MPorcius Flashback: April 2015

Heedless of the risks of exposure to misinformation, disinformation and malinformation, of the dangers of depression, cancellation, and suicidal ideation, let's stroll on over to twitter, world's most dangerous app!  In an MPorcius Flashback post we use the time machine that is twitter to peer back through the mists of ancient history to see what books I purchased in the course of my travels across this great nation and then check up to see if I ever actually read any of them. We are all about accountability at MPorcius Fiction Log--no blank checks!

Today we look at my haul from book buying trips in Omaha, Nebraska and Des Moines, Iowa in April of 2015.

Omaha

Looks like I bought a dozen books on a trip to Omaha during which I visited multiple used bookstores. I've actually read a lot of these, so that was a trip that really paid off.

In 2018 I read five stories about robots from Damon Knight's The Metal Smile: "The New Father Christmas" by Brian Aldiss, "Answer" by Fredric Brown, "Quixote and the Windmill" by Poul Anderson, "First to Serve" by Algis Budrys and "I Made You" by Walter M. Miller, Jr.  Another story included in the anthology, Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore's "Two-Handed Engine," I'd already read in 2015.  All of these stories were pretty good.

Not long after I bought it, I read Karl Edward Wagner's The Year's Best Horror Stories Series VIII cover to cover and jabbered about its sixteen stories across four blog posts (one, two, three, four.)  I liked 13 or 14 of the stories, and I praised Wagner for gathering together such a varied and diverse bunch of good stories.

I also read every story in the Roger Elwood's anthology Ten Tomorrows, blogging about Elwood's ten selections across three blog posts (un, deux, trois) in April of 2022.  (Wow, feels like much longer ago.)  This one is a rough slog, with long lame topical gimmicky experimental stories by Robert Silverberg, Edgar Pangborn, James Blish and Gardner Dozois.  If you were writing a brief against the New Wave or Roger Elwood, you'd have a rich vein of raw material to mine in this one.  I did like Barry Malzberg's, Pamela Sargent's and Larry Niven's contributions, though, so no regrets!  

Robert Silverberg's Alpha 4, an anthology of reprints, hasn't seen as much use as the Knight, Wagner and Elwood anthologies.  I've read the included stories by Brian Aldiss, "Judas Dance," Damon Knight, "Dio" AKA "The Dying Man," and R. A. Lafferty, "All Pieces of a River Shore," but in different books.  I think I may have read some other stories in Alpha 4, in other books, before I set out on the fateful journey that is this blog.  Alpha 4 is full of important stories. 

I bought two van Vogt novels on my April 2015 Omaha expedition, both of which I read in summer 2016 as part of a van Vogt marathon (good times, good times), The Man with a Thousand Names and The Book of Ptath.  I got three of E. C. Tubb's Dumarest novels; I read Zenya, the eleventh in the series, in 2015.  In 2015 I also read George Zebrowski's novel, The Omega Point.

Joachim Boaz and SF Potpourri were impressed that I had found a copy of the 1970 R. A. Lafferty collection Nine Hundred Grandmothers, published by Ace with a cover by the Dillons (as I type this it is Leo Dillon's birthday), out in the wild, and it does look like people today are asking like 50 bucks for it at Abebooks and Amazon, though ebay prices are lower.  I'm a Lafferty fan (though I was actually a skeptic early on--I sort of shrugged off "Nine Hundred Grandmothers" and "Narrow Valley," though I was very impressed by "The World as Will and Wallpaper" as I pointed out in a comment on Joachim's blog post that addressed the story) and of Nine Hundred Grandmothers's twenty-one stories I have read 17 of them, though I read many in other publications:

"Nine Hundred Grandmothers"
"Narrow Valley"
"What's the Name of That Town?"
"Hog-Belly Honey"
"The Hole on the Corner"
"Slow Tuesday Night"
"All the People"
"Through Other Eyes"
"The Six Fingers of Time"
"Snuffles"
"One at a Time"
"Land of the Great Horses" 
"Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne,"
"In Our Block" 
"Seven-Day Terror"
"Name of the Snake"
"Ginny Wrapped in the Sun." 

Des Moines

Also in April 2015, I scored some major bargains at the east branch of the Des Moines public library.  Those two Vance hardcovers I have not read, having read library copies before starting this blog.  I don't think I've done anything with Wollheim and Saha's The 1975 Annual World's Best SF, either, though in 2020 I read the included story by Bob Shaw, "A Full Member of the Club," in another book.

In 2016 I read all eight stories in Terry Carr's Universe 7, discussing them in two posts (the first, the second.)  I felt that seven of them were worth my time, so a solid purchase.

From Damon Knight's Science Fiction Argosy I have read L. Sprague de Camp's "Judgment Day" and Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore's "The Cure."  Science Fiction Argosy also includes Bob Shaw's "Light of Other Days," but I read it in a different anthology.

I have read a bunch of things out of Anthony Boucher's A Treasury of Great Science Fiction.  From Volume One I read John Wyndham's Re-Birth AKA The Chrysalids, which I wasn't crazy about, three stories by relatively minor SF writers, "The Shape of Things That Came" by Richard Deming, "Sandra" by George P. Elliot, and "Beyond Space and Time" by George P. Rogers, and Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore's "The Children's Hour."  Volume One also contains Ray Bradbury's "Pillar of Fire," Robert A. Heinlein's "Waldo" and A. E. van Vogt's The Weapon Shops of Isher, which I have read in other books. 

From Volume Two of A Treasury of Great Science Fiction I have read three stories by people whom I generally don't read, "Magic City" by Nelson S. Bond, "Bullard Reflects" by Malcolm Jameson, and "Letters from Laura" by Mildred Clingerman, as well as MPorcius faves Kuttner and Moore's "Piggy Bank."   In Volume Two Boucher includes Poul Anderson's Brain Wave, Robert A Heinlein's "The Man Who Sold the Moon," and Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, all of which I read in other publications before I started blogging.     

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Looks like my book buying adventures in April of 2015 in those states where they grow a lot of corn really paid off.  And they may continue to do so, as this little bit of research into the life of the man I once was may spur me to finish up Nine Hundred Grandmothers and take a closer look at The 1975 Annual World's Best SF and Boucher's A Treasury of Great Science Fiction.