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Hide! Hide! Witch!
This novella is a prequel to "They'd Rather Be Right" which won the 1955 Hugo-award for best Novel.
- GenresShort Stories
60 pages, Unknown Binding
Published December 1, 1953
1 person want to read
About the author
Mark Clifton
95 books10 followersMark Irwin Clifton (1906 - Nov. 1963) was an American science fiction writer. Clifton began publishing in May of 1952 with the often anthologized story "What Have I Done?".
Most of his work fits into one of two series. The "Bossy" sequence was written alone, and in collaboration with both Alex Apostolides and Frank Riley. The "Ralph Kennedy" series, which is lighter in tone, was mostly written solo, including the novel "When They Come From Space", although there was one collaboration with Apostolides.
Clifton gained his greatest success with his novel They'd Rather Be Right (a.k.a. The Forever Machine), co-written with Riley, which was serialized in Astounding in 1954 and went on to win the Hugo Award, perhaps the most contentious novel ever to win the award.
Clifton is also known today for his short story "Star, Bright", his first of three appearances in Horace Gold's Galaxy (July 1952), about a super-intelligent toddler with psi abilities. From Clifton's correspondence we know that Gold "editorially savaged" the story, which appeared in severely truncated or altered form. The story has been compared favorably to Kuttner and Moore's "Mimsy Were the Borogoves", which was published in Astounding nine years earlier.
Clifton worked as a personnel manager during his life and interviewed close to 100,000 people. This experience formed much of Clifton's attitude about the delusions people entertain of themselves, but also the greatness of which they are capable.
Most of his work fits into one of two series. The "Bossy" sequence was written alone, and in collaboration with both Alex Apostolides and Frank Riley. The "Ralph Kennedy" series, which is lighter in tone, was mostly written solo, including the novel "When They Come From Space", although there was one collaboration with Apostolides.
Clifton gained his greatest success with his novel They'd Rather Be Right (a.k.a. The Forever Machine), co-written with Riley, which was serialized in Astounding in 1954 and went on to win the Hugo Award, perhaps the most contentious novel ever to win the award.
Clifton is also known today for his short story "Star, Bright", his first of three appearances in Horace Gold's Galaxy (July 1952), about a super-intelligent toddler with psi abilities. From Clifton's correspondence we know that Gold "editorially savaged" the story, which appeared in severely truncated or altered form. The story has been compared favorably to Kuttner and Moore's "Mimsy Were the Borogoves", which was published in Astounding nine years earlier.
Clifton worked as a personnel manager during his life and interviewed close to 100,000 people. This experience formed much of Clifton's attitude about the delusions people entertain of themselves, but also the greatness of which they are capable.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 12, 2017
Precursor story to maligned 1955 Hugo winner They'd Rather Be Right, released separately at an earlier date and added to a new edition of the novel close to 30 years later. It finds Crazy Joey all grown up and pulled into a plot to help create an artificial super-intelligence. Uneventful and heavy on the purple prose, but still mostly enjoyable.
September 1, 2016
"Hide! Hide! Witch!" is pretty tame. The conversations and structure of the novel is tame as well. There are nice and solid characters who actually develop, and it was nice to bring back "Crazy Joey" from the previous novel.
I'm reading these to prequels before diving into "They'd rather be right" which is considered the "worst" book to ever win the Hugo.
I gave it four stars for it's enjoyable but straight-forward point-A-to-point-B story without any twists or death or anything.
____________________________________
(previous information that I've collected while studying up on this Novel:)
We've all read the first winner of the Hugo Awards: 1953's "The Demolished Man". What is lesser known is the controversial 2nd Hugo Winner 1955's "They'd Rather Be Right". This book is considered the "worst" of all Hugo Winners, has a long history of being out-of-print, and completely unknown to modern Sci-Fi readers--WHICH IS WHY I DECIDED TO COMPLETELY DIVE INTO IT!!!!
On top of being unknown, it has a terribly confusing multiple-name multiple-author and multiple-edit history. The book you need is the "The Forever Machine" Carroll & Graf Publishers (May 1992): this contains both prequel stories, as well as the original unedited novel. Any other book called "The Forever Machine" will have the super-edited and bowdlerized version.
Pages 1-40: "Crazy Joey" originally released August 1953 by Mark Clifton and Alex Apostolides.
Pages 40-90: "Hide! Hide! Witch!" originally released December 1953 by Mark Clifton with Alex Apostolides. (This section is unmarked in the Book, but it is the full an original text)
Rest of the Book: The original uncut award-winning novel "They'd Rather Be Right" by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley.
I'm reading these to prequels before diving into "They'd rather be right" which is considered the "worst" book to ever win the Hugo.
I gave it four stars for it's enjoyable but straight-forward point-A-to-point-B story without any twists or death or anything.
____________________________________
(previous information that I've collected while studying up on this Novel:)
We've all read the first winner of the Hugo Awards: 1953's "The Demolished Man". What is lesser known is the controversial 2nd Hugo Winner 1955's "They'd Rather Be Right". This book is considered the "worst" of all Hugo Winners, has a long history of being out-of-print, and completely unknown to modern Sci-Fi readers--WHICH IS WHY I DECIDED TO COMPLETELY DIVE INTO IT!!!!
On top of being unknown, it has a terribly confusing multiple-name multiple-author and multiple-edit history. The book you need is the "The Forever Machine" Carroll & Graf Publishers (May 1992): this contains both prequel stories, as well as the original unedited novel. Any other book called "The Forever Machine" will have the super-edited and bowdlerized version.
Pages 1-40: "Crazy Joey" originally released August 1953 by Mark Clifton and Alex Apostolides.
Pages 40-90: "Hide! Hide! Witch!" originally released December 1953 by Mark Clifton with Alex Apostolides. (This section is unmarked in the Book, but it is the full an original text)
Rest of the Book: The original uncut award-winning novel "They'd Rather Be Right" by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews