Anthony Boucher (Again)

In the October 1958 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Anthony Boucher compiled a list of 50 (actually a few more) science fiction novels that between the years 1949 and 1957 gave "intense pleasure to a man professionally obligated to read every s.f. book published in America." (Try doing that these days!) In making his list, Boucher excluded all juveniles ("even by Heinlein") and all anthologies ("even by Merrill").

It's an interesting list, and there are two books on it that I confess I've never heard of. OK, I've heard of them, since I undoubtedly read this column in 1958. But I've never heard of them again. One of them is Malcolm Jameson's Bullard of the Space Patrol, published by World in 1951. The other is S. Fowler Wright's The Throne of Saturn (Arkham, 1949).

I've not only heard of the others; I've read most of them. Some of them are still among my favorites: Bester's The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination. Philip K. Dick's Eye in the Sky. Fred Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth's The Space Merchants. Clifford Simak's City. In fact, I might as well stop listing, because nearly everything on the list would be on my list as well.

Let's face it: the 1950s were my Golden Age of Science Fiction. The titles on Boucher's list are so evocative for me that just reading over them takes me back to the room I shared with my younger brother in our house at 401 S. McKinney, in Mexia, Texas. I spent a lot of happy hours in that room, reading the books on Boucher's list and many others besides, not to mention poring over the digest magazines of the time with an intensity I should have applied to my schoolwork.

The books and stories I read in those days had an impact on me that's pretty much unequalled by anything I've read since. They've stayed in my memory much more clearly than anything I've read in the last year. Other people have fond memories of the TV shows of that era. Not me. For me it was books. Still is. And, I guess, always will be.