Sam Moskowitz (1920–1997)

My reaction to reading this book in 1998.

While I’m a bit leery of a book that mentions the Black Hills of North Dakota and Rod Steiger’s The Twilight Zone, this was still an interesting book. I took away a few things from this book.

First, further information on the role that newspaper hoaxes played in early American sf or proto-sf.

Second, that there really was a community of San Francisco writers who published in numerous San Francisco publications and mostly set their stories, not show more surprisingly, in Frisco. The constant referrals to each others’ works (I’d be curious if H. G. Wells was ever mentioned by them) shows a clear beginning of the genre awareness necessary to say that sf existed as an “invitation to form” then. There was also a generous helping of foreign sf and fantasy, including Jules Verne published in these same magazines and newspapers. I found it interesting that many writers, foreign and American, referenced to Edgar Allan Poe as the father of the new genre that was to become sf. He certainly inspired Verne if not Wells. Poe, as a writer (and I never noticed this point) created stories of the fantastic without the supernatural. Poe, under the “invitation to form” definition of sf, may have a pretty strong claim to founding sf.

The Frisco writers may have influenced Wells since their work was sometimes reprinted over seas. William C. Morrow may have been the inspiration for the idea and eponymous character of Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau. Moskowitz’s main emphasis is on the career of Robert Duncan Milne, a Scottish-American (a very well-educated remittance man and drunk) who, from 1881 to about 1899, has a very good claim to being the world’s first full time sf writer. He did some of the earliest sf stories on sf themes on things like matter transmission and genetic manipulation. He started out with newspaper hoaxes then moved to gadget stories and (at least according to Moskowitz’s summations – I haven’t read any Milne yet.) then graduated to full stories (though the gadget story is a perfectly respectable sub-genre of sf). Unfortunately, for Milne, his reputation was soon forgotten because he published in ephemeral venues and blew $2,000 his rich Scottish uncle sent to publish his work in hardcover. His work was never collected in hardcover until the companion volume to this book was put out in 1980. It was interesting to see the public hunger, in newspaper format, for sf and how publishers like William Randolph Hearst, Jr. encouraged and fed it. show less

Muy buena recopilación de relatos de la mano de Sam Moskowitz y Roger Elwood. Cada vez disfruto más de esta ciencia ficción viejuna.

Nuevos mundos (1932), de Erle Stanley Gardner. Este relato largo tiene un comienzo impactante, con una gran ciudad anegada por grandes olas que derrumban los edificios, salvándose los protagonistas por los pelos. Y es que los polos se han movido, provocando todo tipo de catástrofes. Gran relato, del creador de Perry Mason.

La carretera J (1953), de Charles show more Eric Maine. Un científico ha inventado un artilugio para viajar en el tiempo. Divertido.

El pecado de Hyacinth Peuch (1952), de Eric Frank Russell. Cerca del lugar donde cayó un meteorito, se están produciendo muertes atroces. La causa de dichas muertes será asombrosa. Buen relato, aunque encajaría más dentro de lo terrorífico que de la ciencia ficción.

¿A la abeja le importa? (1957), de Isaac Asimov. Se está construyendo un cohete espacial para viajar a la luna, con un polizón a bordo. Buen relato, con una gran idea.

El metal que te encanta tocar (1951), de Robert Bloch. El protagonista es un amo de casa, siendo su esposa la que trabaja. Este hombre es maltratado psicológicamente por su mujer, nada le parece bien. Así que un buen día adquiere una robot sirviente para que le ayude con las tareas. Bien, pero flojito. Bloch tiene mejores cuentos.

Sombra, sombra en la pared… (1951), de Theodore Sturgeon. Bobby duerme pero a la vez no deja de observar la esquina en sombras de su habitación. Sturgeon pocas veces defrauda. Gran relato, de uno de los mejores cuentistas norteamericanos, traspasando los géneros.

El hombre que vio el futuro (1930), de Edmond Hamilton. Este relato me ha encantado. Transcurre en el siglo XV, en Francia, donde un prisionero se somete a la inquisición por hechicero. Una vez condenado a la hoguera, contará su sorprendente historia.

Flautistas en el bosque (1953), de Philip K. Dick. Desde el inicio ya quedas fascinado, cuando a un soldado le preguntan por qué cree ser una planta. Estos primeros cuentos de Dick son deslumbrantes. show less

What Can I say? Definitely some stories age better than others.
It's probably not fair to state these stories feel mostly unoriginal, given that they are older than most similar stories.

New Worlds, Highway J, The Tin You Touch, The Man Who Saw the Future were all fairly basic. Although they were all published between 1930 & 1952.
The Tin You Touch also had a very casual portrayal of domestic violence as well, which does make me wonder if it was actually that common and accepted in the early show more 1950s?

Asimov's "Does a Bee Care?" was not his best, but followed an interesting enough idea.
Eric Frank Russel's "The Sin of Hyacinth Peuch" & Phillip K Dick's "Piper in the Woods" were both well-written enough to be quite enjoyable. show less

This is a theme anthology that doesn't even stick to its stated theme: stories and poems that feature Edgar Poe.

Moskowitz's introduction contrasts Poe with Sherlock Holmes. The latter, as a fictional character, has an immense accretion of fictional biography about him. His fans want to bring him into the real world and settings never imagined by Arthur Conan Doyle. Poe, a real man with a real, fairly well-documented past, has a legion of fans who want to make him a character, introduce him show more to realms never seen in his life.

A reprinted 1962 from Poe scholar Thomas Ollive Mabbott concisely sums up Poe's life, his influence, and scholarly work on him.

The book then starts into presenting various fictional Poes, each usefully introduced by Moskowitz.

First up is a rarity: "The Valley of Unrest" by Douglass Sherley. This 1883 work purports to reveal the real circumstances behind the composition of Poe's eponymous poem. We see Poe in his University of Virginia days - an account, notes Moskowitz, perhaps based on published recollections of his classmates there. However, any power the Byronic-like characters and fulfilled prophecies might have had is lost in a meandering narrative full of nested stories.

"My Adventure with Edgar Allan Poe" is by Nathaniel Hawthorne's son Julian. This 1891 story is actually intriguing, rather affecting, and ironical. The narrator meets Poe in a restaurant - 42 years after his death. The resurrected Poe is leading, aided by his beautiful handwriting, a quiet life as a banker's secretary. Not only has this Poe lost any interest in liquor. He's lost all interest in everything else that made him a singular figure.

Vincent Starrett's "In Which an Author and His Character Are Well Met" from 1928 has an intriguing start: Poe, in his last days of life, meets Legrand, the hero of his "The Gold Bug", in a Baltimore restaurant. But the story doesn't really have much of a payoff, and Poe's delusion of finding a treasure left by his grandfather General Poe isn't that interesting.

Manly Wade Wellman's "When It Was Moonlight" from 1940 is one of those story-behind-the-story works. Specifically, this vampire tale, with a specimen a bit different from the ones we're used to seeing, purports to show the inspiration behind Poe's "The Premature Burial", "The Black Cat", and "The Cask of Amontillado".

Robert Bloch's "The Man Who Collected Poe" from 1951 is part a homage to Poe in his two iterations - Poe primary and Poe secondary as derived through H. P. Lovecraft - and part a literary experiment in that Bloch quite openly copies the setup, plot, and, sometimes, actually quotes Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher". It all works to good effect.

"The Man Who Thought He Was Poe" by Michael Avallone from 1957 is a biter-bitten tale. Here the biter is obsessed with Poe to the extent he wants to flee the modern world for Poe's. The final payoff is memorable.

Nothing much good can be said for Charles Norman's "Manuscript Found in a Drawer". It's original to the anthology, but a treasure hunt inspired by Poe and a death coincidental to Poe's don't add up to anything memorable or significant.

"The Dark Brotherhood" is based on an idea by Lovecraft and finished by August Derleth. It's too long, and Poe is an irrelevant gimmick added to this tale of alien invasion.

Also original to this anthology is Edmond Hamilton's "Castaway". Its central idea, that Poe's fantastic visions point to his otherwordly origin, is nothing special. But there is an air of melancholy and pain about Poe as he considers a fantastical claim about his nature.

Robert Bloch credibly finishes the 600 word fragment left by Poe just before his death: "The Lighthouse". The language, plot, and ending are something I can imagine Poe writing.

"The Atlantis" by one Peter Prospero, is a reprint of the first four installments of a magazine serial published in 1838 and 1839. Poe scholar Arthur Hobson Quinn seems to have been alone in thinking that Poe lurked behind the pseudonym. The majority of Poe scholars think the similarity in language, tone, and even names exists because Poe's friend and close student, Nathan Covington Brooks, wrote the work. The story itself involves a magnetically powered ship discovering, in the southern latitudes, a utopia inhabited by the resurrected dead. Famous philosophers, scientists, and most American presidents debate various matters and run the place, and those like Nero, Tiberius, and Borgia have to pay for their past sins with a life of manual labor. It's an interesting and obscure work of satiric utopianism.

The anthology concludes with some decent poems. Adolphe de Castro's "Edgar Allan Poe", R. H. Barlow's "St. John's Churchyard", and H. P. Lovecraft's "In a Sequestered Churchyard Where Once Poe Walked" were all written at the same time when the three visited a Providence graveyard Poe walked in his days of wooing a local poetess. Robert A. Lowndes' "Baltimore, October 3rd" may be the best Poe tribute. While not great poetry an untitled Valentine's Day poem from Poe's wife Virginia has obvious interest.

There's not enough inherently interesting, high quality material to recommend this book to anyone who is not at least a casual Poe fan. However, those in the latter category will want to read the Bloch, Hawthorne, Avallone, and Hamilton stories. And hardcore Poe devotees or those interested in obscure 19th century American works will want to read "The Valley of the Unrest" and the excerpt of "The Atlantis". show less