valuable discussion of the Mike Resnick Kirinyaga work and controversy, which I had been wondering about. His essay ends on this:

So some good material has emerged over the past two decades, even if one has to look long and hard for it. But there’s a reason for blacks to read and write science fiction that goes beyond the number of black writers in the field, or the number of black characters who can breakdance on the head of a micrometeorite in someone’s hard-science plot line. Science fiction serves as the mythology of our technological culture. Imagination is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom, and probably also marked the main difference between us and our close evolutionary cousins, the Neanderthals, enabling our ancestors to leave them behind tens of thousands of years ago. The human imagination manifests itself in stories. These stories become legends, myths, the defining elements of a culture. And for all the condescending disdain the literary establishment has heaped on sf and fantasy, writers in those genres serve a function similar of that of the bard or the griot in ways “literary” writers cannot approach.

We blacks have more than made our mark in the Western world’s popular culture. Imagine how diminished the arts would be without the contributions of people from Duke Ellington to Alice Walker. We need to contribute to our culture’s overall mythology as well, and provide alternatives to the stereotypes that continue to plague us within that mythology.

After all, if we don’t unleash our imaginations to tell our own sf and fantasy stories, people like Mike Resnick will tell them for us. And if we don’t like the way he’s telling them, it’s up to us to tell them our own way. Butler, Barnes, and Hopkinson have met that challenge admirably. But they represent only a tiny fraction of the total number of writers in the field. That fraction has to grow.

The onus is on us. We have to bring some to get some in outer space and otherspace, as we have done here on Earth. Just as our ancestors sang their songs in a strange land when they were kidnapped and sold from Africa, we must, now and in the future, continue to sing our songs under strange stars.

All in all, the essays included in Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora are critical for context and history which are important to the field and these stories. Reading them was as important to me as reading the fiction.

Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora was a World Fantasy Award winner and Locus Award nomination. It remains in print in paper and ebook editions.

After reading it, the mix of joy, hope, and horror was not different than I anticipated.

My overall, average rating was 3.64/5, or “Very good”. I recommend reading 25 of the 29 short fiction works included. I loved the essays. I am very pleased with the great new authors I will be looking for. Recommended.

My thanks again to Chris Barkley for the nudge to read The Martian Trilogy (John P. Moore, Amazing Stories, Black Science Fiction, and The Illustrated Features Section), 2025 Amazing Stories, which in turn pushed me to finally read Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora.

I have added the sequel, Dark Matter: Reading the Bones, Sheree Renée Thomas editor, 2004 Aspect/Warner Brothers, to my TBR.

DETAILED REVIEWS/COMMENTS – COULD BE SPOILERS

“Looking for the Invisible“, an essay by editor Sheree Renée Thomas. An excellent introduction about why “Dark Matter”, how pieces started to come together, etc.

“Sister Lilith“, a short story by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, original to this anthology. A short short story of Lilith, from her perspective. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“The Comet“, a short story by W. E. B. Du Bois, Darkwater: Voices from the Veil, 1920 Harcourt Brace. An African-American messenger in a bank is given a unpleasant task in the deepest sub-vaults. Gases from a comet kills everyone else in New York City. He meets a rich white girl who survived the comet gases in her darkroom. He helps her re-unite with her father and others, who were outside of NYC. He is ignored and not valued despite his help to the daughter, and is reunited with his wife and dead child. Quite a powerful story. I read this well before finding out that its first reprint in the speculative fiction world was in this anthology. After the first 1920 edition of Darkwater: Voices from the Veil, the next edition I found was the 1969 Shocken edition and then a 1999 Dover Publications edition. In her January 2000 “Looking for the Invisible” introductory essay, Sheree Renée Thomas notes that she received a copy of “The Comet” from Charles R. Saunders. It does not matter, but I am curious about which edition Saunders copied the story from? Other reprints for “The Comet” include The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer editors, 2016 Vintage Crime/Black Lizard/Vintage Books (where I first read it in that superlative anthology), Grave Predictions: Tales of Mankind’s Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian and Disastrous Destiny, Drew Ford editor, 2016 Dover Publications, Pseudopod #580 February 2018, Black Sci-Fi Short Stories, Tia Ross editor, 2021 Flame Tree Press, and Voices from the Radium Age, Joshua Glenn editor, 2022 The MIT Press (which sounds like an anthology I would be interested in reading). There might have been reprints outside of the speculative fiction genres before this, but I did not find them. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Chicago 1927“, a Gilda Stories short story by Jewelle Gomez, original to this anthology. Gilda is an 80 year old woman, but still young and vibrant, as she is a vampire. However, she does not kill, and gives back when she takes. With her found family, she must help another and reveal herself. Reprinted in Blood Sisters: Vampire Stories by Women, Paula Guran editor, 2015 Night Shade Books. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Black No More (excerpt)“, short fiction by George S. Schuyler, from his novel Black No More: Being An Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free, A.D. 1933-1940, 1931 The Macaulay Company. Dr. Crookman, a doctor bankrolled by a realtor and a numbers banker, has developed a secret process to turn black people into white. Max Disher is the first to try it. He is leaving town for Atlanta, as he has a thing for a white woman there. He will miss the culture he is used to, and talks his friend into going with him after changing. I am very pleased to see this excerpt by George S. Schuyler, who figured in The Martian Trilogy. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“Separation Anxiety“, a short story by Evie Shockley, original to this anthology. A great story of a future USA where minorities have been strongly “encouraged” to live in “cultural conservation units” for all the minorities, to allow them to live and “preserve” their culture. Time has gone on, and the Department of Cultural Conservation has continued to archive more information about the inhabitants, as in as close to be real time as possible. The latest order is to “save all sexual waste”, which is even more intrusive. A dancer’s friend has decided to leave the ghetto, knowing they can never come back or otherwise “contaminate” the black culture there. She finally decides to go too, out into the wider white USA as a dancer. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.

“Tasting Songs“, a short story by Leone Ross, original to this anthology. A story at the nexus of fantasy and horror, of a photographer who gets women, and a singer whose skin drops water, and the photographer’s wife, and a baby. Reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Fourteenth Annual Collection, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling editors, 2001 St. Martin’s Griffin. They thought it was better than I did, and they could be right. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”.

“Can You Wear My Eyes“, a short story by Kalamu ya Salaam, original to this anthology. A man and his wife decide to wear the other’s eyes if they die. She dies in an accident, and he can’t stand what her eyes see. Horror. Reprinted in Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love, Joanne Ella Parsons editor, 2024 British Library Publishing. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”.

“Like Daughter“, a short story by Tananarive Due, original to this anthology. A godmother must step in and take over raising a child who effectively is a clone of her best friend who is now insane. Reprinted in Lightspeed June 2014, the Tananarive Due collection Ghost Summer, 2015 Prime Books, and Afrofuturism Short Stories, Isis Asare & Dr. Sandra M. Grayson editors, 2025 Flame Tree Press. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Greedy Choke Puppy“, a short story by Nalo Hopkinson, original to this anthology A great story of a family of skin changing vampires, where Granny kills her daughter and her granddaughter Jacky because neither of them have restraint. Reprinted in Year’s Best Fantasy, Kathryn Cramer & David G. Hartwell editors, 2001 Eos/HarperCollins, The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Fourteenth Annual Collection, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling editors, 2001 St. Martin’s Griffin, the Nalo Hopkinson collection Skin Folk, 2015 Open Road Integrated Media, Blood Sisters: Vampire Stories by Women, Paula Guran editor, 2015 Night Shade Books, and Black Cat Weekly #27 March 2022. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Rhythm Travel“, a short story by Amiri Baraka, from Fertile Ground: Memories & Visions, Kysha N. Brown & Kalamu ya Salaam editors, 1996 Runagate Press. I really liked this short short of a man who has developed song technology into all kinds of things, such as invisibility and time travel. But you gotta have the right, cool songs. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“Buddy Bolden“, a short story by Kalamu ya Salaam, from Fertile Ground: Memories & Visions, Kysha N. Brown & Kalamu ya Salaam editors, 1996 Runagate Press. A very good story of an angel on temporary assignment to Earth, or a human imagining things. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“Aye, and Gomorrah …“, a short story by Samuel R. Delany, from Dangerous Visions, Harlan Ellison editor, 1967 Doubleday. A great story of neutered space people and frelk who love or lust after them. This is an amazing story that packs a whole lot in. Nebula Award winner and Hugo Award Finalist. First read in Dangerous Visions, last read in the Vandermeer’s The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection, 2016 Vintage Crime/Black Lizard/Vintage Books. Many other reprints including Nebula Award Stories Three, Roger Zelazny editor, 1968 Doubleday, the Delany collection Driftglass, 1970 Nelson Doubleday/SFBC, Modern Science Fiction, Norman Spinrad editor, 1974 Anchor Press/Doubleday, The Road to Science Fiction: Volume 3 – From Heinlein to Here, James Gunn editor, 1979 Mentor/New American Library, The World Treasury of Science Fiction, David G. Hartwell editor, 1989 Little, Brown/BOMC, and The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., Arthur B. Evans, Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Rob Latham, & Carol McGuirk editors, 2010 Wesleyan University Press. Rated 4.1/5, or “Superlative”.

“Ganger (Ball Lightning)“, a short story by Nalo Hopkinson, original to this anthology. A story of love and sex and intelligent suits to allow different sex, and how things go wrong. Never grabbed me enough to finish it after two attempts, which may say as much  about me as the story. Reprints include the Nalo Hopkinson collection Skin Folk, 2015 Open Road Integrated Media, and We, Robots, Simon Ings editor, 2020 Ad Astra/Head of Zeus. Rated 2/5, or “Did not finish”.

“The Becoming“, a short story by Akua Lezli Hope, original to this anthology. SF/horror of a woman who is transformed into a human musical horn. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”.

“The Goophered Grapevine“, a short story by Charles W. Chesnutt, Atlantic Monthly, LX August 1887. A great story of a man who is looking to relocate to the South for his wife’s health (cold issues). He is hoping to buy a vineyard in the South some years after the Civil War. An aging black man tells him how the vineyard he is looking at was cursed or goophered. As noted in the Contributors section of Dark Matter, “Chesnutt became the first African American writer to receive critical and popular attention from the predominantly white literary establishment and readership of his day after publishing his short story ‘The Goophered Grapevine’ in the Atlantic Monthly in 1887.” Other reprints include the Chestnutt collection The Conjure Woman, 1899 Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Great American Short Stories, Paul Negri editor, 2002 Dover Publications, and The Big Book of Classic Fantasy: The Ultimate Collection, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer editors, 2019 Vintage Books. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“The Evening and the Morning and the Night“, a novelette by Octavia E. Butler, Omni, May 1987. This is a classic story, a drug induced mutation that causes those carrying the genes to dig out their own organs or whatnot. And pheromones. Just a great, great story. SF and not fantasy. This is my favorite Octavia E. Butler story right now. Sturgeon Award runner-up, Nebula and Locus Award nomination. Other reprints include The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fifth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois editor, 1988 St. Martin’s Press, The Evening and the Morning and the Night, 1991 Pulphouse chapbook, The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women, Richard Glyn Jones & A. Susan Williams editors, 1995 Viking UK, the Butler collection Bloodchild and Other Stories, 1995 Four Walls Eight Windows, Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century, Justine Larbalestier editor, 2006 Wesleyan University Press, Crucified Dreams, Joe R. Lansdale editor, 2011 Tachyon Publications, Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, 2015 PM Press, Lightspeed, June 2016, and Octavia E. Butler: Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories, 2021 The Library of America. Rated 4.5/5, or “A classic”.

“Afterword (The Evening and the Morning and the Night)”, an essay by Octavia E. Butler. The copyright information in Dark Matter notes it as from the second edition of the Butler collection Bloodchild and Other Stories, 1996 Seven Stories Press; I have not confirmed this. I may have seen this before, but it’s good to reread this personal and informative short essay by Butler on the story and where it came from.

“Twice, at Once, Separated“, a short story by Linda D. Addison, original to this anthology. A great story of a young woman on Ship, a generation ship, with people identified as Yanomami. She is struggling, but reunites with a lost twin sister. She and her sister have different destinies, but she has learned a lot and will have a good life and perhaps become a leader. Looking at what I found online, “Yanomami” is the name of a relatively isolated indigenous group of people in South America. I have no idea if this means anything. Other reprint in Blacktastic! Blacktasticon 2018 Anthology, Milton J. Davis editor, 2018 MVmedia. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.

“Gimmile’s Songs“, a Dossouye short story by Charles R. Saunders, from Sword and Sorceress, Marion Zimmer Bradley editor, 1984 DAW Books. A tale of a warrior and her war bull, and Legba, and sorcery and revenge, and love perhaps. She survives challenges but is sad to see Gimmile the bela (singer, etc.) die a final death. Other reprint in The Sword & Sorcery Anthology, David G. Hartwell & Jacob Weisman editors, 2012 Tachyon Publications. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“At the Huts of Ajala“, a short story by Nisi Shawl, original to this anthology. A young woman deals with a god and comes to understand why she has two heads. Reprinted in the Shawl collections Filter House, 2008 Aqueduct Press and A Primer to Nisi Shawl, 2018 Dark Moon Books, and in See the Elephant Issue One July 2015. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“The Woman in the Wall“, a novelette by Steven Barnes, original to this anthology. A story of a black American artist and her stepdaughter, whose plane crashed in a African country with war and upheaval. Her husband has been killed the guards. They are in a camp quarantining the diseased. There is a woman in the wall, art by a gone camp resident. She does what she must do to survive and get her and her stepdaughter out. This could be considered alternate history, or just plain psychological horror. Other reprint in the Steven Barnes collection Assassin and Other Stories, 2010 ISFiC Press. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Ark of Bones“, a short story by Henry Dumas, from his posthumous collection Ark of Bones and Other Stories, Eugene Redmond editor, 1974 Random House. A very good story of a man who witnesses for a friend who takes a role in an ark of bones on the Mississippi River. Other reprint in The Big Book of Modern Fantasy, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer editors, 2020 Vintage Books. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“Butta’s Backyard Barbecue“, a short story by Tony Medina, original to this anthology. An interesting but to me incomprehensible short short of a music or dance contest or some such. Rated 3.3/5, or “Good”.

“Future Christmas (excerpt from The Terrible Twos)“, short fiction by Ishmael Reed, excerpt from his novel The Terrible Twos, 1982 St. Martin’s/Marek. This chapter excerpted from the novel had quite a bit going on. I enjoyed the Christmas related material, but there were other subplots that did not connect in any way sensible to me. This might have been better in the novel. I was hoping for another speculative fiction Christmas masterpiece, but this satire is not one. Rated 3.2/5, or “Good”.

“At Life’s Limits“, an Of Wings, Nectar, & Ancestors novelette by Kiini Ibura Salaam, original to this anthology. A very good story of a nectar gatherer who comes to Earth and becomes human, set on Cuba. Reprinted in the Kiini Ibura Salaam collection Ancient, Ancient, 2012 Aqueduct Press. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“The African Origins of UFOs (excerpt)“, short fiction by Anthony Joseph, from his novel of the same name, 2006. Noting the dates, this excerpt is from a novel that had not yet been published at that time. Very surreal, not going anywhere obvious, no clear connection to UFOs that I saw. I gave up. Rated 2/5, or “Did not finish”.

“The Astral Visitor Delta Blues“, a short story by Robert Fleming, original to this anthology. A great story of Frank, a big, tough sharecropper who has an experience with something unexplainable in his room after a night out at a jook joint. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“The Space Traders“, a novelette by Derrick Bell, from his book Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism, 1992 BasicBooks. A horrifying and occasionally ironic story of how the Space Traders offered the USA gold to solve an economic crisis, a solution to pollution, and safe nuclear power in exchange for all the black “citizens”. The discussions and efforts of the various pro and con groups are very well done. In the end, after a constitutional amendment and a national vote, the USA takes the deal. Reading this today during the second Trump administration, the irony and horror is palpable. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.

“The Pretended“, a short story by Darryl A. Smith, original to this anthology. An outstanding story of robots made to look like black people after black people are gone, and their disposal. I will look for more fiction by Darryl A. Smith. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.

“Hussy Strutt“, a short story by Ama Patterson, original to this anthology. A horrifying story of several children and teens as civilization breaks down. Reprinted in Nightmare Magazine July 2020. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Racism and Science Fiction” essay by Samuel R. Delany, The New York Review of Science Fiction, August 1998. An outstanding, erudite, and personal essay that is very thoughtful. Reprinted also in the Delany collection The Atheist in the Attic plus “Racism and Science Fiction” and “Discourse in an Older Sense” Outspoken Interview, 2018 PM Press.

“Why Blacks Should Read (and Write) Science Fiction“, an essay by Charles R. Saunders, original to this anthology. An outstanding essay, with some focus on an aspect of cultural appropriation or at least the writing of SF that “mine the rich veins of African and African-American experiences for their work” by white writers also. Some are commented as positive.

“Black to the Future“, an essay by Walter Mosley, original to this anthology. Although brief, a hopeful inquiry about the need for more black SF writers. Reprinted in Envisioning the Future: Science Fiction and the Next Millennium, Marleen S. Barr editor, 2003 Wesleyan University Press.

“Yet Do I Wonder “, an essay by Paul D. Miller, from the Village Voice, 1994, in a “slightly different version”. A very personal and interesting monologue.

“The Monophobic Response“, an essay by Octavia E. Butler, first appeared under a different title in Journeys (PEN/Faulkner) 1994. An interesting short essay on aliens and ourselves. Other reprints include the Readercon 14 Souvenir Book, Michael Matthew editor, 2002 Readercon, and Octavia E. Butler: Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories, 2021 The Library of America.

Finally, there are three essays that are not currently in the ISFDB Table of Contents.

“Contributors” an uncredited essay that is very helpful about the editor and authors and their works. I suspect this was written by editor Sheree R. Thomas, but that is pure speculation.

“Copyrights and Permissions”, an uncredited essay, was something I am always glad to see. Considering that there was quite a bit of material here that was not a reprint already in ISFDB, you could say this was essential to me.

“Acknowledgments”, an essay by Sheree R. Thomas is personal, well done, and helpful.

The Short: Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, by Thomas Ha, 2025 Undertow Publications, is an impressive first collection. My favorites were the great “The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video“, a novelette, Clarkesworld May 2024, “Alabama Circus Punk“, a short story, ergot 2024 online, and “The Fairgrounds“, a short story, Metaphorosis July-September 2024. My overall average rating is 3.81/5, or “Great”.  Recommended.

The Long: I have been a fan of Thomas Ha’s short speculative fiction since reading “Sweetbaby” from the Clarkesworld Readers Poll in 2023.

I had planned to read his first collection Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, 2025 Undertow Publications. Finding out that the Nebula and Stoker Award nominated “Uncertain Sons“, a novelette by Thomas Ha, was original to this collection convinced me to read it now.

Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, 2025 Undertow Publications, includes nine short stories, three novelettes, and a fine “Foreword” by Zachary Gillan. It’s available in ebook and trade paperback format, at 284 pages. It’s too bad there is no audiobook version I found, as that has become a big market. It has a great wraparound cover by Ove Tøpfer that may be for “Uncertain Sons“.

Although I had happily read five of these stories, I was quite pleased to find seven stories that were new to me including “Uncertain Sons“.

The “Foreword” by Zachary Gillan is interesting and insightful. He does discuss the stories in some detail. I decided to read it after reading the stories and not before to avoid spoilers, which worked for me. I liked this:

Undermining genre distinctions is part and parcel of weird fiction, but Ha’s example is particularly instructive because of the way he interpolates science fiction and horror/fantasy, fascinatingly building these stories into background worlds of speculative fiction that feel concrete, but robed with the opacity and ambiguity of the weird—opaque and ambiguous, importantly, for both the reader and character. As Ha puts it in an interview, “unsettling ambiguity helps crack open something experiential in a way that other types of fiction can’t”. He’s right, but what makes these stories so particularly compelling is the combination of the unsettling ambiguity of his worlds and narratives with his expert character work.

My favorite stories were:

1. “The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video“, a novelette, Clarkesworld May 2024, rated 4/5, or “Great”.
2. “Alabama Circus Punk“, a short story, ergot 2024 online, rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.
3. “The Fairgrounds“, a short story, Metaphorosis July-September 2024, rated 3.9/5.

Following these closely were these seven great stories, all rated 3.8/5:

1. “Window Boy“, a short story, Clarkesworld August 2023.
2. “Cretins“, a short story, Weird Horror Fall 2023.
3. “The Mub“, a short story, Clarkesworld November 2023.
4. “Where the Old Neighbors Go“, a short story, Metaphorosis September 2020.
5. “Sweetbaby“, a novelette, Clarkesworld October 2022.
6. “The Sort“, a short story, Clarkesworld August 2024.
7. “Uncertain Sons“, a novelette, original to this collection.

Finally, there were two stories I rated “Very good”:

1. “House Traveler“, a short story, Bourbon Penn November 2024, rated 3.6/5.
2. “Balloon Season“, a short story, Fusion Fragment November 2020, rated 3.7/5. I did consider not finishing “Balloon Season”, but persevered.

Quite a few of these stories were at what I consider to the the SF/horror nexus, which agrees with Zachary Gillan in the “Foreword”. Depending upon how you think about it, a number of them could be considered to be out and out horror, such as “The Mub“, “Cretins“, “Uncertain Sons“, and “House Traveler“. While I enjoyed most of these stories, I am not that fond of horror and that might have impacted my reaction to them.

Another aspect I noticed was the lack of a clearly defined setting that related in any way to our consensus reality. This was definitely in play for me in “House Traveler“. Another story with only a rather modest connection to our consensus reality was “Uncertain Sons“, which mentions “the 210”. There is a 210 Freeway in Southern California, which is the only tip on the locale if you know that.

Uncertain Sons and Other Stories has had a fair amount of recognition. It’s included in the 2026 Locus Awards Top Ten Finalists, it’s a 2025 BSFA Best Collection nomination, and a 2026 Philip K. Dick Award nomination.

Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, the first collection by Thomas Ha, 2025 Undertow Publications, has a lot of positives. I loved five of the stories that were new to me, which is a big plus. My overall average rating for the twelve stories was 3.81/5, or “Great”. I loved the Foreword as well. Recommended.

DETAILED COMMENTS/REVIEWS – PROBABLY SPOILERS

“Foreword”, an essay by Zachary Gillan E 5/4/2026 An outstanding, insightful commentary on Ha’s fiction. See quote above.

“Window Boy“, a short story, Clarkesworld August 2023. A great story of rich indoor people, perhaps living underground, and outdoor people. A very scary future, with Jakey, an indoor kid, and window boy, who is an outdoor kid and who Jake hopes is a friend. The grackles are horrifying, as are the Mailmen. Locus and Nebula Award nomination, and Ignyte Award finalist. Other reprints include The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024, Hugh Howey editor & John Joseph Adams series editor, 2024 Mariner Books, Nebula Awards Showcase 59, Stephen Kotowych editor, 2025 SFWA, Inc., and Cast of Wonders May 11, 2025. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Cretins“, a short story, Weird Horror Fall 2023. A horrifying story, and it’s very hard to judge what is happening. The narrator talks as if they have Ferriers condition, causing them to be tired and fall asleep often. They feel they are repeatedly visited by a “hound” while asleep. Finally, they capture a hound, and will watch it to ensure the hound is okay. Is this real, or just a delusion of a madman? First read here. This could have been written as SF, but for me it is horror. This is the only reprint. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“The Mub“, a short story, Clarkesworld, November 2023. A great fantasy/horror of a man who is latched on to by a mub. The mubs are spreading over the whole world. This is the only reprint. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“House Traveler“, a short story, Bourbon Penn November 2024. I like a lot of things about this story of a world or universe where things change and must change more. The protagonist must venture out of supposedly stable or safe environment inside a house to obtain more resources and perhaps interact with the alien called the Liar. I really could not figure out what was going on, which impacted my reaction to and rating of the story. This was a story new to me. Other reprint in PseudoPod November 14, 2025. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”.

“Where the Old Neighbors Go“, a short story, Metaphorosis September 2020. An outstanding story of Mary, and a young man who she knows is not human, and his desire to buy her house on “the hill”. People have disappeared from the “the hill” neighborhood. Although not named as such, we learn she is a witch, perhaps. She is also the butt of complaints by her neighbors, who call her “Lady Bathrobe”, “The Hag on the Hill”, “Old Tangle Hair”, “The Parking Permit Crusader”, and “The Groaning Crone”. She is clearly a very difficult neighbor in some contexts. She prevails, but also knows her life will never include some things she wants with her daughter. This was horror, but I loved reading this story for the first time anyway. Other reprints include Metaphorosis 2020: The Complete Stories, B. Morris Allen editor, 2021 Metaphorosis Publishing, Best Vegan Science Fiction & Fantasy 2020, B. Morris Allen editor, 2021 Plant Based Press (I did not see much about eating and being vegan here, but I could have missed it), The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: Volume 2, Paula Guran editor, 2021 Pyr, and PodCastle, #720 February 2022. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Balloon Season“, a short story, Fusion Fragment November 2020. A horrifying story about giant balloon beings that parasitize and then kill humans, and what it does to two brothers. I almost DNF this one, but took another crack and finished it. Thomas Ha seems to write a lot of fiction at the horror/SF nexus, and this is one example. Another story new to me. Another reprint in Dark Matter Magazine July-August 2021, and Pseudopod #819 July 2022. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“Sweetbaby“, a novelette, Clarkesworld October 2022. With some aspects of Jerome Bixby’s classic and horrifying “It’s a Good Life“, people doing the best they can but failing. There are also very powerful yet mysterious fabricators, with an aspect of the duplication of the perfect robots in Arthur C. Clarke’s “Against the Fall of Night” to create a robot without the limits programmed into the original. This is a great story. Shirley Jackson Award nomination. No other reprints so far. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“The Sort“, a short story, Clarkesworld August 2024. A great story of a future where there are modified peoples, animals and plants. In the West, a modified man and his son stop in a small town. A garlic festival has The Sort, where the kids get to know the taste of the reject garlic. The son clearly signals he is different, and they must leave.  Locus Award nomination. Other reprint in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025, Nnedi Okorafor editor & John Joseph Adams series editor, 2025 Mariner Books. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video“, a novelette, Clarkesworld May 2024. When I read this in early 2025, this felt like a very different story from Thomas Ha, and I loved it. In a world of digital updates and impermanence, and in the midst of dealing with the physical things and other details of his mom’s estate, a man finds a very valuable book. He is pursued by a threatening figure with resources and digital flimflammery who wants the book, perhaps to destroy it. At the end, he slips out of digital coverage and reaches the Brotherhood on Montague, who are respectful of such things. Hugo Award finalist and Nebula Award nomination. Other reprints include Nebula Awards Showcase 60, Stephen Kotowych editor, 2025 SFWA, Inc., and Think Weirder: The Year’s Best Science Fiction Ideas, Joe Stech editor, 2025 CSF Press. Rated 4/5, or “Great”.

“Alabama Circus Punk“, a short story, ergot online 2024. A superb story new to me of an AI with multiple bodies that apparently suffers from memory loss and theft. The names for things, perhaps “Hallucinations”, are creative, including “Alabama Circus Punk” and “Kerosene Wig”. Reprinted in The Best Weird Fiction of the Year: Vol. 1, Michael Kelly editor, November 2025 Undertow Publications. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.

“The Fairgrounds“, a short story, Metaphorosis July-September 2024. A super story new to me with great characters, not all human. Young Henry goes to the Fairgrounds, where he asks the mysterious Professor Diederik Von Kempelen to help with a gift for Grete, a girl in his class he does not know well at all. Grete turns out to be the Professor’s daughter or possession, and non-human. Henry helps her and the oldest non-human, and Grete will always be there to help him when called. He finds the world is a strange place. Other reprint in Metaphorosis: 2024: The Complete Stories, B. Morris Allen editor, 2025 Metaphorosis Publishing. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.

“Uncertain Sons“, a novelette, original to this collection. A Nebula and Bram Stoker Award  nomination. An unnamed young bikeman from Southern California or Los Angeles pursues (there is a reference to “the 210”, which is a freeway there) an entity named Behema, which seems to be some kind of horrific or otherworldly monster that is the source of other monsters. We find out his dad was probably killed and absorbed by Behema. Much of the story is a dialog between him and his dead or absorbed dad, such as this quoted on back cover, which seems to be from his dad:

I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this, really. I think I just want you to know that we weren’t always like this. That other things are possible, maybe. That it doesn’t always have to be so blunt and gray and insurmountable.

We brought you into a world of terror, and I worry that all you’ll be is terrified.

Are you terrified?

While this might not have been one of mine, I can see why it got both Nebula and Stoker Award nominations. It’s a great story, and another by Thomas Ha here where we never find out many things about the setting. With the “210” clue, it appears to be on an Earth, but with no clue what happened or where Behema came from. I suspect the cover for Uncertain Sons and Other Stories is for this story. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

I read a lot of speculative fiction which includes settings I know and settings I don’t know, from areas near where I live to galaxies and universes far, far away.

I have heard that one of the basic pieces of advice given to beginning writers is to “write what you know”. I have never given serious thoughts to what this really means to a writer, or if it’s even a good idea.

In speculative fiction, it often cannot be placed in a familiar setting given the story the author wants to tell.

At the same time, authors do often place fiction in a setting I know. Although speculative fiction by my definition must have something going on that is not found in our consensus reality, fiction does require a setting of some kind.

Sometimes that setting as presented convinces me that the author either knows the setting well or did their research in a convincing way.

According to her website, Karen Joy Fowler lives in Santa Cruz, California and has been there for a while. She has several works that are set in Santa Cruz, California or the nearby area that I am aware of, and there could be more that I am not.

Her short story “Always“, Asimov’s April-May 2007, is set in a cult in the Santa Cruz Mountains. While the city of Always is imaginary, the very real Holy City was a Utopian community founded by cult leader William E. Riker in the 1930s. Today, it’s a ghost town I ran and drove past when I lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Fowler clearly knows the area and the history of the cult in Holy City in writing about the fictional city Always and its cult. I read it in her collection What I Didn’t See and Other Stories, 2010 Small Beer Press, which I thought was a great collection although it’s not clear to me today how much was and was not genre.

Although perhaps not genre, her mystery novel Wit’s End, 2008 Marian Wood/G. P. Putnam’s Sons, features a visit to a mystery writer in Santa Cruz. Viking UK titled it The Case of the Imaginary Detective, 2008. I liked it, and the scenes set in Santa Cruz and nearby felt on target to me. I remain a big fan of Karen Joy Fowler’s work.

I thought Ray Nayler’s novelette “Año Nuevo“, Asimov’s May-June, 2021, was a great story. Other readers of Asimov’s thought so too, ranking it #2 in the Readers Poll for Best Novelette. Part of is set in the future at the beach of Año Nuevo, on the California Coast between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay. Año Nuevo is currently a California State Park and Marine Reserve that is beautiful, can be very very popular, and has rookeries for Northern elephant seals, California sea lions and other species. I went there often as a teen with my siblings, cousins and uncle to enjoy the beach and tidepools and go claming. Today claming is forbidden, and reservations can be strongly suggested at times.

“Año Nuevo” demonstrated to me that Ray Nayler knows it and the area. Doing a bit of research, he grew up in California and attended the nearby University of California, Santa Cruz.

The first story I read by Rebecca Campbell was novelette “An Important Failure“, Clarkesworld, August 2020, in the Hugo Award Best Editor Short Form packet for Neil Clarke in 2021. It’s a great story of people on the future Vancouver Island in British Columbia coming to grips with climate change. It was a Sturgeon Award winner, so others agreed. I am fairly familiar with Vancouver Island, especially the Southern portion, after annual trips to visit family for over 40 years. The setting on Vancouver Island rang true to me. Looking at the Science Fiction Encyclopedia, I see that Rebecca Campbell was born in Duncan on Vancouver Island. Duncan is not too far from where my family lives, and I know it and the area pretty well. Her website refers to going to the Duncan library to find speculative fiction growing up. Without knowing any more about her path in life, she certainly knows Vancouver Island. Looking online, there is another story by her I have not read set there, “Lares Familiares, 1981“, Liminal Stories #3 Spring/Summer 2017.

I read Kate Wilhelm’s short story “And the Angels Sing“, Omni, May 1990, a few years ago in The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990, edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and Brian Attebery with consultant Karen Joy Fowler, 1993 W. W. Norton & Company (see my review, it got to “Very good” for me). I thought it was a great story, and I noted “Great characters by an author who knows the area” about this story on the Oregon coast.

Kate Wilhelm spent more than a bit of her life in Eugene, Oregon, which is just over 1 hour from the coast. She was clearly familiar with the coast of Oregon.

“Dune Roller“, a novelette by Julian May as by J. C. May, December 1951 Astounding. It’s a great first story by Julian May set in the dunes on the shores of Lake Michigan. This is a great first story of an academic ecologist/biologist who lives alone on the dunes near Lake Michigan, and likes it that way. At the start of the story, there is mention of a meteorite falling into Lake Michigan long ago. The ecologist begins to suspect there is an alien being in the area, a dune roller. He confirms this after a woman he comes to love is menaced by the roller for having a small drop of the roller’s substance on a pendant, a gift from him. He decides to take action. He destroys or disperses the roller into minute pieces, which quietly begin to reunite again. It’s worth noting that Julian May did the art for the story in Astounding.

An alien invader, authority figures who are hard to convince of the danger, and a scientist who needs to act to protect humans is one of the great SF tropes. Although it’s not at all novel, the execution of “Dune Roller” is very well done, with great characters such as the stubborn biologist/ecologist, and a wonderful setting. Her 2015 interview at SFFWorld includes this statement by her:

It featured a then little-known science called ecology, a cast of realistic characters, and a genuine physical setting in the Michigan Dunes country.

She was the author of “Moving Hills of Sand”, 1969 Hawthorn Books. It’s about sand dunes.

I have to conclude that Julian May knew the setting for “Dune Roller”. While this is not nearly the first SF story to feature ecology/biology, it is handled nicely here. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

I read “Woman of the River“, a short story by Genevieve Williams, in the Asimov’s January-February 2023 issue. It’s a great story of the continuing restoration of the Duwamish River in Tukwila, Washington. My notes on the story include “I loved the sense of place Genevieve Williams brings to the place; this is a sometimes unnoticed aspect of a great story.” From the essay by her on the Asimov’s website cited above, she definitely knows the area and it’s history. This is the second great story by Genevieve Williams I have read recently, and I will read more.

Finally, I have several works of short fiction by Annalee Newitz, including short stories “The Monogamy Hormone “, from Entanglements: Tomorrow’s Lovers, Families, and Friends, Sheila Williams editor, 2020 The MIT Press and “#selfcare“, Tor.com January 2021, and novella Automatic Noodle, 2025 Tor.com. Automatic Noodle was one of the my Hugo Award nominations. They are all set in future versions of San Francisco, some more divergent from our reality than others. For me, the basic details and feel about San Francisco are on target. While I visit San Francisco at least once or twice a year, I don’t live there. There could be details about these stories that don’t ring true for someone who has lived there for a while, even if I don’t notice. Newitz has a PhD from UC Berkley, and lives in San Francisco part of the year. From my perspective, they know San Francisco.

My last example is “Ridge Running“, a short story by Kim Stanley Robinson, F&SF January 1984. It’s set in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, featuring a winter backpacking trip by three old college friends. I camped, hiked, and winter backpacked in the Sierras, and the setting and the activities here felt very real. Kim Stanley Robinson is known to be a hiker who likes to scramble and who loves the Sierras. I read this for my essay on climbing in speculative fiction.

I suspect there are many more speculative fiction stories and novels where the author either knows the setting well or did their research in a convincing way. I hope people give me their favorite examples.

I have a second hand counter-example. Several years ago, perhaps in a discussion of stories where the setting is by an author who knows it well or who did the research, a friend of mine mentioned a story where he believed the author had not done that. The story is “Epiphany for Aliens“, a short story by David Kerr, original to Again, Dangerous Visions, Harlan Ellison editor, 1972 Doubleday. I have not read it for many decades. It’s set on the French island of Corsica, and involves surprising people. In the Afterword by Kerr, he notes why he set it in France. In his “statement of credentials and background” in the story Introduction by Ellison, he notes that he took a B.A. from Newcastle (probably in the early 1960s) and “After graduation I traveled in Southern Europe in France, Spain, Italy, Egypt and Greece.” It’s possible that Kerr had been to Corsica, but I found no evidence either way. My friend travels to Corsica every year and has walked through the area that is mentioned many times. He said that his experience of the place, combined with a knowledge of its history, suggests that what is portrayed in the story is inconsistent with reality. “Epiphany for Aliens” has never been reprinted other than in Again, Dangerous Visions. This is one of two stories listed by David Kerr at ISFDB, and I strongly suspect the other is by a different David Kerr.

DETAILED REVIEWS/COMMENTS – SPOILERS LIKELY

“Dune Roller“, a novelette by Julian May, December 1951 Astounding. This is a great first story of an academic ecologist/biologist who lives alone on the dunes near Lake Michigan, and likes it that way. At the start of the story, there is mention of a meteorite falling into Lake Michigan long ago. The ecologist begins to suspect there is an alien being in the area, a dune roller. He confirms this after a woman he comes to love is menaced by the roller for having a small drop of the roller’s substance on a pendant, a gift from him. He decides to take action. He destroys or disperses the roller into minute pieces, which quietly begin to reunite again. An alien invader, authority figures who are hard to convince of the danger, and a scientist who needs to act to protect humans is one of the great SF tropes. The novella “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, Jr., is one example among many. Although it’s not at all novel, the execution of “Dune Roller” is very well done, with great characters such as the stubborn biologist/ecologist and a wonderful setting. My only real criticism of the story is the limited range of roles by women in the story. There is a never-seen ex-girlfriend of the biologist, the new girlfriend of the biologist who is threatened by the dune roller, and the wife of one of his friends. This is not bad for this era, although we would hope for better today. The art by Julian May as by J. C. May is quite good also. Although not a major aspect of the story, one victim of the dune roller is a itinerant sailor on his way to Port Grand on foot. Before he is killed, he sings a song in “Dune Roller”, which research reveals to be a traditional folk song. While this is not nearly the first SF story to feature ecology/ biology, it is handled nicely here. I had read “Dune Roller” decades ago but had no idea that it was by Julian May. It’s great to come back to an old favorite and find out it’s still great and has not been visited by the Suck Fairy. It’s well reprinted, including Imagination Unlimited, Everett F. Bleiler & T. E. Dikty (who she was married to) editors, 1952 Farrar, Straus and Young, Stories Not for the Nervous, “Alfred Hitchcock” editor, 1965 Random House, Alpha 7, Robert Silverberg editor, 1977 Berkley Medallion, The Arbor House Treasury of Science Fiction Masterpieces, Martin H. Greenberg & Robert Silverberg editors, 1983 Arbor House, The Great SF Stories #13 (1951), Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg editors, 1985 DAW Books, and McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern Winter 2013. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Ridge Running“, a short story by Kim Stanley Robinson, F&SF January 1984. I might have read this before in the Robinson collection The Planet on the Table”, 1986 Tor, in the late 1980s, but I have no evidence either way. It’s set in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which I liked as I have experience camping, hiking and winter backpacking there. Three men, old college roommates, are doing a winter backpacking trip in the Sierras. They are mostly on snow shoes. One of them has had a lot of his brain regrown after an auto accident. He is functional yet different. I read this for my essay “Climbing and Speculative Fiction“; my thanks to Rich Horton for the suggestion. Other reprints include Der Drachenheld, Ronald M. Hahn editor, 1985 Heyne (in German), Fiction, #376 July 1986 (in French), Pioggia di stelle, Ugo Malaguti editor, 1988 Perseo Libri (in Italian), and several other Robinson collections including The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson, 2010 Night Shade Books. Others might have liked it a bit more than me, as it was a Hugo Award finalist and a Locus Award nomination. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“And the Angels Sing“, a short story by Kate Wilhelm, Omni, May 1990. A pair of small-town newspaper people on the Oregon coast find and shelter a humanoid alien for a while. They conclude there is a covert search for the alien. One of them, the narrator, lets the alien go, missing a career breaking story for both of them. Great characters by an author who knows the area. Locus Award finalist, with reprints in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Eighth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois editor, 1991 St. Martin’s Press, the Wilhelm collection And the Angels Sing, 1992 St. Martin’s Press, Angels!, Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois editors, 1995 Ace Books, and The Mammoth Book of Angels and Demons, Paula Guran editor, 2013 Robinson. I read this a few years ago in The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990, edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and Brian Attebery with consultant Karen Joy Fowler, 1993 W. W. Norton & Company (see my review, it got to “Very good” for me). Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.

“Always“, a short story by Karen Joy Fowler, Asimov’s April-May 2007. It’s set in a cult in the Santa Cruz Mountains, in the imaginary city of Always. Immortality is involved. I read it in her collection What I Didn’t See and Other Stories, 2010 Small Beer Press, which I thought was a great collection although it’s not clear to me today how much was and was not genre. I liked this story and it’s setting a lot, but I have not read it recently enough to have a rating. Others liked it strongly, as it’s a Nebula Award winner and a Sturgeon Award finalist. Other reprints include Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2008 Edition, Rich Horton editor, 2008 Prime Books, Year’s Best SF 13, Kathryn Cramer & David G. Hartwell editors, 2008 Eos/HarperCollins, Nebula Awards Showcase 2009: The Year’s Best SF and Fantasy, Ellen Datlow editor, 2009 Paw Prints, and StarShipSofa, No 126 March 2010.

Wit’s End, a novel by Karen Joy Fowler, 2008 Marian Wood/G. P. Putnam’s Sons. It features a visit to a mystery writer in Santa Cruz. Viking UK titled it The Case of the Imaginary Detective, 2008. ISFDB considered it “associational”. My brief comments after reading it were “a story of a troubled woman who visits a mystery writer in Santa Cruz and follows a mystery.” Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“The Monogamy Hormone“, a short story by Annalee Newitz, from Entanglements: Tomorrow’s Lovers, Families, and Friends, Sheila Williams editor, 2020 The MIT Press. A very good story about love, a possible monogamy pill, putting bacteria on the walls of schools to help student health, and the protagonist being in love with two people. Note San Francisco locale and polyamorous nature. Still really liked this on reread. Although not noted in ISFDB, this includes some of the same characters and San Francisco setting as “#Selfcare” by Newitz. Reprinted in The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2021 Edition, Rich Horton editor, 2022 Prime Books (see my review, recommended). Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“#selfcare“, a short story by Annalee Newitz, Tor.com January 2021. A young college graduate in the near future is struggling with gig economy taking most steady jobs. She works in a self-care spa in San Francisco with a modest salary but with benefits. Things start to go down hill for her when the spa window is attacked not once but twice. She is on the verge of being fired when she finds out the attacks are by a fae consultant who is not being paid by the spa chain owner. Although surprised that fae do exist and live in SF, she ends up convincing the fae to help her and her best friends at the spa and elsewhere re-envision it as a co-op business where the workers were owners. A great story. According to Annalee Newitz, these are the same characters as in “The Monogamy Hormone” in Entanglements…. Reprinted in Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2021 Edition, no editor credited, 2022 Tor.com. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“An Important Failure“, Clarkesworld, August 2020. A great story about a climate change refugee and luthier on Vancouver Island, and the violin he makes, which will take decades if not centuries to mature and reach its peak sound. Great characters, great setting. Great on reread. The end brought tears of sadness and hope to my eyes. I read this in the Hugo Award Best Editor Short Form packet for Neil Clarke in 2021. This was the first story by Rebecca Campbell I read, and it definitely encouraged me to read more. Sturgeon Award winner. Reprints include The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Volume 2, Jonathan Strahan editor, 2021 Saga Press, The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 6, Neil Clarke editor, 2022 Night Shade Books, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2021 Edition, Rich Horton editor, 2022 Prime Books. Rated 4/5, or “Great”.

“Año Nuevo“, a novelette by Ray Nayler, Asimov’s May-June, 2021. I read this story because I have enjoyed other Ray Nayler stories, and Año Nuevo is one of my favorite places on the coast, with sea lions, clams and great family memories. The story does start at Año Nuevo, but with the critical twist of aliens on the beach. One day, the aliens disappear. It turns out the aliens are another phase of life, but from Earth. Everyone is infected/combined with the aliens, connected. Life will be different. I love this story. Reprints include The Year’s Top Hard Science Fiction Stories 6, Allan Kaster editor, 2022 Infinivox, XB-1 9/2022 (in Czech), and Forever, March 2023. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.

“Woman of the River“, a short story by Genevieve Williams, Asimov’s January-February 2023. A great story of the continued restoration of a river valley in the Northwest. I loved the sense of place Genevieve Williams brings to the place; this is a sometimes unnoticed aspect of a great story. My only minor complaint is the need for a better and slightly more obvious transition of times from the protagonist to her daughter at the end. This is the second great story I’ve read by Genevieve Williams; I’ll keep an eye out for her. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.

Automatic Noodle, a novella by by Annalee Newitz, 2025 Tor.com. Great story of post Rebellion and HEEI robots in San Francisco after a civil war involving California, wanting to make a life, and food and biang-biang noodles. Nebula Award nomination and Hugo Award finalist, with votes coming up on both in 2026. Rated 4/5, or “Great”.

The Short: Most of us don’t typically think about finding novels included in speculative fiction anthologies. After reading about two of them in 2025, I decided to write about them. I found nine speculative fiction anthologies that included novels, and I assume there are more. I look forward to hearing about other examples.

The Long: Reading the Damon Knight anthology A Century of Great Short Science Fiction Novels, 1964 Delacorte Press, last year (see my review, strongly recommended), I realized it included two novels, the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson and The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells. The Absolute at Large by Karel Čapek was a novel when published, but the version abridged by Damon Knight here is a novella.

These were actual novels, at 40,000 words or more, and not short novels or novellas at under 40,000 words. The 40,000 word definition started to be adopted for novel definition for speculative fiction/science fiction awards such as the Hugo Awards in the 1950s, with the same length coming into use for the Nebula Awards in the 1960s, the Locus and World Fantasy Awards in the 1970s, and the Bram Stoker Awards in the 1980s. Before this, and even in the 1950s, there was a lot of vague and overlapping use of terms like novel, short novel, novelette, and such. A lot of works of fiction, especially works published as books, were called “novels” regardless of actual word count before these definitions came into play.

This was my second anthology read last year that included novels, with the other the two volume A Treasury of Great Science Fiction, Anthony Boucher editor, 1959 Doubleday (see my review, strongly recommended with a few caveats), which included Rebirth (AKA The Chysalids) by John Wyndham, The Weapons Shops of Isher by A. E. van Vogt, Brain Wave by Poul Anderson, and The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (2 each volume).

This got me to thinking about other anthologies I have read that included novels. These were:

1. The Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Garyn G. Roberts editor, 2000 Prentice-Hall, which includes novel A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
2. Again, Dangerous Visions, Harlan Ellison editor, 1972 Doubleday, which includes The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin, an original novel (My thanks to Stevie Book for the reminder).

I asked the members of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy – Short Fiction Facebook group for their suggestions of anthologies that included novels. I also searched at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) for anthologies in English that included the word “novel” in the title. This took some winnowing, as there was no guarantee that the results actually included a novel. I came up with these additional anthologies:

1. The Portable Novels of Science, Donald A. Wollheim editor, 1945 The Viking Press, which includes novels The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells, Before the Dawn by John Taine, and Odd John by Olaf Stapledon.
2. Stories That Scared Even Me, Alfred Hitchcock “editor” (see below), 1967 Random House,  which includes novel The Kraken Wakes (AKA Out of the Deeps) by John Wyndham (a Frank Babics suggestion).
3. Mars, We Love You: Tales of Mars, Men, and Martians, Jane Hipolito & Willis E. McNelly editors, 1971 Doubleday, which includes novel The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells.
4. A Science Fiction Argosy, Damon Knight editor, 1972 Simon & Schuster, which includes two novels, The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, and More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon.
5. Great Short Novels of Adult Fantasy: Volume II, Lin Carter editor, 1973 Ballantine Books, which includes novel The Lavender Dragon by Eden Phillpotts (I have not confirmed novel length on this one).

I see that novels by H. G. Wells have been anthologized three times, with The Invisible Man, The First Men in the Moon, and The War of the Worlds. Both of Alfred Bester’s classic novels have been anthologized, The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination. John Wyndham also has two anthologized novels with The Kraken Wakes (AKA Out of the Deeps) and Rebirth (AKA The Chysalids).

Almost all of the novels reprinted in anthologies have been fairly major works by well known authors, including some by authors well known outside genre such as H. G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. This makes sense to me, as an editor and publisher would want the novels to be a reason for people to buy the anthology.

The nine works listed above are anthologies which include both short fiction and novels for each. I suspect there are more, given the limits of how I searched on ISFDB. I hope I get more suggestions from readers.

A few editors and publishers clearly thought it was a good idea. As a reader, I have enjoyed reading the novels in these anthologies. ISFDB lists over 22,000 anthologies in English. This means that anthologies that include novels comes out to about 0.04% of the total. It’s not often seen as desirable by the editor and publisher.

Aside from the The Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Garyn G. Roberts editor, 2000 Prentice-Hall, I did not find any anthologies that included novels after 1973. This leads me to think that perhaps the idea of including a novel in an anthology is one whose time has passed in the publishing world.

Although not the same thing, Gary K. Wolfe has quite a series of omnibus volumes from The Library of America which include only novels. Chris Nobel suggested these. They are:

1. American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, 2012, which includes novels The Space Merchants by C. M. Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl, More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon, The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett, The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson, Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein, The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, A Case of Conscience by James Blish, Who? by Algis Budrys, and The Big Time by Fritz Leiber.
2. American Science Fiction: Eight Classic Novels of the 1960s, 2019, which includes novels The High Crusade by Poul Anderson, Way Station by Clifford D. Simak, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, … And Call Me Conrad by Roger Zelazny (AKA This Immortal), Past Master by R. A. Lafferty, Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ, Nova by Samuel R. Delany, and Emphyrio by Jack Vance.

I have a lot of respect for Gary K. Wolfe. With his endorsement here, there are several novels from that era that I need to read.

There are also many omnibus collections of works by a single author which may include novels and short fiction. I am not writing about those either.

It’s worth noting that 40,000 words for a novel is technically correct today for the major speculative fiction awards (Hugo, Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, Bram Stoker). At the same time, most in the publishing industry view and perhaps some authors view 40,000 words as a “short” novel, under the expected or desired length. It’s not uncommon for novels today to be 100,000 words or longer, and you can bet that editors are not going to be in a hurry to include those in an anthology if they were doing that today.

Excerpts

Of course, editors most often include excerpts of novels when they want to include a novel in an anthology. When I checked ISFDB, I found over 9,200 excerpts when searching by titles in English. I have not found a reliable means of establishing the first time this occurred.

This is especially common when an editor is trying to cover a career or a specific thematic spot, such as 20th century SF.

The first examples I found in speculative fiction were in A Century of Science Fiction, Damon Knight editor, 1962 Simon & Schuster, with excerpts of Odd John by Olaf Stapledon, 1935 Methuen, The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, 1895 William Heinemann/Henry Holt (really a novella),  Worlds of the Imperium, Keith Laumer’s first novel, serialized in Fantastic Stories of Imagination, February to April 1961, and published as a novel in Worlds of the Imperium/Seven from the Stars, 1962 Ace Double, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne, reprinting a portion of what was excerpted in Jules Verne, Master of Science Fiction, 1956 Sidgewick & Jackson, with original publication as Vingt mille lieues sous les mers: Première partie, 1869, and Vingt mille lieues sous les mers: Seconde partie, 1870, both J. Hetzel (Bibliothèque d’éducation et de récréation).

I can see why an editor would do this, as it can allow including a well known and perhaps important author and work but at a modest length. From my perspective, including excerpts tends to fall on a spectrum from essential to maddening.

My favorite excerpt so far is from Odd John excerpt by Olaf Stapledon, 1935 Methuen, in A Century of Science Fiction. Knight included four pages from Chapter XIII “John Seeks His Kind”, and it was were amazing. It communicated well to me why this was an important book and why I need to reread it. In this context, Knight’s inclusion of the Odd John excerpt really worked.

On the other hand, I have read so many excerpts I disliked and that really did not adequately convey to me why I was reading it that I hate to list them.

Including excerpts instead of a full novel has been and remains the most common editing/publishing practice, for obvious practical and cost reasons. I cannot say how many anthologies include excerpts, but I am sure it is orders of magnitude more common than anthologies that include novels.

Other Thoughts on These Anthologies

The Portable Novels of Science, Donald A. Wollheim editor, 1945 The Viking Press, includes novels The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells, Before the Dawn by John Taine, and Odd John by Olaf Stapledon. Short fiction included is “The Shadow Out of Time“, a Cthulhu Mythos novella by H. P. Lovecraft. Wollheim used “novels” here to include novels and novellas. I could be wrong, but I believe this was before the 40,000 word definition for “novel” came into play.

A Treasury of Great Science Fiction, Volumes One and Two, Anthony Boucher editor, 1959 Doubleday, includes Rebirth (AKA The Chysalids) by John Wyndham, The Weapons Shops of Isher by A. E. van Vogt, Brain Wave by Poul Anderson, and The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. Boucher placed a novel at the start and finish of each volume. The short fiction between the novels was 20 novelettes and short stories.

A Century of Great Short Science Fiction Novels, Damon Knight editor, 1964 Delacorte Press, starts with two novels, the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson and The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells. These were followed by The Absolute at Large by Karel Čapek, which was was a novel when published but is a novella as abridged by Knight here. Knight wraps up the anthology with novella “Gulf” by Robert A. Heinlein and two novelettes, “E for Effort” by T. L. Sherred and “Hunter, Come Home by Richard McKenna. In this context, Knight used “short novels” for everything from novelette length (>7,500 words) to novels (>40,000 words).

Stories That Scared Even Me, Alfred Hitchcock “editor” (Robert Arthur ghost editor, per ISFDB), 1967 Random House,  which includes novel The Kraken Wakes (AKA Out of the Deeps) by John Wyndham. The anthology also includes 19 short stories and five novelettes, with The Kraken Wakes placed third from the end.

Mars, We Love You: Tales of Mars, Men, and Martians, Jane Hipolito & Willis E. McNelly editors, 1971 Doubleday, which includes novel The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. The War of the Worlds is the first fiction in the table of contents, along with nine short stories, five novelettes, and five essays.

A Science Fiction Argosy, Damon Knight editor, March 1972 Simon & Schuster, includes two novels, The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, and More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon. Knight placed The Demolished Man near the middle, with More Than Human at the end. There are also 14 short stories, nine novelettes and one novella. I need to reread this; I believe I read this from my town library in high school.

Again, Dangerous Visions, Harlan Ellison editor, March 1972 Doubleday, which includes The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin, an original novel. This is the only anthologized novel I found that was not a reprint. Ellison placed The Word for World Is Forest third. There are also 38 short stories, five novelettes and one novella.

Great Short Novels of Adult Fantasy: Volume II, Lin Carter editor, 1973 Ballantine Books, which includes novel The Lavender Dragon by Eden Phillpotts (I have not confirmed novel length on this) at the end. There are also essays by Lin Carter, two novelettes, and one novella.

The Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Garyn G. Roberts editor, 2000 Prentice-Hall, includes novel A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This anthology was designed for use as a textbook. It’s organized in thematic sections, with A Princess of Mars included in Section Three: Science Fiction. The material is mostly short fiction including short stories, novelettes, and novellas, but includes essays by editor Roberts and others. The fiction in each section is ordered chronologically.

The Short: I just read Tales from the Territory, a Travis Baldree collection, Fall 2026 Subterranean Press. It includes five works of cozy fantasy short fiction. Information online suggests there will be an e-book, audiobook, and hardcover edition, with 224 pages for the hardcover. Three of the stories are original to this collection. My favorites are two great stories, “Goblins and Greatcoats“, a short story, 2025 Subterranean chapbook, and “Just A Thimbleful”, short fiction, original to this collection. My overall, average rating is 3.74/5, or “Very good”. Recommended.

The Long: I believe I first read Travis Baldree when his first novel Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes, 2022 Cryptid Press/Tor was a Hugo Award finalist and part of the Travis Baldree Astounding Award package. Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes ended up a Hugo Award runner-up, which is how I voted as well. It was also a Nebula Award nomination and Locus Award finalist. I rated it as “Very good”. My brief comments to myself were “Charming story of Viv, an orc who retires to start a coffee shop in a city where coffee is unknown.”

The next work by Travis Baldree I read was novel Bookshops & Bonedust, 2023. I rated it “Very good”, noting “A very good prequel to Legends & Lattes, when Viv is just starting out. After injury, Viv convalesces in Murk, and has adventures.”

The first short fiction I read by Baldree was “Goblins and Greatcoats“, a short story published in chapbook, 2025 Subterranean, as part of the Jonathan Strahan Best Editor Short Form package. I thought it was a great story of Zyll, a mysterious but enterprising goblin in a greatcoat who visits an inn where a death has just occurred and the loot is missing.

Baldree also has novel Brigands & Breadknives, 2025 Tor, which I have not read yet.

I was quite pleased when Subterranean Press approved my access to an advance reader copy (ARC) for Tales from the Territory, a Travis Baldree collection, scheduled for Fall 2026 release by Subterranean Press. It includes five works of cozy fantasy short fiction. Information online suggests there appears will be an e-book, audiobook, and hardcover edition, with 224 pages for the hardcover. Three of the stories are original to this collection. There appear to be different covers for the Subterranean hardback and the Tor e-book. I am not sure who the artists are for either.

I did not see an introduction or other essay material by Baldree about the collection. While I love those, this did not impair my enjoyment of it.

I believe all of these stories are part of the same series or universe by Baldree, labeled Legends & Lattes at ISFDB. The cover of the Subterranean edition notes “Stories from the World of Legends & Lattes”, so I think it’s safe to assume that is true.

My favorites are two great stories, both rated 3.8/5:

1. “Goblins and Greatcoats“, a short story, 2025 Subterranean chapbook.
2. “Just A Thimbleful”, short fiction featuring Thimble the baker, original to this collection.

I rated three other stories 3.7/5, or “Very good”:

1. “Pages to Fill”, short fiction which was published in the novel Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes, 2022 Cryptid Press/Tor.
2. “Mirograph”, short fiction original to this collection.
3. “Cavaliers & Coffees”, short fiction original to this collection.

I reread the two stories I had read before, enjoying them a lot.

My overall, average rating for these stories was 3.74, 5, or “Very good.” Tales from the Territory, Fall 2026 Subterranean Press, is a very good Travis Baldree collection of cozy fantasy which I enjoyed. Recommended.

DETAILED REVIEWS/COMMENTS – DEFINITELY SOME SPOILERS HERE

“Goblins and Greatcoats“, a short story, 2025 Subterranean chapbook. First read in the Jonathan Strahan 2025 Hugo Award Best Editor Short Form packet in June 2025. Maybe not high concept but a fun story that leaves a lot of things open, of a mysterious goblin Zyll, who encounters a murder and missing loot, and sorts it out. Zyll also impersonates a gate warden, helped by their greatcloak. It’s just as great on reread. Other reprint in the French omnibus Légendes & Lattes : Édition exclusive, 2025 Ynnis Éditions. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Just A Thimbleful”, short fiction original to this collection. A great, charming story of unappreciated ratkin baker Thimble, and his ultimate move to Legends & Lattes. His old employers were unyielding and apparently unappreciative of his genius. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Pages to Fill”, short fiction first published in the novel Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes, 2022 Cryptid Press/Tor, 2022 Cryptid Press. We meet Viv, an orc in a crew who do bounty hunting among other things, who is looking to make a change. She has a notebook, and writes things down, which is unusual in some ways. After giving a target a break, she discovers coffee. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“Mirograph”, short fiction original to this collection. Artistic succubus Tandri at Ackers University finds a mentor and a friend at the interface of magic and art. At the end, Professor Alameda dies, and Tandri wrecks the mirograph as she dreads how it has captured the dead professor. This appears to occur before what happens in Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“Cavaliers & Coffees”, short fiction original to this collection. Viv and Tandri and Thimble run into trouble when an unscrupulous competitor opens a very lookalike coffee shop nearby with lower, cut-rate prices and crappier quality. A hopeful outcome occurs after a celebration of Legends & Lattes and when it is discovered that this rival has done this in a number of cities, stiffing the hired staff every time before skipping town. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

The short: I read the new Michael Swanwick collection, The Universe Box, February 2026 Tachyon Publications. It includes an Introduction by Swanwick and 19 works of short fiction from 2012 to 2026. There are e-book, trade paperback, and audiobook editions. My favorites are the superlative “Grandmother Dimetrodon“, a novelette original to this collection, and “Timothy: An Oral History“, a short story, Clarkesworld October 2023. It’s a mix of science fiction and fantasy and such. My overall average rating is a strong 3.83/5, or “Great”. Strongly recommended.

The Long: I have been reading Michael Swanwick for quite a while. While not a really early fan, my records suggest I have been reading his fiction since at least 1981. I speculated on this extensively in early 2024 in my essay “The Best of Michael Swanwick, 2008 Subterranean Press” (which I recommend).

While not quite an automatic read for me, I prize Michael Swanwick’s fiction heavily, and tend to read most of it sooner or later. I have been hearing about Swanwick’s collection The Universe Box, 2026 Tachyon Publications, for a while. First in a post by Rich Horton on Facebook in October 2025, followed by a review by Gary K. Wolfe in Locus in January 2026 and then in a review by my friend Austin Beeman on February 1, 2016. I am not sure I read any of these in detail, other than to note them.

Luckily, I was able to obtain The Universe Box, 2026 Tachyon Publications, from my regional library consortium. It includes an Introduction by Swanwick and 19 works of short fiction from 2012 to 2026. There are e-book, trade paperback (noted at 295 pages), and audiobook editions. I like the cover.

I quite liked Swanwick’s essay, “Introduction: The House of Skulls and Masks“. It’s a great, well-wrought, personal introduction that covers his general thoughts along with some story specific comments. For instance, he writes this about short story “The Last Days of Old Night” :

Some stories are enormous fun to write. “The Last Days of Old Night” was one of them. It came about because I went to Iceland for Icecon, that country’s only science fiction convention, and stayed afterward to see Snorri Sturluson’s homestead, Thingvellir, Geysir, and a great deal more. Near the southernmost village of Vik lies the black sand beach of Reynisfjara, by which three sea stacks rise from the ocean. There is a legend that two of them were trolls and the third a boat they were pulling to shore when the sun rose and turned them all to stone.

So far, so good. But there the legend stopped. It felt incomplete. So I set out to accomplish a more satisfying tale of who those trolls were, what they were like, and what they hoped to accomplish….

I love what Swanwick says, not least because I have been to that black sand beach. I had forgotten about the troll thing, loving how beautiful it was and wondering if any idiot tourists would get swept away by the rather dangerous waves.

Fifteen of the stories are short stories and three are novelettes. “Dragon Slayer” is noted as “short fiction” and appears to be at the short story/novelette interface in terms of length. Although I had read four of them before, I was very pleased to find fifteen I had not.

My favorites were two stories superlative stories both rated 4.1/5, “Grandmother Dimetrodon“, a novelette original to this collection, and “Timothy: An Oral History“, a short story, Clarkesworld October 2023.

There were twelve “Great” stories:

1. “Universe Box“, a novelette, 2016 Dragonstairs Press chapbook, rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.
2. “Artificial People“, a short story, Clarkesworld July 2020, rated 3.9/5.
3. “The Last Days of Old Night”, a short story, Clarkesworld December 2020, rated 3.9/5.
4. “Dreadnought“, a short story, F&SF July-August 2021, rated 3.9/5.
5. “Starlight Express“, a short story, F&SF September-October 2017, rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.
6. “Annie Without Crow“, a short story, April 2021 Tor.com, rated 3.8/5.
7. “The White Leopard“, a short story, from New Worlds, Peter Crowther & Nick Gevers editors, January 2022 PS Publishing, rated 3.8/5.
8. “Nirvana or Bust“, a short story, Analog March-April 2022, rated 3.8/5.
9. “Reservoir Ice“, a short story, Asimov’s July-August 2022, rated 3.8/5.
10. “The Warm Equations“, a short story, The Sunday Morning Transport August 7, 2022, rated 3.8/5.
11. “The Star-Bear“, a short story, June 2023 Tor dot com, rated 3.8/5.
12. “Requiem for a White Rabbit“, a novelette, original to this collection, rated 3.8/5.

This left five stories that were “Very good”:

1. “The Year of the Three Monarchs“, a short story, from The Sword & Sorcery Anthology, David G. Hartwell & Jacob Weisman editors, 2012 Tachyon Publications, rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.
2. “Ghost Ships“, a short story, F&SF September/October 2019, rated 3.7/5.
3. “Cloud“, a short story, Asimov’s November-December 2019, rated 3.7/5.
4. “Dragon Slayer“, short fiction, from The Book of Dragons, Jonathan Strahan editor, June 2020 Harper Voyager, rated 3.7/5.
5. “Huginn and Muninn—and What Came After“, a short story, Asimov’s July-August 2021, rated 3.7/5.

Although I have favorites, I recommend all of the stories here. My overall average rating is a strong 3.83/5, or “Great”. I loved the Introduction as well. Strongly recommended.

DETAILED REVIEWS/COMMENTS – DEFINITELY COULD BE SPOILERS

Not listed at ISFDB, but “Introduction: The House of Skulls and Masks”, an essay by Swanwick, is wonderful. It’s a great, well-wrought, personal introduction that covers his general thoughts along with some story specific comments as quoted above.

“Starlight Express“, a short story, F&SF September-October 2017. It’s the cover story for this issue. A man on an Earth, although it is ambiguous if it is our Earth or another, falls in love with an impossible arrival from the stars. Great plot and characters. Locus Award nomination. Other reprints include The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois editor, 2018 St. Martin’s Griffin, The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2018, Rich Horton editor, 2018 Prime Books, Forever March 2022, and The Best of Michael Swanwick: Volume Two, 2023 Subterranean Press. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“The Last Days of Old Night”, a short story, Clarkesworld December 2020. A great story of three giants and the mouse-woman Mischling, and the origin of three sea stacks near Vik on Iceland, and it’s epistolary. Other reprints include The Best of Michael Swanwick: Volume Two, 2023 Subterranean Press, and the Swanwick Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2025 MotionAudiobooks. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.

“The Year of the Three Monarchs“, a short story, from The Sword & Sorcery Anthology, David G. Hartwell & Jacob Weisman editors, 2012 Tachyon Publications. An amusing story of the three Kings of the Floating City of Ilyssia. Two of them do not last long. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“Ghost Ships“, a short story, F&SF September/October 2019. The story of a reunion for college friends from long ago, featuring a memorial to a dead friend Rabbit, and the story of a possible ghost ship sighting heard third hand. Other reprint in The Best of Michael Swanwick: Volume Two, 2023 Subterranean Press. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“The White Leopard“, a short story, from New Worlds, Peter Crowther & Nick Gevers editors, January 2022 PS Publishing. Doris and Ray are a couple who have lived together for a long time and appear to hate each other. Ray also feels his life has been a failure after the thrill of serving as a drone operator in Operation Bolivian Freedom as a young man. He buys a demolished drone of the model he used. After refurbishing it, he uses it to recapture his youth. He has an odd affair with a female drone operator his age. Finally, the two drone operators agree to kill his wife using the drones. Unfortunately for him, his wife was a tech specialist, and she hacks and takes over both drones. The last sentence of the story reads, as he sees his wife and knows he is about to die, “There was the strong, willful woman he had fallen in love with all those years ago.” Other reprint in The Year’s Best Science Fiction on Earth, Allan Kaster editor, 2023 Infinivox. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Dragon Slayer“, short fiction, from The Book of Dragons, Jonathan Strahan editor, June 2020 Harper Voyager. A youngster, Nahal, is saved from bandits by Olav, who himself is sometimes both a sell sword and a guard, and also a thief. Olav starts to teach Nahal weapons. Time goes on. We find out that Nahal is Nahala. Olav’s supposedly dead witch-wife returns as a dragon. Olav is forced to work for a wizard, whose main power is limited time travel via an amulet. When they all go to challenge the witch dragon, the wizard dies and Olav is rendered unconscious. Nahala is rescued by her future self, who slays the witch dragon. Nahala lets Olav think Olav killed the dragon, and decides to marry and have children with Olav. Great characters. I first read this in The Book of Dragons several years ago; on reread, it’s still a very enjoyable story. Other reprints include The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2021 Edition, Rich Horton editor, 2022 Prime Books, and The Best of Michael Swanwick: Volume Two, 2023 Subterranean Press. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“The Warm Equations“, a short story, The Sunday Morning Transport August 7, 2022. A great story of a brilliant scientist who does not view science as a team endeavor, with some reason. He almost dies on Mercury, but the co-workers he blew off save his life and he learns something. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Requiem for a White Rabbit“, a novelette, original to this collection. Three robots break out of a theme park, including the White Rabbit. They pick up a human hitchhiker, Grease. Time goes on, and they discover they are therapy sims, set to help Grease, who has had a horrible life with horrible parents. The four of them decide to escape together into the sim. While I am not totally convinced by the science here, I love the characters and the setting. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Dreadnought“, a short story, F&SF July-August 2021. A great, horrifying story about a homeless alcoholic with no aim in life, a Reverend who could have been one of the thirty-six righteous men or women in the world, and the end of the world. My mental image of the Dreadnought breaking the surface is astounding. Wow. I love the cover art for the story. Other reprint in The Best of Michael Swanwick: Volume Two, 2023 Subterranean Press. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.

“Grandmother Dimetrodon“, a novelette original to this collection. A brutal, superlative story of a man who flees to the far past after killing his wife. He is manipulated and goaded by an agent and human seeming but not woman, to have sex with her and then kill her. Although brutality is something that he, the far future perhaps descendants of humans, and the dimetrodons all share, he decides to accept his fate with the future police who come to find him. I will nominate this for the Hugo Award. Rated 4.1/5, or “Superlative”.

“The Star-Bear“, a short story, June 2023 Tor dot com. A charming story of a Russian expatriate from the USSR, living in Paris. A Soviet bear approaches this poet and becomes part of his life, trying to convince him to return home. He thinks about it, but in the end decides there may be a poem about all of this. I love the imagined self-referential nature of this story for Swanwick, which I read about somewhere. Upgraded to “Great” on reread. Other reprint in Tor.com Summer 2023 Short Fiction, no editor credited, 2023 Tor.com (where I read it first). Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Nirvana or Bust“, a short story, Analog March-April 2022. I never thought I’d see Michael Swanwick in Analog. Checking, this is the second one, after “‘Hello,’ Said the Stick“, Analog March 2002. A great story of the intraface of human and AI, starting at the Grand Canyon. An assassin approaches, unknown but dangerous. After death, the future of human and AI awaits. Other reprints include The Best of Michael Swanwick: Volume Two, 2023 Subterranean Press, The Year’s Top Robot and AI Stories: Fourth Annual Collection, Allan Kaster editor, 2023 Infinivox, and the Swanwick Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2025 MotionAudiobooks. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Reservoir Ice“, a short story, Asimov’s July-August 2022. A mathematical physicist develops equations that allow time travel, and uses it repeatedly to “fix” his relationship with his first wife. This process spreads to use by everyone to fix things in their lives, who all want the world to be better, often for themselves. Chaos ensues. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Artificial People“, a short story, Clarkesworld July 2020. A great story of Raphael, an artificial person turned on and off regularly by Dr. Leonidas, who created him. Raphael becomes a better person than Dr. Leonidas. Other reprint in the Swanwick Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2025 MotionAudiobooks. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.

“Huginn and Muninn—and What Came After“, a short story, Asimov’s July-August 2021. A woman who is unsatisfied with her life goes through a mirror and does not like that either. Going through the mirror transitions one back and forth in gender. It’s an interesting journey for her. Locus Award nomination. Other reprints in The Best of Michael Swanwick: Volume Two, 2023 Subterranean Press, and in the Swanwick Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2025 MotionAudiobooks. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“Cloud“, a short story, Asimov’s November-December 2019. A very interesting story, with a lot of unresolved elements hinted at. A world with a Cloud that occupies or replaces part of the topography, focused on NYC. A man on the way up, with an equally an accomplished fiancé, visits a party hosted by her scandalous, rich aunt. The aunt’s manor sits on top of the cloud. A rich and unpopular uncle disappears over the balcony, into the Cloud. As they drive away from the party, the Cloud may be disappearing. I’d like to like this story more, but it felt like too many unrelated threads at this length. On reread, I liked this story more than the first time, although I am still not upgrading it to “Great”. I especially like the Cloud setting. Other reprints include The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2020, Rich Horton editor, 2020 Prime Books (where I first read it, recommended), The Best of Michael Swanwick: Volume Two, 2023 Subterranean Press, and in the Swanwick Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2025 MotionAudiobooks. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“Timothy: An Oral History“, a short story, Clarkesworld October 2023. A superlative epistolary story of Timothy, the first male in a long time. I love all the different characters and viewpoints. This did make me think of “When It Changed” by Joanna Russ. Rated 4.1/5, or “Superlative”.

“Annie Without Crow“, a short story, April 2021 Tor.com. An outstanding tale of godly conflict, and William Shakespeare, and time travel. I just love this on reread, great characters and surprising and yet perhaps inevitable outcome. And Queen Elizabeth and why she never married. Other reprint in The Best of Michael Swanwick: Volume Two, 2023 Subterranean Press. First read in the 2023 Hugo Award Best Editor Short Form packet for Jonathan Strahan. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

Universe Box, a novelette, 2016 Dragonstairs Press chapbook, a very limited edition. A great heist story, with wheels within wheels and fun characters, with a young couple and a giraffe wrangler, and the universe within a cigar box. In the introduction, Swanwick notes this about his wife Marianne Porter and the art for the 2016 chapbook:

After seeing an exhibit of Joseph Cornell’s assemblages, she decided to make something similar. She modified thirteen cigar boxes with star charts and Charles R. Knight illustrations of megafauna lining the insides.

I am not sure if the illustration found at ISFDB is from the outside or the inside of the box, or what, but it does appear to be from the limited edition 2016 chapbook. I like it. I also like the art for the Italian edition. Other reprints include Asimov’s September-October 2017, the Italian edition Universo in scatola, 2018 Delos Digital, The Best of Michael Swanwick: Volume Two, 2023 Subterranean Press, and the Swanwick Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2025 MotionAudiobooks. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.

The Short: I sloppily read Book 2 of K. J. Parker’s Loyal Opposition Trilogy, Sister Svangerd and the Devil You Know, May 12, 2026 Orbit, out of order. I loved it anyway, although it probably took me a bit longer to figure out what was going on. The Amazon description calls it a “devilishly clever tale of murder, intrigue, and existential crisis”, which seems pretty on target. The world depicted had the Fall of an Empire, which had similarities to after the fall of Rome. I love the characters and where it goes, and I will both need to read Book One, Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead, January 2026 Orbit, and the future Book Three (expected in September 2026). Recommended.

The Long: I have not read very much fiction by Tom Holt, or by his pen name K. J. Parker.

I read his novel Flying Dutch, 1991 Orbit, quite a while ago and had a somewhat moderate response, with “good lightweight fantasy” and rated “Very good”. I think that is the only novel under that name of his I have read.

I read Book One of his Engineer Trilogy as by K. J. Parker, Devices and Desires, 2005 Orbit, in 2008. I thought it was great, noting “Loved it – outstanding story of a engineer working to get revenge”. While I have never felt the need to get revenge, as an engineer it did resonate for me. I remember thinking I should read more of the series, but I never did.

I read his novella as by K. J. Parker Prosper’s Demon, 2020 Tor.com, and thought it was great. Looking at my short fiction tracking spreadsheet, I have read about five short fiction works by K. J. Parker since 2021, including two great novelettes at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, “Playing God“, #366 October 2022, and “Nine Tenths of the Law“, #417 October 2024.

I was certainly open to his fiction, probably more to that as by K. J. Parker, but I have not paid much attention to either. At some point in time I became aware that K. J. Parker was a pen name for Tom Holt. I found that interesting, but it did not motivate me to read more fiction as by tom Holt.

A few weeks ago, I noticed on Netgalley that K. J. Parker had a new novel coming out soon, Sister Svangerd and the Devil You Know, May 12, 2026 Orbit. I might have seen a review at Locus also. While I had plenty of short fiction in my queue, I like having novels in there also. I find that reading novels takes less energy and less concentration than reading short fiction for me, so it’s nice for me to have both at hand. Netgalley and Orbit were nice enough to give me an advance reader copy (ARC).

It’s a midsized novel, with the page count at 352 pages for the UK edition and 336 for the US edition. I see e-book, paperback, and audio book editions at Amazon. I like the cover.

My reading experience might have been a little more straightforward if I had started with Book One of the Loyal Opposition Trilogy, Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead, January 2026 Orbit. Still, I am used to figuring things out and Parker did sprinkle in bits and pieces as the story went along and I was able to put together what was happening adequately. This did not prove to be a detriment to my enjoyment of it.

The protagonists are Brother Desiderius and Sister Svangerd of a religious order with somewhat opaque to me goals. They are sent on a quest to illegally copy a one of a kind book with no good reason given. They are quite a pair. He is a scribe, copyist, and forger of the first order who is smart and capable of lying coherently. She is a modest sized but very, very, very dangerous woman who joined the order after being a sex worker. Brother Desiderius is the point of view character and an atheist despite being a brother.

Lots of things happen, and he at least has parts of his world view challenged. The story takes place in a world and a region after the Fall of an Empire; the setting reminds me of after the fall of Rome in some ways. It’s definitely a fantasy, although there are horrific elements. There is quite a bit of violence, with most of it alluded to but not explicitly described.

The Amazon site describes the book as a “devilishly clever tale of murder, intrigue, and existential crisis”. I think that is fair.

I loved reading Sister Svangerd and the Devil You Know, a novel by K. J. Parker, May 12, 2026 Orbit. It’s a great Loyal Opposition Trilogy fantasy that kept me riveted. I will certainly be reading more of his fiction. Along with the rest of the Loyal Opposition Trilogy, I might also go back and finish the Engineer Trilogy.

With all three novels expected out in 2026, I find myself wondering if the Loyal Opposition Trilogy will be eligible for the Hugo Best Series Award. It appears the major question is whether the three novels add up to 240,000 words or not, which is the minimum.

The Short: I read The Moonlight Traveler: Great Tales of Fantasy and Imagination, Philip Van Doren Stern editor, 1943 Doubleday, Doran. It includes 21 stories from 1839 to 1940, and an introduction that went on way too long for me. My favorites were “Lord Mountdrago“, a novelette by W. Somerset Maugham, Hearst’s International Cosmopolitan February 1939, and “The Curfew Tolls“, a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét, The Saturday Evening Post, October 5, 1935. On the down side, there were four stories I could not finish. My overall average rating for the stories was a rather ordinary 3.08/5, or “Good”.

The Long: I have an interest in early science fiction and speculative fiction, including early anthologies.

In my essay “’The Other Worlds’, Phil Stong editor, 1941 Wilfred Funk: The First Speculative Fiction Anthology“, I noted Evelyn Leeper’s Boskone 32 Report in 1995, which mentioned “THE MOONLIGHT TRAVELER” as an early anthology. I had never heard of it.

In my subsequent essay “Damon Knight’s Survey of SF #3, ‘One Hundred Years of Science Fiction’, 1968 Simon & Schuster“, I summarized the reprint history of “The Man Who Could Work Miracles: A Pantoum in Prose“, a short story by H. G. Wells. One of those reprints was in The Moonlight Traveler: Great Tales of Fantasy and Imagination, Philip Van Doren Stern editor, 1943 Doubleday, Doran. I decided I needed to read it, although I had never heard of it or of editor Philip Van Doren Stern.

It’s available at the Internet Archive. However, I love paper books, and I was happy to get it from Interlibrary Loan. Due to a change at my local library, this is my last request from Interlibrary Loan from them. Too bad; I have options, but not as convenient.

The Moonlight Traveler: Great Tales of Fantasy and Imagination, Philip Van Doren Stern editor, 1943 Doubleday, Doran, includes 21 stories from 1839 to 1940, and an introduction by Stern that went on way too long for me.

The art on the dust jacket (repeated on the title page) is fun, although I could not find out who the artist is.

I love Introductions for anthologies, to get an idea what the editor is thinking about. Stern writes well, but for me this 12 page Introduction could have been one page. The four  paragraphs shown below would have been sufficient:

The fiction is fantasy and horror, although “Our Distant Cousins“, a Jorkens novelette by Lord Dunsany, Saturday Evening Post 23 November 1929, and “The Curfew Tolls“, a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét, The Saturday Evening Post October 5, 1935, are at least science fiction adjacent. This does not surprise me given the title. It’s mostly short stories and novelettes, with one novella. Reading the Introduction and looking at other information, I don’t see that Philip Van Doren Stern had any real interest in science fiction.

There are a number of pretty big name authors here, such as H. G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, W. Somerset Maugham, Lord Dunsany, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen Vincent Benét, O. Henry, Rudyard Kipling, and Saki. I know some more for genre than others, such as H. G. Wells for his science fiction especially. None of the fiction reprinted here is from genre publications.

I don’t know much about editor Philip Van Doren Stern, beyond what I found at Wikipedia. He is known as an author, editor, and respected Civil War historian, and is best known as the author of short story “The Greatest Gift”, 1944 chapbook and other publications, which became the basis for the film It’s a Wonderful Life. Granted that I really do not like It’s a Wonderful Life, but “The Gift” is definitely genre.

Looking at his career overall, he did edit several anthologies that were definitely genre although they appear to be from a mainstream, literary perspective. His first anthology listed at ISFDB is The Midnight Reader: Great Stories of Haunting and Horror,1942 Henry Holt & Co. Unlike the 1943 The Moonlight Traveler…, this one did get genre reviews at the time.

I did not find any evidence that genre or fandom took immediate notice of The Moonlight Traveler: Great Tales of Fantasy and Imagination when it came out in 1943, but World War 2 was raging and many fans, authors, and editors were pretty busy with that. There were newspaper reviews in 1943, but I did not find anything on it at Fanac until 1947. A Garden City Publishing Company book club edition came out in 1945, and perhaps that wider availability help trigger the fan interest. See below for more on reviews and mentions of it and Stern in fanzines and such.

I assume The Moonlight Traveler: Great Tales of Fantasy and Imagination was well received, as there were nine editions published from 1943 until 1965 including a Garden city Publishing Company book club edition in 1945. When I checked Worldcat for Interlibrary Loan access, there were 257 copies out there in various editions, so it was pretty broadly popular.

I need to be clear that I love science fiction most, followed by fantasy, and typically only read horror if it’s an author I love or a SF or fantasy crossover. I am not a big fan of ghost stories or literary fiction. This will definitely impact my reactions to this fiction.

I had read only two of these stories before; I hoped to discover new gems among the rest.

I read four stories that I rated at 3.8/5, or “Great.” These were:

1. “Lord Mountdrago“, a novelette by W. Somerset Maugham, Hearst’s International Cosmopolitan February 1939. I suspect this is the first of his fiction I have read.
2. “The Curfew Tolls“, a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét, The Saturday Evening Post October 5, 1935.
3. “The Bottle Imp“, a novelette by Robert Louis Stevenson, New York Herald February 8/March 1, 1891.
4. “Roads of Destiny“, a novelette by O. Henry, Ainslee’s Magazine April 1903.

I read five stories that I felt were “Very good”:

1. “The Music on the Hill“, a short story by Saki, from his collection The Chronicles of Clovis, 1911 John Lane, rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.
2. “Cobbler, Cobbler, Mend My Shoe“, a short story by Jan Struther, which could be original to this anthology, but not completely clear from information available, see speculation below, rated 3.7/5.
3. “The Man Who Could Work Miracles: A Pantoum in Prose“, a short story by H. G. Wells, The Illustrated London News Summer Number 1898, rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”.
4. “Wireless“, a short story by Rudyard Kipling, Scribner’s August 1902, rated 3.6/5.
5. “The Celestial Omnibus“, a short story by E. M. Forster, Albany Review January 1908, rated 3.6/5.

I recommend the nine stories rated “Very good” or “Great”.

There were four stories that I rated “Good”. For me, “Good” means an adequately told story, but not one I am at all excited about. These were all rated 3.1/5, or barely above “Okay”.

1. “Adam and Eve and Pinch Me“, a short story by A. E. Coppard, from his collection Adam & Eve & Pinch Me, 1921 Alfred A. Knopf.
2. “Our Distant Cousins“, a Jorkens novelette by Lord Dunsany, Saturday Evening Post 23 November 1929.
3. “Sam Small’s Better Half“, a short story by Eric Knight, MacLean’s Magazine June 1, 1940.
4. “William Wilson: A Tale“, a novelette by Edgar Allan Poe, The Gift, a Christmas, New Year and Birthday Present for 1840, September 1839.

There were four stories I rated as “Okay”:

1. “Enoch Soames: A Memory of the Eighteen-Nineties“, a novelette by Max Beerbohm, Century Magazine May 1916, rated 3/5, or “Okay”. I had read this before, and did not care for it enough to reread it.
2. “Mr. Arcularis“, a novelette by Conrad Aiken, Harper’s Magazine March 1931, rated 2.7/5, or “Okay”.
3. “Desire“, a short story by James Stephens, The Dial June 1920, rated 2.6/5, or “okay”.
4. “The Most Maddening Story in the World“, a short story by Ralph Straus, Sovereign Magazine August 1920, rated 2.6/5.

Finally, there were four stories I could not finish, all rated 2/5, or “Did not finish”.

1. “All Hallows“, a novelette by Walter de la Mare, from his collection The Connoisseur and Other Stories, 1926 Alfred A. Knopf.
2. “Phantas“, a short story by Oliver Onions, Nash’s Magazine February 1910.
3. “The Diamond As Big As the Ritz“, a novella by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Smart Set June 1922.
4. “The Man Who Missed the Bus“, a short story by Stella Benson, 1928 chapbook Elkin Mathews & Marrot.

On the plus side, Philip Van Doren Stern did introduce me to four great stories that I had never read before. On the minus side, I can recommend only nine of the 21 stories included in The Moonlight Traveler: Great Tales of Fantasy and Imagination. There were four I could not finish reading, and more that I hope never to read again. The Introduction by Stern was way too long, which is an unusual complaint for me. My overall average rating was a very ordinary 3.08/5, or “Good”. I have no regrets about reading The Moonlight Traveler: Great Tales of Fantasy and Imagination.

Perspectives on Philip Van Doren Stern and The Moonlight Traveler: Great Tales of Fantasy and Imagination

Published by Doubleday, Doran, it was well distributed and available. There were a number of reviews in newspapers. Many of these were very favorable, including one by Anthony Boucher.

There were no mentions in either professional genre magazine reviews or in fan publications until 1947. I attribute this to World War 2, and fans, authors and editors being busy. Paper shortages could have impacted inclusion of book reviews also.

Fanac.org is a great resource for those interested in SFF and fan history, with overlap to professional work as well. I cannot say enough about how helpful their online, scanned and indexed documents are. The following document excerpts are all found there.

In fanzine Walt’s Wramblings FAPA 29 Fall 1944, there was a mention of Philip Van Doren Stern:

In 1947, there were several mentions. In fanzine Alchemist V2N2 Winter 1947, there was a fan contest where a copy of The Moonlight Traveler (they don’t say which edition) is offered as a prize!

In fanzine Tympany 10 July 1947, in a mention of a new book Travelers in Time, editor Philip Van Doren Stern is mentioned as of “the Moonlight Traveler fame”.

In Fantasy Review V1N6 November 1947, Philip Van Doren Stern is mentioned by John Carnell as “the well known critic who was responsible for The Moonlight Traveler.”

Stern’s Travelers in Time is mentioned again in the Fantasy Commentator 17 Winter 1948, so he was definitely of interest to genre fans and publications.

In 1954, yet another new edition of The Moonlight Traveler, retitled Great Tales of Fantasy and Imagination, was published in paperback by Pocket Books. Fantasy Times 210 November 1954 reviewed it positively.

There are two reviews in professional genre publications in 1955. First is a brief review by The Editor (Anthony Boucher) in the January 1955 F&SF, who says again that he loves it.

Damon Knight has an extensive review in Science Fiction Quarterly August 1955. He likes some of the works, but this review is more a critique of older fantasy versus current science fiction. He does quote Stern, from the Introduction, as an editor who speaks with loathing of “the wretched things found between the gaudy covers of pulp magazines.” This quote matches what I have seen in terms of Stern’s avoidance of stories from genre publications.

Fanzine Fantasmagorique November 1961 recounts a trip to a bookstore, where The Moonlight Traveler is mentioned positively.

The Science Fiction Times December 1965 mentions the last edition.

In SF Review 30 April 1969, Creath Thorne is pretty negative about the Philip Van Doren Stern anthology Strange Beasts and Unnatural Monsters, 1968 Fawcett Crest.

The September 1969 fanzine Yandro 184 reviews it, with Robert Coulson starting with “Stern is a long way from putting out the quality fantasy anthology that he did in The Moonlight Traveler, but this has some fair items in it.” He then slams Stern for reprinting a truncated and inferior version of Murray Leinster’s “Doomsday Deferred” in Strange Beasts and Unnatural Monsters. This is too bad, as the original 1949 version is one hell of a story. Looking at the Table of Contents, this is the first Stern anthology I have seen to include stories from genre/pulp magazines that I have looked at (I could have missed them in others after The Moonlight Traveler).

In the Fantasy Commentator 29 Winter 1978-79, A. Langley Searles compares Robert Silverberg’s Trips in Time, 1977 Thomas Nelson, to Philip Van Doren Stern’s Travelers in Time, 1947 Doubleday. I was not planning to read any of these other Stern anthologies, but I might have to try that one.

Finally, at Lunacon 2006 at the “The Out-of-Print Hall of Fame” panel, Evelyn C. Leeper’s notes mentioned the anthologies of Philip Van Doren Stern:

Philip Van Doren Stern died in 1984, age 83 years old. His obituary in the New York Times noted that he was a “historian, novelist and editor” and mentioned the wide respect for his Civil War era books. He had worked as an editor at Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, and Alfred A. Knopf, not to mention edited mainstream focused speculative fiction anthologies for Henry Holt & Co., Doubleday, Fawcett Crest, and Van Nostrand Reinhold. His obituary did not mention his editing in speculative fiction.

While some speculative fiction fans, authors and editors knew him and his works, I have the sense that he was not too interested in them and their efforts. I found no trace of any interaction by him with fans or genre professionals at Fanac. I could have missed it, but I found no obvious documentation at Fanac that anyone in SFF mentioned his death in 1984. While he was open to fantastic fiction of a literary bent, he did not appear to have interest in fiction from pulp or science fiction magazines. I respect his expertise and knowledge of mainstream authors and works of the fantastic; I also regret that he appears to have had no interest in the rest of our field.

If I were to read any more of his anthologies, I think his Travelers in Time: Strange Tales of Man’s Journeyings Into the Past and the Future, 1947 Doubleday, would be my choice.

DETAILED REVIEWS/COMMENTS – SPOILERS ALL OVER

“Introduction”, an essay essay by Philip Van Doren Stern. Rather over much for what he said. He writes well, but I just don’t care enough for 12 pages of this. The last four paragraphs could have been enough.

“The Celestial Omnibus“, a short story by E. M. Forster, Albany Review January 1908. A very good story of a boy who travels to an amazing land in a celestial omnibus, twice. This has quite a few reprints, so others may think more of it than I do. Other reprints include the Forster collection The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories, 1911 Sidgwick & Jackson, Traveller’s Library, W. Somerset Maugham editor, 1933 Doubleday, Doran, The Golden Argosy: A Collection of the Most Celebrated Short Stories in the English Language, Van H. Cartmell & Charles Grayson editors, 1947 The Dial Press, Triumph of the Night: Tales of Terror and the Supernatural by 20th Century Masters, Robert Phillips editor, 1989 Carroll & Graf, and The Big Book of Classic Fantasy: The Ultimate Collection, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer editors, 2019 Vintage Books. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”.

“Desire“, a short story by James Stephens, The Dial June 1920. A man saves a stranger from serious injury or death by being struck by a car. In return, the man is granted a wish. He ends up wishing, “I wish to live competently, and so I asked to be allowed to stay at the age of forty-eight years with all the equipment of my present state unimpaired.” He wife is unimpressed with his wish. They go to bed, she has a terrible dream of dying in an icy waste of cold, and wakes up to find him stone cold dead. I am very, very underwhelmed by this story. Other reprints in the Stephens collection Etched in Moonlight, 1928 Macmillan and Co., Strange and Fantastic Stories: Fifty Tales of Terror, Horror and Fantasy, Joseph A. Margolies editor, 1946 Whittlesey House, Owls’ Watch, George Brandon Saul editor, 1965 Fawcett Crest, and Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic, Alberto Manguel editor, 1990 Lester & Orpen Dennys. Rated 2.6/5, or “Okay”.

“Enoch Soames: A Memory of the Eighteen-Nineties“, a novelette by Max Beerbohm, Century Magazine May 1916. An interesting story of a young man with literary pretensions, and an acquaintance of his who makes a deal with the Devil to travel forward in time to see how he is remembered. It may just be the style of the times, but I found much of this story tedious. Others may disagree, as there are a number of other reprints including the Beerbohm collection Seven Men, 1919 William Heinemann, Traveller’s Library, W. Somerset Maugham editor, 1933 Doubleday, Doran, Antología de la literatura fantástica, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Jorge Luis Borges, Silvina Ocampo editors, 1940 Editorial Sudamericana (Laberinto) (English edition in The Book of Fantasy, 1988 Viking), Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, Alberto Manguel editor, 1983 Picador, and The Time Traveller’s Almanac, 2013 Ann & Jeff VanderMeer editors, 2013 Head of Zeus (although I am not a big fan of this story, a very good anthology). Rated 3/5, or “Okay”.

“The Man Who Could Work Miracles: A Pantoum in Prose“, a short story by H. G. Wells, The Illustrated London News Summer Number 1898. A very good fantasy story of a very ordinary and not too sharp man who finds he can work miracles. It is almost the end of the human race. Many, many reprints, mostly collections by Wells such as Tales of Space and Time, 1988 Harper & Brothers, One Hundred Years of Science Fiction, Damon Knight editor, 1968 Simon & Schuster (see my review, strongly recommended), and Isaac Asimov Presents the Best Fantasy of the 19th Century, Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, & Charles G. Waugh, 1982 Beaufort Books. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”.

“The Bottle Imp“, a novelette by Robert Louis Stevenson, New York Herald February 8 and March 1, 1891. A bottle imp can give its owner almost anything, but the owner must sell it for less than they paid or go to Hell when they die. A man and his wife struggle with owning it. I ended up loving this, for Stevenson’s writing. There are quite a few reprints, including the Stevenson collection Island Nights’ Entertainments, 1893 Charles Scribner’s Sons, and many more Stevenson collections, Rod Serling’s Devils and Demons, Rod Serling editor, 1967 Bantam Books, Isaac Asimov Presents the Best Fantasy of the 19th Century, Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, & Charles G. Waugh, 1982 Beaufort Books, and Sympathy for the Devil, Tim Pratt editor, 2010 Night Shade Books. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“Adam and Eve and Pinch Me“, a short story by A. E. Coppard, from his collection Adam & Eve & Pinch Me, 1921 Golden Cockeral/Alfred A. Knopf. Well written but not engaging story about a man who wonders if he is dead, but it’s something else. I almost did not finish. There are more reprints than I expected, so perhaps it’s just me. Other reprints include The Haunted Omnibus, Alexander Laing editor, 1937 Farrar & Rinehart, Children of Wonder: 21 Remarkable and Fantastic Tales, William Tenn editor, 1953 Simon & Schuster (which looks like an anthology I need to read!), Stories Selected from the Unexpected, Bennett Cerf editor, 1963 Bantam Books, and The Big Book of Ghost Stories, Otto Penzler editor, 2012 Vintage Crime/Black Lizard/Vintage Books. Rated 3.1/5, or “Good”.

“Lord Mountdrago“, a novelette by W. Somerset Maugham. First publication is a challenge to pin down. ISFDB notes it first appeared in The International February 1939; I have not found a copy of something with that name and information. The copyright in this anthology notes it as “Lord Mountdrago” published in the Maugham collection The Mixture as Before, 1939 Doubleday. Checking, that Maugham collection was published in 1940. The information from Galactic Central states that it is from “Cosmopolitan Feb 1939, as “Doctor and Patient”. The cover of that issue of Cosmopolitan notes a story by Maugham, but I have not found a copy of the interior. Based upon a listing of the contents of the Rothschild-Maugham collection, I suspect it was first published as “Doctor and Patient” in the February 1939 issue of Hearst’s International Cosmopolitan. It will take someone with a copy of that issue to confirm. Dr. Audlin is a very successful psychoanalyst, for all that he thinks he is a fraud. He has been treating the Secretary for Foreign Affairs Lord Mountdrago, who is extremely competent yet also a horrible, classist person. Lord Mountdrago can no longer sleep, finally disclosing that his dreams are full of a fellow Welch MP who he believes is common and coarse and who he hates. He makes a speech that destroys the other MP politically. The other MP is aware of and shares these dreams also. Eventually, they both die. Dr. Audlin has failed. Very well told! This could be the first work by Somerset Maugham I have read. Other reprints include Strange and Fantastic Stories: Fifty Tales of Terror, Horror and Fantasy, Joseph A. Margolies editor, 1946 Whittlesey House, Perchance to Dream, Damon Knight editor, 1972 Doubleday, and Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, Alberto Manguel editor, 1983 Picador. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“All Hallows“, a novelette by Walter de la Mare, from his collection The Connoisseur and Other Stories, 1926 Alfred A. Knopf. The protagonist recounts covering “nine flinty hills in seven miles” to get to All Hallows. Seven pages in, nothing has happened. It might be a great story, but I don’t care to read more. Others disagree with me, with quite a few other reprints such as They Walk Again: An Anthology of Ghost Stories, Colin de la Mare editor, 1931 Faber and Faber, Quiver of Horror, Dennis Wheatley editor, 1964 Arrow Books, Ghost Stories and Other Horrid Tales, Charles W. Stewart editor, 1997 The Folio Society, and Damnable Tales: A Folk Horror Anthology, Richard Wells editor, 2021 Unbound. Rated 2/5, or “Did not finish”.

“Our Distant Cousins“, a Jorkens novelette by Lord Dunsany, Saturday Evening Post 23 November 1929. Jorkens leads his biographer to a man who claims to have flown an airplane with assist rockets to Mars, where he discover humans there who are livestock to horrible beings. He takes an accidental detour to an asteroid on the way back before reaching Earth, where no one believes him and he has through bad luck and bad planning not brought back any evidence. Adequate fantasy, with some SF trappings. There are a fair number of other reprints, including the Dunsany collection The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens, 1931 G. P. Putnam’s Sons, The Third Omnibus of Crime, Dorothy L. Sayers editor, 1935 Coward-McCann (although “crime” is a stretch), The Armchair Science Reader, Isabel S. Gordon & Sophie Sorkin editors, 1959 Simon & Schuster, The Second Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, Robert Aickman editor, 1966 Fontana, and other Dunsany collections. Rated 3.1/5, or “Good”.

“Cobbler, Cobbler, Mend My Shoe“, a short story by Jan Struther. I am not at all clear when or where this was first published. ISFDB lists this anthology as the first publication, but also notes it as from 1925. The copyright page here lists literary agent Robert Thomas Hardy, Inc. under Acknowledgements, with no other information. When reprinted in Ghosts, Ghosts, Ghosts: Stories of Spooks and Spirits, Haunts and Hobgoblins, Werewolves and Will-o’-the-Wisps, Phyllis R. Fenner editor, 1952 Franklin Watts, first publication is credited to the 1946 Jan Struther collection A Pocketful of Pebbles, Harcourt, Brace & Company. In turn, that Struther collection acknowledges copyrights by Jan Struther from 1936, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946. I am concluding that a first publication in this anthology is most likely, but uncertain. An old, odd man is looking for a cobbler to fix his sandal in London. We find he is the 2600 year old Saint Crispin, patron saint of cobblers. He finally succeeds. No other reprints other than these two. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

“The Man Who Missed the Bus“, a short story by Stella Benson, 1928 chapbook Elkin Mathews & Marrot. I have no patience to figure out where this story is going, about a man who does not see others but only things, and who is not seen. Other reprints include the Benson collection Collected Short Stories, 1936 Macmillan and Co., and Open at Your Own Risk, Joan Kahn editor, 1975 Houghton Mifflin. Rated 2/5, or “Did not finish”.

“Sam Small’s Better Half“, a short story by Eric Knight, MacLean’s Magazine June 1, 1940. Following a dispute over split personalities in a pub, Sam splits into two bodies. One stays home with wife Molly, and one leaves for a fling. There is a battle when they reunite. Other reprints include the Knight collection Sam Small Flies Again: The Amazing Adventures of the Flying Yorkshireman, 1942 Harper & Brothers, and The Flying Sorcerers: More Comic Tales of Fantasy, Peter Haining editor, 1997 Souvenir Press. Rated 3.1/5, or “Good”.

“Mr. Arcularis“, a novelette by Conrad Aiken, Harper’s Magazine March 1931. A man on an ocean liner realizes he is dead. There are more than a few other reprints, so others disagree with me. These include Creeps by Night: Chills and Thrills, editor, 1931 John Day, the Aiken collection Among the Lost People, 1934 Charles Scribner’s Sons, 31 Stories, Michael R. Booth & Clinton S. Burhans, Jr. editors, 1961 Prentice-Hall, Perchance to Dream, Damon Knight editor, 1972 Doubleday, Haunted New England: Classic Tales of the Strange and Supernatural, Martin H. Greenberg, Frank D. McSherry, Jr., & Charles G. Waugh editors, 1988 Yankee Books, American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps, Peter Straub editor, 2009 The Library of America, and The Big Book of Ghost Stories, Otto Penzler editor, 2012 Vintage Crime/Black Lizard/Vintage Books. Rated 2.7/5, or “Okay”.

“The Diamond As Big As the Ritz“, a novella by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Smart Set June 1922. A young man from Hades on the Mississippi River visits the family of a friend in an un-surveyed section of Montana, owned by the richest man in the world. I lost interest about 10 pages in. Other reprints include Fitzgerald collection such as Tales of the Jazz Age, 1922 Charles Scribner’s Sons, and Edges of Reality: Confrontations with the Uncanny, the Macabre, and the Mad, Leo B. Kneer editor, 1972 Scott, Foresman and Company. Rated 2/5, or “Did not finish”.

“William Wilson: A Tale“, a novelette by Edgar Allan Poe, The Gift, a Christmas, New Year and Birthday Present for 1840, September 1839. A dissolute scoundrel kills his other self. Bah. Reprints include Poe collections such as Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, 1840 Lea and Blanchard, Weird Tales November 1935, and The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories, Richard Dalby editor, 1990 Carroll & Graf. Rated 3.1/5, or “Good”.

“The Curfew Tolls“, a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét, The Saturday Evening Post October 5, 1935. A great epistolary story, of an English general in 1788 and 1789, in a small French village on the Mediterranean while recovering from a malady. Among boring people, he makes a friend who is quite sharp and experienced in military matters, but who has never had a big break. Upon the friend’s death, we find out the friend was Napoleon. Perhaps an alternate history story? Other reprints include Benét collections such as Thirteen O’Clock: Stories of Several Worlds, 1937 Farrar & Rinehart, 50 Great Short Stories, Milton Crane editor, 1952 Bantam Books, and Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, Alberto Manguel editor, 1983 Picador. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.

“The Most Maddening Story in the World“, a short story by Ralph Straus, Sovereign Magazine August 1920. Well written, but but this story goes nowhere I find interesting. A shaggy dog of a story, of Lord Brassington and the card which causes him so much worry, although his doctor says it is blank. Sigh. Only other reprint in The Second Century of Creepy Stories, Sir Hugh Walpole editor, 1937 Hutchinson. Rated 2.6/5, or “Okay”.

“Phantas“, a short story by Oliver Onions, Nash’s Magazine February 1910. A story of a dead man on a sinking ship. Boring as hell. Other reprints include the Onions collection Widdershins, 1911 Martin Secker, Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror, Dorothy L. Sayers editor, 1928 Gollancz, The Golden Road, Damon Knight editor, 1974 Simon & Schuster, Lost Worlds, Unknown Horizons, Robert Silverberg editor, 1978 Thomas Nelson, and About Time: The Forerunners of Time Travel and Temporal Anomalies in Science Fiction and Fantasy, Chad Arment editor, 2008 Coachwhip Publications. Rated 2/5, or “Did not finish”.

“Wireless“, a short story by Rudyard Kipling, Scribner’s August 1902. A druggist has a spell and writes poetry while unconscious, which perhaps impacts an early radio experiment. I see several reprints that imply some connection to time travel or information from the future, but I don’t see it. Other reprints include the Kipling collection Traffics and Discoveries, 1904 Macmillan and Co., Journeys in Science Fiction, Richard L. Loughlin & Lilian M. Popp editors, 1961 Globe Book Company, Time Machines: The Greatest Time Travel Stories Ever Written, Bill Adler, Jr., 1997 Carroll & Graf, and About Time: The Forerunners of Time Travel and Temporal Anomalies in Science Fiction and Fantasy, Chad Arment editor, 2008 Coachwhip Publications. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”.

“The Music on the Hill“, a short story by Saki, from his collection The Chronicles of Clovis, 1911 John Lane. Sylvia has married “Dead Mortimer”, and has convinced him to leave the distractions of town behind. It turns out Mortimer believes in Pan out in the country, and she does not. A Pan figures pipes a stag that kills her. I regret that I never got a clear explanation where the nickname “Dead Mortimer” came from, although it might relate to her relationship with him. Other reprints include A Century of Horror Stories, Dennis Wheatley editor, 1935 Hutchinson, The F&SF September 1955, 100 Tiny Tales of Terror, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Martin H. Greenberg, Robert Weinberg editors, 1996 Barnes & Noble Books, and The Horned God: Weird Tales of the Great God Pan, Michael Wheatley editor, 2022 The British Library. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”.

The short: I’ve been a fan of science fiction by Algis Budrys for a long time. Looking recently, I was surprised that I did not find a “Best Of” or “Selected Short Fiction” collection by him. I decided to read more of his short fiction and create my own Table of Contents for a “Selected Short Fiction of Algis Budrys”. My Table of Contents would include the classic “Rogue Moon” novella, F&SF December 1960, the superlative “The End of Summer” novelette, Astounding November 1954, and “Forever Stenn” (AKA “The Ridge Around the World”), a short story, Satellite December 1957, and 23 more short works I rated “Great”. I would also include horror novelette “The Master of the Hounds” a novelette, The Saturday Evening Post Aug 27 1966. Although it’s not to my taste, I am not a huge fan of horror and it appears to be an appropriate choice. See my TOC below.

The Long: In the January 9, 2026 File770, Paul Weimer celebrated author, editor and critic Algis Budrys in the “Today’s Birthday” item.

As a big fan of Algis Budrys and his fiction, I read this with interest. I was interested to see Paul mention a story by Budrys I had not read, “Resurrection on Fifth Avenue”, written as Gordon Jaulyn.

Checking to see where that was published (it was in Fantastic, December 1957), I glanced at the Algis Budrys collections listed at ISFDB. I was very surprised not to see a “Best Of” or “Selected Short Fiction” by him.

As a much younger person, I had read a significant number of stories by Budrys, especially in Astounding/Analog. While I have not read all of his novels, I am especially fond of Who?, Rogue Moon (a classic!), and Hard Landing. Recently, I had read a fair amount of short fiction by Budrys. I knew he had a number of great stories that I thought would be appropriate for a “Selected Short Fiction” collection.

I also knew he had plenty of short fiction I either had never read or that I did not remember. I decided to read and think about his short fiction, and prepare my own personal Table of Contents for a “Selected Short Fiction of Algis Budrys” collection.

Algis Budrys has enough short fiction, including some that I did not think was that great, that I was not just going to read all of it. I decided to look at short fiction by him that fell into one of these categories:

1. I have read it recently enough (in the last five years) to have notes on it and to have rated it.
2. It was listed by Mark R. Kelly in his fantastic Science Fiction Awards Database for the Algis Budrys Title or Chronology lists. These entries are typically due to an award nomination/win, or for a significant reprint (“Year’s Best”, and other possibilities).
3. Mentioned by Paul Weimer as noted above – “Resurrection on Fifth Avenue”, as Gordon Jaulyn, a novelette, Fantastic, December 1957.
4. The stories that Rich Horton noted in his January 9, 2019 essay “Birthday Review: Early Short Stories (and one obscure novel) by Algis Budrys“. Granted that he did not like some of them, but Rich has deep expertise in classic SFF and I respect his opinions.
5. Reprinted in a Budrys collection such as the first Budrys collection The Unexpected Dimension, 1960 Ballantine, Budrys’ Inferno, 1963 Berkley Medallion, reprinted in German in the Budrys collection Helden-GmbH und andere Stories, 1970 Moewig, Blood and Burning, 1978 Berkley Books, and in the Budrys collection Entertainment, 1997 NESFA (in Conjunction with LoneStarCon 2, 1997 Worldcon, where he was a Guest of Honor).
6. Reprinted in an anthology and not included in any of the sources above. I think looking at stories that professional editors have selected is reasonable, even if I know that a) they are all human, and b) they can include stories that I think are really not that great.
7. I checked the Section Introductions in Richard Lupoff’s What If? Volume 1, with each Section Introduction/Essay giving Lupoff’s thoughts on stories that could or should have been nominated for Hugo Awards for works from 1952 through 1958. Lupoff does not list any works here that I have not already listed. I was not able to find What If? Volume 2 (1959 to 1965) or What If? Volume 3 (1966 to 1973) online, which is too bad.

I read 60 stories, and came up with 27 stories for my Table of Contents for “Selected Short Fiction by Algis Budrys”. In my opinion, all but one of these 27 stories were great or better. Here is my Table of Contents, with no concern for rights, cost, page count, pacing, starting strong, finishing strong, balance, etc. Sorted by rating first, and then by date published.

1. “Rogue Moon“, a novella, F&SF December 1960, rated 4.7/5, or “A classic”. There is a novel also, but I prefer the novella.
2. “The End of Summer“, a novelette, Astounding November 1954, rated 4.1/5, or “Superlative”.
3. “Forever Stenn” (AKA “The Ridge Around the World”), a short story, Satellite December 1957, rated 4.1/5.
4. “Nobody Bothers Gus“, Astounding November 1955, a short story as by Paul Janvier, Hugo Award finalist. Rated 4/5, or “Great”.
5. “The Edge of the Sea“, a short story, Venture March 1958, a Hugo Award finalist. Rated 4/5.
6. “To Civilize” , a short story, Future Science Fiction January 1954, rated 3.9/5, or “Great”.
7. “The Executioner“, a novelette, Astounding January 1956, rated 3.9/5.
8. “Silent Brother“, a short story, Astounding February 1956, rated 3.9/5.
9. “Nightsound” (AKA “The Attic Voice”), a short story, Satellite February 1957, rated 3.9/5.
10. “Never Meet Again“, a short story, Infinity Science Fiction March 1958, rated 3.9/5.
11. “The Last Brunette” (AKA “The Ultimate Brunette”), a short story, Playboy September 1965, rated 3.9/5.
12. “Be Merry”, a novelette, If December 1966, rated 3.9/5.
13. “A Scraping at the Bones“, a Laurent Michaelmas short story, Analog May 1975, rated 3.9/5.
14. “Grabow and Collicker and I“, a short story, F&SF May 1992, rated 3.9/5.
15. “Riya’s Foundling”, a short story, Science Fiction Stories #1 June 1953, rated 3.8/5, or “Great”.
16. “The Two Sharp Edges“, a short story, Science Fiction Stories, January 1955, rated 3.8/5.
17. “The Man Who Always Knew“, a short story, Astounding April 1956, rated 3.8/5.
18. “The Peasant Girl“, a short story as by Paul Janvier, Astounding June 1956, rated 3.8/5.
19. “And Then She Found Him …“, a Gus short story, Venture Science Fiction Magazine July 1957, rated 3.8/5
20. “Between the Dark and the Daylight“, a short story as by David C. Hodgkins, Infinity Science Fiction October 1958, rated 3.8/5
21. “The Distant Sound of Engines“, a short story, F&SF March 1959, rated 3.8/5.
22. “For Love” (AKA “All For Love”), a novelette, Galaxy June 1962, rated 3.8/5.
23. “Now Hear the Word of the Lord“, a short story, Galaxy February 1969, rated 3.8/5.
24. “The Silent Eyes of Time”, a novella, F&SF November 1975, rated 3.8/5.
25. “The Nuptial Flight of Warbirds”, a Laurent Michaelmas novelette, Analog May 1978, rated 3.8/5.
26. “What Befell Mairiam“, a short story, F&SF December 1989, rated 3.8/5.
27. “The Master of the Hounds” a novelette, The Saturday Evening Post Aug 27 1966. No rating, but included because a) Rich Horton liked it, and b) it had impressive reprints, including A Treasury of American Horror Stories, Martin H. Greenberg, Frank McSherry, Jr., & Charles G. Waugh, 1985 Bonanza Books / Crown Publishers.

One “Honorary Mention” for me is short story “Who?“, which appeared in Fantastic Universe, April 1955. As I stated in my essay “Art and Speculative Fiction“, the story “Who?” was written by Budrys after seeing the art by Frank Kelly Freas in the office of Fantastic Universe. Short story “Who?” is very good, but does not get to great for me. Budrys said that the novel was inspired by the short story. It’s a great, Hugo Award finalist novel. I love the cover art by Frank Kelly Freas also.

By rough estimation, Algis Budrys wrote and sold in the neighborhood of 120 works of short fiction. That means there are about 60 that I have not read lately. Based on my experience, it’s very possible that some of these are great stories despite not being reprinted or recognized otherwise. I have reached a point of diminishing returns for my reading of Algis Budrys, but I hope that fans out there will give me a few more suggestions to read.

Options for Reading the “Selected Short Fiction of Algis Budrys

For those amenable to reading on a tablet or laptop, here is a link to my Google Sheets file with links to scanned versions of all of the stories I read. I love reading original versions of stories from their first appearances in SF magazines, and I was able to find most of those with maybe one needing an Internet Archive account for a book instead. For those needing modern, perhaps more accessible formats such as e-reader files where you can control the font size, etc., this may not work.

Looking at the Algis Budrys collections listed at ISFDB, I have found only one of them print, The Furious Future, 1964 Gollancz (first published as Budrys’ Inferno, 1963 Berkley Medallion), available in e-book and paperback. These Algis Budrys collections are available used, and I suspect Interlibrary Loan may have them.

Looking at the paper Budrys collections, here are my overall average ranking based on how many great stories are included. They are pretty closely bunched.

1. The Unexpected Dimension, 1960 Ballantine, 3.57/5, or “Good”.
2. Budrys’ Inferno, 1963 Berkley Medallion, 3.48/5, or “Good”.
3. Blood and Burning, 1978 Berkley Books, 3.55/5, or “Good”.
4. Entertainment, 1997 NESFA Press, 3.58/5, or “Good”.

For availability in scanned form online, these Budrys collections are available (this will not be all the stories in my TOC):

1. Budrys’ Inferno, at Internet Archive (these require checking out with an IA account). Also at Luminiscient.org.
2. The Unexpected Dimension, at Internet Archive.
3. Blood and Burning, at Internet Archive.
4. Entertainment, at Internet Archive.

There are several more recent “collections” on Amazon in e-book format, with a few of these stories. I suspect some of these are collections where the rights to the stories were either free or more available in some way. The one with the most stories is Algis Budrys Super Pack (Positronic Super Pack Book 41), Positronic Publishing 2020, $1.99 at Amazon, with 14 stories. There are two other such collections that are subsets of this one. There are some great stories in this one, some I was underwhelmed by, and a number I have never read.

DETAILED REVIEWS/COMMENTS – DEFINITELY SOME SPOILERS HERE

Organized in chronological order.

“Walk to the World“, a short story, Space Science Fiction November 1952. A very good story about walking to the world, that Home is not the world, and duty, and perhaps a different outcome. The father is an ex-space navy officer, who feels that home is where you are going to. Good intro by Budrys. One of his two first stories published in November 1952. Reprinted in First Flight, Damon Knight editor, 1963 Lancer Books, Unearth Summer 1977, and First Voyages, Martin H. Greenberg, Damon Knight, Joseph D. Olander editors, 1981 Avon. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”. Read due to reprints.

“The Frightened Tree” (AKA “Protective Mimicry”), a short story, Galaxy February 1953. An amusing story in its own way, in an issue with a number of heavy hitters like “A Saucer of Loneliness” by Sturgeon, “Four in One” by Damon Knight, “Watchbird” by Robert Sheckley, and an installment of the novel Ring Around the Sun by Clifford D. Simak. An inspector for the Galactic Federation…(Currency), is sent to remote jungle planet Deneb to find why they found 14 identical copies of a bill that is supposedly not able to be counterfeited. He finds and is captured by Earthman Munger, who reveals he has a tree that makes duplicates. On the verge of being killed by Munger, he blunders into the tree which makes 168 of him. Lots of stereotypes in this story. Reprinted in Assignment in Tomorrow, Frederik Pohl editor, 1954 Hanover House, Galaxy 4, Walter Ernsting editor, 1965 Heyne (in German), Histoires à rebours, Jacques Goimard, Demètre Ioakimidis, & Gérard Klein editors, 1976 Le Livre de Poche, and Teknikmagasinet December 1983. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”. Read due to reprints.

“The Weeblies“, a short story, Fantasy Fiction June 1953. Although the editor says this is at the intersection of SF and fantasy, I think it can be viewed as SF only. Weeblies emerge from a deep layer in the Earth, becoming more numerous as they weeble to the surface. They soon threaten to engulf the entire surface as they weeble. Scientist Herrick has developed a death ray for a general, who is disappointed it cannot be used to kill the Russians because it would kill everyone. Finally, Herrick uses the death ray to kill everyone and the weeblies, with only him and the attractive Miss Honicutt surviving. He finds out she is not human either, a bleeble. Frank Kelly Freas illustration of the weeblies is the best part of this story. This is a kind of a “last man in the world” story, but not one of the better ones. Reprinted only once, in The Golden Road, Damon Knight editor, 1974 Simon & Schuster. Rated 3.5/5, or “Good”. Read due to the reprint.

“Riya’s Foundling”, a short story, Science Fiction Stories #1 June 1953. A great story, of a five year old boy who appears to be a genius and has telepathic powers. He journeys to a new world, where he meets an old, bison-like semi-intelligent being who is on the verge of leaving her people’s range because she is childless. She shows him she is a Mother who will love him, and he brings her back to the War Orphans Relocation Farm. Reprints include Human?, Judith Merril editor, 1954 Lion, Mind to Mind, Robert Silverberg editor, 1973 Thomas Nelson, Histoires de mutants, Jacques Goimard, Demètre Ioakimidis, & Gérard Klein editors, 1974 Le Livre de Poche, and The First Science Fiction Megapack, John Gregory Betancourt editor, 2013 Wildside Press. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”. Read due to reprints.

“Dream of Victory“, a short story, Amazing Stories August-September 1953. After a hard war, war android’s are repurposed to be everyday androids. Stac is a very unhappy, alcoholic android. Things go downhill for him badly. Conceptually, this could have been a great story. I can see why this story was never anthologized, and only reprinted in Budrys collections like Budrys’ Inferno, 1963 Berkley Medallion. I like the Ed Emshwiller illustrations better than the story. Rated 3.4/5, or “Good”. Read due to reprints.

“Snail’s Pace“, a short story, Dynamic Science Fiction October 1953. Rich Horton discusses this story in his essay, but it’s not one of his favorites. It’s noted as the cover story. An okay story of a driven officer’s attempt to push a space station from conceptual to construction, perhaps to serve as a bomb station. War breaks out soon after they reach orbit. What to do is the key question, with no communication from Earth. Reprinted once, in Way Out, Ivan Howard editor, 1963 Belmont Books Rated 2.8/5, or “Okay”. Rich Horton essay. Read due to reprint.

“The Congruent People“, a short story, from Star Science Fiction Stories #2, December 1953 Ballantine. A story that is close to great, of a man who discovered, or is discovered by and recruited by, a whole parallel society who see things as they are and not just as the gestalt assumption of reality. He is worried his wife is not one of them, but find out she is part of a different deal perhaps. The last names are all from the Lensman series, with Dexter Bergenholm, Mr. de La Meter, and Boskone. I think the ending was a bit abrupt, or this could have been a great story. Only reprinted in new editions of Star Science Fiction Stories #2, and in Titan 4, Wolfgang Jeschke & Frederik Pohl editors, 1977 Heyne in German. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”. Read due to reprint.

“Desire No More“, a short story, Dynamic Science Fiction January 1954. Rich Horton mentions this, but it’s not one of his favorites. A man is obsessed with being a rocket pilot and being the first to the Moon. A good but not great story. Reprinted once in French, in Satellite n° 25 January 1960. Rated 3.3/5, or “Good”. Rich Horton essay.

“To Civilize” , a short story, Future Science Fiction January 1954. A great story of Earthmen from the Federation, leaving a world they have lived on for several generations. The protagonist is Deric, a Vorseil who does not understand why they are so calm leaving. He finds out they have been there as co-workers, helping the Vorseil get ready to be out in space and part of the Federation, and their job is done. These Earthmen have never lived on Earth, and they are scared and uncertain what Earth will be like. The cover for this issue of Future Science Fiction is not very good. Reprinted in Galactic Empires Volume Two, Brian W. Aldiss editor, 1976 Weidenfeld & Nicolson, in German in Titan 20, Brian W. Aldiss & Wolfgang Jeschke editors, 1983 Heyne, and in Sirius, #103 January 1985 in Croatian. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”. Read due to reprints.

“Scream at Sea“, a short story, Fantastic January-February 1954. Not speculative fiction, despite publication in Fantastic. A hustler and criminal flees South America one step ahead of the law. He is working on a steamer which blows up and leaves him and a cat alive on a raft. The cat survives. Reprinted only in the Budrys collection Blood and Burning, 1978 Berkley Books. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”. Read due to the reprint.

“Ironclad“, a novelette, Galaxy Science Fiction March 1954. I own this issue of Galaxy, but I don’t remember this story. It later became the 6th (and final) chapter of his 1954 novel False Night. Reprinted in Urania #1050 collection, in Italian, later became the 6th (and final) chapter of “False Night” (1954). Post-something dystopia, not catching my interest. Rated 2/5, or “Did not finish”. Read due to reprint.

“First to Serve“, a short story, Astounding Science Fiction May 1954. I own this issue. Read decades ago, but not remembered. It consists of reports on an attempt to create a robot soldier, which fails badly. I like the characters, especially the lead cybernetic engineer Vic Heywood and the robot Pimm. And it’s epistolary, which I always like. Reprinted in the Budrys collection The Unexpected Dimension, 1960 Ballantine Books, The Metal Smile, Damon Knight editor, `1968 Belmont Books, Space Mail: Volume II, Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, Charles G. Waugh editors, 1982 Fawcett Crest, Robots, Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, & Charles G. Waugh editors, 1989 Signet/New American Library, the Budrys collection Entertainment, 1997 NESFA Press, and We, Robots, Simon Ings editor, 2020 Ad Astra/Head of Zeus. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”. Read due to reprints.

“We Are Here“, a novelette, Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy July 1954. Rich Horton mentions it, but it’s not a favorite of his. A few pages in, I don’t care enough about the plot or characters to keep reading. Never reprinted, which makes sense to me. Rated 2/5, or “Did not finish”. Rich Horton essay.

“The End of Summer“, a novelette, Astounding November 1954. Quite an outstanding story, a great tale of the price of immortality. I own this issue of Astounding and I have read this before, but I have no memory. Hugo Award finalist. Reprinted in the Budrys collection The Unexpected Dimension, 1960 Ballantine Books, Penguin Science Fiction, Brian W. Aldiss editor, 1961 Penguin Books (see my review for the omnibus), The End of Summer: Science Fiction of the Fifties, Barry N. Malzberg & Bill Pronzini editors, 1979 Ace Books, Writers’ Choice, Volume II, Stanley Schmidt, 1984 Davis Publications, and The Great SF Stories #16 (1954),  Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg editors, 1987 DAW Books. Rated 4.1/5, or “Superlative”. Recent read.

“The Two Sharp Edges“, a short story, Science Fiction Stories, January 1955. Rich Horton felt this was a good but not great story. Unlike Rich, I think this is a great story in tone and character. After an undefined but very serious and perhaps worldwide war, Henry Walters has been given a farm by a grateful government via the Office of Resettlement and Rehabilitation. A year after he has started to farm and get to know the land, he is visited by Harold Piper and his three grown suns, who are DPs (displaced persons). The farm used to be theirs before they left. Walters invites them to stay for food and to stay the night. Talking on the porch with Harold, Walters discovers that the Pipers are actually aliens, civilians who left Earth secretly due to the war but discovered that their home planet could not support them. It’s a lovely story. Reprinted in French in Satellite no 29 May 1960, and Science Fiction Gems, Volume One, editor uncredited, 2011 Armchair Fiction. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”. Rich Horton essay.

“Thing“, a short story as by Ivan Janvier, Fantastic Universe March 1955. An interesting but not great Budrys story. A man has been identified as a superman after an atomic war affected the US. Three men go to visit him, each looking for power. It turns out the man is a host for an alien symbiote with extraordinary abilities. All three of the visitors are colonized by the alien, which really does not want any more atomic bombs. Only reprint in The Best Science-Fiction Stories and Novels: 1956, T. E. Dikty editor, 1956 Frederick Fell. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”. Read due to the reprint.

“Who?“, a short story, Fantastic Universe April 1955. On the novel version, I noted “Amusing, well-wrought story of identity”, and rated it  “Great”. On reread, I love the short story too, although not quite as good as the novel. The short story is set on the Moon, unlike the novel, and features a chief of research in a lab on the Moon that blows up. The Russians get there first, and “rescue” Martini. The US gets him back after time passes. Martini has been cyborged, and there is real doubt about whether its Martini who came back. Finally, the FBI guy tasked with figuring out if this is Martini or not calls him a racist term, eliciting an appropriate response. As noted in more than one place, Budrys told the story of seeing the Frank Kelly Freas art in the Fantastic Universe office and deciding to write a story to it. Budrys also noted that the novel was different enough from the short story that the novel was “inspired” by the short story. Due to novel version, perhaps, never reprinted. The novel was a Hugo Award finalist. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”. Reread because of the novel.

“The Strangers“, a novelette, If June 1955. Rich Horton noted “…shows promise but ends weakly”. It’s the cover story for that issue of If. I agree with Rich. Wes and Giulia find they are Watchers, and finally free the chrysalids inside all humans, refugees from another universe unintentionally stuck on Earth for billions of years, to go home. As Watchers, they are the only humans who know what happens. I like the last two paragraphs, and especially the last sentence:

Do you think the world’ll be any different now?

You mean, no more wars or slavery, no more shying away from people because they don’t talk or dress or worship as we do? I don’t know. I’m just a normal human being, I guess, after all. I don’t much believe in utopias and pat solutions. But we might try going outside and giving a look. Maybe they’ve lowered taxes.

There are no reprints. The Frank Kelly Freas cover is better than the story. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”. Rich Horton essay.

“In Clouds of Glory“, a novelette, Astounding Science Fiction July 1955. Read previously in my copy of this issue of Astounding, a long time ago, but not remembered. Earth lost to the Vilks a hundred years ago, and have mostly been complacent about it. Since then, the Vilks lost control of their empire, but Earth is still penned into the Solar System. The Agency hires mercenary officers out under alien disguise to aliens. One of those is unhappy to find out he was fighting against another such mercenary from the Agency, hired out to both sides. Reprinted in German in the Budrys collection Helden-GmbH und andere Stories, 1970 Moewig, and in The Stars at War, John F. Carr & Jerry Pournelle editors, 1986 Baen Books. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”. Read because of reprints.

“Nobody Bothers Gus“, Astounding November 1955, a short story as by Paul Janvier. A great story of a superman. One of his unfortunate powers is a zone of forgetting, with those he encounters always forgetting him.  It is a lonely existence. I believe I read this previously in Astounding, as I own this issue, which also includes “Under Pressure (Part 1 of 3)“, by Frank Herbert. It was a Hugo Award finalist, with quite a few reprints including S-F: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy, Judith Merril editor, 1956 Dell (the first in that series), The Great SF Stories #17 (1955), Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg editors, 1988 DAW Books, From Here to Forever: The Road to Science Fiction #4, James Gunn editor, 1982 Mentor/New American Library, and The Science Fiction Century, David G. Hartwell editor, 1997 Tor. Rated 4/5, or “Great”. Recent read.

“The Executioner“, a novelette, Astounding January 1956. I own this issue of Astounding, but do not remember the story. In a future, post-something North America with states that may be countries, justice is meted out by Justices with guns, similar to trial by ordeal. Some do survive, but most die. An aging, honest but not very sharp Justice executes a young woman for inappropriate behavior. We find out there was a riot afterward, and that there have been rumblings of societal discontent. This trial was set up to flush rebels into the open. The aging, honest Justice goes to one last trial, and kills the Head Justice and his probable successor, feeling that they would survive if their cause was just. This is another hidden gem for me, and one where Budrys noted that he wrote the story to the art. Reprints include the Budrys collection The Unexpected Dimension, 1960 Ballantine Books, Spectrum, Kingsley Amis & Robert Conquest editors, 1961 Gollancz, Dark Sins, Dark Dreams: Crime in Science Fiction, Barry N. Malzberg & Bill Pronzini editors, 1978 Doubleday, the Budrys collection Entertainment, 1997 NESFA Press, and Overruled!, Hank Davis & Christopher Ruocchi editors, 2020 Baen Books. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”. Recent read.

“Silent Brother“, a short story as by Paul Janvier, Astounding February 1956. I really like this story by Budrys. His writing is just really solid. It’s about a symbiote/parasite that returns to comes to the Earth when the first interstellar ship returns. Told via the POV of probably a test pilot who was crippled in a test flight of the ship’s prototype, and who has been waiting for the ship’s return. He continues to find things happening in his house that he does not remember and cannot account for, and then his physical condition improves in a way that is not possible for a regular human. It turns out he has a “silent brother”, a symbiote, although the mechanism for his exposure to the symbiote is rather sketchy. Reprints include SF: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy: Second Annual Volume, Judith Merril editor, 1957 Dell, the collection Budrys’ Inferno, 1963 Berkley Medallion, The Great SF Stories # 18 (1956), Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg editors, 1988 DAW Books, and the Budrys collection Entertainment, 1997 NESFA Press. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”. Recent read.

“The Man Who Always Knew“, a short story, Astounding April 1956. A great story of a man with one talent, which he calls “secondhand luck”. He is known as a genius inventor, but he has the uncanny talent of knowing people will come up with something unprecedented. This all comes out as he talks to a bartender, who has just accidentally invented a new drink. I’m sure I’ve read this short short as I own this issue of Astounding, but not remembered. This was quite an issue, with the novelette “The Dead Past” by Isaac Asimov and Double Star (Part 3 of 3) by Robert A. Heinlein. Reprints include The Best Science-Fiction Stories and Novels: 1956, T. E. Dikty editor, 1956 Frederick Fell/SFBC, Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Damon Knight editor, 1973 Simon & Schuster, 101 Science Fiction Stories, Martin H. Greenberg, Charles G. Waugh, & Jenny-Lynn Waugh editors, 1986 Avenel Books, Tales from the Spaceport Bar, Darrell Schweitzer & George H. Scithers editors, 1987 Avon, and Sirius, #146/147 July 1988 in Croatian. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”. Read due to reprint.

“The Peasant Girl“, a short story as by Paul Janvier, Astounding June 1956. I own this issue of Astounding, but I don’t remember this story. A great and damn interesting story that’s a bit hard to focus on what is going on. Henry is a simple guy, a wood worker who has been raising his younger sister Dorothy. She is now a young adult. One day she disappears, and Henry goes to track her down and get her back. She eventually tells him she has married and loves one of ” them”, who appear to be new humans with mental powers. Dorothy moves back in after a few years, with her son Billy, as Billy’s development will be better if he is away from “them” for a few years. Henry is still bitter, but comes to respect Billy after Billy shows he is a wood worker too for all that he is one of them too and does wood working that Henry does not understand. I like what Budrys says and doesn’t say about what is going on here. I guess the title is an allusion to a low-born girl marrying a prince, perhaps. Reprinted in the collection Budrys’ Inferno, 1963 Berkley Medallion, Hanging by a Thread, Joan Kahn editor, 1969 Houghton Mifflin, and Urania #1050 June 1987 in Italian. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”. Read due to reprints.

“Lower Than Angels”, a novelette, Infinity Science Fiction October 1956. This is not a bad story of first contact by a Corporation agent, where the natives think him a god and he resolves to show them he is not. However, it just dragged for me, so I dropped it. Others clearly disagree with me, with reprints in collection Budrys’ Inferno, 1963 Berkley Medallion, Earthmen and Strangers, Robert Silverberg editor, 1966 Duell, Sloan and Pearce, Universe Ahead: Stories of the Future, Sylvia Engdahl & Rick Roberson editors, 1975 Atheneum, and Robot – Rivista di Fantascienza #2 May 1976 in Italian. Rated 2/5, or “Did not finish”. Read due to reprints.

“Death March”, a novelette, Astounding October 1956. I suspect I have have read this before, as I own the back issue of Astounding, but not remembered. This issue also features The Naked Sun (Part 1 of 3) by Isaac Asimov. I like this story of a young man, Kenn Haffey, whose is smart but whose brain has a hard time staying on task at the sawmill. He is of the age where people on his Earth have to be tested, receiving a mark on their forehead that tells everyone what they are. He is a Candidate, who has a temporary mark placed on his forehead by the local Agent, which many react badly to as he journeys to the test. Upon reaching the test, he finds out he will be one of the responsible elite who must help the planet’s population be better. I enjoyed the process of his journey, but the ending is a bit of a letdown for me. I would have rated this as “Great” otherwise. Reprinted in Pistas del Espacio, No. 14 1959 in Spanish, Best SF Six, Edmund Crispin editor, 1966 Faber and Faber, and in German in the Budrys collection Helden-GmbH und andere Stories, 1970 Moewig. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”. Read due to reprints.

“Nightsound” (AKA “The Attic Voice”), a short story, Satellite February 1957. A great story of a veterinary student whose father was a farmer. His dad died, and he is helping his mom handle things. He finds an odd radio, and then discovers that his dad had been helping a crashed alien. He meets it, and he will help it. Great story, very understated and wonderfully conveys the desperation of farm life and economics. Only reprint in Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels: 9th Series, T. E. Dikty editor, 1958 Advent. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”. Recent read.

“The War Is Over”, a short story, Astounding February 1957. “Omnilingual” by H. Beam Piper in this issue also. Read a long time ago in my copy, but not remembered. A story of beings that have been building a spaceship for a long time, for an unknown reason. One has observed to another that the remains (skeletons?) are much smaller in the past. Finally, the ship is launched. A box is returned to Terrans. It turns out that a Terran spaceship carrying then vital information had crashed. The pilot’s A.I.D. survived and multiplied and drove the delivery, 400 years later. Not one of the best by Budrys. After looking a bit more, I see that there is an earlier Budrys story “A.I.D.” that I don’t remember but is connected to this one. Reprinted in 13 Great Stories of Science Fiction, Groff Conklin editor, 1960 Fawcett Gold Medal, in Italian in La guerra è sempre la guerra, Rugrero Leonardi editor, 1967 De Carlo Editore, in French in Histoires des temps futurs, Alain Dorémieux editor, 1968 Casterman, and in Romanian in Cosmos XXI: întîmplări dintr-un univers al păcii, Alexandru Mironov & George Veniamin editors, 1987 Editura Politică. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”. Read due to reprints.

“Chain Reaction”, a novelette as by John Sentry, Astounding April 1957. Read before in Astounding but not remembered, in the same issue as the superlative “Call Me Joe” novella by Poul Anderson, and the great short story “The Mile-Long Spaceship” by Kate Wilhelm. Humanoid aliens live under the rule of the Masters. The Masters are deposed by other humans who “free” the aliens. However, the new “Not-Masters” science makes them want changes to improve the humanoid aliens lives, which is a problem for both. Reprinted in Six Great Short Science Fiction Novels, Groff Conklin editor, 1960 Dell, in German in the Budrys collection Helden-GmbH und andere Stories, 1970 Moewig, and The Crash of Empire, John F. Carr & Jerry Pournelle editors, 1989 Baen Books. Rated 3.3/5, or “Good”. Read due to reprints.

“And Then She Found Him …“, a Gus short story as by Paul Janvier, Venture Science Fiction Magazine July 1957. A story of others like Gus, but who collaborate in groups. Two of them visit a small town where a woman with the same talent of being ignored as Gus also has the power to make anyone obey her to please her. They end up killing her, as she is not mentally stable and will dominate them and screw up the whole world. Reprinted in Fiction #70 September 1959 in French, the collection Budrys’ Inferno, 1963 Berkley Medallion, No Limits, Joseph W. Ferman editor, 1964 Ballantine Books, and Histoires de surhommes, Jacques Goimard, Demètre Ioakimidis, & Gérard Klein editors, 1984 Le Livre de Poche. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”. Read due to reprints.

“The Burning World“, a novelette, Infinity Science Fiction July 1957. A man is the aging president of the Freemen League, in a world where a new “Direct Power” system gives everyone energy. Guns can use it. This story has a very libertarian bent. However, it also bored the hell out of me. This might be the first story by Budrys I could not finish. Reprinted in the first Budrys collection The Unexpected Dimension, 1960 Ballantine Books, Étoile Double #10, Robert Louit editor, 1984 Denoël, the Budrys collection Entertainment, 1997 NESFA Press, and Black Cat Weekly, #112 October 2023. Rated 2/5, or “Did not finish”. Read due to reprints.

“The Skirmisher“, a short story, Infinity Science Fiction November 1957. A man seems to be causing a lot of trouble and killing people about to get married. The sheriff tries to take him in, but fails and dies, I guess. Not a great story, and I never connected the story with the title. I think this could have been a great story, but it feels like Budrys stopped before he finished writing or rewriting it. Reprinted only in the collections Budrys’ Inferno, 1963 Berkley Medallion, and the Budrys collection Entertainment, 1997 NESFA Press. Rated 3.2/5, or “Good”. Read due to reprints.

“Forever Stenn” (AKA “The Ridge Around the World”), a short story, Satellite December 1957. Wow. I’m not sure what to make of this story, but l just love it. Stenn lives on his own and farms his land, occasionally annoyed by those in power. He survives many, many peoples and lifetimes. Finally, the last human goes. Stenn is left. He keeps playing and farming, but there is no limit to the farm. It’s not clear to me who or what Stenn is. Still, I love this story. I am not at all sure how the other title, “The Ridge Around the World”, connects to this. Reprinted in the Budrys collection Blood and Burning, 1978 Berkley Books. Rated 4.1/5, or “Superlative”. Rich Horton essay.

“Resurrection on Fifth Avenue”, as by Gordon Jaulyn, a novelette, Fantastic December 1957. A 7.5 foot tall godlike human brings seven humans from the steps of the New York Public Library to a similar world where humans have disappeared without a trace. The larger than life, competent man Sam calls the godlike being “Friend.” Friend does not want to be alone, but does not know who he is. Friend knows everything about his world and these seven people, when he really looks at them. Marks points out that they are in a multiple world variant. Sam and the others finally find out one of them, Fontaine, is a power mad genius who used a machine to combine the minds of all the world into one being, creating Friend while killing everyone. Friend now knows who and what he is, and sends the surviving six back to their Earth. Not quite a great story, but it kept me wanting to know where Budrys was going with it. This has aspects that remind me a lot of the Jerome Bixby classic short story, “It’s a Good Life“. For all that “Resurrection on Fifth Avenue” has never been reprinted, it’s a very good story. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”. Paul Weimer essay.

“Go and Behold Them” (AKA “The End of Winter”), a short story as by William Scarf, Venture Science Fiction Magazine January 1958. Three members of the astrophysics research team of the Institute and 11 other teams are sent out to many solar systems to find a much loved team that is missing, Lew and Norah. They find their remains on a bizarre, isolated world that is all metal and may be a machine. Norah buried Lew after a crash and then died also in her suit. The search team buries Norah as well. The narrator notes that the planet becomes less bizarre and threatening after she is buried. The last sentence reads, “For I think that someday, in the deeps we sift, we shall meet the children of Lew and Norah Harvey.” This could have been a great story, but did not get there for me. My first thought is that there is too much going on for a short story. It’s also not the only Budrys story included in this issue, as “Falling Torch“, a Michael Wireman novelette, is also included under his own name. Reprints include the first Budrys collection The Unexpected Dimension, 1960 Ballantine Books, Histoires de mondes étranges, Jacques Goimard, Demètre Ioakimidis, & Gérard Klein editors, 1984 Le Livre de Poche, and the Budrys collection Entertainment, 1997 NESFA. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”. Read due to reprints.

“The Edge of the Sea“, a short story, Venture March 1958. It’s a cover story for this Venture issue. This is a great story featuring Dan Henry, who Is a “physically powerful, reasonably intelligent, ugly man who drew his strength from the knowledge that nothing could quite overcome him.” He had no real goals in life, and was driving down the Florida Keys to a job on a sponge farm. He stops for lunch at an unpopulated key, where he sees a metal canister of some sort down among the rocks that protect the key bridge. He thinks it might be valuable to the Navy, perhaps related to the space program. He realizes a hurricane is coming in. He makes a Herculean effort to fix the artifact in place and prevent it from being swept away. A policeman is doing a sweep to ensure public safety. They tussle, and the policeman goes to get help, convinced this item might be important. Henry is almost swept away, but observes the device signaling to outer space. The policeman and a scientist return with the eye of the hurricane, and with Henry see an unearthly space ship come down to retrieve the probe or beacon or whatever. Henry refuses to let it go, and is swept away toward the alien ship with the probe. Hugo Award finalist, with reprints including SF: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy: Third Annual Volume, Judith Merril editor, 1958 Dell, Introducing SF: A Science Fiction Anthology, Brian W. Aldiss editor, 1964 Faber and Faber, Worlds to Come, Damon Knight editor, 1967 Harper & Row, and UFOs: The Greatest Stories, Martin H. Greenberg editor, 1996 MJF Books. Rated 4/5, or “Great”. SFADB.

“Never Meet Again“, a short story, Infinity Science Fiction March 1958. Professor Kempfer is a pensioner and hero of the Third Reich, who helped them win WW2. He has been puttering, but also working on something else. 16 years later, he still mourns the death of his wife Marthe, who died in a camp. He escapes to an alternate probability world where Germany lost WW2, perhaps like our own. He has arrived in East Berlin, the Communist sector. He reunites with Marthe, who tells him he died here. She brings her supervisor Colonel Lubinstev, who is excited to have access to Professor Kampfer and his technology. Professor Kampfer cannot take the disappointment, and knows he is dying. Great characters. Reprinted in the first Budrys collection The Unexpected Dimension, 1960 Ballantine Books, Hitler Victorious: Eleven Stories of the German Victory in World War II, Gregory Benford & Martin H. Greenberg editors, 1986 Garland Publishing, and the Budrys collection Entertainment, 1997 NESFA Press. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”. Read due to reprints.

“Contact Between Equals“, a short story as by Albert Stroud, Venture Science Fiction Magazine July 1958. In the same issue as the great story “Two Dooms“, C. M. Kornbluth’s last story written before he died in March 1958 according to editor Robert P. Mills. A very good story of blind, millionaire businessman Will Schaefer, who is recovering from mysterious yet fairly brief surgery to restore or give him sight. He figures out that his wife and surgeon Dr. Champley are having an affair. He gradually realizes that Champley has imprisoned a stranded, hurt alien and used the alien’s technology for his surgery. The alien is about to escape. Furthermore, Champley has performed a body switch, planning to have Schaefer die in his place when the alien escapes. Schaefer reaches a deal with the alien. Reprinted in collection Budrys’ Inferno, 1963 Berkley Medallion, SF: Authors’ Choice 2, Harry Harrison editor, 1970 Berkley Medallion, Sterren stralen overal, Warner Flamen editor, 1977 Meulenhoff, and the Budrys collection Entertainment, 1997 NESFA. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”. Read due to reprints.

“Between the Dark and the Daylight“, a short story as by David C. Hodgkins, Infinity Science Fiction October 1958. In the same issue as “Infiltration” by Budrys, which has never been reprinted. A great, horrifying story of generations of successively modified/bred colonists after crashing on a world, getting ready to release the generation that should be able to survive in the brutal world outside the Dome. The colonists are unreally, as the leader Brendan will not let them see their children. Brendan dies as they are released, knowing the children would have killed them too. The implication is that the children are just as dangerous as the animals outside. Reprinted in the collection Budrys’ Inferno, 1963 Berkley Medallion, The Best Science Fiction Stories, no editor credited, 1977 Hamlyn, and Changes, Michael Bishop & Ian Watson editors, 1983 Ace Books. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”. Read due to reprints.

“The Stoker and the Stars”, a short story as by John A. Sentry, Astounding February 1959. A very interesting tale of a war veteran who comes back as a “stoker” and just keeps traveling between the stars. Reprints include Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction, Leigh Ronald Grossman editor, 2011 Wildside Press (recommended), and Space Jockey, Tara Maya editor, 2013 Misque Press. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”. Read due to reprints.

“The Man Who Tasted Ashes”, a short story, If February 1959. Redfern is an outsider let go from the UK foreign service 15 years ago. He has been involved in many unsavory things since then. He is recruited by an alien to kill an Ambassador and start WW3. He ends up loyal to the human race and helps stop the attempt, but is still left as an outsider. This issue also includes “No, No, Not Rogov!“, an Instrumentality of Mankind short story by Cordwainer Smith. Reprinted in the collection Budrys’ Inferno, 1963 Berkley Medallion, Stories from Science Fiction, G. D. Doherty editor, 1966 Thomas Nelson & Sons, and Worlds of If: A Retrospective Anthology, Frederik Pohl, Martin H. Greenberg & Joseph D. Olander editors, 1986 Bluejay. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”. Read due to reprints.

“The Distant Sound of Engines“, a short story, F&SF March 1959. In the same issue as “All You Zombies–” by Robert A. Heinlein. A short short, of a truck driver who is in the hospital after losing both legs in a crash. The person in the next bed is covered in bandages and might not be human, but reveals all kinds of information about space flight humans that don’t have. I am a little irked at the story intro, which reveals too much information, “The occupant of the next bed was dying,  and he knew it. Somehow, it made him want to talk….and what he had to say revealed that he that he must be more than human…” Reprinted in the Budrys collection The Unexpected Dimension, 1960 Ballantine, Help! #4 November 1960, Minotauro Marzo-Abril March 1965 in Spanish, the Budrys collection Entertainment, 1997 NESFA, and The Algis Budrys Omnibus Volume One: Some Will Not Die with Selected Short Fiction, 2003 Scorpius Digital Publishing. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”. Read due to reprints.

“Star Descending”, a short story, from Star Science Fiction Stories 5, May 1959 Ballantine. A very good story of a partnership where two men have a system of commercial omniscience, who find that someone else has duplicated their system, perhaps with bad implications for the future. One of them sells out, and the other will fight. Reprints include Histoires de machines, Jacques Goimard, Demètre Ioakimidis, & Gérard Klein editors, 1974 Le Livre de Poche, and Titan 5, Wolfgang Jeschke, Frederik Pohl editors, 1977 Heyne. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”. Read due to reprints.

“The Girl in the Bottle“, a short story, Fantastic Universe December 1959. It’s the end of the last war for the few remaining on both sides. There is an idea of a girl in a bottle. Two men in a foxhole are the last. Reprinted in the Budrys collection Blood and Burning, 1978 Berkley Books, and Readercon 10 Souvenir Book, B. Diane Martin, Steve Pasechnick, David G. Shaw editors, 1998 Readercon. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”. Read due to reprints.

“Due Process”, a short story, Astounding/Analog February 1960. A reread; first read in a back issue decades ago but not remembered. A typical Astounding/Analog story, in some ways, but a fun setting. Following some kind of nuclear exchange, Atlantis is a going concern, an artificial island of some kind, serving as the terminus of vacuum gravity trains between some continents. A canny manager thwarts a plot to interrupt service. I am not all sure this is the first story to feature vacuum gravity trains. The idea originated with Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke, with the first scientific paper on it from 1966. There have been many stories about vactrains, where a full or partial vacuum reduces resistance, see Vactrain – Wikipedia Vactrain – Wikipedia https://share.google/GyyVqYLZCFdDHThcH. Reprinted in 12 Great Classics of Science Fiction, Groff Conklin editor, 1963 Gold Medal Books, and Pirate Writings, #8 1995, Edward J. McFadden editor, 1995 Pirate Writings Publishing. Rated 3.7/5, or “Very good”. Read due to reprints.

“The Price“, a short story, F&SF February 1960. More an idea than on a story. A fantasy of a hunchback who may be immortal, and three powerful men who are desperate. Reprinted in Fiction #159 February 1967 in French, The War Book, James Sallis editor, 1969 Repurt Hart-Davis, Sieg in der Kälte, Wulf H. Bergner editor, 1972 Heyne (in German), the Budrys collection Blood and Burning, 1978 Berkley Books, and Histoires d’immortels, Jacques Goimard, Demètre Ioakimidis, & Gérard Klein editors, 1984 Le Livre de Poche, in French. Rated 3.3/5, or “Good”. Read due to reprints.

“Rogue Moon“, a novella, F&SF December 1960. This is a classic, a story of a government sponsored program to investigate a mysterious artifact on the moon that involves a matter transmitter and character exploring it by dying multiple times. I love the somewhat terse but fluid writing and good characterization. Yes, the characters are somewhat of an arch-type, especially Hawks (perhaps on the Autism spectrum today) and Barker, but it works. And I love how the story works out and how both the technical and philosophical issues are addressed. I’ve read both the novella and the expanded novel, and I think I prefer the novella a bit. The novel has been reprinted many times, but the novella has only been reprinted a few times, in Fiction, #112 March 1963 in French, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two B: The Greatest Science Fiction Novellas of All Time Chosen by the Science Fiction Writers of America, Ben Bova editor, 1973 Doubleday (quite a few different editions), and Titan 13, Ben Bova, Wolfgang Jeschke editors, 1980 Heyne in German. The novel was a Hugo finalist. Rated 4.7/5, or “A classic”. Recent read.

“Wall of Crystal, Eye of Night”, a novelette, Galaxy December 1961. I’m not really sure what I’d like to say about this story. For me it falls into the vein of “industrial titans competing”. I did not find the characters to be well drawn. I see this story has been anthologized a number of times, but I don’t find it compelling. It did have a somewhat unrelenting sense of pacing and plot, perhaps at the expense of the characters. And I did enjoy the Martians, perhaps my favorite part of the story. In 2026, I just don’t feel like rereading this. I did not think much of this story, rating it just barely “Good”. Others disagree, with quite a few reprints such as The Tenth Galaxy Reader, Frederik Pohl editor, 1967 Doubleday, Alpha 2, Robert Silverberg editor, 1971 Ballantine, The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction, Robert Silverberg & Martin H. Greenberg editors, 1980 Arbor House, Galaxy: Thirty Years of Innovative Science Fiction, Martin H. Greenberg, Joseph D. Olander, & Frederik Pohl editors, 1980 Playboy Press, and The Great SF Stories #23 (1961), Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg, 1991 DAW. Rated 3/5, or “Okay”. Recent read.

“For Love” (AKA “All For Love”), a novelette, Galaxy June 1962. Unknown and unknowable aliens land in the middle of the US in a 250 mile tall space ship. There has been no apparent communication or interest in humans by the aliens. The only clear recognition of humans is the alien antimissile systems and other weapons that have eliminated all human airplanes and such after prior attacks, and any human artifacts above ground. The US Army and others have been driving a tunnel for 30 years to undermine one of the four landing jacks, to try to destroy the ship. General Compton is a partly cyborg leader of the tunnel effort. Colonel Runner is from Special Division, there to try to plant a hydrogen bomb on one of the legs by a stealthed armored insect vehicle. He visits Compton, to show him the vehicle. They disagree about what if anything will work. Runner also visits Norma, who married Compton instead of Runner. They both may have lost hope. He reaches the ship and sees that it is decrepit, and comes to agree with some who feel the ship is doing a self-refit. Although Runner is badly injured getting off the ship’s leg, the bomb does go off and one of four legs is damaged badly. The ship is not destroyed, but the aliens do withdraw the opposite leg to balance the ship. Runner gets back, and finds Compton is optimistic about destroying the ship when the tunnel reaches the ship. Although Runner is badly disabled, he refuses being cyborged to stay human. I own this issue of Galaxy, but I have no memory of reading this story. Reprinted in The Seventh Galaxy Reader, Frederik Pohl editor, 1964 Doubleday, Alpha 7, Robert Silverberg editor, 1977 Berkley Medallion, the Budrys collection Blood and Burning, 1978 Berkley Books, and The Mammoth Book of SF Wars, Ian Watson & Ian Whates editors, 2012 Robinson. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”. Read due to reprints.

“Die, Shadow!”, a novelette, If May 1963. An early, driven engineer, test pilot David Greaves, reaches Venus first. His ship is crashing, and his safety system malfunctions, sending him into millennia-long sleep. He wakes as a god, and fights and defeats a Shadow from another universe. Pretty ordinary story for Budrys, although Frederik Pohl liked it. Reprinted in The Second If Reader of Science Fiction, Frederik Pohl editor, 1968 Doubleday. Rated 3.5/5, or “Good”. SFADB.

“The Last Brunette” (AKA “The Ultimate Brunette”), a short story, Playboy September 1965. A great story, although I think it could be interpreted either as speculative fiction or as not, of a man who has a lifelong regret of how he ended things with a brunette a long time ago, and perhaps how other versions of her keep coming back to his peripatetic life and he keeps failing. And his car. Reprinted in The Fiend, Editors of Playboy, 1971 Playboy Press, and the Budrys collection Blood and Burning, 1978 Berkley Books. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”. Read due to reprints.

“The Master of the Hounds” a novelette, The Saturday Evening Post August 27 1966. A horror story involving Doberman pinchers and a couple on an isolated coast rental. I did not finish. I suspect a horror fan might love this story. Reprints include Stories That Scared Even Me, “Alfred Hitchcock” editor, 1967 Random House, Stories from The Saturday Evening Post, Julie Eisenhower editor, 1976 Walter J. Black, Inc., the Budrys collection Blood and Burning, 1978 Berkley Books, A Treasury of American Horror Stories, Martin H. Greenberg, Frank McSherry, Jr., & Charles G. Waugh editors, 1985 Bonanza Books / Crown Publishers, Dogtales!, Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois editors, 1988 Ace Books, and Masters of Darkness III, Dennis Etchison editor, 1991 Tor.Rated 2/5, or “Did not finish”. SFADB, Rich Horton essay, reprints.

“Be Merry”, a novelette, If December 1966. Wow. A Klarri lifeboat or two have crashed on Earth, stranding the crews. Most of them and most humans have died in resulting Klarri disease outbreaks and the breakdown of civilization. Amid this dystopian situation, humans and Klarri are cooperating. Two of the survivors, human Ed and Klarri Artel, are teammates who are sent to scout a town that their area is helping because something does not make sense. Although the town puts on a good front, they find that infected Klarri blood is a human medical panacea and the town doctor has been injecting it into people after stealing it from captive Klarri. That is over, with some touch and go action to get there. Reprints include On Our Way to the Future, Terry Carr editor, 1970 Ace Books, in German in Science-Fiction-Stories 65 March 1977, the Budrys collection Blood and Burning, 1978 Berkley Books, Aliens!, Jack M. Dann & Gardner R. Dozois editors, 1980 Pocket Books, and in Italian in Urania #1050 July 1987. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”. SFADB.

“Now Hear the Word of the Lord“, a short story, Galaxy February 1969. I own this issue of Galaxy, but I remember nothing. Mr. Walter Keneally of an unnamed organization is revealed to be a human-like robot, deployed from a future to prevent a World War 3 that will wipe all life off the planet. Robot Keneally prevails against opponents from the One World Language League, who attempt to stop him by skewering him with a sharp umbrella. Reprinted in Best SF: 1969, Harry Harrison & Brian W. Aldiss editors, 1970 G.P. Putnam’s, and Histoires d’automates, Jacques Goimard, Demètre Ioakimidis, & Gérard Klein editors, 1984 Le Livre de Poche. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”. Read due to reprints.

“A Scraping at the Bones“, a Laurent Michaelmas short story, Analog May 1975. A wonderfully claustrophobic world, where are the building blocks are the same and presence is highly controlled and tracked. We see police man Brosmer investigate the killing of a man by his neighbors who wanted the man’s space, only to recognize how limited his own life is. Nebula Award nomination. I own this issue and I remember “The Storms of Windhaven” by George R.R. Martin from this issue, but I don’t remember this story. Reprints include The Year’s Best Science Fiction No. 9, Brian W. Aldiss & Harry Harrison editors, 1976 Orbit/Futura, the Budrys collection Blood and Burning, 1978 Berkley Books, and Future Crimes, Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois editors, 2003 Ace Books. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”. SFADB.

“The Silent Eyes of Time”, a novella, F&SF November 1975. Clint Gallard is a retired (forced out by corporate machinations) CEO for the AWC Electronics Company. Clint is about to leave town, but the current CEO catches Gallard at the gate and asks him to fix a big problem. He finds out that Dr. Hessenberger, the in-house scientist, has invented a limited time machine, good for four years into the future. A number of people know about it. Gallard solves AWC’s problem for four years by stranding Hessenberger there. I love watching Gallard dealing with the people caught up in this. Hugo Award finalist and Locus Award nomination. Reprinted in The Best Science Fiction of the Year # 5“, Terry Carr editor, 1976 Ballantine, and in German in Der Tod des Dr. Island, Wolfgang Jeschke editor, 1979 Heyne. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”. SFADB.

“The Nuptial Flight of Warbirds”, a Laurent Michaelmas novelette, Analog May 1978. I own this issue, but I don’t remember this story. Although there is one nickname that is perhaps of the time depicted but still objectionable to me, this is a damn interesting story of entertainment, a show called Warbirds, perhaps virtual realities, and more. Its all about the money. Locus Award nomination. Reprinted in the Budrys collection Blood and Burning, 1978 Berkley Books, Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow: Science Fiction War Stories, Martin H. Greenberg & Charles G. Waugh editors, 1987 Bonanza Books/Crown Publishers, and Space Dogfights, Algis Budrys, Martin Harry Greenberg, & Charles G. Waugh editors, 1992 Ace Books. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”. SFADB.

“What Befell Mairiam“, a short story, F&SF December 1989. Locus Award nomination. An immortal warlock retrieves an important ring and perhaps keeps the dangerous Kanagai at bay. Very well told. No reprints. Rated 3.8/5, or “Great”. SFADB.

“Living Alone in the Jungle“, a short story, from Fantastic Chicago, Martin H. Greenberg editor, 1991 Chicon V. I like the Tierney character, but the plot of this short short does not quite come into focus for me. Tierney has a brother who dies and then lives after being killed by a man from Kansas City. Not sure if this is SF or fantasy. This could have been a great story with a bit more to it. Reprinted in Spec-Lit, Phyllis Eisenstein editor, 1997 Columbia College Chicago, and selected by Harlan Ellison for the unpublished version of The Last Dangerous Visions. Rated 3.6/5, or “Very good”. SFADB.

“Grabow and Collicker and I“, a short story, F&SF May 1992. A wonderful story of the scientifically created undead in the Civil War. Reprinted in Urania #1192 November 1992, Confederacy of the Dead, Richard Gilliam, Martin H. Greenberg, & Edward E. Kramer editors, 1993 Roc/New American Library, Der letzte Mars-Trip, Ronald M. Hahn editor, 1994 Heyne, and Monster Brigade 3000, Martin H. Greenberg, Charles Waugh editors, 1996 Ace Books. Rated 3.9/5, or “Great”. SFADB.

The short: I recently read The Martian Trilogy (John P. Moore, Amazing Stories, Black Science Fiction, and The Illustrated Features Section), including three related 1930 short stories by John P. Moore, with very substantial non-fiction essay content by Lisa Yaszek, Chris M. Barkley, Maurice Broaddus, Bill Campbell, Minister Faust, Brooks E. Hefner, Sheree Renée Thomas, Steve Davidson, John Jennings, and many others, 2025 Amazing Stories. These three stories are probably the first planetary romances by an African American author. While I rated one of these stories as “Very good” and two as “Good”, the essay content is phenomenal. Recommended, and I nominated The Martian Trilogy for the Hugo Award Best Related Work category.

The Long: I don’t often nominate Best Related work material for the Hugo Awards, although I do vote on it some of the time.

Recently corresponding with Hugo Award winning fan writer Chris M. Barkley, he mentioned that I should check out The Martian Trilogy for Best Related Work.

I checked it out, saw who showed up in the Table of Contents, and read the Introduction by Chris. He had also noted this at File770:

This volume, which chronicles the re-discovery and a critical analysis of the 1930 serialized newspaper novel, may well be the very first space opera written by an African-African author.

After seeing his item in File770 and the Table of Contents, and reading his Introduction, I was hooked. I bought the e-book the same day.

The Martian Trilogy (John P. Moore, Amazing Stories, Black Science Fiction, and The Illustrated Features Section), includes three related 1930 short stories by John P. Moore, with very substantial non-fiction essay content by Lisa Yaszek, Chris M. Barkley, Maurice Broaddus, Bill Campbell, Minister Faust, Brooks E. Hefner, Sheree Renée Thomas, Steve Davidson, John Jennings, and many others, 2025 Amazing Stories. These three stories are probably the first planetary romances by an African American author.

The Martian Trilogy is available in e-book, trade paperback, and audio book. Amazon says that it’s 180 pages. Make no mistake that this is substantially a work of essays, with these essays all pertaining in some way to the three related 1930 short stories by John P. Moore. I love the cover by John Jennings; he also has a great essay included on the cover and what he was thinking about.

I started by reading the Introduction by Chris M. Barkley, “On Being Born at the Right Time: An Introduction to The Martian Trilogy”. After that, I read the three stories, all presented in two parts as their original weekly appearances. Finally, I read the rest of the essays, often more than once. I did this deliberately to be able to approach reading the three stories as closely as possible to that of a reader who genuinely did not know what would happen in those stories. Put another way, I wanted to avoid spoilers and form my own impression of them first.

Although I usually omit spoilers or segregate them to the bottom “Detailed Review/Comments” section of my reviews, in this case I cannot talk about this short fiction by John P. Moore and it’s significance without discussing spoilers. Accordingly, those wishing to avoid spoilers completely should skip reading the rest of this essay until after reading the stories.

The Martian Trilogy starts with essay ”About the Cover”. It’s a helpful and informed discussion by cover artist John Jennings of his inspiration by Harlem Renaissance artist Aaron Douglas, and how he used that inspiration. Jennings says:

The cover design for this issue, which celebrates the space opera written by John P. Moore, draw’s from Douglas’s aesthetic to reflect the spirit of Black imagination expanding into the cosmos.

Next is a ”Dedication”, a heartfelt essay by Steve Davidson, which tells us a lot about how this book came to be:

I want to acknowledge the contributions, support and hard work that Lisa Yaszek has performed on this project; had it not been for her original research, her support of her students and the on-going work she has done in examining the true roots of the science fiction genre, this book would not exist.

”On Being Born at the Right Time: An Introduction to The Martian Trilogy”, is a great, insightful and personal introduction by Chris M. Barkley, linking his own past to this work by John P. Moore. Some of the passages that got my attention include:

When I read John P. Moore’s serial, I deliberately chose not to read it in the mode of a modern 21st century reader, but as someone who at that time would be suffering under the multiple challenges of oppressive racism and the economic disaster of the Great Depression.

Moore’s imagined year of 2030 is quite idealized and forward thinking for its time; there is no sign of systemic racism or social bias, but there are plenty of technological and related marvels; a quick and efficient means of mass transit and air transportation, advances in scientific endeavors and privatized space travel, and, incredibly, a novelist narrator actually makes a comfortable living writing (science!) fiction with enough left over for a trusty man-servant as well.

Just as the spectacular debut of Gene Roddenberry‘s Star Trek in North America in September 1966 changed everything for science fiction fans, I can just imagine that the publication of The Martian Trilogy may have had something of the same effect on some of the younger African Americans reading this serial in the pages of the IFS of their local Black newspapers.

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From what I learned about IFS from the various contributors you are about to read, this section was created for the African American community to bolster their morale and spirits during the nation’s greatest financial turmoil. And also—to make some money as well.

Personally speaking, one glaring thing that I found was that my modern sensibilities were a bit put off by Moore’s stereotypical depictions of the “savage” Martians and the lack of sophisticated world building that modern readers have come to expect. I speculate that this was probably due to the inevitable influence of some of the popular writers of the time such as H. Rider haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs, who often utilized the same tropes.

Lisa Yaszek’s essay “‘Back to the Future: An Introduction to The Martian Trilogy”, is an outstanding essay by one of the leading academics who study and write about speculative fiction, which gives background on how this book came about and argues coherently about the importance of the work. I was very curious about how this book came to be, and I was not surprised Yaszek addressed this head on.

THE PROCESS OF RECOVERING and reprinting The Martian Trilogy has been nearly as thrilling and adventure as the ones detailed by Moore in his amazing stories. Our journey began in 2022 when the research fellows in my Sci Fi Lab at Georgia Tech decided to explore the question: Where were Black authors publishing science fiction before Samuel R. Delany and Octavia E. Butler integrated the science fiction community in the 1960s and 1970s? The students began their research with Sheree Renée Thomas‘s groundbreaking Dark Matters anthologies, the first volumes to map the rich history of African American speculative fiction as it has developed over the past 150 years. This confirmed the students’ suspicion that Black intellectuals had long used the themes and techniques of science fiction for social critique, and led to a new, refined question: When did Black authors make the leap from writing science fiction as social critique to producing science fiction as a commercial art form that would entertain mass audiences and provide a paycheck?

While there has not been much published on this subject to date, two sources eventually led us to the historic African American newspaper archive. Our first lead came from Delany’s 1999 essay “Racism and Science Fiction,” (republished in Thomas’s first Dark Matter anthology), one of the first works to note that author George S. Schuyler published his most famous science fiction serial in The Pittsburgh Courier, a weekly Black newspaper that had a national circulation of 250,000 subscribers in the 1930s. Our second source of inspiration was Brooks Hefner’s 2021 study Black Pulp: Genre Fiction in the Shadow of Jim Crow, which surveys the development of Black genre forms in the early 20th century African American newspapers. With the aid of science fiction librarian Matt Frizzell and funding from Georgia Tech’s Office of Undergraduate Research; Center for the Study of Women, Science, and Technology; and School of Literature, Media, and Communication, we began the process of surveying the Black newspapers archived by ProQuest Historical Newspapers, the Library of Congress, and The AFRO Black History Vault. In a single semester, the Sci Fi Lab student researchers found two dozen speculative stories written by Black authors, including a horror poem from 1832, an early science fiction vignette from a young George Schuyler, the first Black-authored zombie tale—published by popular romance and adventure serial writer Cora Jean Moten the same month as the first white-authored zombie tale!—and, of course, John P. Moore’s planetary romance, The Martian Trilogy.

In the following pages, we aim to provide readers with a comprehensive experience of Moore’s story. The main event is, of course, The Martian Trilogy, reprinted here based on the original text and illustrations as published in the IFS supplement of The Richmond Planet.

Other key points by Lisa Yaszek include:

1. “JOHN P. MOORE’S STORIES did not magically appear out of some other dimension in space and time. African Americans have been writing speculative fiction since before the dawn of the U.S. itself.”
2. “So, what led John P. Moore to depart from the tradition of revolutionary African American speculative fiction established by his predecessors and peers, and to write an all-Black planetary romance about love and war on Mars instead? The answer likely lies in the rise of modern genre fiction as it developed in both African American newspapers and white pulp magazines at the turn of the 20th century.”
3. “The planetary romances featured in early twentieth-century genre magazines were almost exclusively populated by white people: indeed, the only mention of Blackness in the first issue of Amazing occurs in the opening story, H.G. Wells’s [H. G. Wells did not write this; it was Jules Verne – DEH] Jules Verne’s ‘Off on a Comet‘, when a character compares himself to Friday from Robinson Crusoe before quickly thanking the heavens that he is a ‘white Friday [rather than] a black one’ (15). When Black characters do appear, they fall into one of three broad stereotypes: the faithful but superstitious (and often cowardly) servant who does essential background labor for the white protagonist…; the natural resource to be exploited by the white protagonists…; and the pseudo-Darwinian bug-eyed monster who threatens to destroy all white people through mad science and miscegenation…. Whatever role they played, Black characters in the white pulps were never the subjects of their own stories. Moore turns that lack into an opportunity, providing readers with a world—and indeed, a solar system—full of talented Black people who are front and center in the creation of truly new futures….”
4. “Of course, like all good pulp era writers, Moore tempers the science in his story with plenty of romance and action—and in both cases, he once again finds plenty of room for innovative storytelling. Moore provides readers with a love interest that is more complex than the ones usually encountered in pulp stories written by white men: the mixed-race, ‘beautifully dark’ Martian singer Ioane, who works in the Pragian food halls. On the one hand, Ioane is very much the typical beautiful alien monster of pulp fiction—a gorgeous but cold woman sometimes called ‘Ioane the Man-Hater’ who drives the men around her to fight to the death. At the same time, Moore gives Ioane a very good reason for distrusting the rhetoric of love: her Pragian father deserted her Elsian mother, leaving the two women to fend for themselves in a foreign kingdom at war with their home country. Furthermore, while Ioane does eventually fall for the story’s Martian hero, she is never asked to give up her work as an artist….”
5. “The final and perhaps most exciting difference between Moore’s ‘Love on Mars‘ and white-authored planetary romances is that the problem of alien war is not solved by a human protagonist who uses his superior science and/or military prowess to save the day, but by the Martians themselves.”

”Researching Black Pulp”, by Brooks E. Hefner, is a phenomenal essay by the academic who helped encourage this effort with his book Black Pulp: Genre Fiction in the Shadow of Jim Crow, 2021 University of Minnesota Press. Excerpts that spoke to me include the text below:

THERE’S NOTHING QUITE AS EXCITING as stumbling upon something as groundbreaking as John P. Moore’s Martian Trilogy while digging through nearly one-hundred-year-old newspapers. Archival research can be among the most frustrating—and most rewarding—academic endeavors. One romantic way of envisioning it is by comparing it to detective work. As scholars of genre fiction know, however, there exists really two strands of detective fiction. In classical detective fiction (of the Sherlock Holmes type), the detective is a genius who puts together obscure clues in ways that no one else could possibly do and delivers a clean solution to the crime at the narrative’s conclusion. In hard-boiled detective fiction (like the work of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler), the detective bumbles around—often clueless—taken in by grifters, seduced by sirens, knocked on the head and otherwise abused, while finally managing to produce a modicum of results. Archival work is far more like this latter version of the detective story, as it involves no small amount of false starts, dead ends, illusory discoveries, dumb luck, and a sense of success when a researcher has only scratched the surface.

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As my reading of these stories and serials continued, it became clear that this archive was important and exciting for so many reasons. These works represented a vast archive of Black genre fiction that had been hiding in plain sight for years, as scholars had mined these Black newspapers for historical and editorial content while overlooking the literary output present there. This was an alternative genre canon, one that rejected the white supremacist principles that were inherent in the early formulas of genres like crime fiction, science fiction, fantasy, and romance. This research revealed the names of dozens of forgotten Black writers, whose sensational fictions performed sophisticated revisions of genres that had largely ignored or demeaned Black characters. In addition, it uncovered lost—but essential—threads of genre history, demanding that scholars and fans rethink how we understand the growth and development of genre fiction.

Among the fiction I encountered in this process was John P. Moore’s serial space opera, published in the “Amazing Stories” column of the Illustrated Feature Section, a syndicated tabloid that had been dismissed as trivial by the one or two literature scholars who mentioned it. This space opera, which imagines a future of Black scientific excellence and space exploration, is of a piece with much of the work published in these Black newspapers in that it used the trappings of genre fiction to imagine a way out of Jim Crow America and to reconstruct the fundamental structure of the early space opera (which routinely relied on metaphors of racial difference and race warfare). Moore’s trilogy was a text that I mentioned in Black Pulp to show why the genre fiction published in the Illustrated Feature Section was so important: it helped pave the way for more Black newspaper fiction (including work by Schuyler and William Thomas Smith) that spoke to and for Black readers in the Jim Crow era, and it showed a glimpse of a more diverse SF future. When I finished Black Pulp, my hope was that it would generate interest in these texts and writers and that others would become advocates for this amazing work. I am thrilled that Moore’s work will now be available and serve as one more testament to the work of Black writers who sought to forge a different, more liberatory path for Black genre fiction.

Next is ”An Amazing Amazing Story”, an insightful essay by Steve Davidson, current publisher of Amazing Stories. He discusses how the “Amazing Stories” heading for science fiction in the Illustrated Feature Section was either unnoticed or ignored by the publishers of the Amazing Stories magazine. More positively, he mentions how exciting this work by John P. Moore is:

I want to stress that this work is in no way a Discovery. John P. Moore, the Illustrated Feature Section, the “Amazing Stories” feature that appeared within its pages and all of the rest of the quite fascinating and informative history that is relayed here has always been present. We are not laying claim to it. Rather, it has been our happy fortune to be able to recover at least a portion of it. This volume represents our efforts to return this history and these artifacts to their rightful owners: the science fiction community in general, and the Black science fiction community in particular.

“The Shot Into Space Part One”, a short story by John P. Moore, appeared in the Illustrated Features Section. The version presented was published in the October 4, 1930 issue of the Richmond Planet newspaper. Although not noted in the Table of Contents, the text notes “Part One”. The first thing I had to do on reading these short stories from 1930 was to decide if I was going to read them before I read all of the preceding essay material. After some flipflopping back and forth, as noted above I decided to read them before most of the essay content. What follows of my initial thoughts on these three stories are prior to my reading the rest of the essay content. “S. Q. Brent, well known Negro novelist”, is having a quiet and normal morning, with his man servant Bennett helping him bath, dress and eat. We conclude that he is struggling with what to write about next. He asks if H. S. Turner the scientist who had disappeared recently had been heard from, and Bennett has heard nothing new. A mysterious stranger, a pilot perhaps, insists on seeing him and tells him “..if you will be at the air field atop the Negro Times Building, in St. Louis, at eight O’clock you will be escorted to my employer, who wishes to interview you on a matter of great importance”. Brent decides to do this to the consternation of Bennett, and is perhaps kidnapped to join scientist Turner and two other scientists in a rocket to Mars! I do like the presentation of the text and the illustrations at the end of Part One. There are illustrations for the other stories as well.

”Biography – John P. Moore, Author”, by Val Barnhart. This is an excellent essay, which talks about works by Moore in and outside of genre while stating that “John P. Moore” was a common name in that era, and it was not possible to pin down much more about him. Val Barnhart has my sympathy on that search for specific information, as I have had that same experience looking for information on authors and family members with common names, and not being able to be sure if it was the same person or not. In my prior experience searching for information on a author or artist when you only know they wrote a specific story, it takes either a unique name or some luck, such as an obituary or essay that mentions that “John P. Moore” had written science fiction.

“The Shot Into Space Part Two”, a short story by John P. Moore, appeared in the Illustrated Features Section. The version presented was published in the October 11, 1930 issue of the Richmond Planet newspaper. Although not noted in the Table of Contents, the text notes “Part Two”. This is the next week’s entry, Part Two, where Brent, Turner, and others reach Mars before anyone else does, ending on a cliffhanger, “…somewhere on the planet of Mars– and look! I pulled myself up and looked, became rigid, as if petrified. Listen–the next time we get together I’ll tell you what I saw”. Without thinking about any other factors, I am rating “The Shot Into Space” 3.6/5, or “Very good”. I also find it interesting that it’s a first person narrative where Moore’s narrator S. Q. Brent breaks the 3rd wall at times and talks directly to the reader, such as at the end of the story.

”Biography – George S. Schuyler, Editor”, by MaxAnthony Mateer, is an interesting essay about the first editor of Illustrated Features Section, whose “Instructions to Contributors” asked for “swiftly moving stories” that address “all matter with Negro life” but that avoid “the color problem”. This would have applied to John P. Moore’s work in IFS. Schuyler also wrote some SF, as noted in the essay. He started out a socialist but ended as quite conservative, endorsing Barry Goldwater.

”The Hidden Kingdom Part One”, a short story by John P. Moore, appeared in the Illustrated Features Section. The version presented was published in the November 22 15 [Incorrectly noted as November 22 in The Martian Trilogy; I found the original Part One in the Richmond Planet online for November 15, 1930 – DEH], 1930 issue of the Richmond Planet newspaper. Although not noted in the TOC, this is “Part One”. S. Q. Brent wakes up from a mysterious sleep, and is sure he has been dreaming and is really in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, he and the other three eminent black scientists of the expedition have been captured by mysterious little black Martian men from the Kingdom of Els who accuse them of being Pragian spies.

”Biography – Benjamin J. Davis, Jr., Editor”, by MaxAnthony Mateer. Davis was the second editor, and he would have been the editor for the John. P. Moore works here. He stuck with the Schuyler “Instructions to Contributors”, while broadening content to include “elements of race-based storytelling and social criticism”. A Communist, he served time in federal penitentiary for conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government after WW2.

”The Hidden Kingdom Part Two”, a short story by John P. Moore, appeared in the Illustrated Features Section. The version presented was published in the November 22, 1930 issue of the Richmond Planet newspaper. Although not noted in the TOC, this is “Part Two”. They are thrown out of the subterranean city and left to die on the cold, snowy Martian surface. At the last minute, they are rescued by the black Pragians, enemies of those who captured them. It appears that the Pragians were responsible for their being thrown out of Els by Pragian spys. It is interesting that both conflicting Martian races are portrayed as black, and not a surprise when we look back at the Schuyler “Instructions to Contributors”. My rating for ”The Hidden Kingdom” is 3.5/5, or “Good”.

”Biography – Ivy Boone, Editor”, by MaxAnthony Mateer. A good essay on an accomplished woman editor who did not appear to overlap with these three SF stories in 1930.

”Love On Mars Part One”, a short story by John P. Moore, appeared in the Illustrated Features Section. The version presented was published in the December 13, 1930 issue of the Richmond Planet newspaper. Although not noted in the TOC, this is “Part One”. We find S. Q. Brent back on Earth in Philadelphia, where he begins a story he heard from the brave captain Sto who rescued them. We find that the Pragians look more like Earth men, and hear of a 1,000 foot tall tower which lets them listen to Earth and learn English. I like this aspect of world building by Moore. Sto begins the story of how he came to love Iaone, the child of a Kingdom of Els mother and Pragian father.

”Biography – William B(ernard) Ziff, Sr., Publisher”, an essay by Killian Vetter. This is a good discussion of Ziff and how he came to be involved in the IFS, including the first marketing study of black Americans.

”Love On Mars Part Two”, a short story by John P. Moore, appeared in the Illustrated Features Section. The version presented was published in the December 20, 1930 issue of the Richmond Planet newspaper. Although not noted in the TOC, this is “Part Two”. We hear how Iaone admits she loves Captain Sto. We never find out how Brent and the scientists get back to Earth, although Moore does state “Leaving the more scientific revelations to his scientific companions, Mr. Brent here goes on to tell us….” It’s not a bad story, but I am underwhelmed that John P. Moore never gets to how they got back to Earth. This could have been one sentence. At the same time, this was planned as a continuing story, so perhaps he hoped to get to that in a future story that was never published?

”About the Presentation of Texts in This Book”, by Steve Davidson. An excellent essay about the sources and presentation of the texts: I am thankful for both the deep consideration of these issues and of the outcomes. I also like that the essay lists where the original versions of the stories can be found in all collected in one place in pdf at the Amazing Stories website, https://amazingstories.com/the-martian-trilogy-the-original-scans/. As noted by Davidson, the original versions were often in digital scans of microfilms, and can take some work to find.

”Afterward Creating Black Genre Fiction: John P. Moore, George S. Schuyler, and the Illustrated Feature Section”, by Killian Vetter. A darn interesting essay synthesizing a number of related aspects into the formulation of black genre fiction. Her concluding paragraph is powerful:

While most white writers were almost certainly not reading Black genre fiction, Black writers were consistently reading and challenging the ideas prevalent in the white pulps, which allowed for the birth of a Black genre fiction. This parallel genre drew heavily from white pulps, but also had a community of its own writers and readers in dialogue with each other, leading to a thriving movement which lasted up until the integration of science fiction with writers like Samuel Delany in the 1960s. All of this puts the IFS at the forefront of American genre fiction. If that fact has, as of yet, hardly been recognized, it because we often limit our study of genre fiction to the overwhelmingly white pulps and do not search elsewhere. Hopefully the publication of this story is the beginning of a new history of science fiction that recognizes that while generally Black people were not publishing in the pulp magazines, they were certainly writing genre fiction―and the IFS gave them a space to create futures of their own.

”The Dreamer and the Dream”, by Maurice Broaddus. This is a very good artist appreciation essay by Broaddus on the work by Moore. While I have not read widely in his work, I especially loved his novelette “The Norwood Trouble“, from Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror, Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams editors, 2023 Random House (see my review, recommended). I thought this paragraph very insighful:

The Black literary canon becomes difficult to trace from the dime novel authors of 19th century to the pulp magazines of the 20th century due to difficulty being published, especially from the 1920s to the 1950s. Pulp adventure stories in magazines like Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, and Zeppelin Stories largely featured larger than life Anglo-Saxon male protagonists; underdressed, helpless white women; and exotic locales. If brown figures were depicted at all, they were in terms of uncivilized/colonized racial stereotypes. In short, these were stories that centered, made comfortable, and catered to their white male audience. Any depictions of good qualities in Black characters (Read: humanity and complexity) invited pushback at best or exclusion at worst. Black writers were barred from these venues unless their writing ignored race entirely; their ethnicity a byword best kept secret. But it wasn’t as if Black readers at the time didn’t also hunger for such bold adventure tales. In the age-old battle of genre fiction versus the literary canon, Black pulp stories faced double marginalization, brought hope and escape; romance and adventure; overcoming familiar dangers in spectacular fashion.

”Something to Treasure”, by Bill Campbell, co-editor of Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond, 2013 Rosarium Publishing. I thought this was an interesting artist appreciation essay.

”From A Mansion in the City of Brotherly Love to the Civil War in the Martian Underground”, by Minister Faust. An essential and usefully critical essay about John P. Moore’s three short stories here. Faust makes the points that a) Moore probably envisioned more episodes and more room for further plot and world development, and b) In general, the short length meant the stories lack richness and character development that a longer length would allow. Although he admires these stories for some aspects, he is also fairly critical of some elements of the stories:

While a 21st century reader might be tempted to excuse the literary failures of The Martian Trilogy because it’s such an early work in modern science fiction, one should recall an earlier (and much more Afritopian novel)—Pauline Hopkins’ late 19th/early 20th century Of One Blood (also published in instalments). The middle third of Moore’s The Martian Trilogy, entitled “The Hidden Kingdom,” is devoted to a hidden city much like hidden city Telassar at the center of Hopkins’ novel: they are both examples of the cryptopolis, a topic I explored in my introduction to the MIT Press Radium Age collection re-issue of Of One Blood. Hopkin’s novel dramatizes how an African American character meets his historic destiny in a hidden city in Sudan, heir to the ancient civilisation of Kemet (Egypt) and Meroë (including its predecessors Kush, Wawat, and others). Given that Hopkins’ story was a full-length novel, she had far room to engage complexity of story and character. In ways that Moore’s work never attempts, Of One Blood plunges boldly into the quagmire of USian Afriphobia, hidden identities, class conflict, doomed romance, and internecine bloodshed, while exulting in a remarkable Africentric dramatization of ancient Nilotic civilisation and advanced Afritopian technology.

”Art Lengthened, Lives Recrudesced”, by Edward Austin Hall, co-editor of Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond, 2013 Rosarium Publishing. A darn interesting and personal essay on the loss of literary legacies. He broadens the question to well beyond authors whose work has been forgotten or ignored:

Authors: Die without a will and the work that might’ve granted you some semblance of immortality can die with you.

Worse, dying intestate is only one means among many by which the output of literary artists can be lost. We have many works of Zora Neale Hurston’s only because a sheriff’s deputy—who knew of her recent death, in a state of penury—saw smoke coming from the site of her former home, recognized that the plume signaled the routine burning of her belongings, and raced there to drag her manuscripts from the flames. A house fire claimed the original manuscript for the second novel of the then-still-living Ralph Ellison, a thing he reportedly spent years trying to reconstruct, with incomplete success.

”The Future Was Always Black”, by Dedren Snead. A very good essay which starts:

THE FUTURE WAS ALWAYS BLACK.

Thinking about John P. Moore’s recently recovered Martian Trilogy, originally published in 1930, as an onboarding point for Black genre writers interested in creating a science fiction of their own affirms that what may have been initially been perceived as that group’s later arrival into the genre of science fiction, is actually an long literary history that parallels the development of white-authored genre fiction, all while exerting its own gravitational force.

This parallel development is particularly clear when we consider the origins of Moore’s story, which reveals the existence of not one but two branded “Amazing Stories” in the 1930s: Hugo Gernsback’s celebrated specialist science fiction magazine and the less-remarked-upon Illustrated Feature Section (IFS) column that was home to Moore’s story. It is critical to remember that Black speculative fiction existed with the full support of the Black media, and that it was read in significant numbers well before Samuel “Chip” Delany’s entrance into the genre. This is not meant in any way to undermine the significance of Delany’s contributions as a Black pioneer in white speculative spaces but to make symphonic resonances between Black authors from different communities and times who have both exerted agency and innovation in genre fiction.

”Unearthing Hidden History: A Journey Through Black Speculative Fiction”, by Sheree Renée Thomas. A great essay that pulls it all together. I need to read her Dark Matter anthologies; it’s embarrassing that they have been on my TBR for so long. Her essay has a strong start:

THE DUST OF FORGOTTEN stellar archives settles like stardust on the pages of time. In its shifting motes, we perceive the nascent glimmers of Black imagination reaching for distant suns, long before the mainstream gaze acknowledged its fervent light. This is not a new story, but one often silenced, overlooked by chroniclers who failed to see the boundless skies envisioned by those dreaming in the shadow of confinement. For centuries, the creative spirit of Black people has spun tales of other worlds, hidden powers, and futures yet to unfold, a testament to an enduring spirit that refused to be limited by earthly bounds. John P. Moore’s Martian Trilogy, a vibrant echo from the 1930s, emerges now, a fascinating example of early Black genius unfurling its wings into the cosmos through the Illustrated Feature Section. His narrative, a dazzling space opera birthed from an era that often-dimmed Black brilliance, painted worlds of Martian politics and love with hues of indigenous self-determination. Imagine the era: the Great Migration reshaping American cities, the Harlem Renaissance bursting with Black artistic output, yet systemic oppression still clinging to the nation like a persistent shadow. Within this landscape, Moore presented a vision where African Americans were not only charting paths to Mars but encountering other Black civilizations, complex and self-governing. His characters, like S.Q. Brent, a “well-known Negro novelist,” embodied a future where Black intellectual and scientific prowess was the norm, not the exception. The Martian societies, with their subterranean cities and advanced technologies, challenged the prevailing racist tropes of the time that depicted non-white “others” as primitive. Moore’s audacious reversal of the colonial narrative—where Martians resolve their own conflicts rather than being “saved” by human intervention—was a quiet revolution in popular fiction, reminding us that our stories have always been without limit, charting courses through galaxies known and yet to be discovered.

”Reclaiming the Future”, by horror author L. Marie Wood.  A nice essay connecting Moore to Afrofuturism. This paragraph was quite eloquent:

Moore continued this tradition with his serialized work, creating what we now consider a space opera – the very first one to be penned by an African American. Where Du Bois’s prose is tight and descriptive, designed to bring forth an emotional reaction that extends beyond the story itself, but out into the nature of the intersection between race and humanity that they world was having trouble navigating, Moore sought to entertain with action and wit, telling a story that could be anyone’s – race and creed bringing nothing to bear on the scenario the characters found themselves in. it is here where society struggles to meet, a poignant middle where humanity coexists seamlessly, the shared story of life their bond. Description and prose blend beautifully with a fast-paced, edge of your seat storyline to create a story that stands the test of time… if one could only gain access to it. The erasure of voices like Moore’s is why Afrofuturism is important. Without a space dedicated to showcasing, promoting, heralding, and remembering these futures, they fade into oblivion as if never imagined at all.

”Moore vs. Hopkins: A Study in Female Character Development”, by K. Ceres Wright. An outstanding essay comparing the depiction of Black female characters in The Martian Trilogy by John P. Moore with those from Of One Blood by Pauline Hopkins. The comparison is summarized well:

The development of female characters in these two different works reflect their authors’ intent and narrative contexts. Moore had been under instructions not to refer to slavery or anything gloomy and employed the conventions of adventure stories of the time—spirited tales of male-dominated derring-do with beautiful women to be fought over and won. Hopkins, admittedly not under the same literary constraints as Moore, nevertheless used her female characters as counterarguments to societal ideas of female and Black inferiority. She acknowledged the lack of a connected, continuous heritage between the peoples of Africa and African Americans; portrayed a line of African queens who had kept their history alive and advanced upon it; and empowered a slave woman to craft an unexpected future for a slave child while duping her oppressors in plain sight. The women in this story drive the main characters’ motivations and reflect the book’s themes on heritage, technology, power, betrayal, and reconciliation. To Moore’s credit, he crafted a story under literary constraints to appeal to a wider population of subscribers than Hopkins (180,000 vs. 17,000) to uplift the African American imagination, ascribe scientific achievements to them, and tout new Black beauty standards that dovetailed with the Harlem Renaissance’s cultural movement. His science fiction was free of the sentiments and allusions concerning that “peculiar institution,” paving the way to a new sense of the future for African Americans. The rediscovery of his works will hopefully encourage readers to seek out speculative artworks by other Black authors that celebrate Black female excellence in all its forms.

Appendices:

1. “Appendix 1: Early 20th Century African American Political History”, by MaxAnthony Mateer & Val Barnhart.
2. ”Appendix 2: Early 20th Century African American Art and Culture”, by MaxAnthony Mateer & Val Barnhart.
3. ”Appendix 3: Early 20th Century African American Science and Technology”, by MaxAnthony Mateer & Val Barnhart.
4. ”Appendix 4: Further Reading”, by Lisa Yaszek.

Appendices 1 to 4 are all quite interesting. Appendix 4 for “Further Reading” is probably the most important to me, as I clearly have a lot of reading to do.

There are also uncredited ”About The Contributors”, and ”Illustration and Photograph Credits” essays.

While I’m not prepared to say that these three stories by John P. Moore included in The Martian Trilogy are great stories from the perspective of a white, male, middle-class SF fan from 2026, I think they represent something important and I think that the thought and writing about them presented here in the essay content is phenomenal.

While they are arguably the first planetary romance SF written by a Black author, they also appeared in the fairly large circulation Illustrated Features Section of Black newspapers in 1930. Hundreds of thousands of readers could have read them. They showed a future that was optimistic and full of people like them succeeding during a period of economic disaster and racism. As some essayists have noted, they doubtlessly inspired more than a few readers to become SF fans and authors.

I am disappointed that Val Barnhart was not able to find out more certain information about author John P. Moore, but not at all surprised. Right now, the only thing we know for sure is that someone writing as “John P. Moore” published twelve stories in the Illustrated Features Section between 1929 and 1930, including these three stories listed. I wish we knew more, but I suspect it’s not all that likely we ever will.

Reading The Martian Trilogy has certainly inspired me to read more early SFF by Black authors. I will start with Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, Sheree Renée Thomas editor, 2000 Aspect/Warner Books, her 2004 volume Dark Matter: Reading the Bones, and with Black Pulp: Genre Fiction in the Shadow of Jim Crow, by Brooks E. Hefner, 2021 University of Minnesota Press.

I am also reflecting on how little is known about more than a few writers of speculative fiction. I know two authors from 1955 who wrote great stories where the only thing we really know is that someone with that name sold a story that was published:

1. “The Short Life” , a novella by Francis Donovan, Astounding October 1955.
2. “Birthright“, a novelette by April Smith, If August 1955.

I am sure there are more. At least in that era, and perhaps after that, I believe you could sell a story by the mail, perhaps correspond via mail on any edits, get a check in the mail, and never have to make an appearance in person or even talk to the editor. I view it as eminently possible that African America authors could have sold stories via the mail to speculative fiction magazines without the editors having any idea the author was African American. I can think of at least one other author who we only know anything about because a nephew wrote a tribute to him that mentioned his uncle’s one SF story, see my essay, “A Wonderful Mystery Solved About My Favorite ‘Solitary’ SF Story“. Pending information coming out from other sources, we’ll never know.

Overall, I think The Martian Trilogy, 2025 Amazing Stories, is a superlative book. I am deeply thankful to all who worked on it; a huge team effort. I have happily nominated it for the Hugo Award for Best Related Work. Recommended.