Sun 31 Oct 2021
Diary Review: PLANET STORIES November 1952.
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Reviews[10] Comments
PLANET STORIES November 1952. Editor: Jack O’Sullivan. Cover artist: Allan Anderson. Overall rating: One star.
CONAN T. TROY “The Conjurer of Venus.†Novelette. The means for space flight to the stars is gained in the Dream Room of a Venusian tavern. Mysterious happenings precede the Dreamer’s noble gesture. (1)
JACK BRADLEY “The Rhizoid Kill.†A man’s greed for rare Mercurian gems leads to his death. (1)
HAYDEN HOWARD “The Luminous Blonde.†Woman outsmarts husband during space-flight. (0)
PAUL A. PAYNE “As It Was.†Novelette. An interplanetary hunter destroys an intelligent [alien] killer and saves a girl from her shipwrecked isolation. Adventure, rather the implication of intelligence, is the main theme. (1)
S. A. LOMBINO “A Planet Named Joe.†All Venusians are named Joe. (0)
D. ALLEN MORISSEY “Captain Chaos.†A space ship with a crew of four men and a woman reaches a new planet. Scientific facts are garbled at times. (1)
LEIGH BRACKETT “Shannach–the Last.†Novel. A prospector on Mercury discovers a colony from Earth dominated by the last survivor of the original inhabitants of the planet. A bit more characterization [than in the rest of the magazine], including that of the aliens. Too bad the story takes place on Mercury, of all places. (2)
October 31st, 2021 at 7:32 pm
Everyone reading this old review will recognize Leigh Brackett’s name, I’m sure, and it’s no surprise that I rated her story as the best in the otherwise mediocre issue.
But one of the other authors using a pen name (or perhaps his real name) went on to considerably more fame than this zero-star story would suggest. I suppose some of you know who that is, too.
October 31st, 2021 at 10:24 pm
Lombino went on to fame as Evan Hunter. Do I get a prize?
October 31st, 2021 at 10:58 pm
And we have a winner. That didn’t take long!
From Wikipedia:
“Evan Hunter (October 15, 1926 – July 6, 2005) was an American author and screenwriter who also wrote under a number of pen names, most notably Ed McBain, used for most of his crime fiction. Born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he legally adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952; he also used the pen names John Abbott, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon, and Richard Marsten, amongst others.”
As for a prize, I don’t think I have anything I could send you that you don’t already have. I’ll think about it, though.
November 1st, 2021 at 8:05 am
Steve,
As a prize for Walker, you could send him one of your unsold LP’s! Kill two birds with one stone, as they say!
November 1st, 2021 at 8:13 am
I’m sure Walker has all of the Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass that he will ever need.
November 1st, 2021 at 9:42 am
No, No! My LP days are over and I’m trying to get rid of 400 jazz records. Any buyers? They have to be picked up at my house. My mailing stuff days are over also!
November 1st, 2021 at 6:43 pm
Save for Brackett a wan issue, but I have to say these days I would rather read an average issue of Planet, Thrilling, or Startling than the far more prestigious Astounding.
The energy in some of these “lesser” SF lights often more than compensates for the relative nonsense aspect of the science.
I may be different than many, but I felt about the use of actual planets in these style stories about like I did Barsoom. I didn’t expect them to be connected anyway but loosely to actual science.
November 1st, 2021 at 6:48 pm
I have to agree. Especially when Sam Merwin took over as editor of Startling and Thrilling in 1945. Planet Stories had two top notch authors in Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury. Each had about 20 stories in the 71 issue of Planet.
November 1st, 2021 at 7:00 pm
Ignoring the poor science behind the stories in this particular issue, which as you fellows say is easily done (and I agree), I don’t think the literary quality was all that high.
Most of the stories were by unknowns with very short careers, and deservedly so. By 1952 most of Planet Stories’ high notes were well in its past.
I really don’t know how I’d react to the stories in Astounding from the same month and year. I think maybe it was running on fumes itself.
November 1st, 2021 at 7:03 pm
Note that even Leigh Brackett’s story was not very good. It was reprinted only once, and that was as the title story in one of Haffner Press’s collections he did as a special project in which everything she did was included.