Article: The Joy of Futures Past

“Secret pleasures” time…. or perhaps not so much of a secret.

Those of you who read the Forums here at SFFWorld may have noticed through some of my comments that I’ve spent the last few years amassing old SF magazines.

Frankly, it’s become a bit of an obsession.

Thinking back, it is mainly due to the fact that when I was younger I used to buy cheap secondhand copies of the old great magazines – Analog (sadly no Astoundings, not in my backwater birth-town!), Fantasy & SF Magazine, Galaxy and Worlds of If.

The first American SF magazine I bought  ‘proper’ was Analog: the May 25^th 1981 edition, with The Tides of Kithrup by David Brin (published later as Startide Rising) and a dolphin on the cover (I still have it, see left.)  I had to order it especially at my local WH Smiths. It took a while to get there, at least a month (and I vaguely think longer!) But it was worth it.

I was also enamoured through the many magazine covers printed in books such as Brian Aldiss’s Science Fiction Art and Brian Ash’s Science Fiction A-Z. (Again, I still have them.) There, often the size of something little bigger than a postage stamp, were covers from the greats that were a door for me to things I never could attain – or so I thought.

I guess you could say I was bitten. Badly. There, in the pages, I read of old stories and new and books being published across the pond that I thought I would never see but desperately, desperately desired.

When I was lucky enough to go to university, other priorities prevailed and such items as magazines stopped being bought. There were things like food, beer and coursework books to buy (admittedly with the odd SF/Fantasy book, often secondhand.)

However, thanks to globalisation via the Internet, I am now in possession of many of those wonders. In addition, there is a proliferation of digital copies to download, often for free. And it is lovely to look at these, admittedly.

But, being the oldster I am, I still love the sheer physicality of the traditional, physical pulp editions. I have a nearly complete set of F&SF’s from the first issue in 1948 – 1996. I now have Astounding/Analogs from 1938 – 2003, with a few more gaps, it must be said. (Some of these are shown here.) I have shelves of Galaxy’s (UK edition, admittedly) from issue 1 to 1979. There are Asimov’s Magazine from the first issue to about 2000. A complete set of Nebula magazines.

Why do this? It has cost money to collect them – notwithstanding the actual cost of the magazine, there’s the transportation costs involved – often as much in postage as the magazine, if not more. They’re not easy to store and some of them are, to say the least, fragile. But, despite all this, there are many rewards.

For example, I LOVE the 1940’s & 50’s covers. There’s a clarity, a simplicity, an optimism that is very endearing (even when the tales are of nuclear holocaust and global Armageddon!)

But my biggest joy is the simplicity of just reading ‘old stuff’. I have read, or rather re-read, Dune in its original incarnation. Ditto Heinlein’s Double Star, Starship Soldiers (aka Starship Troopers) and Space Lummox (aka the novel Space Beast.) Add to this John Varley’s early short stories. Stephen King’s Gunslinger story in his first appearance. Julian (J.C.) May’s first short story. Joe Haldeman’s tales that would eventually become The Forever War. The emergence of the 1960’s so-called New Wave. The appearance of mutants, ESP and even Dianetics. The disappearance of pulp SF. The effect of Vietnam on SF writing. And the Moon Landings. Afterwards, in the 1970’s, the look onwards and upwards to Mars and the rest of the Solar System, and even, towards the end of the century, the disappointment thereafter. And talking of disappointments, articles such as ‘How to Live on the Moon’, and even the  – erm – ‘mechanics’ of sex in space (thank you, Analog!)

It has (on the whole) been a wonderful experience.

Perhaps, though, the biggest enjoyment is finding those writers who have seemingly disappeared without trace after being firm favourites in their time. And those I had never heard of before my rummage, ones who were very popular in their time but not really heard of now : J.T. McIntosh. Hilbert Schenck. Chad Oliver. William Tenn.

There are many who I remember in my youth that surprisingly seem pretty much forgotten now: James Blish, Judith Merrill, Damon Knight, Lester Del Rey, even Theodore Sturgeon, often recognised as one of the most skilful SF writers of his time by his peers.  Rediscovery has been a joy.

What has been the most surprising experience, though, has been to read these stories in context.  For these stories reflect the past, even when they are not directly based in it. Heinlein’s Starship Soldier stands out as being so different to those stories around it. So too The Door into Summer.   Earlier, but similarly, writers such as Edmond Hamilton, Poul Anderson and AE van Vogt can be seen in the context of their peers and by reading them in context this highlights how good (or bad!) they were in relation to other writers of their time.

So it is, coincidentally, that I was reminded of a topic that has resurfaced around the blogosphere. Namely, that contemporary reviewers, lured by the ever- growing pile of new writers and new books, never look back at the old. Some have been accused of wasting time on older books (those about ten years old), because all readers are really interested in is ‘the now’.

I can see to some extent that, as SF and Fantasy to some extent echo the climate and culture they are written in, the present releases are perhaps most relevant to current readers. In these days of personal blogs and such-like, the nature of social media means that its matter tends to deal with ‘now’ and so most readers are reading what is here, being published, now. QED.

And yet: surely there is room out there for the old stuff? Whilst there is only so much time and an ever-lengthening pile of material to cherry-pick from, surely it is worthwhile to look at the background, the history, the ‘how did we get here’? The space operas of today owe much to the gaudy tales of the 1940’s and 50’s – I can see that even more now. There is a certain joy in looking forward from the past, even when the future as we know it is noticeably different?

Yes, it has dated. Some of it badly, horribly, even laughably. And yet, personally, I still find an attraction. I see an optimism there that is enlightening and rarely present today. There is an engaging naivety, yet somewhat appropriate for their time, which even though hopelessly dated has a charm. I see heroism, bravery, adventure, romance, the thrill of the unknown, the thrill of terra incognito. How I wish there were canals and the remnants of ancient civilisations on Mars! How about a Moonbase?  Teleportation? Non-human aliens? Time travel? Even spaceships?

Whilst not dismissing what we are reading now, personally I think it is important that we look at review and comment on the futures of the past. I’d like to think that we do try at SFFWorld – not all the reviews are new books! – but it is becoming a difficult thing to do. A recent request to publishers for older books that may be worthy of our reviews hasn’t exactly been met with major results, though there was some enthusiasm.

But I’m ever mindful that others may think the same (or differently!) to me.  So: this begs the enquiry – is there room on sites such as SFFWorld for the ‘old stuff’? Should we be sticking to current or upcoming releases, or is there space for reviewing & discussing old stuff at SFFWorld? Alternatively, is the old stuff better discussed on the Forums, rather than as reviews, if at all?

What do you think?

Mark

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