Robert A. Heinlein was a fairly versatile writer.  He wrote science fiction; he wrote fantasy.  He wrote short stories; he wrote novels, both for the Scribner's young-adult market and for adults.  He wrote technical reports during the war; he wrote articles for magazines and entries for encyclopedias.

And he wrote a couple of stories about a girl named "Puddin'," which he bylined "R.A. Heinlein" and then peddled to Calling All Girls, also known as Senior Prom after late 1949.  The 1950 "Cliff and the Calories" was reprinted in Expanded Universe back in 1980, but the one I finally got now, "Poor Daddy," wasn't reissued until the posthumous Requiem.  I found "Cliff and the Calories" a few months ago, and it was...a tad pricey.  A few days ago I discovered, and today received, the August 1949 Calling All Girls with "Poor Daddy" for quite a reasonable some.

The thing is, Calling All Girls is no National Geographic or Time or even Boys' Life.  It's a weird and hard-to-come-by thing, at least if you're hunting a particular issue rather than just wanting to score any random one to sample for a history or sociology project.  I should know--I've had my eye out for these two for a number of years.  But now they're here, and I don't need to look for this crazy magazine anymore!

In any event, this one is filed, of course, in my Heinlein Cover Art galleries at Pulp Magazines.

Enjoy,

Rafeeq

In the past half-dozen months I happened to run across another couple of old pseudonymous Heinlein pulps that seem to be a lot harder to find than the more common stuff like "'If This Goes On--'" and "Requiem" and "By His Bootstraps" in Astounding Science-Fiction.  What I picked up now were "Beyond Doubt" in the April 1941 issue of Astonishing Stories and "They Do It with Mirrors" from the May 1947 issue of Popular Detective.

Both of these were pseudonymous, of course--yet not of the common Anson MacDonald byline most of us are familiar with as Heinlein's second-tier name of the early 1940s.  No, "Beyond Doubt" is a Lyle Monroe--a name Heinlein used on only three other stories, it seems--and "They Do It with Mirrors" is by Simon York, a name I don't think he used anywhere else.

Now, "They Do It with Mirrors" was reprinted in the 1980 Expanded Universe, so although I haven't read story in close to 40 years, when I want a reread, I'll probably do so in that newer book.  "Beyond Doubt," though, has never been reprinted, except, I suppose, in the big leather-bound, acid-free, limited-run 46-volume Virginia Edition.  I guess I could read it in the Virginia Edition, but the Astonishing Stories was in pretty decent condition for an 80-year-old pulp magazine, so I simply read it there with some care.  Very satisfying like that.  And that's how, come to think of it, many months earlier still, I did with the elusive "My Object All Sublime" in the February 1942 Future Combined with Science Fiction.

In any event, these recent funky finds now are photographed, and posted to the "Pulp Magazines" page of my "Heinlein Cover Art" galleries.  Oh--  And in the pic here, by the way, note that this interior art is by the famed Hannes Bok.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

Well, looks like I haven't blogged in, ahem, a while...but I actually have been doing a fair bit.  First, contrary to last year's statement about posting my Goodreads reviews here, I just decided to link 'em from the "Goodreads Reviews" page of my "Literary Criticism and Reviews" area.    I have put in quite a few over the last several months, including reviews on all titles in Edgar Rice Burroughs's eleven-book Barsoom series.

I found the original publication of Heinlein's "The Man Who Traveled in Elephants," which was titled "Elephant Circuit" when it first came out in the October 1957 Saturn Science Fiction and Fantasy.  I had read the story probably only once, a more than 30 years ago, so I re-read it in the original pulp, which was nice.  The cover art--apparently for a story called "California is Doomed!"--is crazily garish and now is posted on my "Pulp Magazines" page.

I also picked up early 1950s book reprints of Heinlein's semi-rarely-discussed "Water Is for Washing," one a hardcover with nifty cover art of a man and also a woman, both rifle-armed, moving through palm trees, and one a paperback with some rather interesting and casual ethnographic teaser blurbs on the back.  Now, I confess that the story's original publication in the November 1947 Argosy was something I had been looking for for a long time to no avail...and suddenly it turned up in a completely random venue.  Excellent.  The charming Peter Stevens double-page interior is here, but of course a fuller shot of it, along with the cover art and more, can be found at the good ol' "Pulp Magazines" page.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

I have wanted to read Kenneth Fearing’s 1946 The Big Clock, the novel made into the great Ray Milland film of the same name, for years and years.  To my great delight, about eight or nine months ago I finally found an early 1960s printing at good ol’ Curious Books in East Lansing.  A few days ago, I got around to reading it...and somehow I remembered about Goodreads.com, and I did a review there, which I hadn’t done in two and a half years.

Originally, I was going to link and post the review in my blog, as I’ve done with others, but then I got an even better idea: Why not make a new page in the “My Writings” area that’s specifically for my occasional Goodreads reviews?

OK, so I did it.  Ta daaaaa.  Later reviews will be posted on the blog, hopefully, but for this one I’ll simply link to my new page.  Click there, and then just use the alpha-beta system to find The Big Clock​.

Hope you enjoy,

Rafeeq

As July draweth to a close, I suddenly realize that the last month and a half has been pretty busy in terms of updates to my Heinlein cover art galleries.  In addition to new-to-me editions of books like Waldo and Magic, Inc., Orphans of the Sky, The Man Who Sold the Moon, Time for the Stars, and Podkayne of Mars, I also have come across quite a bit of things from magazines.

I picked up reprints of “Water is for Washing,” for example, a Heinlein review of a Willy Ley text in the July 1944 Astounding, an article in the 28 May 1949 Saturday Review of Literature that discusses Heinlein pretty prominently, “Tenderfoot in Space” serialized in Boys’ Life in 1958, a reprint of “Gentlemen, Be Seated,” “The Black Pits of Luna” in its original 1948 Saturday Evening Post, and “No Bands Playing” from the December 1973 Vertex.

And beyond these...  Well, at last I also acquired some rather rarely found things as well: “Cliff and the Calories” from the August 1950 Senior Prom, where in this girls’ magazine he is bylined only as “R. Heinlein”; “The Long Watch” in the December 1949 issue of the American Legion Magazine; and the extraordinarily elusive “My Object All Sublime,” published under the Lyle Monroe byline in the February 1942 issue of the peculiarly titled Future Combined with Science Fiction.  “My Object All Sublime,” by the way, is one of the early “stinkeroos” that was never, ever, ever reprinted until the big $1,500 leather-bound Virginia Edition of Heinlein’s complete works, and it was great to read it in the original nearly 80-year-old pulp.

Of all the aforementioned, I’m not sure whether  “Cliff and the Calories” or “My Object All Sublime” is rarest, but “The Long Watch,” originally released as “Rebellion on the Moon,” is perhaps my favorite.  This rousing and yet poignant tale of an upright young officer who receives a fatal dose of radiation while disobeying a direct order and thus preventing his superior from using deterrent rockets to stage a putsch that would enslave the world, with the youngster then sitting there calmly smoking his last cigarette before the chattering Geiger counter, thinking of his wife, and of his baby girl being able to grow up in freedom, while the patriots of American history gather close in the final moments of his watch, always literally gives me goosebumps.  This is the one I will picture now.

Rafeeq

Although a jillion copies of The Saturday Evening Post have been printed, it can be strangely difficult to find a 1947 or 1948 copy with certain Heinlein stories.  ​“The Black Pits of Luna” is one for which I had been keeping my eye peeled for quite some time, but I just never encountered one...until a couple days ago.

Shipping was astoundingly swift, and the magazine is good-looking.  Now the cover and the lovely Fred Ludekens interior painting both are scanned to the “Pulp Magazines” page of my “Heinlein Cover Art” galleries.

Enjoy!

​Rafeeq

Every now and then ​I’ll run across an auction with some realllllllly nice SF art, but the popular stuff always ends up being really pricey, doesn’t it?  I mean, when you see the original Frank R. Paul painting for “The Asteroid of Death” or one of the original Ed Emshwiller paintings for Have Space Suit—Will Travel when first serialized in F&SF...well, it’s gonna cost.  The bidding just goes up and up and up, and one can only watch with a vague longing.

Well, recently I came across the original Steele Savage painting that was used as the cover for the 1971 Ace printing of Heinlein’s 1956 Scribner’s juvie, Time for the Stars.  The piece is stylized and bold, as his work from that period tends to be, and it’s rather pretty in its own way.  I had a couple extra shekels in my pouch from that coronavirus stimulus check, and I really wanted to help out the economy by keeping everything in flow, so...win-win, especially when bidding wasn’t too deadly.

In any event, I finally received this nifty piece, and its image now is scanned to the “Scribner’s YA/Juveniles” page of my Heinlein cover art galleries.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

Not too long after I picked up that nice copy of the February 1951 issue of Galaxy with Bradbury's pre-Fahrenheit 451 "The Fireman," I happened to see an auction of books and comics and whatnot that contained, among many, many other things, the March, April, and May 1954 issues of Playboy that serialized the full novel after its original 1953 printing...

Hmm, thought I, these might be nifty things to pick up...  Still, trying to be a responsible shopper, I poked around the internet to see if any other copies were for sale and if real money was being asked for them.  The answers were Yes and Definitely yes.  I approached the auction with a bit of trepidation, though.  That is, the first few bids were lowish, tantalizingly suggestive of a possible bargain.  In an auction, however, it's easy to see something that starts out as a deal rapidly become a hole into which you suddenly realize you threw, ahem, maybe a little too much money.  This is doubly the case when it's not a single item you're after but two or even three related ones...any single one of which rather falls flat when purchased alone.  What happens if you get #1 for a decent price, after all, but someone else really wants #2 and the price on that one doubles or even triples...?

The opening of the final stage of the auction was nerve-wracking, but bidding was not too bad, and I was able to get these three magazines for a sum I thought was at least halfway tolerable.  I mean, I wouldn't want to spend that much on books every week, but sometimes you have to splurge a little on a really nice piece of literary history, don't you?  Don't you...?

In any event, I received these three great pieces of Bradbury history, and now the apropos artwork is scanned to the "Pulp Magazines" page of my "Other SF Art" archives.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

Before Ray Bradbury published Fahrenheit 451 as a novel in 1953, it originally appeared in a novella only about half that size in Galaxy​ in 1951.  I had known this for a good 40 years, having read Bradbury's account of the process...but only recently did I find a copy that wasn't prohibitively expensive.

Naturally, I bought it.

I scanned the beautiful Chesley Bonestell cover, an unrelated but gorgeous piece of art.  I scanned the interior art for "The Fireman" as well.  All now are posted to the "Other SF Art -- Pulp Magazines" page of my web.

And then I read the Bradbury.

How does it compare with the fuller Fahrenheit 451?  Well, "The Fireman" is much smaller and faster, not nearly as polished, and the reader is always thinking, "Oh, but where's--?" or "Is he gonna say--?"  The piece is a fascinating historical artifact, but quite a rough draft for those of us used to the novel.

Montag's first name is Leonard--no Guy Fawkes-ism yet.  Faber has a first name, too.  Beatty is Leahy.  Yet despite the 2052 date in the first page, unlike in the novel, the setting is more reminiscent of the time of writing, with no full-wall televisions yet, just actual TV sets and radios and even crap-magazines.  There's no green bullet from Faber, so we just plain old don't see him again until after the showdown.  Interestingly, Beatty's lecture over Montag's sickbed is just a teeny bit more specific on the "minority pressure" aspect than in the novel.

Once Montag reveals the books to Millie, he gets her--amazingly, to our minds now--to agree to daily readings, with him trying to teach her.  Montag actually is a tad bloodthirsty in a couple of places where thinking about the revolution, less diffident than in the more slowly unfolding novel.  And the Hound--  Why, the Mechanical Hound doesn't appear until almost the end!  There are no creepy firehouse growlings, therefore, no offhand mention of suicide by Hound, no electronic snuffling under Montag's door.  And it's called the Electric Dog, fer God's sake...  Wow.

Still, the novella is definitely worth the read.  And at least here you may enjoy the visual art as well!

​Rafeeq

A while ago I had scanned a few pieces of neat Frank Frazetta art from hardcover copies of a couple of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom novels and put them in my “Other SF Art” gallery.

Over the past year, though, I also found myself picking some other interesting hardcovers of the 1940s and ’50s, including first editions—signed!—of Jack Williamson’s classic Darker Than You Think and, more recently, Eric Frank Russell’s Sinister Barrier and Dreadful Sanctuary.

​Well, this seemed to call for a new page, didn’t it?  Maybe one specifically called “Vintage Hardcovers”?  At last, therefore, this page is up, and it has some really nice old art by J.A. Donnell and Edd Cartier.

Enjoy!

​Rafeeq