Edited by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas
128 pages
Published 1950
Read August 29
Rating: 2 out of 5
To commemorate F&SF possibly resuming publication in the coming weeks, why not get back into my sporadic project of reading my way through the magazine’s back catalogue? I doubt I’ll ever have the patience (or the access) to read every issue, but I’ve read the first two, so let’s move on to issue number three.
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“Friday, the Nineteenth” by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding. A chronicle of bitter suburban heterosexuality that turns into something much more interesting. (If you care about seventy-five year old spoilers, look away now: It’s a time-loop story, quite reminiscent of Groundhog Day.) I truly didn’t expect to enjoy this piece as much as I did. Maybe B-
“Huge Beast” by Cleve Cartmill. Ably written but (to modern eyes) rather formulaic story of suspiciously cuddly alien contact. No doubt it was more groundbreaking in 1950. A respectable enough C+
“The Hat in the Hall” by Jack Iams. A suburban ghost story, mildly amusing. C-
“The War Against the Moon” by André Maurois (1927; English translation 1928). Purporting to be a chapter from a history book of 1992, this satire has some fascinatingly prescient touches, such as the rich buying up newspapers to control public opinion (and thus subvert democracy). Of course, this backroom dictatorship of the billionaires is depicted as a net good that the restive public ignores at its peril. Ah well. Straining to find a cause to unite a bored world and avert war, newspaper owners collude to pull a Watchmen, concocting a lunar invasion (which echoes uncomfortably with how right-wing media invented the trans panic, and the gay panic before that, and the Muslim panic before that, and the Satanic panic before that, and the urban crime panic before that, and…). Not my favorite kind of story, but historical interest and perceptive prognostication merits at least a C
“Dumb Supper” by Henderson Starke. This is actually by Kris Neville, writing not just under a pseudonym but also as a character: a supposed elderly folklorist in the Ozarks. If this is based on actual folklore, it’s modestly interesting, I suppose. C-?
“Ounce of Prevention” by Philip Carter. An extremely 1950s piece, which features global nuclear annihilation, a mission to Mars, a helpful Martian, and time travel. Ends with a typical 1950s twist. Maybe D+
An excerpt from the poem “Death’s Jest Book” by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1850). It’s fine. Too abbreviated to make much of it.
“The Case of Summerfield” by W. H. Rhodes (1871). Originally published as a newspaper hoax in the Sacramento Union, this proves to be an ancient prototype of the “mad scientist threatens to destroy the world unless his demands are met” trope. Like Dr. Evil himself, Mr. Summerfield even demands the sum of one million dollars. While dense and slow-paced in accordance with the tastes of the time, and continuing well after the logical end of the story, it’s astonishingly creative in Summerfield’s central threat. C
“Divine Right” by Betsy Curtis. A fascinating blend of aesthetics, mixing suburban paperboys on bikes with space colonization and telepaths with greedy royalty. It’s almost like a whisper of Samuel R. Delany’s later working-class space stories. It’s a bit clumsy as a story, but the aesthetic carries it far. B-
“Born of Man and Woman” by Richard Matheson. Matheson’s very first published story. Pretty typical midcentury “freak kept chained in the cellar” material, little more than a character study, but effective. B-
“Professor Pownall’s Oversight” by H. R. Wakefield (1928). An early prototype of the “evil genius obsessed with his brilliant and charming classmate” trope. The editors’ introduction refers to this as a “chess fantasy,” but it’s really a ghost story centering around chess. Surprisingly enjoyable. B-
“Haunt” by A. Bertram Chandler. Brief but rambling anecdote about a seance with a ghost from the future. The punning twist ending must have felt terribly clever in 1950. C-
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So now I’ve read the first three issues of F&SF, in addition to the most recent eight and a scattering of others in between. This is the first halfway okay issue you reach reading forward. Nowhere near what it would become in more recent years, but still enjoyable.
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