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

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

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

​In the past couple of months I’ve picked up a number of nifty pieces for my “Heinlein Cover Art” galleries.
 
At the wonderful Dawn Treader bookshop of Ann Arbor I got a quaint Steele Savage cover for Red Planet—a painting that unfortunately does not catch the three-leggedness of Heinlein’s Martians as Darrell K. Sweet of course does—and a few more things.  On ye olde internet I also at last found the March 1959 F&SF with “ --‘All You Zombies’.”

In addition, I was able to pick up even rarer things like the April 1941 Astonishing Stories with “Beyond Doubt,” the May 1940 Super Science Stories with “Let There Be Light” (pictured here), the November 1941 Super Science Stories with “Lost Legacy,” the March 1942 Astonishing Stories with “Pied Piper”…and a few more paperbacks I can’t quite recall.  I also finally got my own copy of the June 1952 Popular Mechanics showcasing Heinlein’s then-futuristic house.
 
Oh, yes—and I posted some gorgeous Frank Frazetta art from Edgar R. Burroughs’ Barsoom novels in my “Paperbacks, Etc.” gallery.
 
Enjoy!
 
Rafeeq

Recently a friend of mine was in Germany, and she kindly picked me up a neat German-language copy of Sixth Column.  Danke, mein fraulein!

Originally the tale was serialized in Astounding Science-Fiction, in January, February, and March of 1941 under the Anson MacDonald byline, of course, and scans of the Hubert Rogers cover art and Schneeman interiors can be seen in the Pulp Magazines page of my Heinlein Cover Art galleries.

Afterward the piece was published in book form in 1949, under this title and also as The Day After Tomorrow.  In any event, the cover art for this version of the book, like the others, is posted in my Earlier Adult Works page.

Enjoy!

​Rafeeq

Lately I’ve been picking up some stray Heinlein that my collection has lacked, and although I haven’t blogged about all the incoming pieces, here’s a random piece of interest: a reprint of the 1952 story  “Sky Lift” in the August 1958 issue of a semi-girlie magazine called Rogue for Men.  In addition to a number of racy photos, though, there also is a nifty illustration for the Heinlein story by D. Bruce Derry.  This—along with the shots from original appearance in Imagination, of course—can be found in the Pulp Magazines page of my Heinlein Cover Art galleries.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

Leigh Brackett’s “The Beast-Jewel of Mars” is a neat story about using a sort of reverse-evolution regression as illicit entertainment or drug.  I had read it in a collection I picked up a year or two ago, but recently I found a copy of the 1948 Planet Stories that originally published the story.  I liked the story, and the flashy 1940s cover was so great that I figured I had to get it.

I opened up a new page in my Other SF Art galleries, specifically Pulp Magazines, so now I have a place to post the illustration at left.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

Currently I am in the middle--well, more like the first 20%, actually--of a project to catalog my library onto a single Excel.  I've considered this for years, and finally have begun to take the plunge.

In any event, I just discovered that the October 1941 issue of Astounding, which features "By His Bootstraps," actually also contains the Heinlein story "Common Sense," along with five interior drawings.  Great!

How I had missed this previously, I don't know.  Now, however, they are posted to the "Pulp Magazines" page of my Heinlein cover art galleries.

Enjoy!

​Rafeeq

A bit belatedly, I realized that “Gulf” was not a stand-alone story when published in Astounding Science-Fiction in 1949, but instead was serialized across two issues.  I rectified that wee lack in my collection, therefore.  The cover, which is colorful and interesting, is by someone I confess I had never heard of, but the interiors for the Heinlein story still are by the familiar Hubert Rogers.  Almost as soon as the old pulp came in the mail, I scanned the appropriate parts, and they now are posted in the “Pulp Magazines” area of my voluminous Heinlein galleries.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

Recently I picked up a nifty old Space Cadet with lovely cover and interiors by Clifford N. Geary, plus the two issues of Boys’ Life that serialized the story “Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon” in 1949.  These magazines are harder to come by than more usual ones like Astounding, I would say, and the interior illustrations happen to be quite nicely rendered.

Now the art from these pieces all is scanned, and posted to the appropriate pages in my huge Heinlein Cover Art galleries.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq