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   him" or "'twas Beauty killed the Beast." -ecl]   
      
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   TOPIC: SPACE SHIPS! RAY GUNS! MARTIAN OCTOPODS! INTERVIEWS WITH   
   SCIENCE FICTION LEGENDS, compiled and edited by Richard Wolinsky   
   (copyright 2025, Tachyon Publications, $17.95, 246pp, trade   
   paperback, ISBN 978-1-61696-442-9) (book review by Joe Karpierz)   
      
   The older I get, the more I want to look back. I don't know if   
   that's because there's more to look back on (by definition), or   
   because I have some sort of sense of nostalgia, or because I'm   
   curious about various historical events. Or, as in the case of the   
   history of science fiction and its fandom, I just want to learn   
   about something. As I wrote in my review of Alec Nevala-Lee's   
   ASTOUNDING JOHN W. CAMPBELL, ISAAC ASIMOV, ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, L.   
   RON HUBBARD, AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION (that title is   
   such a mouthful that I almost forgot what I was going to write   
   next), "I'd also been developing a curiosity about the history of   
   the field...". I wrote that statement back in November of 2018,   
   and to this day I continue to be interested in the history of the   
   field. It's gotten to the point where I'm more likely to pick up   
   some historical non-fiction work about the field than I am a   
   novel, collection, or anthology. Thus, when I spotted SPACE SHIPS!   
   RAY GUNS! MARTIAN OCTOPODS! INTERVIEWS WITH SCIENCE FICTION   
   LEGENDS, I requested and was fortunate enough to receive an eARC   
   of the book.   
      
   In February of 1977 at KPFA-FM in Berkeley, a new radio program   
   called "Probabilities (initially "Probabilities Unlimited")"   
   debuted. On that program, for something in the neighborhood of 20   
   years (give or take), Richard Wolinsky, Richard A. Lupoff, and   
   Lawrence Davidson interviewed dozens of science fiction writers,   
   editors, and publishers, covering the time period from the pulp   
   magazines all the way up to 1990s. The subjects of those   
   interviews were wide ranging, from fellow authors and editors, to   
   the magazines, the publishing business, and much more. The list of   
   interviewees contains names that I was familiar with, such as Jack   
   Williamson, Anne McCaffrey, Frank M. Robinson, Forrest   
   J. Ackerman, A. E. Van Vogt, and Isaac Asimov to names that I'd   
   never heard of before, such as Charles D. Hornig, Harry Bates,   
   Doc Lowndes, Ray Palmer, and more.   
      
   The subjects were wide and varied. The interviews covered the   
   pulps magazines, the digest magazines, the slick magazines, and   
   more. The Cast of the Book (as the interviewees were called)   
   talked about Hugo Gernsback and AMAZING STORIES, John W. Campbell   
   and ASTOUNDING (later ANALOG, which is still being published   
   today), ARGOSY, FANTASY (Campbell's fantasy magazine) and many   
   more: THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION (still being   
   published today), WORLDS BEYOND, IF: THE WORLDS OF SCIENCE   
   FICTION, OTHER WORLDS, UNIVERSE, ROCKET STORIES, and so many more.   
   Paperback publishers are also talked about here: Bantam,   
   Ballantine, Ace Books, Avon Books, and more.   
      
   There was dirt--oh boy, there was dirt--about Gernsback,   
   Campbell, and a host of other editors and publishers who wouldn't   
   pay their authors. There is much made these days about Hugo   
   Gernsback being cheap and not paying, but there were so many   
   others it seems like it's impossible to count them all. One story   
   was recounted of an editor who was chased through the streets of   
   New York City in an effort to get the checks he owed to the   
   authors he published.   
      
   And just in case you thought Probabilities missed a few big names,   
   I'll just throw out Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch,   
   C. L. Moore, Murray Leinster, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Philip K. Dick,   
   and Algis Budrys, as well as Ursula K. LeGuin and Marion Zimmer   
   Bradley as science fiction luminaries whose words graced the   
   airwaves back in the day and the pages of this book.   
      
   It is fairly difficult to recount the stories that were related in   
   the interviews. The published excerpts were not long, maybe a   
   paragraph or two each, although if I think about it hard enough I   
   suspect you could get some fairly substantial stuff from one   
   member of the Cast or another if you put all their meanderings   
   together into one section. However, it is worth noting that the   
   wealth of material here paints a vivid picture of the growth of   
   the science fiction field, going all the way back to the 1920s.   
   The reading is fascinating to someone who is curious about the   
   days of the pulps, or the Golden Age of Astounding Magazine, or   
   even the more recent period (I will note that one writer that I   
   would have liked to have heard from is Michael Moorcock, but he   
   apparently was not interviewed on the program).   
      
   This book left a lasting impression on me. As someone who is   
   curious about the history of science fiction, this book is one I   
   didn't know I needed to read, and a terrific companion piece to   
   Nevala-Lee's ASTOUNDING.   
      
   Finally, there was evidence of the history of the field present at   
   the recent Seattle Worldcon. Robert Silverberg, who was also   
   mentioned in the book, was out and about at the convention and   
   appeared on many panels, where he did talk about some of the same   
   people and events discussed in the book. Richard Wolinsky, the   
   editor of the book, was briefly at the convention. As I wandered   
   around the dealers room, I came upon a table selling some of those   
   very same pulps that were talked about in the book. At the freebie   
   table, I was able to snag a couple of issues of Analog from 1968.   
   I snarfed those up in a heartbeat. While they were from the end of   
   Campbell's reign at the magazine, they contained editorials   
   written by Campbell, something I'd never read. Yes, the history of   
   the field was alive and well at Worldcon.   
      
   The modern science fiction field is where it is because of the   
   giants that came before it. We should all remember that. And SPACE   
   SHIPS! RAY GUNS! MARTIAN OCTOPODS! INTERVIEWS WITH SCIENCE FICTION   
   LEGENDS is there to help us with that remembering. [-jak]   
      
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   TOPIC: First Person Singular in History Books (comments by Evelyn   
   C. Leeper)   
      
   Last week I wrote that Judith Herrin had to make a lot of   
   assumptions and guesses about women in the Byzantine Empire and   
   said, "Perhaps this is why one sees the first person singular   
   pronoun at times; traditionally historians have eschewed it for   
   a more distant stance."   
      
   This week I was reading WRITING HISTORY: A GUIDE FOR STUDENTS by   
   William Kelleher Storey (Oxford, ISBN 978-0-19-983004-6) and he   
   writes, "Avoid the First Person Singular. Generally speaking,   
   historical writers do not write in the first person singular. ...   
   Usually historians employ the first person singular only when they   
   have personally experienced a phenomenon they are describing."   
      
   [-ecl]   
      
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   TOPIC: Nothing Is Easy (letters of comments by Andre Kuzniarek, Hal   
   Heydt, and Steve Coltrin)   
      
   In response to Evelyn's comments on how nothing is easy in the   
   08/22/25 issue of the MT VOID, Andre Kuzniarek writes:   
      
   Your Kafkaesque essay "Nothing is Easy" should be submitted to the   
   Bram Stoker or Shirley Jackson Awards as one of the most   
   terrifying and anxiety-producing things I've recently read--mainly   
   because we can all relate to it, ugh! [-ak]   
      
   Evelyn responds:   
      
   Alas, I think those submissions have to be fiction. Oh, and the   
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)