Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

“King of the Gray Spaces” (“R is for Rocket”), by Ray Bradbury (Famous Fantastic Mysteries, December 1943) winner
“Death Sentence,” by Isaac Asimov (Astounding Science Fiction, November 1943)
“Doorway into Time,” by C.L. Moore (Famous Fantastic Mysteries, September 1943)
“Exile,” by Edmond Hamilton (Super Science Stories, May 1943)
“Q.U.R.,” by H.H. Holmes (Anthony Boucher) (Astounding Science-Fiction, March 1943)
“Yours Truly – Jack the Ripper,” by Robert Bloch (Weird Tales, July 1943)

I finished “Death Sentence,” a diversion from 'usual' Asimov, I even guessed (but was far from sure) the punchline of the story. It was ok, but not great, I'll see how it compares

That one may be tricky for me to track down. I don’t want to buy an old Asimov collection and the local library doesn’t seem to have The Martian Way and Other Stories or The Early Asimov. I have 3 of the stories in Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 5, but evidently he didn’t choose to “present” his own story from that year.

Stephen wrote: "That one may be tricky for me to track down. .."

Here it is https://archive.org/details/Astoundin...

I actually download, OCR and get a neat text to read, but even in its raw form it can be read if not that comfortably

Thanks! I need to figure that out.

Stephen wrote: "Thanks! I need to figure that out."

there are txt and epub for download (right hand below the magazine view). They aren't proof-read but good enough

I had some free time and finished all the stories. My comments:
“King of the Gray Spaces” (“R is for Rocket”), a solid 'mood' story about boys dreaming of space, it is well-written. I see why it won.

“Doorway into Time,” - there is a usual pulp magazine cover - an almost naked beauty, her stalwart defender, and a monster/villain, hundreds of them! This is the story that can fit most of them, maybe it is even a joke on such covers. But the story per se is so-so.

“Exile,” another 'punchline' story, nice and short and possibly one of the earliest about SF writers.

“Q.U.R.,” my personal favorite. A lot of people outside the genre mix SF and futurology. However, this one is a rare case of such successful predictions.

“Yours Truly – Jack the Ripper,” a horror 'punchline' story, captivating but working only once.

Moving on to these in the next day or two.

I read Death Sentence. It’s a readable story but to my mind not Asimov at his best, and I’m not a fan of this kind thing anyway. The super-scientific psychologists didn’t convince me. Quite a “punchline”. I did have a sense that something of the sort was on the way.

Stephen wrote: "I read Death Sentence. It’s a readable story but to my mind not Asimov at his best,.."

Agreed.

I read “Yours Truly — Jack the Ripper”, a famous story that I read a long time ago. So you could say that it did work more than once for me as I had forgotten the ending. For my taste it would rank ahead of Death Sentence, but I’m pretty sure neither will be at the top of my list.

“Exile” is very short and I’m afraid I saw the “punchline” coming a mile away. Not bad for what it is.

Stephen wrote: "“Exile” is very short and I’m afraid I saw the “punchline” coming a mile away. Not bad for what it is."

I guess I read it before, so I expected this punchline too. For me, it is a plus to be early (first?). SF story about SF authors.

I started reading what I thought was the Bradbury story but it quickly became apparent that this wasn’t the 1943 story. What I have is a modified story published as “R is for Rocket” in 1962. Irritating. Set in Florida etc.

I read the story. Interesting piece of writing, in Bradbury’s characteristic personal style. The story is about a 15 year old American boy who dreams of being chosen to be trained as a spaceman. Everyone agrees that this is a very high role in life; the boy’s mother compares it to the priesthood. To me it seems to be over-the-top sentimentality. I’d like to read the story that was published in 1943, not in the middle of the early ‘60s publicity around the Project Mercury astronauts. I wonder how many of the Retro Hugo voters read the original story.

I've also read the later version, but from using both titles on the ballot I assumed they are (almost) the same. Here is the original magazine version https://archive.org/details/Famous_Fa...

plus below you can grab txt (because their epub is with all pictures = big)

I've checked the first two pages and it seems quite similar - the same characters and their relations, but there are glaring differences not related to the plot, like neighbors ready to use their para-guns on boys. I plan to re-read the original

Thanks for the pointer. I enjoyed the older version more. I’ll reread the other to see if I also like it better than I did last night.

Looking again at the 60s version (“R is for Rocket”) I think the changes still bother me. Some of them seem to be attempts to “update” the story to the 60s — changing the setting, nominally, to Florida, having the spacemen ride in a van out to the rocket instead of walking, calling them “astronauts” and the selection organization the “Astronaut Board” instead of the “Patrol”. The already mild swearing (?) of “Good Lord” is watered down a bit.

There is also an added literary device of a fence the boys look through, which I think is clumsy, and the age of the main character is changed from 14 to 15 years. I think the story’s strength is its lyrical portrayal of the boy’s yearning to be a spaceman (I’m deliberately not saying astronaut) and this makes more sense to me at the younger age.

I can see that it made commercial sense to make some of the other changes when republishing the story in the early 60s, but I think its use of the “dreaming of the stars” trope works better in the pre-NASA 1940s context (looking back from the 21st century.)

Bradbury’s presentation of the boy’s youthful yearning is sort of the bookend to Heinlein’s wordly old man at the end of his life, also achieving the dream. (In “Requiem”.)

Stephen wrote: "... in Bradbury’s characteristic personal style..."

I found this to be very much Bradbury's classic style, the wonder that we have as youth, the beautiful, poetic prose. Hard to mistake it for anyone else. Good story, especially in its time context.

Likewise, I found Jack the Ripper to be in Bloch's classic style. Predictable, but certainly fun. I read a fair amount of his work, which was similar to that of Richard Matheson.

I enjoyed Doorway Into Time, a strange, colorful adventure story about a powerful alien collector of beautiful things, across time and space, who snatches a beautiful earth woman from the laboratory of her male friend who has just invented some kind of energy weapon. He follows her into the creature’s bizarre lair/museum. An unusual read but well written.

Allan wrote: "… I found Jack the Ripper to be in Bloch’s classic style… I read a fair amount of his work, which was similar to that of Richard Matheson."

I haven’t read much Bloch but I picked up an inexpensive ebook copy of The Essential Robert Bloch for the purpose of reading the Ripper story, so I’ll have the opportunity to read more.

I read Q.U.R. Excellent.

My ranking of the nominees:

1. Q.U.R.
2. Doorway Into Time
3. King of the Gray Spaces
4. Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper
5, Death Sentence
6. Exile

For me they were all good stories in their different ways. Q.U.R. was definitely the best, and Exile was so slight it had to be last. The other 4 stories were pretty closely clustered. I ended up ranking them in order of what I took to be the quality of the writing. Though I’m sure there is room for disagreement on that.

I think this was a really interesting group of stories.

I agree that Q.U.R. is the best, however Doorway Into Time hasn't impressed me - a nice adventure with a bunch of tropes from the lab, where a hero just invented something and a beaute in a gossamer gown, red-eyed monster...

I agree, this batch overall was pretty good.
1) Q.U.R. - didn't like it at first, but it came together well
2) Yours Truly – Jack the Ripper - predictable, but I enjoyed it
3) R is for Rocket - childlike wonder, Bradbury's earmark
4) Exile - short but sweet
5) Death Sentence - didn't seem like Asimov
6) Doorway into Time - like a bad 50s monster movie

I am closing this thread because (if you haven't already heard) we have started a whole new group that is reading short fiction. If you are interested, come join us at ORBIT, (a/k/a Otherworldly Reads, Bold Ideas, and Tales. SF & F Short Stories and Novelettes) here:

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...