Friday, April 05, 2013

Forgotten Books: A Requiem for Astounding -- Alva Rogers

A Requiem for Astounding is a 30-year history of a particular magazine that had the word astounding in its title. The most famous title, and the one for the longest part of that 30 years was Astounding Science Fiction. In 1960, the title was changed to Analog Science Fact & Fiction or some variation thereof, and that remains the name now.

Alva Rogers writes as a fan, not a literary critic, and he communicates some of the "warm and happy memories of countless hours of reading pleasure" that the magazine gave him. He discusses the editors, the writers, the stories, and the artists. Not all of them, of course, and he admits that his choices are subjective. He writes about the ones that had the most appeal to him, and he manages to communicate some of the excitement and anticipation readers felt in the days of the pulps and early digests, the days when magazines full of stories were easy to find in drugstores newsstands and bookstores. 

I started reading Astounding in the middle '50s, when it was still thought of as the premier magazine in the field, though F&SF and Galaxy weren't far behind. In fact, I preferred them and even some others, but I bought and read Astounding just about every month, and I felt the same excitement with each new issue of all the magazines that Rogers felt with Astounding.

You can't go home again, but you can read a book like this one.  It's an fine account of a wonderful time, so it's the next best thing.

7 comments:

Walker Martin said...

I also can recommend a similar book on GALAXY called THE DARK AND THE LIGHT YEARS. Just recently John Boston and Damien Broderick published books discussing the history of two of the best British SF digests. NEW WORLDS is covered in BUILDING NEW WORLDS and SCIENCE FANTASY is discussed in STRANGE HIGHWAYS.

Tom Johnson said...

I'll have to find this book. I loved the early Astounding SF, from mid 40s to early 50s, especially. Though by the 1950s, I was more into Galaxy and F&SF. Many of my digest SF magazines are almost complete, though I'm missing an issue here and there; just need one issue of Galaxy, three issues of Amazing, things like that. My Astounding is complete from 1946 to 2005, except for a couple issues in 1947, and I have my eye on those (darn the prices!). I'vde got a couple thousand duplicates for trade, but very few collect the magazines any more.

Todd Mason said...

Hit the pulp conventions, Tom Johnson, watch eBay, and get on discussion lists such as the YahooGroup PulpMags, and you might find that there are more opportunities for completing your collection than you might think.

Among other volumes with some similar appeal are those that are annotated/augmented anthologies from their magazines, such as Annette Pelz McComas's THE EUREKA YEARS: BOUCHER AND MCCOMAS'S THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION 1949-54 (Bill reviewed that one in this series, I think, some years back), Frederik Pohl et al.'s GALAXY and IF retrospective anthologies in the '80s, and Michael Moorcock's NEW WORLDS anthology from 2004.

George said...

I preferred ASTOUNDING to ANALOG. Somehow the name change showed up in more conservative and less innovative stories.

Tom Johnson said...

Hi Todd: Sadly, at my age the conventions are no longer an option for me. My doctor and drug store goes everywhere I go (lol). I did belong to Pulp Mags, but left for some reason. Maybe they made me mad or something, can't remember. I do have a Yahoo Swap Group called And What If, plus a digest Sf Yahoo Group called Digest SF Mags (or is that SF Digest Mags - hmmm?), where we share covers of all the digest SF mags. Yeah, I collect those uk SF magazines like NEW WORLDS, but they get a little expensive too. Our hobby is no longer cheap (sigh). Not to mention failing eyesight (groan). Old age isn't for sissies! You should see me trying to read these code words to post a comment on Bill's Blog (haha).

Rick Robinson said...

I want it. Now, please. ASF was my fav of them 1950-1965.

Todd Mason said...

George--Campbell was bored by then. Algis Budrys called the latest '50s/earliest '60s of ASF 'the Tin Age'...