American Science Fiction Five Classic Novels 1956-58
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James Blish Born James Benjamin Blish in East Orange, New Jersey, on May 23, 1921, the only child of Asa Rhodes Blish, an advertising manager, and Dorothea Schneewind Blish, a pianist. While still in high school edited fanzine The Planeteer (six issues, 1935–36) and began attending meetings of the Futurian Society in New York, where he met Isaac Asimov, Cyril Kornbluth, Frederik Pohl, and others. Published first science fiction story, “Emergency Refueling,” in Super Science Stories in 1940. Majored in zoology at Rutgers, graduating in 1942. Drafted into the army, he served as a medical technician at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Started at Columbia University in 1944, switching from zoology to literature; did not complete his M.A. degree, but later revised his thesis on Ezra Pound and sold it to The Sewanee Review, where it appeared in 1950. After the war, wrote stories for Western Action, Crack Detective Stories, and Super Sports along with science fiction, trying to earn a living as a freelance writer; worked for trade magazines, including Frosted Food Field and Drug Trade News, and as a reader for a literary agency. Edited little magazines Renascence (1945–46) and Tumbrils (1945–50). Married literary agent Virginia Kidd in 1947; they would have two children. Published novels Jack of Eagles (1952), The Duplicated Man (1953, with Robert Lowndes, as a magazine serial), and The Warriors of Day (1953, originally serialized as Sword of Xota, 1951), and the first of his “Okie” stories (1950–53), later much expanded in the “Cities in Flight” series of novels: Earthman, Come Home (1955), They Shall Have Stars (1956), The Triumph of Time (1958), A Life for the Stars (1962), and Cities in Flight (omnibus, 1970). In 1953 moved with Virginia to Milford, Pennsylvania, where he would cofound the Milford Science Fiction Writers’ Conference; wrote fifteen scripts for the television series Captain Video. In 1955 learned to fly and joined the Civil Air Patrol; took job as science editor and public relations counsel for drug company Pfizer. Published story collections The Seedling Stars (1957), Galactic Cluster (1959), and So Close to Home (1961), and novels The Frozen Year (1957), VOR (1958), and A Case of Conscience (1958), the latter winning a Hugo Award and earning him an invitation as guest of honor at the eighteenth World Science Fiction Convention (Pittsburgh, 1960). From 1962 to 1968 worked in public relations for the tobacco industry. Wrote novels Titan’s Daughter (1961), The Star Dwellers (1961), and The Night Shapes (1962). In 1964 married Judith Ann Lawrence; published historical novel Doctor Mirabilis and essay collection The Issue at Hand (both 1964). Underwent major surgery after a diagnosis of tongue cancer. Published novels Mission to the Heart Stars (1965), A Torrent of Faces (1967, with Norman L. Knight), Welcome to Mars (1967), The Vanished Jet (1968), and Black Easter (1968); also produced a dozen lucrative volumes of Star Trek episode adaptations (1967–75) and a Star Trek novel, Spock Must Die! (1970). Moved to England in 1969. During the 1970s, published new story collections, including Anywhen (1970), and novels The Day After Judgment (1971), And All the Stars a Stage (1971), Midsummer Century (1972), and The Quincunx of Time (1973). A special issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction devoted to Blish appeared in 1972. Died from lung cancer at Henley-on-Thames on July 30, 1975.
Algis Budrys Born Algirdas Jonas Budrys on January 9, 1931, in Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia), the only child of Jonas Budrys, a Lithuanian diplomat, and Regina Kashuba Budrys, who had worked in the Lithuanian intelligence service. Moved to New York in 1936, his father serving as Lithuanian consul-general. With the Soviet annexation of Lithuania in 1940, the family was rendered stateless; his father became consul-general of the Lithuanian government-in-exile. (Budrys finally took U.S. citizenship in 1996.) Published a fanzine, Slantasy, in 1946, while still in high school. Attended the University of Miami (1947–49) and Columbia (1951–52), interrupting his schooling briefly to work as an investigations clerk for American Express. Published his first story, “The High Purpose,” in Astounding Science Fiction in 1952. Began a career as a science fiction editor, working for Gnome Press (assistant editor, 1952), Galaxy (assistant editor, 1953–54), Venture (associate editor, 1957), and Royal Publications (editor, 1958–61). Married Edna F. Duna in 1954; they would have four sons. The same year, published his first novel, False Night (later republished as Some Will Not Die in 1961, restoring material cut from the original edition), followed by Who? (1958; film version 1973), Man of Earth (1958), The Falling Torch (1959), and Rogue Moon (1960). The Unexpected Dimension (1960) gathered some of almost one hundred stories he published during the 1950s. In 1961, moved to Evanston, Illinois, where he became editor-in-chief of Regency Books. Later worked as editorial director for Playboy Press (1963–65), president of Commander Publications (1965–66), reviewer for Galaxy magazine (1965–71), public relations account executive at Young & Rubicam (1969–74), reviewer for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (1975–93), and editor and later publisher for Tomorrow Speculative Fiction (1993–2000; beginning in 1997, one of the first online science fiction magazines). Edited eighteen anthologies for the L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future series (1985–2007). Along with novels The Iron Thorn (1967), Michaelmas (1977), and Hard Landing (1993), published criticism and other nonfiction in Benchmarks: Galaxy Bookshelf (1985), Writing to the Point (1994), and Outposts: Literatures of Milieux (1996), and several collections of short fiction. Died in Evanston, Illinois, on June 9, 2008.
Fritz Leiber Jr. Born Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. in Chicago, Illinois, on December 24, 1910, to Fritz Leiber Sr. and Virginia Bronson Leiber, both Shakespearean actors. Toured with father’s repertory company in 1928 before entering the University of Chicago, from which he graduated in 1932; went on to study at General Theological Seminary in New York, and was briefly a candidate for ordination in the Episcopal Church. Toured intermittently with father’s company and appeared with him in films Camille (1936) and The Great Garrick (1937). Married Jonquil Stephens in 1936 and moved to Hollywood; they soon had a son. Corresponded with horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, who encouraged and influenced his literary development; wrote a supernatural novella, The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich (1936; published posthumously in 1997), and showed Lovecraft early stories. Returning to Chicago, took job as staff writer for Consolidated Book Publishing (1937–41), contributing to the Standard American Encyclopedia. His first publication as a professional writer, “Two Sought Adventure” (in John W. Campbell Jr.’s Unknown in 1939), introduced popular characters Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, developed with his friend Harry Fischer and modeled on their relationship; the story inaugurated a series he would continue for more than fifty years, helping to define the subgenre he labeled “Sword and Sorcery.” (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories were later collected in Two Sought Adventure, 1957; Swords in the Mist, 1968; Swords Against Wizardry, 1968; The Swords of Lankhmar, 1968; Swords and Deviltry, 1970; Swords and Ice Magic, 1977; The Knight and Knave of Swords, 1988; and other volumes.) Worked as a drama and speech instructor at Occidental College in 1941, and during the war as an inspector at Douglas Aircraft. His first novel, Conjure Wife—about secret witchcraft on a college campus—appeared in Unknown in 1943 (but not as a book until 1952; it was filmed three times). His first science fiction novel, Gather, Darkness!, was also serialized in 1943 (book version, 1950). From 1945 to 1956, he worked as an editor at Science Digest in Chicago.Published science fiction novels Destiny Times Three (in Astounding, 1945; as book, 1957); The Green Millennium (1953); and The Big Time (in Galaxy, 1958; as book, 1961), the last winning a Hugo Award and inaugurating his popular “Change War” series. Moved back to Los Angeles in 1958, and turned to writing full-time; published science fiction novels The Silver Eggheads (1961), The Wanderer (1964), and A Specter Is Haunting Texas (1969). Lived in San Francisco after the death of his wife in 1969; the city forms the setting of his fantasy novel Our Lady of Darkness (1977). In 1976, he received a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, and in 1981 a Grand Master Award from Science Fiction Writers of America. Married Margo Skinner in May 1992; died on September 5, 1992, in San Francisco, of an apparent stroke. In 2001 he was inducte
d posthumously into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
Note on the Texts
This volume collects five American science fiction novels of the 1950s: Double Star (1956) by Robert A. Heinlein, The Stars My Destination (1957) by Alfred Bester, A Case of Conscience (1958) by James Blish, Who? (1958) by Algis Budrys, and The Big Time (1961) by Fritz Leiber.
A companion volume in the Library of America series, American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels, 1953–1956, includes four earlier works: The Space Merchants (1953) by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, More Than Human (1953) by Theodore Sturgeon, The Long Tomorrow (1955) by Leigh Brackett, and The Shrinking Man (1956) by Richard Matheson.
The texts of all of these novels have been taken from the first American book editions, to which the dates in the preceding list refer. (Though not published in book form until after the decade had ended, The Big Time was completed in 1957 and published in its entirety in Galaxy magazine in 1958. The Stars My Destination was first published in England in 1956 as Tiger! Tiger!)
Double Star.
Robert A. Heinlein finished a draft of Double Star toward the end of March 1955. “Its present title is Star Role,” he wrote his agent Lurton Blassingame; other titles he considered (from a list at the beginning of an early revised typescript, now at the University of California, Santa Cruz) included Star Path, False Star, Star Orbit, Command Performance, Guest Star, Understudy, Star Billing, and Devil’s Dilemma. Heinlein deliberately kept the novel short and avoided “sexy scenes” and “taboo monosyllables” in order to make it more attractive to publishers. “I hope this one will finally crack Collier’s, the Post, or some other adult & not-SF-specialized market,” he explained to Blassingame, also wondering if the novel might be placed with Ballantine Books rather than Doubleday, whose prior contractual and royalty arrangements had disappointed him. Ultimately, however, it was Doubleday that published the novel, in April 1956, after a first serial appearance in Astounding Science Fiction in February, March, and April of the same year. Heinlein’s papers at Santa Cruz show that he saw his manuscript through the press at Doubleday with considerable care and control. He did not alter the novel thereafter, though it appeared in several subsequent editions during his lifetime. In 2006, a corrected text of the novel was published by Meisha Merlin in Decatur, Georgia, as part of the Virginia Edition of Heinlein’s works. (The editor acknowledges the kind assistance of Jeffrey E. Cook, who copyedited the text of Double Star for the Virginia Edition, in checking the text in the present volume.) The text of Double Star has been taken from the 1956 Doubleday first printing.
The Stars My Destination.
Alfred Bester began The Stars My Destination in England, in “a romantic white cottage down in Surrey.” Having sold the film and reprint rights to his previous novel, “Who He?” (1953), he had decided with his wife to “blow the loot on a few years abroad”; they took little with them, but he did bring “an idea for another science fiction novel,” inspired by an account in National Geographic about a cook’s helper who had endured four months adrift on an open raft (see Samuel F. Harby, “They Survived at Sea,” May 1945). In November 1955, after a frustrated attempt to start writing, he relocated with his wife to Rome, where he finished the novel, once he had settled into the task, in about three months. It was first published in August 1956, by Sidgwick & Jackson in London, as Tiger! Tiger! (Earlier in the year, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction had announced it would publish the novel as a serial, The Burning Man, beginning in June, but Bester is said to have withdrawn from this arrangement, either because he was still revising or because Horace Gold of Galaxy magazine had asserted a prior right to first serial publication. Another working title for the novel, reportedly, was Hell’s My Destination.) Returning to the U.S., Bester found “there was some competition for the book,” and he saw it published as The Stars My Destination, first as a four-part serial in Galaxy magazine (October 1956–January 1957), and then in March 1957 as a Signet paperback (New York: New American Library).
The texts of these three initial printings of the novel vary significantly, and Bester’s original typescript, along with correspondence and other documents associated with the novel’s early publication history, is not known to have survived. A comparison of the three texts suggests that each was prepared separately—probably from carbon copies of the typescript—and each varies uniquely at many points. The Sidgwick & Jackson text shows considerable evidence of nonauthorial revision: Bester’s American references and usages are altered throughout, and his diction is made plainer (in one frequently cited instance, the presumably authorial “ ‘Vorga,’ I kill you filthy” becomes “Vorga, I kill you deadly”). Along with many such local verbal revisions, the text of Tiger! Tiger! entirely omits a number of passages present in some form in both later texts, and it only minimally attempts the experiments in typography that in the later texts illustrate Gully Foyle’s experience of synesthesia. (Initially uncredited, the synesthetic images in the novel have since been attributed to Jack Gaughan. Some are identical in both Galaxy and the Signet edition, but others vary slightly.)
Notwithstanding the evidence of nonauthorial revision to the text of Tiger! Tiger!, it is possible that Bester read and revised Tiger! Tiger! after he had submitted his novel, making changes not subsequently included in either American text. The Galaxy text, of the three, contains the greatest number of unique variants and is the least likely— given Horace Gold’s reputation as an editor who often rewrote the manuscripts he published without his authors’ advice or consent—to represent Bester’s particular intentions. The Signet Stars My Destination probably reflects the text of Bester’s original version with the least editorial revision of the three, though it too may contain nonauthorial changes, and it is conceivable that it was prepared for publication without Bester’s direct involvement. Bester did not revise the text of the novel after these initial printings; in England it was subsequently published on a number of occasions during his lifetime as Tiger! Tiger! following the Sidgwick & Jackson first edition and in the United States as The Stars My Destination following the Signet text. In 1996, after Bester’s death, a new edition containing a “special restored text” compiled and edited by Alex and Phyllis Eisenstein was published by Random House in New York; this text, presented without a stated editorial rationale or textual apparatus, is principally derived from the Signet edition but also occasionally adds or omits material following the Sidgwick & Jackson or Galaxy texts. The text of The Stars My Destination in the present volume has been taken from the 1957 Signet first printing.
A Case of Conscience.
James Blish began A Case of Conscience as a long story or novella rather than a novel. He had been invited by Fletcher Pratt to be one of three contributors, along with Pratt, to a “Twayne Science-Fiction Triplet” titled Lithia, whose stories would share a common setting. The proposed collection was never published, but working from an initial description of the planet Lithia by John D. Clark and Willy Ley (later included as an appendix in the novel), Blish completed what would ultimately become Book One of A Case of Conscience and published it (as “A Case of Conscience”) in If: Worlds of Science Fiction in September 1953. In 1955 “A Case of Conscience” was anthologized by Faber & Faber in Best SF: Science Fiction Stories, edited by Edmund Crispin. Around the beginning of 1957, at the suggestion of Blish’s agent Frederik Pohl, Ballantine Books solicited an extended version of “A Case of Conscience,” and Blish returned to the work, thoroughly revising his original novella and adding the novel’s second half. He corresponded often and at length with Pohl in the course of this writing and rewriting, and he was also guided by an initial reader’s report from Ballantine. A Case of Conscience was published by Ballantine Books in New York in March 1958 and won a Hugo Award for best science fiction novel the following year. A subsequent British edition (London: Faber & Faber, 1959) included a new introduction and a few possibly authorial revisions, such as a new epigraph, along with many changes in spelli
ng, punctuation, and vocabulary introduced to bring the novel into conformity with British usage. Blish did not revise the text of the novel for subsequent editions published during his lifetime, though he referred to it, along with Doctor Mirabilis (1964) and two novellas, Black Easter (1968) and The Day After Judgment (1971), as part of a trilogy, After Such Knowledge, first collected in a single volume in 1991, after his death. The text of A Case of Conscience in the present volume has been taken from the 1958 Ballantine Books first printing.
Who?
Algis Budrys’s novel Who? was initially written as a short story, also titled “Who?” and published in the April 1955 issue of Fantastic Universe magazine. Budrys had been inspired by a painting of Kelly Freas’s that he had seen in the offices of Fantastic Universe, showing a man with a metal-domed head and a mechanical arm: “It just immediately captured my imagination entirely,” he recalled in a 1981 interview, “and I had to write a story around it.” The painting later appeared on the cover of the magazine along with his story. About six months after “Who?” was published, Budrys returned to the story: “I realized I could build a novel around that character.” Much revised and expanded, Who? was published by Pyramid Books in New York in June 1958. (The cover art, by Robert V. Engel, adapted Freas’s original image.) Who? was subsequently published in several distinct editions in both England and the United States, without evidently authorial changes to the text. In 1975, for a Ballantine Books edition published in New York, Budrys revised some references in the novel for contemporary readers because he worried it was “dating to some extent.” He felt particularly that he “had to find some way to get the Chinese back into the story, even though the Chinese and the Russians had split since the book had been written.” The text in the present volume has been taken from the June 1958 Pyramid Books first printing.