Sun 16 Oct 2022
Diary Review: ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION January 1954.
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Science Fiction & Fantasy[7] Comments
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION – January 1954. Editor: John W. Campbell, Jr. Cover by H. R. Van Dongen [the magazine’s first specific Christmas cover]. Overall rating: ***
EVERETT B. COLE “Exile.” Short novel. A student of Archaeological Synthesis on an observational trip is stranded on a backward planet. Without means of transportation or communication, his attempts to get home must not disturb the local culture. Terribly muddy and often depending on glibness, the story would have improved tremendously if it had a point to be made. **
FRANK M. ROBINSON “The Lonely Man.” The death of a man living alne in a hotel room is investigated by a policeman who discovers he has blue blood. (3)
H. BEAM PIPER & JOHN J. McGUIRE “The Return.” Novelette. After the Bomb, a group of people with a strange religion is found. Abundant clues to the sacred Books make this a worthy addition to the Holmesian saga. (4)
ALGIS BUDRYS “A.I.D.” Anti-Interrogation Device. An organic servomechanism which satisfies the specification of both sides, but only Earth has it. The ending is a letdown, but is satisfactory upon reconsideration. (3)
RALPH WILLIAMS “Bertha.” Novelette. A somewhat unlikely premise: an undiscovered artificial satellite which welcomes Earth’s first astronauts. Exciting in spite of occasional lapses in scientific background. Hindsight. (4)
October 16th, 2022 at 9:09 pm
Piper and McGuire would be my main interest here, though the two 4’s sound good.
October 16th, 2022 at 10:08 pm
The other (4) was by Ralph Williams, whose name I don’t recognize now.
The story by E. B. Cole took up 50 pages, and while I didn’t care for it, it was anthologized a couple of times later, so others apparently saw more in it than I did.
October 17th, 2022 at 6:52 am
The Cole was the third of nine stories Cole published in ASF about The Philosophical Corps. It was a popular series in the early Fifties and spawned one fix-up novel.
Williams (pen name of Ralph William Slone) published eleven SF stories, eight of them in ASTOUNDING. All of his ASTOUNDING stories have been anthologized. He may be best known for “Business as Usual, During Alterations” (ASF 7/58). He died at age 45, drowned at sea off Alaska.
October 17th, 2022 at 8:48 am
Thanks, Jerry. I owned that fix-up novel by Cole at one time, but I never read it. (I may still have it.)
But even the extra info about Williams doesn’t help. I simply don’t remember him, and ASF was my favorite SF magazine back in the day.
October 17th, 2022 at 10:35 am
Re: Williams, per Wikipedia: “His most notable work, the novelette “Cat and Mouse,” was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960. The story concerns a protagonist Ed Brown in Alaska as he discovers an alien civilization among wooded mountains.”
So maybe he didn’t drown–perhaps he was abducted. That story is available here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24392
October 17th, 2022 at 11:06 am
Thanks, Tony. His Wiki entry is rather short, but at least he has one. Here’s the link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Williams_(author)
October 17th, 2022 at 9:44 pm
Poking around on the Internet for more information on the longish Cole story, I discovered that it was reprinted in 5 Tales from Tomorrow, edited by T. E. Dikty (1957).
Here’s one review of the story as it appears in this anthology:
“I don’t run across many stories I can’t get through but this novella lost me about halfway. It went nowhere and took a long time doing so. What I managed to read has something to do with an interstellar anthologist getting conked on the head and losing his memory on an Earth-like planet. Maybe if I’d hung in it would have paid off but I guess I’ll never know.”
https://www.blackgate.com/2015/11/09/warring-supercomputers-deep-space-and-cold-equations-5-tales-from-tomorrow/