RafeeqMcGiveron.com
  • Home
  • My Writings
    • Novel: Student Body >
      • Student Body: Sample 1
      • Student Body: Sample 2
      • Student Body: Sample 3
      • Student Body: Sample 4
      • Student Body: Sample 5
      • Student Body: Sample 6
    • Literary Criticism and Reviews >
      • On Robert A. Heinlein
      • On Ray Bradbury
      • On Other Authors
      • Goodreads Reviews
    • Advising/Teaching
    • Poetry
    • Memoir
    • The Bibliophile's Personal Library
    • Have You Ever Been to an Irishman's Shanty?
    • Letters from Gregory Road
  • Heinlein Cover Art
    • Pulp Magazines
    • Earlier Adult Works
    • Scribner’s YA/Juveniles
    • Serialized Novels
    • Collections/Anthologies
    • Later Works
    • On Heinlein
  • Other SF Art
    • Big Illustrated Books >
      • Flights of Fancy
      • The History of SF
      • Science Fiction/Science Fact >
        • Children's
    • Vintage Hardcovers
    • Paperbacks, Etc.
    • Pulp Magazines
  • Blog
  • Links
    • In the News

Fahrenheit 451 serialized in Playboy, March-May 1954

2/23/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
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

0 Comments

Ray Bradbury's "The Fireman"!

2/11/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
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

0 Comments

Hardcover art . . . including neat signed first editions !

9/27/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
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

0 Comments

More Heinlein art, including pulps!

3/17/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
​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

0 Comments

Heinlein cover art: old hardcover Assignment in Eternity and The Man Who Sold the Moon!

1/28/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
I was on the prowl for some more nifty Heinlein recently, and I picked up a cool 1953 copy of The Man Who Sold the Moon with the classic original Hubert Rogers cover art, plus a first edition Assignment in Eternity with a gorgeous Ric Binkley cover showing the domed lunar hideout of the villainous Mrs. Keithly of “Gulf.”

This has become one of my favorite Heinlein covers, and of course both of these are now posted in the Collections/Anthologies page of my Heinlein Cover Art galleries.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

0 Comments

More Heinlein . . . in German!

1/25/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
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

0 Comments

More Heinlein, including "Sky Lift" reprint

1/7/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
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

0 Comments

More Heinlein magazine updates

12/26/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
In the cataloging project of my personal library, at last I’m through allllllllllllllll of my Heinlein, and thus soon will be moving on to the next authors in the alphabet.  Along the way I’ve discovered some Heinlein art here and there that I didn’t realize I had in certain magazines, and I’ve picked up some more as well...like this nice Fred Ludekens from The Saturday Evening Post.  Now all 825 of these separate images of Heinlein art have been posted to the various pages of Heinlein galleries.

Enjoy!

Rafeeq

0 Comments

Heinlein cover art updates

12/21/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
As I work slowly, so slowly through my library cataloging project, I’ve found a few holes in my Heinlein collection that I wanted to fill...so I did.

I have some interesting things still on the way, but already I’ve received the April-May 1953 issue of Astonishing Stories with “Project Nightmare,” the January and March 1963 issues of F&SF with the last two installments of Podkayne of Mars I was lacking, and, the September through December issues of Boys’ Life with The Rolling Stones serialized as Tramp Space Ship with illustrations by someone named Hal Sherman.

Oh, yes—and I picked up some cool old things that I posted to my “Science Fiction/Science Fact” area as well, including some beautiful art by Chesley Bonestell.

In any event, the Heinlein stuff of course now is posted to to the “Pulp Magazines” and “Serialized Novels” pages as appropriate.

Enjoy!

​Rafeeq

0 Comments

Leigh Brackett, “The Beast-Jewel of Mars” in 1948 Planet Stories

12/1/2018

2 Comments

 
Picture
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

2 Comments
<<Previous
Forward>>

    Author

    Author of several dozen pieces of literary criticism, reference entries, and reviews; novel Student Body; memoir Tiger Hunts, Thunder Bay, and Treasure Chests; how-to The Bibliophile's Personal Library; humorous Have You Ever Been to an Irishman's Shanty?​; some poetry; and quite a bit of advising/Banner training materials.

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    July 2021
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    February 2020
    September 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    November 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013

    Categories

    All
    A.J. Donnell
    Anthony Boucher
    Astounding Science Fiction
    Book Review
    Chesley Bonestell
    Clifford Geary
    Curious Books
    Darrell K. Sweet
    Edd Cartier
    Ed Emshwiller
    Fahrenheit 451
    Fred Freeman
    Goodreads
    Hal Clement
    Hannes Bok
    Hubert Rogers
    Jack Finney
    Jim Burns Art
    Kelly Freas
    Larry Webb
    Lester Del Rey
    Michigan Transfer Agreement
    Philip K. Dick
    Pulp SF
    Ray Bradbury
    Reading Place Charlotte
    Reading Place-Charlotte
    Richard M. Powers
    Robert A. Heinlein
    Rolf Klep
    Salem Press
    Salem Press
    Schuler Books
    Scribner's
    SF Art
    Steele Savage
    Student Body
    Vincent Di Fate
    Virgil Finlay

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.