Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Sandy Ferber

The Trial of Terra: Fun and amusing

The Trial of Terra by Jack Williamson

Jack Williamson’s The Trial of Terra made its initial appearance in 1962, as one of those cute little Ace paperbacks (D-555, for all you collectors out there). The book is what’s known as a “fix-up novel,” meaning that parts of the book had appeared as short stories years earlier, and then skillfully cobbled together by the author later on to form a seamless whole. Despite this, the book is a stand-alone novel in the Williamson canon, with no relation to any of the other books in the author’s substantial oeuvre.

Mary of Marion Isle: Another wonderful Haggard adventure

Mary of Marion Isle by H. Rider Haggard

The great H. Rider Haggard wrote a total of 58 novels before his death in May 1925, and of that number, four were released posthumously. Mary of Marion Isle was his penultimate creation, one which he wrote in 1924, although, as revealed in D.S. Higgins’ biography of Haggard, the idea for the story first came to him in 1916, while sailing to Australia and watching the albatrosses circling his ship. The novel was ultimately released in April 1929, and, as stated by Higgins,

The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson

The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson by E.F. Benson

I had read E.F. Benson’s The Horror Horn to start with (a collection of 13 of his best ghost stories), after seeing that it was considered one of the Top 100 Horror Books of all time in Newman & Jones’ excellent overview volume. Each of those 13 stories was so good that I just had to have more, and so picked up this collection — The Collected GhostStories of E.F.

The Ship of Ishtar: A fantasy for the ages

The Ship of Ishtar by Abraham Merritt

The Ship of Ishtar, one of Abraham Merritt’s finest fantasies, first appeared in the pages of Argosy magazine in 1924. An altered version appeared in book form in 1926, and the world finally received the original work in book form in 1949, six years after Merritt’s death.

In this wonderful novel we meet John Kenton, an American archaeologist who has just come into possession of a miniature crystal ship recently excavated “from the sand shrouds of ages-dead Babylon.”

Earth’s Last Citadel: Had me fairly riveted

Earth’s Last Citadel by C.L. Moore & Henry Kuttner

Catherine Moore and Henry Kuttner, generally acknowledged to be the preeminent husband-and-wife writing team in sci-fi history, initially had their novella Earth’s Last Citadel released in the pages of Argosy magazine in 1943 (indeed, it was the very last piece of science fiction to be serialized in that publication). It was finally published in book form 21 years later. This is a pretty way-out piece of sci-fi/fantasy that reveals its debt to a handful of writers who had been major influences on the pair,

The Compleat Werewolf: 10 horror stories

The Compleat Werewolf by Anthony Boucher

The Compleat Werewolf and Other Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction gathers together 10 short stories and novellas from the pen of Anthony Boucher, all of which originally appeared in various pulp magazines (such as Unknown Worlds, Adventure Magazine, Astounding Science Fiction, Weird Tales and Thrilling Wonder Stories) from 1941-’45. Boucher, whose real name was William Anthony Parker White, was a man of many talents, and during his career,

The Humanoid Touch: A marvelous sequel

The Humanoid Touch by Jack Williamson

In Jack Williamson’s classic short story “With Folded Hands” (1947), the inventor of the Humanoids — sleek black robots whose credo is “To Serve And Obey, And Guard Men From Harm,” even if that means stifling mankind’s freedoms — makes an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the computer plexus on planet Wing IV that is keeping the many millions of units functioning. In the author’s classic sequel, the novel The Humanoids (1949), another unsuccessful stab is made, 90 years later, by a “rhodomagnetics”

August 4th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

The Humanoids: A great novel

The Humanoids by Jack Williamson

The late 1940s was a period of remarkable creativity for future sci-fi Grand Master Jack Williamson. July ’47 saw the release of his much-acclaimed short story “With Folded Hands” in the pages of Astounding Science-Fiction, followed by the tale’s two-part serialized sequel, And Searching Mind, in that influential magazine’s March and April 1948 issues. Darker Than You Think, Williamson’s great sci-fi/fantasy/horror hybrid, was released later in 1948, and 1949 saw the publication of And Searching Mind in hardcover form,

July 29th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Heart of the World: Action-packed and exciting

Heart of the World by H. Rider Haggard

Although I had previously read and hugely enjoyed no fewer than 40 novels by H. Rider Haggard, I yet felt a trifle nervous before beginning the author’s Heart of the World. I had recently finished Haggard’s truly excellent novel of 1893, Montezuma’s Daughter — a novel that deals with the downfall of the Aztec empire in the early 16th century — and was concerned that Heart of the World, which I knew to be still another story dealing with the Aztecs,

The Creature From Beyond Infinity: Kuttner’s first novel

The Creature From Beyond Infinity by Henry Kuttner

The Creature From Beyond Infinity was the first novel published by Henry Kuttner, an author who was one of the half dozen or so pillars of the Golden Age of Sci-Fi. It first saw the light of day in a 1940 issue of “Startling Stories” magazine under the title A Million Years to Conquer, and finally in book form in the 1968 Popular Library paperback that I recently completed. Although that original title may perhaps be a more accurate descriptor,

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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