By John Hertz: We’ll discuss three Classics of SF at this year’s Loscon. One discussion each. Come to as many as you like. You’ll be welcome to join in.
Our operating definition is “A classic is a work that survives its own time. After the currents which might have sustained it have changed, it remains, and is seen to be worthwhile for itself.” If you have a better definition, bring it.
Each of our three is famous in a different way. Each may be more interesting now than when first published. Have you read them? Have you re-read them’?
Isaac Asimov, The Currents of Space (1952)
“A merry tangle of interplanetary power politics” — not bad from The New York Times. The Good Doctor’s skill with detective fiction also shows. So far Trantor only has a sphere of influence. There’s a reason for interplanetary — interstellar — trade. And Space has currents.
Andre Norton, Star Man’s Son (1952)
No surprises here. From, say, Paragraph 5, we know what is happening and what will. But how well she does it (yes, Andre was a woman)! Her sense of event—of character — of the telling detail — keep us eager to watch her bring about what must occur. David Hartwell considered this a classic, wise man.
Eric Frank Russell, Wasp (1957)
Again this author’s wit is with us (he won a Hugo for his story about an offog). James Mowry, wondering why he’s wanted, is told of an automobile crash in which four men died, their car wrecked, when a wasp flying through an open window distracted the driver; Mowry is being recruited as a wasp.
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Three very nice choices. The Currents of Space is one of three pre-Empire novels by Asimov, with Pebble in the Sky and The Stars, Like Dust; all too little remembered. —I’ll swear that cover on the French edition is by Kelly Freas.
The Norton is a good choice, though the title is misleading. I always thought her stories were better than her writing. I do like this cover; who did it?
Wasp! one of my all-time favorites, by one of my favorite writers. P. Schuyler Miller said that the same writer could have made it much better, but I just wish it was half again as long as it is. And another excellent cover.
Three books to make for a very provocative discussion!
Only one was in my library so I will have to think about this one.
Hertz’s definition of a classic references the currents that supported the work at the time it was written. In the case of Wasp I think those would be WWII, racism, and wish fulfillment fantasy. Has it survived beyond those? Interesting question. My immediate impulse would be to file it next to Heinlein’s The Sixth Column, but it’s been fifteen years or longer since I last read Wasp, so on closer attention I might see things differently.
I’ve read the other two but don’t remember anything about them, although given my age and history of knocks to the head that doesn’t necessarily mean much.
I wish you’d run the original covers, not thee current ones.
I run what John picks. The French one doesn’t do anything for me but I like the others.
I’ve heard that Starman’s Son (which Don Wollheim called Daybreak: 2250 for the Ace Doublebook) was the first genre sf novel to sell a million copies. In any event, it’s been extremely popular for 70+ years. Doesn’t Andre get points for deploying characters of Color way back in the Days of Ignorance? (In Starman’s Son, they’re descendants of the Tuskeegee Airmen.)
The cover to the French edition of “The Currents of Space” was first published as the cover to the 1966 Eric Frank Russell collection “Somewhere a Voice” which I recall buying off a spinner rack in a Northern Virginal drugstore, probably Rexall.
Oh, and the cover to Somewhere in Time was done by Kelly Freas.
This Star Man’s Son is a 1978 edition with a cover by Ken Barr.
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