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Galaxy Reader #6
The Sixth Galaxy Reader
Horace Gold, Galaxy's 1st editor, had worked at Standard Magazines in the early '40s as assistant editor, reading for Standard's 3 sf Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder & Captain Future. With war's advent he joined the army, but in '49 was approached by Vera Cerutti, who had once worked for him. Cerutti was now working for an Italian publisher, Edizione Mondiale, who had opened a NY office as World Editions. World Editions had made a heavy loss on Fascination, an attempt to launch a magazine in the US, & they were looking for new title recommendations. Gold knew about The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, a digest launched in the fall of '49 & thought there was a market for another serious sf magazine. He also proposed paying 3 cents a word, a high rate, given that most others only paid 1 cent. World Editions agreed, made Gold editor & the 1st issue appeared in 10/50.
For the 1st issue, Gold obtained several stories by known authors, including Isaac Asimov, Fritz Leiber, Theodore Sturgeon & part 1 of Time Quarry by Clifford D. Simak. Along with an essay by Gold, the premiere introduced a book review column by anthologist Groff Conklin (running til '55) & a Willy Ley science column.
In the summer of '51, disagreements within World Editions led to distribution disruptions. The operations head found out & agreed to sell Galaxy to the printer, Rbt M. Guinn. Guinn's new company, named Galaxy Publ. Corp, took over with the 10/51 issue. Gold remained editor, but lost the assistance of World Editions staff, relying instead on Jerome Bixby, Algis Budrys, Theodore Sturgeon & Sturgeon's wife Evelyn Paige. Frederik Pohl, working as a literary agent, was also helpful in obtaining writers.
The sf magazine boom was over by the late '50s. Their low circulation didn't endear them to distributors, middlemen who transported magazines from publishers to news-stands & other outlets. Gold changed Galaxy Science Fiction to Galaxy Magazine with the 9/58 issue, commenting that science fiction "scares many people away from buying". Galaxy's circulation, at about 90,000, was the highest of the sf magazines, but Guinn decided to cost cut, & in 1959 raised the price, changed it to a bimonthly, & increased the page count. Guinn also cut the rates paid to authors from 3-4 to 1.5 cents a word. These changes saved over $12,000 yearly. The result was a circulation fall to about 80,000 within 2 years. This was sustainable because of fiction budget savings.
Guinn acquired If, another sf magazine, in '59, gaving it to Gold to edit as well. The 1st issue of If under Gold was 7/59. Galaxy's shift to a bimonthly schedule had been to reduce Gold's workload as he was in poor health. He was able to take on If because the magazines alternated publication months. The next year he had a car accident & proved unable to continue. Frederik Pohl took over at some point in early '61, tho not listed on the masthead as editor until 10/61.
For the 1st issue, Gold obtained several stories by known authors, including Isaac Asimov, Fritz Leiber, Theodore Sturgeon & part 1 of Time Quarry by Clifford D. Simak. Along with an essay by Gold, the premiere introduced a book review column by anthologist Groff Conklin (running til '55) & a Willy Ley science column.
In the summer of '51, disagreements within World Editions led to distribution disruptions. The operations head found out & agreed to sell Galaxy to the printer, Rbt M. Guinn. Guinn's new company, named Galaxy Publ. Corp, took over with the 10/51 issue. Gold remained editor, but lost the assistance of World Editions staff, relying instead on Jerome Bixby, Algis Budrys, Theodore Sturgeon & Sturgeon's wife Evelyn Paige. Frederik Pohl, working as a literary agent, was also helpful in obtaining writers.
The sf magazine boom was over by the late '50s. Their low circulation didn't endear them to distributors, middlemen who transported magazines from publishers to news-stands & other outlets. Gold changed Galaxy Science Fiction to Galaxy Magazine with the 9/58 issue, commenting that science fiction "scares many people away from buying". Galaxy's circulation, at about 90,000, was the highest of the sf magazines, but Guinn decided to cost cut, & in 1959 raised the price, changed it to a bimonthly, & increased the page count. Guinn also cut the rates paid to authors from 3-4 to 1.5 cents a word. These changes saved over $12,000 yearly. The result was a circulation fall to about 80,000 within 2 years. This was sustainable because of fiction budget savings.
Guinn acquired If, another sf magazine, in '59, gaving it to Gold to edit as well. The 1st issue of If under Gold was 7/59. Galaxy's shift to a bimonthly schedule had been to reduce Gold's workload as he was in poor health. He was able to take on If because the magazines alternated publication months. The next year he had a car accident & proved unable to continue. Frederik Pohl took over at some point in early '61, tho not listed on the masthead as editor until 10/61.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1962
1 person is currently reading
23 people want to read
About the author
H.L. Gold
384 books12 followersHorace Leonard Gold was a science fiction writer and editor most noted for bringing an innovative and fresh approach to science fiction while he was the editor of Galaxy Science Fiction, and also wrote briefly for DC Comics. Born in Canada, Gold moved to the United States at the age of two. He also published under the pseudonyms Clyde Crane Campbell, Dudley Dell, Christopher Grimm, and Leigh Keith.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 21, 2021
This sixth volume of the best stories from Galaxy magazine was the last that Gold edited before Frederik Pohl (who replaced Gold as editor of the magazine in 1961) took over the series. The stories were first published in issues of Galaxy from 1956-1960. There are no particular stand-outs here, either on the plus or negative side, just mostly entertaining stories from Margaret St. Clair, Rosel George Brown, Damon Knight, and others.
January 16, 2019
CONTENTS
◾"INTRODUCTION: How to Write Science Fiction" - H. L. Gold
◾Fiction:
▪️"The Nuse Man" - Margaret St. Clair
▪️"Success Story" - Earl Goodale
▪️"A Husband for My Wife" - William W. Stuart
▪️"Insidekick" - J. F. Bone
▪️"Love Called This Thing" - Avram Davidson & Laura Goforth
▪️"Lex" - W. T. Haggert
▪️"License to Steal" - Louis Newman
▪️"True Self" - Elizabeth Mann Borgese
▪️"Flower Arrangement" - Rosel George Brown
▪️"Thing of Beauty" - Damon Knight
▪️"Personnel Problem" - H. L. Gold
▪️"The Number of the Beast" - Fritz Leiber
▪️"The IFTH of OOFTH" - Walter Tevis, Jr.
▪️"The Genius Heap" - James Blish
This is a somewhat disappointing anthology made up of stories previously published in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine in the years 1956-1960. (The title was changed to Galaxy Magazine in 1958.) The one that I think is the poorest is, surprisingly, by Fritz Leiber. In "The Number of the Beast," the police in the Terran satellite of High Chicago know that one of four telepathic aliens, each from a different species, is a hired assassin; for various reasons, they have only half an hour to discover which one that is, and Earth knows that an accusation made to the wrong individual would be disastrous. The story manages to be misogynistic, homophobic, and boring.
There are two stories that originally appeared in the August, 1959 issue of Galaxy. The science fiction and fantasy website ISFDb says that these are the only published science fiction story by one of the two authors and one of only two by the other.
Those authors are W. T. Haggert and Louis Newman. Newman's "License to Steal" was listed on its first printing as a "non-fact article." It tells about an alien who has come to Earth from a planet on which theft is an accepted way of life. The alien requests a license to steal from a police officer; the officer, as a joke, writes out the license. The "article" consists of details of the legal wrangling which results.
W. T. Haggert's story "Lex" is a somber story about the well-known science fiction trope, the artificial intelligence that has become self-aware. In addition to "Lex," Haggert published one other science fiction story. "Lex" is good enough to make one wonder why Haggert didn't continue to publish.
Elizabeth Mann Borgese was the daughter of author Thomas Mann. Most of her writing was non-fiction, but she did write some science fiction as well. "True Self" is an undistinguished tale set in a future beauty parlor.
"Personnel Problem" is another not particularly good story. H. L. Gold, author of that story, first editor of Galaxy, and editor of this anthology, wrote some fine short fiction, but most of that appeared in magazines that he did not edit; I don't know why. "Personnel Problem" tells of a mining operation on an asteroid, with a fine staff of miners but in need of an engineer. Well, "in need of" might be overstating. The last sentence is a venerable but appropriate comedy punchline.
"A Husband for My Wife" is a routine comic time-travel story by William W. Stuart.
Earl Goodale is another author listed on ISFDb as having published only two science fiction stories, one of which was "Success Story." Aliens have invaded Earth, but complications arise. This seems like it was intended for Astounding/Analog. It might have been a typical Christopher Anvil-type story, told from the viewpoint of an unenthusiastic member of the invading force; it is, however, rather more clever than the usual Anvil tale.
"Insidekick" (good title!) by J. F. Bone takes another familiar science fiction trope of an intelligent alien being living inside an unknowing human. The alien means well, but is unable to communicate with its human host. This is purely an adventure tale, rather well-told.
"The IFTH of OOFTH" by Walter Tevis, Jr. starts with a scene similar to the beginning of Robert Heinlein's story "-And He Built a Crooked House-" but then goes in a very different direction. Tevis was primarily a mainstream author (The Hustler, The Color of Money, and others), but his science fiction and fantasy stories are quite good. Profreeding noat: "OOFTH" is misspelled on the book jacket.
James Blish's story "The Genius Heap" tells of a project to move many of Earth's artists (from all fields) and intellectuals to the Bartók Colony on Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter. There, they have all been assured, the deleterious effect of neutrino activity on creativity will be greatly reduced. But there is more to the story.
Damon Knight wrote many fine short stories, both serious and comic. "Thing of Beauty" is decidedly at the comic end of the range. A man accidentally receives a machine that draws, brilliantly and seemingly creatively. Of course, the man takes credit for the drawings, never bothering to have the instruction booklet translated from whatever-language-it-is into English. (People in science fiction stories never learn to check the dentition of their gift horses. See, for example, "Child's Play" by William Tenn, "How-2" by Clifford Simak, and "Bad Medicine" by Robert Sheckley.)
The three remaining stories are all also comic and all written or co-written by women. "Love Called This Thing" (another clever title) is by Avram Davidson and Laura Goforth. (ISFDb doesn't list any other science fiction or fantasy stories by Ms. Goforth.) This is the very funny tale of an alien visitor who has taken the form of a human male, having learned everything about life in the United States by monitoring radio and television broadcasts. On second thought, perhaps not quite everything .
Margaret St. Clair wrote two "nuse" stories, "The Nuse Man" and its sequel "The Airy Servitor" (Galaxy Magazine, April, 1960). "Nuse...is a power source that the nuse man describes as originating on the far side of 3000 A.D." The story is narrated by a present-day woman whom the nuse man has visited to try to get her to buy nuse service. Even though she continues to refuse, he comes back in this story to tell her of his recent work in the kingdom of Ur in 3000 B.C. This is, unfortunately, not a tale likely to convince her to use nuse.
Margaret St. Clair was an idiosyncratic author, much too little known. This also applies to the author of "Flower Arrangement," Rosel George Brown.
The narrator of this story is another contemporary woman, who has volunteered to do a flower arrangement to represent her garden club at a flower show, even though she has a long history of failed previous arrangements. She is assisted (sort of) by her son, an imaginative kindergartener. Her son makes "the roundest thing in the whole world," with a balloon, some magnets, silver paint, and glitter, and includes that in the arrangement, which is based on a Moebius Strip. Somehow this all produces a strange result, which has scientists puzzled. This is Brown at her best. (Brown died of lymphoma five years after this book was published. She was forty-one.)
The jacket cover for the 1962 hardcover Doubleday edition was by Roger Zimmerman.
As I said, this is not a great collection, but I do like the stories by St. Clair, Goodale, Davidson and Goforth, Haggert, Brown, Knight, and Tevis.
Correction of material in the Goodreads introductory material about this book:
There is a reference to "Theodore Sturgeon & Sturgeon's wife Evelyn Paige"; Ms. Paige was actually married to H. L. Gold, first editor of Galaxy.
◾"INTRODUCTION: How to Write Science Fiction" - H. L. Gold
◾Fiction:
▪️"The Nuse Man" - Margaret St. Clair
▪️"Success Story" - Earl Goodale
▪️"A Husband for My Wife" - William W. Stuart
▪️"Insidekick" - J. F. Bone
▪️"Love Called This Thing" - Avram Davidson & Laura Goforth
▪️"Lex" - W. T. Haggert
▪️"License to Steal" - Louis Newman
▪️"True Self" - Elizabeth Mann Borgese
▪️"Flower Arrangement" - Rosel George Brown
▪️"Thing of Beauty" - Damon Knight
▪️"Personnel Problem" - H. L. Gold
▪️"The Number of the Beast" - Fritz Leiber
▪️"The IFTH of OOFTH" - Walter Tevis, Jr.
▪️"The Genius Heap" - James Blish
This is a somewhat disappointing anthology made up of stories previously published in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine in the years 1956-1960. (The title was changed to Galaxy Magazine in 1958.) The one that I think is the poorest is, surprisingly, by Fritz Leiber. In "The Number of the Beast," the police in the Terran satellite of High Chicago know that one of four telepathic aliens, each from a different species, is a hired assassin; for various reasons, they have only half an hour to discover which one that is, and Earth knows that an accusation made to the wrong individual would be disastrous. The story manages to be misogynistic, homophobic, and boring.
There are two stories that originally appeared in the August, 1959 issue of Galaxy. The science fiction and fantasy website ISFDb says that these are the only published science fiction story by one of the two authors and one of only two by the other.
Those authors are W. T. Haggert and Louis Newman. Newman's "License to Steal" was listed on its first printing as a "non-fact article." It tells about an alien who has come to Earth from a planet on which theft is an accepted way of life. The alien requests a license to steal from a police officer; the officer, as a joke, writes out the license. The "article" consists of details of the legal wrangling which results.
W. T. Haggert's story "Lex" is a somber story about the well-known science fiction trope, the artificial intelligence that has become self-aware. In addition to "Lex," Haggert published one other science fiction story. "Lex" is good enough to make one wonder why Haggert didn't continue to publish.
Elizabeth Mann Borgese was the daughter of author Thomas Mann. Most of her writing was non-fiction, but she did write some science fiction as well. "True Self" is an undistinguished tale set in a future beauty parlor.
"Personnel Problem" is another not particularly good story. H. L. Gold, author of that story, first editor of Galaxy, and editor of this anthology, wrote some fine short fiction, but most of that appeared in magazines that he did not edit; I don't know why. "Personnel Problem" tells of a mining operation on an asteroid, with a fine staff of miners but in need of an engineer. Well, "in need of" might be overstating. The last sentence is a venerable but appropriate comedy punchline.
"A Husband for My Wife" is a routine comic time-travel story by William W. Stuart.
Earl Goodale is another author listed on ISFDb as having published only two science fiction stories, one of which was "Success Story." Aliens have invaded Earth, but complications arise. This seems like it was intended for Astounding/Analog. It might have been a typical Christopher Anvil-type story, told from the viewpoint of an unenthusiastic member of the invading force; it is, however, rather more clever than the usual Anvil tale.
"Insidekick" (good title!) by J. F. Bone takes another familiar science fiction trope of an intelligent alien being living inside an unknowing human. The alien means well, but is unable to communicate with its human host. This is purely an adventure tale, rather well-told.
"The IFTH of OOFTH" by Walter Tevis, Jr. starts with a scene similar to the beginning of Robert Heinlein's story "-And He Built a Crooked House-" but then goes in a very different direction. Tevis was primarily a mainstream author (The Hustler, The Color of Money, and others), but his science fiction and fantasy stories are quite good. Profreeding noat: "OOFTH" is misspelled on the book jacket.
James Blish's story "The Genius Heap" tells of a project to move many of Earth's artists (from all fields) and intellectuals to the Bartók Colony on Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter. There, they have all been assured, the deleterious effect of neutrino activity on creativity will be greatly reduced. But there is more to the story.
Damon Knight wrote many fine short stories, both serious and comic. "Thing of Beauty" is decidedly at the comic end of the range. A man accidentally receives a machine that draws, brilliantly and seemingly creatively. Of course, the man takes credit for the drawings, never bothering to have the instruction booklet translated from whatever-language-it-is into English. (People in science fiction stories never learn to check the dentition of their gift horses. See, for example, "Child's Play" by William Tenn, "How-2" by Clifford Simak, and "Bad Medicine" by Robert Sheckley.)
The three remaining stories are all also comic and all written or co-written by women. "Love Called This Thing" (another clever title) is by Avram Davidson and Laura Goforth. (ISFDb doesn't list any other science fiction or fantasy stories by Ms. Goforth.) This is the very funny tale of an alien visitor who has taken the form of a human male, having learned everything about life in the United States by monitoring radio and television broadcasts. On second thought, perhaps not quite everything .
Margaret St. Clair wrote two "nuse" stories, "The Nuse Man" and its sequel "The Airy Servitor" (Galaxy Magazine, April, 1960). "Nuse...is a power source that the nuse man describes as originating on the far side of 3000 A.D." The story is narrated by a present-day woman whom the nuse man has visited to try to get her to buy nuse service. Even though she continues to refuse, he comes back in this story to tell her of his recent work in the kingdom of Ur in 3000 B.C. This is, unfortunately, not a tale likely to convince her to use nuse.
Margaret St. Clair was an idiosyncratic author, much too little known. This also applies to the author of "Flower Arrangement," Rosel George Brown.
The narrator of this story is another contemporary woman, who has volunteered to do a flower arrangement to represent her garden club at a flower show, even though she has a long history of failed previous arrangements. She is assisted (sort of) by her son, an imaginative kindergartener. Her son makes "the roundest thing in the whole world," with a balloon, some magnets, silver paint, and glitter, and includes that in the arrangement, which is based on a Moebius Strip. Somehow this all produces a strange result, which has scientists puzzled. This is Brown at her best. (Brown died of lymphoma five years after this book was published. She was forty-one.)
The jacket cover for the 1962 hardcover Doubleday edition was by Roger Zimmerman.
As I said, this is not a great collection, but I do like the stories by St. Clair, Goodale, Davidson and Goforth, Haggert, Brown, Knight, and Tevis.
Correction of material in the Goodreads introductory material about this book:
There is a reference to "Theodore Sturgeon & Sturgeon's wife Evelyn Paige"; Ms. Paige was actually married to H. L. Gold, first editor of Galaxy.
January 12, 2009
This anthology contains How to Write Science Fiction & Personnel Problem by H.L. Gold; The Nuse Man by Margaret St Clair; Success Story by Earle Goodale; A Husband for My Wife by Wm W. Stuart; Insidekick by J.F. Bone; Love Called This Thing by Avram Davidson & Laura Goforth; Lex by W.T. Haggert; License to Steal by Louis Newman; True Self by Elisabeth Mann Borgese; The Number of the Beast by Fritz Leiber; The Genius Heap by James Blish; Flower Arrangement by Rosel George Brown; Thing of Beauty by Damon Knight & the IFTH of OOFTH by Walter S. Tevis Jr.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews