MPorcius
After "F" comes "G." Back on July 9, we read three stories published in 1959 by authors whose names begin with "F," stories that Judith Merril, renowned anthologist, had recommended. On the same list of Honorable Mentions in the back of Merril's critically acclaimed The Year's Best S-F: Fifth...
MPorcius
What now? What did the forces want her to do next? Leave the house, try to get away in the darkness? No. The murderer was out there, watching, waiting; he would see her if she tried to leave, and she couldn't outrun a man through the snow. Hide? No. There wasn't anywhere to hide that she...
MPorcius
As chronicled in my most recent overly long blogpost, I downloaded a scan of the 600th issue of Amazing Stories, published in the year 2000. Today let's read the Harlan Ellison story included in the issue, and two other stories from the Y2K period by SF's bad boy. As I write this, the below...
MPorcius
We recently read a story from the October 1956 issue of Infinity by Harlan Ellison, and I noticed that advertised on the cover of the issue is a story by Damon Knight I have not read. So let's read it! And two other stories Knight published in the same period. We've already read a bunch of...
MPorcius
In my last blog post I mentioned that I own a signed paperback copy of Harlan Ellison's Alone Against Tomorrow. Over ten years ago, at a Half Price Books location in Iowa or Ohio, I paid just two dollars for the volume, a 1979 Fifth Printing. Let's look at the contents page and figure out which...
MPorcius
We're still doing this, looking at the list of Honorable Mentions at the back of Judith Merril's 1960 Year's Best SF anthology and reading selected stories from it. Last time was "D"s, today is "E"s. Only two stories today, because Merril only has three "E" recommendations, and one is Harlan...
MPorcius
The last time we mined stories from the Honorable Mentions list at the back end of Judith Merril's Year's Best SF: Fifth Annual Edition, we read stories by four people whose names began with "C" and with whose work I was not very familiar. Today we've got some Merril-approved "D"s and two of them...
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MPorcius
In our last episode we read some "proper" science fiction, two stories about space aliens shipwrecked here on Earth and a story about an eight-year-old girl who has psychic powers that threaten all of humanity. (We also read a story about an upper-middle-class woman who dates a djinni and gets...
MPorcius
Judith Merril, favorite of the critics, cheerleader of the New Wave, recognized a lot of authors whose names begin with the letter "C" on her honorable members list at the back of her 1960 "Best of" anthology. Today we'll read four stories by such writers, none of whom I think I have read stories...
MPorcius
We continue to creep through Weird Tales! Last time we read four stories from the January 1943 issue, and today we've got three tales from the issue dated March 1943, the second of the six issues of the Unique Magazine published that year. Big names today: Arkham House co-founder August Derleth;...
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MPorcius
Here comes a new dawn! Here comes a new day! Here at MPorcius Fiction Log we are trying to read at least one story from each issue of influential speculative fiction magazine Weird Tales and today we begin chipping away at issues with a cover date of 1943. We've already got over a dozen years...
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MPorcius
A few weeks ago we read three 1920s stories by Farnsworth Wright, famous editor of Weird Tales. Let's go back, Jack, and do it again! Two of today's stories were printed in Weird Tales in 1923, when the magazine was edited by Edwin Baird; the third appeared in the first issue Wright edited, the...
MPorcius
The November 1942 issue of Weird Tales has one of the worst covers in the magazine's history--the composition haphazard, the style primitive, the colors dull. Ugh. But there are some big names inside--Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Fritz Leiber, Hannes Bok, Damon Knight, H. P. Lovecraft, David H....