Saturday, December 23, 2006
Infinity and Science Fiction Adventures
In a comment on the post below, Ed Gorman mentions a famous Emsh cover for Infinity. That sent me to my shelves and then to the scanner. I got a little carried away, and now I've created a slide show that will give you a look at the complete run of the Larry Shaw-edited issues of both Infinity and Science Fiction Adventures. If you want to see them, click here. Seeing them, you might well wonder how anybody could resist buying them. I know I couldn't. Compared to these covers, aren't most of today's digest covers, well, boring? Not that there are many digests around to compare these to, more's the pity.
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10 comments:
tnrwThanks for the covers, Bill. What a truly cool magazine that was. The Clark story, Harlan Ellison's first sale, and as I mentioned Silverberg really starting to show what he had in those issues (plus a lot of Planet-style adventure sf under numerous pen names in Science Fiction adventure)--plus, if you'll remember, all those clever Mad-like cartoon subscription ads drawn by Bowman. And the guiding sensibility of Larry Shaw. Thanks again.
My pleasure, Ed. It was great to look at those covers again, and now I'll probably read some of the stories.
And now having looked at the slideshow, my early lust for Carol Emshwiller as so memorably portrayed by her husband in so many guises is inflamed anew. Thanks for posting these, as Ed said. Damon Knight's reviews in INFINITY being another notable feature.
Blogger seems to have eaten my query about whether Larry Shaw wasn't the only editor INFINITY or this version of SFA had...of course, there was a paperback INFINITY revival briefly in the 1970s, and there were other SFA magazines, including the British edition of this one which ran much longer. I also noted that Shaw was, like Robert Lowndes only not quite so consistently financially strapped by no-account publishers, never quite able to Be All He Could Be in his editorial career ranging from IF through the INFINITY group to the FAMOUS MONSTERS imitations the INFINITY publisher turned to briefly after folding the fiction magazines to Lancer Books.
I have some (maybe not all) of the SFA issues before Shaw took over that title. I'm not sure who the editor was at that time.
I had no clue in the '50s that the woman on those covers was the Carol Emshwiller whose stories started turning up in the magazines late in the decade and whose still writing today.
I might be wrong, but are you thinking of the earlier SFA, from the group of magazines Lester Del Rey was editing, and then Harry Harrison?
See also the F&SF cover on the hotlink, for an example of both Emshwillers as worked into a cover (as is the case on some of the INFINITYs, as well).
Yep, I checked. The Del Rey/Harry Harrison magazine is the one I was thinking of. Those came along before I started buying the magazines.
Carol Emshwiller perhaps the only pro model-turned-novelist/short-story writer to succeed artistically in so many venues. Recently publishing interesting sideways western (LEDOYT, LEAPING MAN HILL) and sf (THE MOUNT) novels. Back when, she was publishing the likes of "Hunting Machine" and "Pelt" in the sf magazines, and short work in the little magazines as well.
The Anti-Hilton.
I have, but haven't read, The Mount. I liked that "Anti-Hilton" bit.
Those covers are great, Bill. And speaking of Larry Shaw, don't forget that he was the editor of MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE for one issue, between Sam Merwin Jr. and Chuck Fritch. I don't remember if I have a story in that issue, but I know I never had any dealings with Shaw. I think he's the one who bought that Lansdale/Shiner PI story, though.
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