Tag Archives: Rosemary Harris

[February 14, 1962] St. Valentine's Update (The Second Sex in SFF, Part V)


by Gideon Marcus

It's not quite time for a funeral, yet!

Nearly a decade ago, the Chicken Littles of our genre scribbled at length in our magazines and buttonholed each other at conventions to voice their fears that science fiction was dying.  Well, it is true that we are down to just six American sff digests per month, off of the 40 magazine peak of 1953.  On the other hand, I'd argue that we're not that much worse off for having lost the lesser monthlies.  Moreover, sff novels still seem to be doing a brisk trade.

In the three years since I started this column, I've seen a cadre of new writers burst onto the scene; clearly, no one told them that their field is dead!  And while sff continues to be something of a man's world, this fact is changing, slowly but surely.  Since just last year, when I wrote 18 mini-biographies of the women authors of science fiction, I've become exposed to a whole new crop of female bylines.  Some of them are just new to me, having been in the biz for a long time.  Others are genuinely fresh onto the scene. 

Without further ado, the supplemental list for early 1962:

Doris Pitkin Buck

Currently an English teacher at Ohio State University, where at least two authors that I know of might have enjoyed her acquaintance: former OSU students John Jakes and Harlan Ellison.  Mrs. Buck is a comparative rarity in our genre.  Not many manage to balance unabashed love for sff and a "respectable" career in academia.  Said career includes an active college writing stint, a cluster of stories written in the early 50s and a couple of recent pieces, of which I was not particularly fond, but that nevertheless suggest a high degree of literacy. 

Mildred Clingerman

Like Buck, Clingerman is a veteran with ten years of professional sff experience under her belt.  Her consistent career has produced 16 stories, most of them published in the pages of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  Sadly for my readers, her last one came out in 1958, just before I started this column.  However, she recently released A Cupful of Space, a collection of all of work to date, so you can enjoy her quirky, often whimsical, occasionally macabre stylings all in a sitting.  Like Buck, she's a teacher, at the University of Arizona.

Kate Wilhelm

The elusive Ms. Wilhelm has enjoyed a prolific career that started in 1956 and yet has rarely crossed my path.  I first encountered her excellent The Mile-Long Spaceship in the April 1957 Astounding.  This tale of a telepathic contact across the stars was impressive despite its extreme shortness; it must have really impressed Astounding editor, John Campbell since his magazine tends to be the most staggish of the digests.  Her latest work, A Time to Keep was not in the same league, but everyone is entitled to periodic variances.  Here's hoping she publishes more works in the magazines I cover – there aren't many that I don't these days…

Otis Kidwell

Otis Kidwell, who acquired the surname Burger some time after her birth, sprang onto the sff scene just last year with the compelling The Zookeeper.  However, it was hardly the first publication of this noteworthy New Yorker (great-grandaughter of famed abolitionist, Sydney Howard Gay) – her short pieces have appeared in The New Yorker since 1957. 

Sydney J. Van Scyoc

"Joyce," as her family and friends know her, took on her mannish first name to help her break into the science fiction market.  It took several years of writing for her work to see print, but her premiere tale Shatter the Wall, which came out just last month, shows real promise. 

Maria Russell

Ms. Russell (real name, Mary R. Standard) is a true newcomer.  Her first (and currently only) story is The Deer Park, a haunting, surreal tale that was a fine addition to the F&SF in which it appeared.  Details on her non-writing career are scarce, but I am given to understand that she is computer systems analyst in Connecticut, a fine career for a science fictioneer. 

Anne Walker


Picture courtesy of the Vassar Chronicle

Ms. Walker (also known as Mrs. Gutterman) is a Vassar graduate and New England resident with but two stories to her name, but boy were they good ones.  She's newish, coming on the scene in 1959, so she has plenty of time ahead of her if she wants to continue.

Joy Leache

I'm afraid I know even less about Joy Leache, whose career started in 1959, and whose latest story, Satisfaction Guaranteed was a good'n.  Does anyone have a clue?

Rosemary Harris

A nurse during World War 2, Ms. Harris is Londoner whose first work, Hamlin, appeared in F&SF last year.  Hamlin is a derivative of the Pied Piper Tale, so it's no surprise that Ms. Harris also writes childrens' books.  Will she keep toes in both genres?

At this rate, we'll soon reach gender parity in scientifiction, which I think will be to its benefit.  After all, that will mean we are finally seeing the best efforts of our entire population, not just one half.  I can' wait to see who will be on the 1963 supplement!

[August 26, 1961] Introduce Yourself!  (September 1961 Fantasy and Science Fiction)


by Gideon Marcus

Just what is the Galactic Journey?  Who is this mysterious "Traveler"?

Every so often, it's good idea to remind my readers who I am and why I do what I do.  This weekend, I am presenting at a local science fiction gathering, so it makes sense that the first article they see makes sense of all of this.

My twin passions are science fiction and outer space.  I live with my wife and daughter in San Diego, the fairest city in the Golden State of California.  From 9 to 5, I run a mid-sized electronics company.  In my off time, I maintain this column, writing about current books, magazines, movies, and science news (as well as other miscellany).

Oh yes.  I live in 1961.

Normally, I wouldn't have cause to mention this fact.  For the longest time, I was the under the impression that we all lived in the same time.  Some of the mail I've been getting, however, suggests that a few of you come from the future — 55 years, to be exact. 

It's quite exciting to have a fan-base from the far-flung time of 2016.  They report on all sorts of far out advances, some of which have been conceived in science fiction, others of which are beyond our wildest dreams. 

Happily, they report that global overpopulation has not been realized.  On the other hand, global warming has.  They say that Pluto is not a planet; well, that's nothing new.

I suspect, of course, that this is all a fannish game.  No one really can know the future.  The best we can do is write down our speculations and hope we're right (or in the case of scary visions, wrong!)

And that leads nicely into the subject of this article, the September 1961 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  For those of you who don't know, F&SF is one of several monthly science fiction digests, each containing a slew of stories.  The story length ranges from single-page vignettes through serialized novels that run over several issues.  Digests used to be the way science fiction was delivered to the public.  They've been on the decline since their peak in 1953, however, and the science fiction novel appears to have taken its place. 

There is still plenty of good stuff to be found in the magazines, however.  Here's what I found in this issue:

Gérard Klein is an author for F&SF's French edition, and his The Monster in the Park was deemed good enough to be translated into English (thank you, Virginia Kidd!) It is a worthy piece, this tale of an alien's landing in a Parisian park.  The pacing is excellent, with the largely expositional setup interpreted through the lens of a worried Frenchwoman's grief over the possibility that her husband has been abducted.  The story builds the tension quite nicely, and the resolution works, though it is a bit abrupt.  Four stars.

Moving on, we have Herbert Gold's satirical The Day They Got Boston, about the diplomatic tit-for-tat that might ensue should the Soviets ever accidentally blow up one of our cities.  His name may be unfamiliar to you if you're the kind who never leaves our particular genre.  In fact, Gold writes a lot, but most of his stuff ends up in the "slicks" — high-paying outlets like Playboy.  Hefner politely declined the offer to print Boston, but his loss is our gain. 


Herbert Gold

Gold, a friend of mine, told me he wrote this genuinely funny little yarn as a reaction to all the panic about The Bomb, which he doesn't personally buy into.  Boston is not really science fiction, but then Gold isn't a science fiction writer.  As he puts it, "the world is bizarre enough without inventing a fantasy science fiction alternative."  A fair assessment from a man who writes with a stylus dipped in his own blood stored in a skull of Goethe he keeps on his desk (or so he claims!) Four stars.

The Timekeeper is Michael Young's first story, an odd vignette about a fellow who escapes mortality by shuffling into the timeless place of waking dreams.  Strangely enjoyable.  3 stars.

Floyd Wallace used to write a lot more, but if saving his strength means we get more stories like Privates All, then I don't begrudge him his rest.  Imagine a stultifying world of scarcity where production is in the hands of a myriad of monopolies: General Housing, General Apparel, General Entertainment, General Food, etc.  A person can work for any of them, but only one at a time.  Within each unit, goods can be secured with relative ease, but without, they cost dearly.  How does one get ahead in a world where wealth in one economic field means poverty in all others? 

Wallace writes powerfully, evocatively, and I'm a sucker for stories set in caste-based societies.  I imagine, rather like Orwell's 1984, that Privates is less a prediction of a future time than a depiction of an existing place — namely, the Soviet Union.  Good stuff.  Four stars.

Pecking Order is a tale of witchcraft, humility, and pride from a virtually unpublished author, Nils Peterson.  Macabre in its mood, wicked in its finale, it is a quintessentially F&SF-ish story.  Three stars.

Hamlin is by another unknown: Rosemary Harris.  She has the sad distinction of being the only female author appearing in the digests I read this month.  Hamlin is the re-telling of an old fable, gussied up in scientifiction trappings.  It's my least favorite story in the issue, but that’s more due to the quality of its competition, than any lack on its part.  Three stars.

Now, all of the Big Three digests (F&SF, Analog, and Galaxy) include a science fact column.  F&SF's is the best as they managed to secure the works of a certain Isaac Asimov, a fellow with a broader breadth of knowledge than Da Vinci. 

I like science fiction, but I love articles that can inspire science fiction stories.  Not As We Know It describes elements and solvents that could be alternatives to our boring old carbon/oxygen/water mix as the basis for alien life.  It is a treasure trove of ideas.  Five stars.

Rosser Reeves, a writer/businessman like me, has made a name for himself with his poetry.  He returns with two more pieces: the mournful Effigy and the inconsequential
E=MC².  Not as good as his last outing, but I wouldn't mind seeing more.  Three stars.

Finally, we have Brian Aldiss' Timberline.  This is the next installment in his "Hothouse" series of novellas, which form a continuous sequence set on an Earth of the far future.  The sun has swelled with age, and our planet has frozen into tidal lock with one face always presented to its parent star.  The Earth's surface has been conquered by vegetable beings, and only a few animals remain — including a diminutive race descendant of once mighty humanity.

Aldiss' is an imaginative world, but this outing in particular felt more travelogue than complete tale.  It might be all right as part of a book (I imagine there will be a compilation when the last novella is completed), but by itself, it feels shallow.  Three stars.

Last month, I lamented that the quality of my favorite digest was declining.  This issue seems to reverse that trend: It scored 3.6 of 5 on the Star-o-meter (TM), easily beating out IF's 2.9 and Analog's 2.6.  It also had the best story (Privates All), the most women (a whopping one), and the best non-fiction.  Pretty good for a magazine with such a large number of authorial first outings!

By next article will be a photologue of my trip to the convention.  If I meet you this weekend, do drop me a line.  I love making new friends!