Category: Things Beyond

Things Beyond: January 2026

January 1st, 2026
(Cover by Frank R. Paul. Amazing Stories, February 1927.)

Since it’s now the new year for everyone, it’s only natural that we have some new things to look forward to or new things to do. I have a few New Year’s resolutions myself: some movies on my watchlist, quite a few video games I hope to get around to playing. I have hundreds of games in my backlog and even more books to be read in my personal library. I have multiple hobbies, which is something I would recommend to everyone. Unfortunately another thing on my to-do list for 2026 is to either get a second job or to try my hand at writing professionally, which would take time away from this hobbies, including this here blog.

Truth be told, I’ve been winding down productivity here for a minute, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise. I’m seemingly incapable of uploading posts “on time” (but of course who’s keeping time except for myself), and I’ve been missing one or even two reviews every month for the past several months. I wouldn’t be too worried, for the few of you who read this, since I’m not gonna be shutting down this site—just lowering my productivity. Granted, for the first couple years I ran this site I was writing at a feverish pace; in hindsight I’ve not really sure how I did that while also having a day job. In 2023 and 2024 I wrote over 200,000 words a year, according to the stats, which is a lot for one person. There was less wordage for 2025, and now for 2026 you can expect fewer posts as well. But this is like being on a flight and going from 20,000 feet to 10,000 feet.

Now, as you may know, Amazing Stories turns 100 this year. It was revived (again) not too long ago as basically a fanzine, but I would like to celebrate Amazing Stories as a professional magazine, which still means going through material that spans seven decades or so. It’s a lot, not helped by the fact that it has a pretty messy history as far as changes in editorship and publisher go. Except for maybe the beginning of its life it always played second fiddle to competing magazines, but it survived (sometimes even thrived) for an impressive stretch of time, given the circumstances. So, every month (except for March, July, and October, where you can expect short-story marathons) I’ll be covering a serial, novella, or short story from the pages of Amazing Stories. This should be interesting.

With the exception of the aforementioned months we’ll be doing only one serial, one novella, and one short story every month from now on, plus at least one editorial. Anyway, we have one story from the 1900s, one from the 1930s, and one from the 1950s.

For the serial:
- The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells. Serialized in Amazing Stories, December 1926 to February 1927. First published in 1901. Feel like it would be criminal to pay tribute to Amazing Stories without bringing up Wells at least once, possibly even twice, since he was heavily associated with the magazine in its first few years. Wells himself is arguably the most important SF writer to have ever lived, with his influence being felt to this day practically everywhere you look. Any given SFnal premise likely has its roots in something Wells did over a century ago. This is even more impressive when you consider that Wells at the height of his powers lasted only half a dozen years or so. The First Men in the Moon is one of the last of his classic novels.
For the novella:
- “The Gulf Between” by Tom Godwin. From the October 1953 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Godwin became somewhat famous in SF circles for exactly one story, “The Cold Equations,” which he wrote pretty much in collaboration in John W. Campbell. It might surprise some people that Godwin had in fact written other stuff, and I admit I’m part of the problem because I don’t think I’ve read any Godwin aside from “The Cold Equations.” But I’m gonna fix that. “The Gulf Between” was Godwin’s first story, and it’s notable, if for no other reason than that the cover it inspired would later be reworked as the iconic cover for a certain Queen album.
For the short story:
- “The Cairn on the Headland” by Robert E. Howard. From the January 1933 issue of Strange Tales. Over the course of about a dozen years, Howard wrote nonstop for every outlet that would accept his work, and he was not just a fantasy writer, also writing horror, Westerns, sports stories, and non-supernatural adventure pulp. He wrote everything except for SF, which he didn’t seem to have an interest in. Conan the Cimmerian occupied much of Howard’s later years, to the point where he began to resent his creation, but this didn’t stop him from doing standalone yarns like this one.
Hopefully you’ll read along with me.
Things Beyond: December 2025

December 1st, 2025
(Cover by Frank Kelly Freas. Satellite, December 1956.)

Merry Christmas, happy birthday to me, and all that.

People who keep up with my posts may have noticed that I missed a couple things last month, including what was to be the start of the second serialized novel, Kuttner and Moore’s Fury. Let’s say I’ve been slow about it. Generally I’ve been slower about keeping up with this blog than I was a year ago, and there could be a few reasons for this, but the point is that I’ve come to understand I’m not as on top of my own blog as I once was. I’ve slowed down with the “required” reading, and I’ve been slower about writing, although (not to toot my own horn) I still write here more than some other fan writers I know. Maybe nowadays the load I give myself is just a bit too much, especially since I’ve also been wanting to get into writing professionally, for that bit of extra money, only I’ve not been able to find the time and/or motivation for it. So, I’ll lighten the load a bit. From now on I’ll only be covering one serial a month, regardless of length. Of course, if the serial is four parts or longer this won’t make a difference, but a lot of serials are three-parters, which should give me an extra day to myself. Other than that, it’s gonna be business as usual.

What do we have on our table? All science fiction, which isn’t very diverse, but when these stories were published is certainly more diverse. One story from the 1940s, one from the ’50s, one from the ’60s, one from the ’70s, one from the 2000s, and one from the 2020s.

For the serial:
1. Fury by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore. Serialized in Astounding Science Fiction, May to July 1947. Kuttner and Moore wrote so much, both together and each solo, that they resorted to a few pseudonyms, one of them being Lawrence O’Donnell. Fury takes place in the same universe as the earlier Kuttner-Moore story “Clash by Night.” Despite Fury historically being credited to Kuttner alone, Moore claimed years later to having been a minor collaborator.
For the novellas:
1. “Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst” by Kage Baker. From the October-November 2003 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. Baker had spent much of her adult life working in insurance and with theatre as her primary hobby, before pivoting to writing SF in her forties. No doubt she would still be writing SF today, had she not died all too soon in 2010. Still, for about a dozen years she wrote furiously, with her big series following a team of time-traveling secret agents.
2. “The Dragon Masters” by Jack Vance. From the August 1962 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. Winner of the Hugo for Best Short Fiction. This is a reread, although I only have a vague memory of having read it in the first place, and that was without Jack Gaughan’s accompanying artwork. Despite what the title might make you think, “The Dragon Masters” is pure planetary SF, albeit with fantasy-esque coloring that Vance had become known for at this point.
For the short stories:
1. “An Important Failure” by Rebecca Campbell. From the August 2020 issue of Clarkesworld. Winner of the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. Born and raised in Canada but now living in the UK, Campbell has written only one novel so far, which in fact was her first SF writing of any sort. Good news is she’s been somewhat prolific in writing short stories and novellas over the past decade.
2. “The Earth Dwellers” by Nancy Kress. From the December 1976 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. This is the third time now that I’ve come to Kress, and why not? Her career now spands nearly half a century, and her stories, if not always entertaining, often provide some food for thought. I know nothing about “The Earth Dwellers,” except it marked Kress’s very first appearance in the field.
For the complete novel:
1. A Glass of Darkness by Philip K. Dick. From the December 1956 issue of Satellite Science Fiction. This book sounds unfamiliar, even for seasoned Dick fans, although it may ring a bell under its book title: The Cosmic Puppets. Dick had burst onto the scene in the early ’50s as one of the most promising short-story writers at the time, in a generation that included such bright newcomers as Robert Sheckley, Algis Budrys, and Katherine MacLean. It only stood to reason, then, that while writing short stories nonstop was all well and good, writing a novel was the logical next step. A Glass of Darkness wasn’t the first novel Dick wrote, but it was the first to be published.
Hopefully you’ll be reading along with me.
Things Beyond: November 2025

November 1st, 2025
(Cover by Jack Gaughan. Galaxy, March 1970.)

A short and sweet review forecast for this month, partly because I’m running behind on my writing a bit and so am pressed for time, but also because I don’t have a particular theme in mind here. Of course, if you thought I was gonna take a break from reviewing spooky fiction altogether after last month, you’d be mistaken, as both of the short stories due for November are horror pieces. We’re still deep in autumn, after all, and honestly my thirst for spooky shit has not been quenched.

Another thing I just randomly decided to throw in there is that both of the serials are novels written in collaboration, by authors who gained a good deal of acclaim and presumably money from working together. In one case there’s decades-long besties Larry Niven and the late Jerry Pournelle, who shared similar politics and also writing philosophies. There’s also the husband-wife duo of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, perennial favorites on this site, who wrote most of their novels together, although for decades Fury has been erroneously credited to just Kuttner.

We’ve got one story from the 1850s (the oldest I will have reviewed thus far), two from the 1940s, two from the 1970s, and one from the 2000s.

For the serials:
1. Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Serialized in Galaxy Science Fiction, August to October 1975. Niven had quickly established himself as one of the major hard SF writers by the end of the ’60s, but Pournelle had a longer road to success, first being active as a fan and then not writing his first stories and articles professionally till he was deep in his thirties. In the ’70s and ’80s Niven and Pournelle wrote several successful novels in collaboration.
2. Fury by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore. Serialized in Astounding Science Fiction, May to July 1947. Kuttner and Moore wrote so much, both together and each solo, that they resorted to a few pseudonyms, one of them being Lawrence O’Donnell. Fury takes place in the same universe as the earlier Kuttner-Moore story “Clash by Night.” Despite Fury historically being credited to Kuttner alone, Moore claimed years later to having been a minor collaborator.
For the novellas:
1. “Against the Fall of Night” by Arthur C. Clarke. From the November 1948 issue of Startling Stories. Clarke is one of the most famous SF writers ever, to the point that by the ’60s he had become, along with Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, a media personality. He collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the script for 2001: A Space Odyssey whilst writing the novel version parallel to it.
2. “The Region Between” by Harlan Ellison. From the March 1970 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. Ellison is similarly a pretty famous (if more controversial) figure, being just as notorious for his real-life antics and combative nature as for his writing. This novella, one of Ellison’s longest stories, works as a standalone but was commissioned as part of a series which features the same main character.
For the short stories:
1. “The Old Nurse’s Story” by Elizabeth Gaskell. From the October 1927 issue of Weird Tales. First published in 1852. Now here’s a name you probably didn’t see coming. For someone who gained notoriety as one of the finest novelists of the mid-Victorian period, as well as being Charlotte Brontë’s first major biographer, Gaskell also wrote a fair amount of supernatural fiction.
2. “I Live with You” by Carol Emshwiller. From the March 2005 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. By this point Carol had outlived her late husband, Ed Emshwiller, by over a decade, but she had long since made a name for herself. The last Emshwiller story I wrote about was from the late ’50s, but nearly half a century later we still find her seemingly in her prime.
Time to get some reading done.
Things Beyond: October 2025

October 1st, 2025
(Cover by Wayne Barlowe. Asimov’s, June 1984.)

There’s something about October that brings a change in me. It could be that autumn has now unambiguously started, as opposed to just going by the autumnal equinox. The weather is now colder and dryer. My hands and nose are getting dry, the latter occasionally resulting in a nosebleed. I now feel like I can put on a hoodie and jog around the city. The trees will start being stripped of their leaves. Overall it’s a time of changes, mostly for the better. October is also the month of Halloween, which is far and away my favorite holiday, to the point where it might the only one I really get festive about. Now is the time for watching horror movies, from the classices to some grade-A schlock. Time to catch up on some horror reads I’ve accumulated on my shelf. Time for pumpkin spice lattes, if you’re into that. In other words, this is for me what Christmastime is for some people—mind you that I tend to get depressed around Christmas.

For this month we’re back to reviews at regular intervals, all short stories, all featuring thrills, chills, and assorted horrors. For the first time in a while I’m actually excited with what I’m gonna be writing about. Hopefully you’ll be joining me in reading at least a few of these.

We have one story from the 1940s, three from the ’50s, three from the ’80s, one from the ’90s, and one from the 2020s.

For the short stories:
1. “The Hungry House” by Robert Bloch. From the April 1951 issue of Imagination. Bloch was correspondents with H. P. Lovecraft when the former was still in high school, and this friendship had an apparent influence on Bloch’s early fiction. While he’s most famous for writing Psycho, which is non-supernatural horror, most of Bloch’s work involves ghouls, cosmic horrors, and whatnot.
2. “Rabbit Test” by Samantha Mills. From the November-December 2022 issue of Uncanny Magazine. Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, being only the third story ever to win all three. Mills debuted in 2016, with her debut novel published in 2024. “Rabbit Test” was the last of a streak of short stories, as Mills stopped writing short fiction for three years.
3. “Punishment Without Crime” by Ray Bradbury. From the March 1950 issue of Other Worlds Science Fiction. Being one of the most famous American authors ever, it can be easy to forget that Bradbury started writing for the genre magazines, not all of them being of the first rate. He also wrote so much horror early in his career that only a fraction of it appeared in The October Country.
4. “Lost Memory” by Peter Phillips. From the May 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. I had ever heard of Peter Phillips before, which might be because he was only active for a short time, from about 1948 to 1958. He stopped writing SF for reasons I’m not sure of. He was also British, at a time when there weren’t too many active in the field, even appearing in the inaugural issue of New Worlds.
5. “Yellowjacket Summer” by Robert McCammon. From the October 1986 issue of Twilight Zone Magazine. McCammon made his debut in 1978, but it took him a bit to come to the forefront of contemporary horror fiction. His massive post-apocalyptic novel Swan Song tied for the inaugural Stoker for Best Novel. Disillusionment with the industry made him step away from writing for a decade.
6. “Bloodchild” by Octavia E. Butler. From the June 1984 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. Winner of the Hugo and Nebula for Best Novelette. This is a reread for me, but I’ve been meaning to return to it for a close read for a minute. Butler wrote only maybe a dozen short stories, but they’ve received a disproportinate amount of praise, with her winning Hugos for short fiction twice consecutively.
7. “Reckoning” by Kathe Koja. From the July 1990 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Koja debuted in the late ’80s with a pretty strong string of short stories before her debut novel, The Cipher, hit stores in 1991. She was a formiddable horror talent in the ’90s, but in the 2000s onward took to writing novels aimed at young readers, and she hasn’t written much generally lately.
8. “Day of Judgment” by Edmond Hamilton. From the September 1946 issue of Weird Tales. While he’s most known as a pioneer of space opera, as well as his Captain Future series, Hamilton appeared frequently in Weird Tales from the beginning of his career, sometimes with SF but also sometimes with fantasy and horror. He was an old-school pulp writer in that he wrote for basically any market.
9. “The Pear-Shaped Man” by George R. R. Martin. From the October 1987 issue of Omni. Winner of the Stoker for Best Long Fiction. Martin is a case where a series (A Song of Ice and Fire) of his is so famous that it overshadows the rest of his work, which mind you is considerable. Martin’s gone on record as thinking of himself as instincively a horror writer, a fact which is on display here.
We have pretty much an all-star cast of authors here, so I hope this will help my recent writing slump. Of course, the most important thing is that we have fun with this. Happy Halloween.
Things Beyond: September 2025

September 1st, 2025

(Cover by Frank Kelly Freas. Astounding, December 1955.)

It could be that I’ve simply had too much on my plate, or that I’ve been procrastinating with my projects, but I’ve been feeling sluggish and unfulfilled with my writing as of late. Even in writing this forecast post I feel… uninspired. The drive is not currently in me. Actually the drive has not been there for several days now, which hasn’t stopped me from getting a couple things done. There is a difference, however, between writing like you’re in the midst of a fever and writing as a kind of chore, and it’s felt like the latter too often as of late.

So, I figured it was time I take a break from this site for a month, for the most part. I will still be finishing my review of Under Pressure, and will be writing one or two editorials over the course of this month, but otherwise I’ll stepping away from here momentarily. I have too much going on, and I feel as if I’m the verge of utterly burning myself out with how productive I’ve tried to be, even with missing a couple deadlines. (I might still write a review of The Sorcerer’s Ship sometime this month, but needless to say I could not even start my review, let alone have it posted, yesterday.) I continue to write, often without motivation or imagination, because I really feel like I can’t do anything else. Writers, as opposed to people who write, are like actors, in that they do what they do because they feel helpless or impotent when it comes to other talents. I’m a writer. Unfortunately I don’t even make money from writing, as it stands; maybe if I were to train myself to write fiction, to be published in some of the magazines I take material from for this very site, then I could make some money on top of my meager earnings from my day job. Considering how things are going, it could be that in time I might not even have a choice. I might have to branch out into fiction, and take even more time away from this site, because I might have to do it. But who knows, it might be fulfilling in its own right.

Sometimes I feel like a pastor in an empty church, or with only a few congregates, plus the rats and pigeons. Who am I speaking to? I don’t have much of an audience, and some of the people who say they read my stuff are themselves bloggers, also concerned with traffic for their own projects. It’s a problem that SFF fandom has had for a long time, and I don’t see any way of fixing it. Most fans I know don’t engage with this sort of thing. A lot of people who vote in the fan categories, when it comes time for the Hugos each year, are themselves fan writers, artists, etc. We’re voting for each other. I’m speaking to people who know what it’s like, which is both a good and bad thing. I feel so horribly alone, most of the time, and the time and energy I put into this hobby sometimes only worsen the loneliness and anxiety. I had started this site three years ago as a way to cope with some mental health struggles, but it doesn’t always help.

So I’m taking a break this month, for the most part. There will be a few posts, but I aside from Under Pressure and maybe The Sorcerer’s Ship I don’t feel like writing about any magazine fiction until next month. Maybe I deserve a break like this, but mostly I just feel that I need it. I won’t be entirely gone, so don’t miss me too much.
Things Beyond: August 2025

August 1st, 2025
(Cover by H. R. Van Dongen. Astounding, November 1955.)

So I had read Anne McCaffrey’s “The Weather on Welladays,” and I didn’t like it. I’ve read Dragonflight and The Ship Who Sang, plus one other novel and a few short stories now, and I’m still not really sure what McCaffrey’s appeal is (I say this as someone who jumps to defend A. E. van Vogt’s early work). “The Weather on Welladay” isn’t bad, but it’s seriously hampered by being a novelette where the perspective shifts several times so that we have a few protagonists, when ideally we should have only one. I also just don’t think McCaffrey is that good a writer when compared with some of her peers, who were (and still are) not as popular. It’s nice that McCaffrey was the first woman to win both a Hugo and Nebula for fiction, but I wish those honors had gone to better writers. That’s the gist of how I felt about it, in case you’re wondering where my review post for it is.

The funny thing is that I had too good a time during the couple of days I normally would’ve spent on reading and writing for this site, which is ironic. I struggle to write here either when my personal life is at a peak or when it’s deep in a valley. I have to admit to you, the five of you who actually read these posts, that I sometimes resent writing—well, really anything, but especially for SFF Remembrance. Sometimes I just don’t feel like writing anything, but the problem is that if you stop writing then it can be a real challenge to start again. Writing (if you’re “a writer”) is like brushing your teeth, in that ideally it should be a daily activity. But I also don’t like writing that much; yet at the same time I can barely do anything else that would be considered “productive.” I work a service job. I pay my bills and my rent and my taxes like a “good American,” but I feel like I don’t create anything. I have this urge, or maybe this sense of obligation, to create something that is of any value, but I can’t do it. I hate myself and this country I am forced to live in. The environment is hostile, for creativity but also just for human decency. It’s like that Godspeed You! Black Emperor song: “We are trapped in the belly of this horrible machine, and the machine is bleeding to death.” I hate being here, and yet I’m not sure where I could be that’s better. I hate that this is a culture that worships money and productivity. We must have infinite growth, even if the destination is oblivion.

Putting aside that I’m forced to live in this body, and in this third-rate backwater country called America, things are going well for me! Maybe that’s the problem: on a personal I’m doing well, for the most part, but I get the sense that this contentedness will not last, because the world around me is dying. My surroundings are transient. There will surely come a point where the workers of the world will have their revenge and the last politician is strangled with the entrails of the last capitalist; but I’m convinced that I will not live to see any of this happen. Not even the beginning of it. I will have made my way for the exit before this play called The Downfall of Capitalism will have even gotten to its prelude. The curtains will not have risen and we will not see the stage, let alone the actors. There is a future on the way, but something tells me I won’t take part in it.

…

This is getting to be a bit much.

What’s the holdup? After all, it’s a packed month, as far as my review schedule goes, and I’ve really been meaning to get to some of these works for a hot minute. I’m also taking advantage of the loophole I had made for myself and so I have a serial from Galaxy, on top of a novella. We’ve got one story from the 1920s, one from the 1940s, one from the 1950s, one from the 1960s, one from the 1970s, one from the 1980s, and one from the 2010s. This might be my most diverse roster yet, in terms of when the works were published. Well, let’s get to it.

For the serials:
1. A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg. Serialized in Galaxy Science Fiction, March to May-June 1971. Nebula winner for Best Novel. When Galaxy changed editors in 1969, readers at the time as well as historians are prone to say the change was a downgrade. One major plus, however, of Ejler Jakobsson taking over was that we got several Silverberg novels in the magazine as serials in rather quick succession. Despite the acclaim he was earning, A Time of Changes was the only Silverberg novel from this period to win a major award.
2. Under Pressure by Frank Herbert. Serialized in Astounding Science Fiction, November 1955 to January 1956. Also titled The Dragon in the Sea, this was Herbert’s first novel, after he had been in the field for a few years already with now-forgotten short fiction. Herbert’s legacy pretty much solely rests on his Dune series, to the point where it might surprise the reader to find any Herbert that isn’t Dune-related in the wild. I’ve heard from a friend or two that this is actually supposed to be one of Herbert’s best, but we’ll see about that.
For the novellas:
1. “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window” by Rachel Swirsky. From the Summer 2010 issue of Subterranean Online. Nebula winner for Best Novella. More controversially Swirsky also won a Nebula for her story “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love.” She was also the founding editor of PodCastle, which is crazy to me because she was like, 26? She’s written a good deal of short fiction and poetry over the years, plus one novel so far.
2. “A Tragedy of Errors” by Poul Anderson. From the February 1968 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. It’s been a minute since we last covered Anderson, made more conspicuous because he wrote a truly staggering amount of fiction. Of Anderson’s several series the most ambitious might be his Technic History, a centuries-spanning saga tracing the rise and fall of a galactic empire. “A Tragedy of Errors” takes place toward the end of this future history’s timeline.
For the short stories:
1. “The Storm King” by Joan D. Vinge. From the April 1980 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. Not quite as well-known as her late ex-husband, Vernor, partly on account of the fact that she hasn’t written much over the past four decades, but Joan D. Vinge was one of the most promising new writers of the post-New Wave era. She’s more known for her SF, but “The Storm King” is fantasy.
2. “The Woman of the Wood” by A. Merritt. From the August 1926 issue of Weird Tales. In the ’20s and ’30s Merritt was one of the most popular pulp writers, even getting a magazine named after him. I was set to review one of Merritt’s novels a couple years ago, but I could not get far into it. Well, now it’s time to correct things a bit. Curiously Merritt didn’t write much short fiction.
For the complete novel:
1. The Sorcerer’s Ship by Hannes Bok. From the December 1942 issue of Unknown. Bok was known far more for his artwork than his fiction, which is understandable given that he was one of the most gifted and recognizable SFF artists of the ’40s and ’50s. You kinda know a certain magazine or book cover is a Bok work just from looking at it. That Bok died relatively young and in poverty, after having all but retired from illustrating, is tragic. Of course, we might not even know about Bok in the first place if not for Ray Bradbury acting as cheerleader for his early material. Bok was really one of the few mavericks of SFF from that era, being a semi-closeted gay man with some niche hobbies, who was also a perfectionist when it came to his art. The Sorcerer’s Ship was Bok’s debut novel and was published complete in Unknown, but would not see book publication until after his death.
Won’t you read with me?
Things Beyond: July 2025

July 1st, 2025
(Cover by John Pederson, Jr. Galaxy, October 1965.)

As far as I can tell there’s no book dedicated to the history of Galaxy Science Fiction, although we do have several books that delve into this magazine’s strange history to one degree or other. The best that I’ve read myself would probably be Frederik Pohl’s The Way the Future Was, in which Pohl’s gives us some insight into working as a writer, an agent, and eventually an editor. H. L. Gold edited Galaxy for about a decade, but a car accident that left him in a good deal of physical pain incentivized someone taking over Galaxy and If (Gold was also editor of the latter, briefly). Pohl was already acting as Gold’s assistant by the end of 1960, but by the end of 1961 Pohl had emerged as editor of Galaxy in both name and function. While they had originally started as competitors, Galaxy and If became sister magazines, housed under the same publisher, and Pohl had control of both for most of the ’60s. Despite publishing quite a few award-winning stories during this time, Galaxy never again won the Hugo for Best Professional Magazine, and when Pohl did win three back-to-back Hugos for that category it was for his work on If. Despite initially having the reputation of being Galaxy‘s lesser and trashier sister, If amassed a more devoted following during this decade, somewhat to Galaxy‘s detriment.

I’ll be honest and say that I toyed with what stories I would be covering this month up until the very last minute (that is to say today), not because Galaxy wasn’t publishing enough worthy material during the ’60s, but because it was indeed such a strange time for the magazine. Galaxy under Gold had, for better or worse, a rather strong identity, with a stable of authors associated with it; but Pohl’s Galaxy is harder to define, its material having less of an emphasis on sociological and psychological SF and more being geared towards adventure fiction. There’s something oddly retrograde about Galaxy (even more so with If) under Pohl, not helped by Pohl himself being a vocal critic of the New Wave. This is a bit ironic considering Pohl was politically progressive and rather keen-eyed when it came to making observations on the goods and bads of the industry.

At the end of the ’60s there was another changing of the guard, with Pohl stepping out of both Galaxy and If, indeed leaving magazine-editing altogether, to focus on writing fiction again. Ejler Jakobsson, a Finnish immigrant who was actually nearly a decade older than Pohl and who had been working in the field for about as long, took over both magazines. I’m not covering anything from Jakobbson’s tenure this month; for that we’ll have to wait until October, when I tackle the ’70s. As for what I’m tackling this month, I intentionally decided to go for a roster of authors that is a bit less star-studded than when I covered the ’50s. We’re reaching for deeper cuts, for the most part, although whether this pays off is something only future me will know about.

Now, as for the stories:
1. “Something Bright” by Zenna Henderson. From the February 1960 issue. I’ve covered Henderson before, and while I wasn’t impressed with “Subcommittee” I’m always willing to give any author another try. What’s curious is to see Henderson out of her natural habitat, since she contributed far more prolifically to F&SF, whose lightness of scientific rigor probably appealed to her more.
2. “Arcturus Times Three” by Jack Sharkey. From the October 1961 issue. Sharkey debuted in 1959 and wrote basically nonstop for every outlet that would have him until the second half of the ’60s, by which point he seemed to vanish from the face of the earth. The closest I can find to a reason as to why this happened is that Sharkey was more a playwright who treated writing SFF as a side gig.
3. “Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas” by R. A. Lafferty. From the December 1962 issue. People tend to overlook Lafferty’s pre-New Wave years, which is funny because what early Lafferty I’ve read is still in keeping with his more famous (or infamous) material. Despite being a devout Catholic and politically conservative, Lafferty fit right in with the likes of Harlan Ellison and Kate Wilhelm.
4. “Think Blue, Count Two” by Cordwainer Smith. From the February 1963 issue. Speaking of authors who very much influenced the New Wave despite differing politics, Cordwainer Smith is the pseudonym of Paul Linebarger, who had US government connections as well as an admiration for Chiang Kai-shek. This didn’t stop him from being one of the most unique SF writers of his day.
5. “The Rules of the Road” by Norman Spinrad. From the December 1964 issue. People most recognize Spinrad not for any one of his stories or novels, but for having written “The Doomsday Machine,” one of the more memorable Star Trek episodes. He debuted in 1963, just in time to hit his stride when the New Wave came around, even appearing in Dangerous Visions a few years later.
6. “Shall We Have a Little Talk?” by Robert Sheckley. From the October 1965 issue. Sheckley was most prolific during the ’50s, and while he didn’t make his debut in Galaxy he still became heavily associated with that magazine. It’s easy to pigeonhole Sheckley as someone who only seems to write ironic social satire, which is understandable given he wrote so much of it early in his career.
7. “The Body Builders” by Keith Laumer. From the August 1966 issue. Like Sharkey, Laumer debuted in 1959 and became a somewhat popular figure during the ’60s, although unlike Sharkey we know why Laumer’s career declined afterward. Laumer suffered a stroke in 1971, and while he recovered somewhat he apparently never wrote as well or as prolifically as during his golden years.
8. “Eeeetz Ch” by H. H. Hollis. From the November 1968 issue. Hollis was a pseudonym for Ben Neal Ramey, who presumably took on the name so as to separate his SF writing from his day job as a lawyer. I’ve never read any Hollis before, not that he wrote much. The study of cetaceans really took off in the ’60s, hence this story.
9. “The Weather on Welladay” by Anne McCaffrey. From the March 1969 issue. We have another story revolving around cetaceans, but unlike Hollis I am actually familiar with McCaffrey’s game. By the end of the ’60s McCaffrey had emerged as one of the most popular writers in the field, with her Pern and much smaller Ship series amassing followings, although I’m not really a fan of either.
Won’t you read with me?
Things Beyond: June 2025

June 1st, 2025
(Cover by Gerald Wood. Galaxy, Nov-Dec 1972.)

Not much to say this month, except of course it is the start of Pride Month. For me Pride Month is every month of the year, so I don’t put that much significance in it; maybe I would if I went out more, attended some events in my city, which I should probably do. I’m only now realizing, as I’m finishing up this forecast post, that I could’ve also given more space to authors I know to be queer, but oh well. I focus more on old-timey SF (What even counts as “old-timey” at this point, like pre-2000?), and unfortunately there aren’t many confirmed-queer authors from before maybe the ’70s. You’ve got Frank M. Robinson, who was gay. Ditto for Samuel R. Delany. I’ve heard from a respectable source that Theodore Sturgeon was bisexual, but I’ve yet to dig into this and find actual evidence of it. Marion Zimmer Bradley was queer, but she was also a heinous sex criminal so I’m not sure about counting that. Joanna Russ was a lesbian, although I forget when she came out. You can see what my problem is there.

More so I thought about using this month to inject a bit more variety into my reviewing plate, so that it’s not all science fiction. Obviously I have to finish the Zelazny serial, which I’m liking quite a bit so far, but I also got the itch to tackle some sword-and-sorcery fantasy that isn’t Fritz Leiber or Robert E. Howard. Fuck it, John Jakes’s Brak the Barbarian. We’re also finally returning to Brian Aldiss’s Hothouse “series” with the third entry, this “series” being very much science-fantasy rather than straight SF. We’ve got a ’50s Cold War story from Philip K. Dick, who I love, and who in the ’50s seemed preoccupied with the possibility of nuclear annihilation. Relatable. Last but not least I’ve got a cyberpunk novella from Pat Cadigan, who on reflection I think is one of my favorite short fiction writers from the ’80s and ’90s. Then there’s Sonya Dorman, who I know I’ve read a few stories from in passing but I’ve not actively sought her out until now.

Going by decade, we’ve got one story from the 1950s, two from the 1960s, two from the 1970s, and one from the 1990s.

For the serials:
1. Doorways in the Sand by Roger Zelazny. Serialized in Analog Science Fiction, June to August 1975. Zelazny is one of the most influential SFF writers of all time, his mark being apparent on the likes of George R. R. Martin and (God help us) Neil Gaiman; and yet despite a couple generations of writers (especially those of fantasy) owing a debt to Zelazny, much of his work remains obscure or simply out of print, including this standalone novel.
2. Witch of the Four Winds by John Jakes. Serialized in Fantastic, November to December 1963. Jakes later found mainstream success writing historical fiction, but his early career was defined by SF and especially fantasy. During the sword-and-sorcery revival of the ’60s Jakes came in with his own sword-swinging hero, Brak the Barbarian. This serial got published in book form under the much worse title of Brak the Barbarian Versus the Sorceress.
For the novellas:
1. “Fool to Believe” by Pat Cadigan. From the February 1990 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. When it comes to naming the architects of cyberpunk the first to come up are William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, but Cadigan was also instrumental in shaping the movement. She had actually made her debut in the late ’70s, but as she did not write her first novel for several years she initially made her name as one of the best short fiction writers in the field.
2. “Undergrowth” by Brian W. Aldiss. From the July 1961 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Aldiss started as a brave new talent in the UK before quickly (much faster than most of his peers, it must be said) making a name for himself in the US. “Undergrowth” is the third Hothouse story, out of five, all of which would then form the “novel” Hothouse. Aldiss won a Hugo for these stories collectively, as opposed to the novel version.
For the short stories:
1. “Breakfast at Twilight” by Philip K. Dick. From the July 1954 issue of Amazing Stories. In the ’50s, before he turned more to writing novels, Dick was one of the most prolific and awesome short story writers in the field. Not everything he churned out was a hit, but he had a respectably high batting average. Of course it’s very hard for me to be objective with Dick since he’s one of my favorites.
2. “Journey” by Sonya Dorman. From the November-December 1972 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. Dorman was a poet as well as a short story writer who only wrote SF sporadically, and mostly for original anthologies, even appearing in Dangerous Visions. Most of her short fiction has been reprinted rarely or not at all, with “Journey” never appearing in book form as of yet.
Won’t you read with me?
Things Beyond: May 2025

May 1st, 2025
(Cover by John Schoenherr. Analog, June 1975.)

At the beginning of the year I said that I would be covering one short story or novella from Galaxy each month—but I said nothing about serials. The truth is that Galaxy was, alongside Astounding/Analog, the most consistent market for serialized novels and novellas at the time, so it would feel wrong to never acknowledge that part of the magazine’s history. As such we’re getting a novella and a serial from Galaxy this month; that they’re both from authors I admire probably helps.

Last month I covered a horror story by the crime/mystery author Dorothy Salisbury Davis, which gave me the idea of finding more SFF by people who normally write crime/mystery, which while also a genre that has a history in pulp magazines, is “realistic” fiction rather than SFF. One curiosity that struck me ever since I saw it years ago was the fantasy story “The Bronze Door” by Raymond Chandler, which marked one of only two times he appeared in an SFF magazine. Someone who wrote a good deal more SFF than Chandler would be John D. MacDonald, who wrote prolifically for the genre magazines in the late ’40s and early ’50s before shifting to crime fiction and making a killing on that. So for this month’s complete novel we’ve got the early MacDonald novel Wine of the Dreamers. Rounding out the novel-length stuff is a relatively obscure standalone SF novel by Roger Zelazny, who nowadays is more known for his fantasy.

For the women we have two people who are a few generations apart and coming from different continents, but who still, each in her own way, have come to write science fiction. Kate Wilhelm is actually a bit hard to find in magazines after the late ’60s, once she found her voice as a writer, but the September 2001 issue of F&SF was a special issue dedicated to Wilhelm, complete with a new novella. As for the Greek writer Eugenia Triantafyllou, I picked just about the newest story I reasonably could’ve (an unofficial rule of mine is that a story must be at least a year old for me to consider it for review), with “Loneliness Universe” being a finalist in this year’s Hugos. I’m voting in the Hugos, by the way.

That makes one story from the 1930s, two from the 1950s, two from the 1970s, one from the 2000s, and one from the 2020s.

For the serial:
1. The Dream Millennium by James White. Serialized in Galaxy Science Fiction, October to December 1973. I’ve been meaning to read more James White, and thankfully several of his novels first appeared as serials. White first appeared in the UK, in New Worlds, before eventually finding some success in the US as well. Along with Bob Shaw he was one of the few Irish SF writers to appear regularly on both sides of the Atlantic back in those days.
2. Doorways in the Sand by Roger Zelazny. Serialized in Analog Science Fiction, June to August 1975. Zelazny is one of the most influential SFF writers of all time, his mark being apparent on the likes of George R. R. Martin and (God help us) Neil Gaiman; and yet despite a couple generations of writers (especially those of fantasy) owing a debt to Zelazny, much of his work remains obscure or simply out of print, including this standalone novel.
For the novellas:
1. “Yesterday’s Tomorrows” by Kate Wilhelm. From the September 2001 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It’s easy to forget this, but Wilhelm started in the ’50s, only that she flew under the radar for about a decade. Like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, though, Wilhelm seemed to metamorphize almost overnight into one of the most acclaimed SF authors from the late ’60s until her death in 2018. She was married to Damon Knight.
2. “The Other Man” by Theodore Sturgeon. From the September 1956 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. Sturgeon is one of my favorite authors, especially of short fiction. Sturgeon had started to write professionally with “mainstream” fiction, although this went nowhere and he quickly pivoted to SFF, much to our benefit. His productivity was peaks and valleys so that he was writing either a lot or nothing at all. He was most consistently productive in the ’50s.
For the short stories:
1. “Loneliness Universe” by Eugenia Triantafyllou. From the May-June 2024 issue of Uncanny Magazine. Hugo and Nebula nominee for Best Novelette. Triantafyllou was born and raised in Greece, and continues to live abroad, but writes her fiction in English. She made her debut back in 2017, and has yet to write her first novel, although maybe she just much prefers writing short fiction.
2. “The Bronze Door” by Raymond Chandler. From the November 1939 issue of Unknown. Possibly the most acclaimed crime writer of the 20th century, seriously only rivaled by Agatha Christie, Chandler’s known for his series of novels starring Philip Marlowe. Chandler famously didn’t start writing crime fiction until he was in his forties, and didn’t write his first novel until he was pushing fifty.
For the complete novel:
1. Wine of the Dreamers by John D. MacDonald. From the May 1950 issue of Startling Stories. Fans of crime fiction would know MacDonald for his prolific (21 novels over a span of as many years) Travis McGee series, as well as the standalone novel Cape Fear (first titled The Executioners, but then retitled after the 1962 film adaptation), but he also wrote a good deal of science fiction in the late ’40s and early ’50s. It’s not unusual for authors to cut their teeth on working with one genre before moving to greener pastures, so that much like how Elmore Leonard started with Westerns before moving to crime fiction, the same happened with MacDonald. Wine of the Dreamers was either MacDonald’s first or second novel, it’s hard to say.
Won’t you read with me?
Things Beyond: April 2025

April 1st, 2025
(Cover by H. W. Wesso. Strange Tales, January 1932.)

My schedule is not what it used to be, although I’m not sure if that’s my new living conditions, work slowly growing down on me, the real-world turmoil happening just outside of view, or some combination. I used to run this blog as a way of escaping temporarily from the drudgery of my everyday existence, between my job and living with my parents; but since I moved out four months ago, the scales have shifted in balance quite a bit. Writing for this blog no longer feels like an escape, but just more work that I have to do. I must write every couple days or else… what? What would happen if I took a break for, say, a month? Most likely my skill at writing would wither, if only a bit. Writing is like any other skill in that if you don’t do it for long enough then you sort of forget how to do it in the first place. It’s why I always find it amazing whenever an artist, be they a writer, filmmaker, musician, or whatever, takes a hiatus from the craft, then returns years later, seemingly out of hibernation, as if nothing had happened. Do you think Terrence Malick had to remember what it’s like to direct a movie when he was making The Thin Red Line, or if Robert Fripp, after not playing guitar for a couple years, had to refamiliarize himself with the damn thing when recording for David Bowie’s “Heroes”? Really this mindset can be applied to any skill, even one as worthless and solitary as writing.

I just remembered a depressing thought I had the other night, during one of my shifts, which is that I might be witnessing the death of human creativity in my lifetime. I’m not talking about creativity on an individual level, since I think it’s obvious that so long as humankind exists there will be artists, probably living on the margins, for the same reason there will always be Palestinians and Kurds and Chechens and what have you. I’m talking about a collective resentment towards creativity that has, at least in the US and UK, been building up since the Reagan and Thatcher years, if not earlier. Fascism, be it Christofascism or neo-liberalism of the Reagan-Clinton sort, is at its core a rejection of the human mind’s ability, indeed its incessant urging, to grow and progress. There is a Freudian return-to-the-womb desire inherent in fascism, except on a systemic level. The fascist wants to stop the future from happening—not a good or bad future, but the future as a concept. You can at least give the Chinese credit for envisioning a future, although if we’re being honest it’s a rather bleak one. In a more just world “AI” would be used only to make soul-crushing labor easier to stomach for human workers, but instead the right-wing technocrats who have increasingly gotten a stranglehold on government and commerce think such incredible technology should rather be used for kneecapping the human imagination. It’s possible that in just a decade or two the artist will be treated like how drug addicts and the homeless are treated today, which is to say the artist will be treated in the mainstream as at best a nuisance and more often as a threat to “the status quo.” We are undoubtedly on the path to that conclusion, and really it’s been a long time coming.

So what can I do? I talk a lot about art and artists, because I’m of the firm belief that without art human existence is really not worth it. Evelyn Waugh said that without God human existence is “unintelligible and unendurable.” I mostly agree with that sentiment. I write about art, even bad art, even the pulpy stuff, because I think there must be some value in it, and because God knows there isn’t much value elsewhere. Speaking of which, I decided it’s been too long since I last covered material from the pre-Campbell years that isn’t from the pages of Weird Tales. (I can’t help it that on average Weird Tales aged a lot better than its SF contemporaries.) So, I’m doing something a bit different this month. The serial, along with both novellas, will be from the pre-Campbell ’30s. I’m also finally checking the E. E. Smith box off my list, although not by reading a Skylark or Lensman novel but a standalone that caught my eye if only because of its convoluted publication history. The two short stories are from lady writers, one of whom you might’ve heard of if you’re really into crime fiction, while the other is totally obscure. See, the news is not all bad. Spring is finally here, and while my allergies may be kicking in I’m no longer freezing to death.

I’ve done enough yapping. What will I be reading? We have three stories from the 1930s and two from the 1950s.

For the serial:
1. Triplanetary by E. E. Smith. Serialized in Amazing Stories, January to April 1934. Smith was immensely popular in SF fandom during his lifetime, and yet despite a few attempts to resurrect his reputation he has since then been relegated to something of a sideshow attraction. Along with Edmond Hamilton he was one of the pioneers of space opera, with his novel The Skylark of Space especially laying the groundwork for future entries in that subgenre. The magazine version of Triplanetary was a standalone novel that Smith later retooled so as to make it a prequel in the Lensman series.
For the novellas:
1. “Proxima Centauri” by Murray Leinster. From the March 1935 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. I actually don’t remember if I’ve read this one before, so I’m counting it as a new read. Anyway, Leinster is curious if only because he’s one of the few writers from the Gernsback era to survive the coming of Campbell; not only that, but he actually hit his creative peak in the ’40s and ’50s.
2. “Wolves of Darkness” by Jack Williamson. From the January 1932 issue of Strange Tales. Williamson had one of the longest careers of any writer, inside or outside of SF, debuting in 1928 and remaining active until his death in 2006. “Wolve of Darkness” stands out as, if I remember right, getting Williamson his single biggest paycheck for a story up to that point, as he says in his autobiography.
For the short stories:
1. “The Pilot and the Bushman” by Sylvia Jacobs. From the August 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. This is now the third time I’ve nabbed a story from this issue of Galaxy. I unfortunately have next to nothing to say about Jacobs since we know basically nothing about her, not even when and where she was born. She wrote a handful of SF stories in the ’50s and ’60s and then vanished.
2. “The Muted Horn” by Dorothy Salisbury Davis. From the May 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe. This is a case where looking at an author’s ISFDB page can be deceiving, since going by it one would think Davis wrote very little; but actually she was a prolific crime novelist, and was even President of the Mystery Writers of America when she wrote this story, which is apparently horror.
Won’t you read with me?