Old paperbacks from the 60's and 70's.

W

Woodsman

The Living Force
In the past couple of weeks I’ve taken to picking up old paper back sci-fi novels at the used book store.

In particular, ones penned in the 60‘s and 70‘s, with yellowed paper and original cover prices in the $1 range by authors I’ve never heard of before. 140 page pocket book super-quick-read novellas. You know the kind, with that garage sale water damaged look.

With very few exceptions, today’s modern authors I find myself grumbling at for their lack of insight or any sort of worldly knowledge. Authors from decades ago however, at least the random handful I’ve picked up so far, seem to actually know things, to have lived a bit before deciding to be story-tellers. Products of a more robust time.

The ones which come easily to hand in the first thirty seconds of perusal, not examined too closely before purchasing, carry a sort of fortune cookie quality.

The first two featured main characters who had subtle reality-bending psi abilities, interacting with broken worlds they seek to change and survive. This is a growing element of my own life at the moment. It was interesting to see authors thinking through the problems presented, and I’ve actually been able to glean a few bits of practical.., advice?

The next visit to the shop offered a couple of books which were a bit disturbing; featuring stories about post-collapse American societies where hard living is eked out against scarred backdrops of the far future. Those ones made me feel anxious, so I put them back. “Ugh! No thank-you! I’m not thrilled by the idea of being fortune cookied that kind of advice.”

I came home with the one I’m reading now, about a strange Matrix-like society where about 10% of the population can bleed, but the rest are flat-personality artificial constructs collectively maintaining a comfy bubble world made out of lies and soothing illusions. The children growing up in this world are trying to break through the veil of their false reality to discover the Bitter Truth. -Hardly ground-breaking stuff, even back in the 70‘s, but the message is clear enough.

Just thought I’d share.
 
Funny you started this thread because while I was in NYC this past Sunday and Monday I was visiting some used bookstores with the specific intention of looking for some classic science fiction works. I feel like it's a genre I always neglected to explore in literature but have been meaning to for years. This all started as I was reading John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies (excellent book) and he opens the book with a quote from Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, which prompted me to look into him, and then into other popular authors in the genre. While at the bookshop I picked up two Isaac Asimov books (I, Robot and Nightfall), Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein, and a collection of short stories by Philip K. Dick called Paycheck and Other Classic Stories. I also want to dabble in writing sci-fi short stories and novels, so I figured I should read some of the greats first and see what makes them so iconic.

Could you share some of the titles and authors you picked up? The one you said you're reading now sounds particularly interesting.
 
Yes, share titles please!!!! ;D

funny you talk about this both of you because at my reading Club we have decided to start on September to read Science Fiction books from the 60's or 70's- I proposed Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbery, also Fahrenheit 451 by the same author. There are so many authors of that time that had so much imagination, can see so clearly what the future will be, evidently I proposed also 1984. Oh, yes, I will suggest The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. It will be fun. I think now it is the perfect time to read Science Fiction books because we are living in a science fiction almost reality. :)
 
Hi All, I am old enough to have bought many of these novels when they were new. I still have maybe 100 or so. A few have the price on the cover 35 cents. :)

One that stands out for me in A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller. This a nuclear war story written in the mid 50's that concerned a war the took place about 1970. The story begins 600 years after the war. In the first part the main character is Brother Francis a member of an order of monks whose mission is to copy and preserve documents from the long dead civilization. This one probably gripped my attention because the threat of nuclear destruction seemed so likely during this period. (Of course it is just as likely if not more so now). I still have a taped up copy of this novel that I carried in my back pocket when I was 11 years old.

Of Ray Bradbury my favorites are the Illustrated Man and Fahrenheit 451. Dark Universe by Daniel Francis Galouye is another nuclear war story. Dark in a different way but "light" comes in end. :)

Two short stories by Arthur C Clark stand out for me. Songs of Distant Earth a haunting and deeply romantic tale. And Kaleidoscope about a group of astronauts that are sent flying is many directions when there is an explosion aboard a space station. For a short time after they are able to communicate with one another by radio.

I loved these stories at the time probably because I was young and also love came easier for me then. I will post more as I think of them. Thanks for starting this thread Woodsman. Loreta I agree with you. It does seem like we are living a science fiction novel. Hopefully whoever is the author has a happy ending in mind. :)
 
Yes Woodsman, thanks!

Mac, about nuclear war lately I read "Alas, Babylon" by Pat Frank. It was during the years when nuclear war, as you said, was very present in the mind of people. It is a very good book, if you took apart this idea that URSS was a very bad culprit. But this is not the important thing in the book, this book is about surviving during a catastrophe and how it is important to help one each other. I think it is a classic in the genre. It remind me of the tv series "Survivors".

I am looking for a book since many years but I forgot the title, maybe one of you have an idea? The story is about a woman that decides to protect books during the end of times, in a sort of apocalypse that is happening, many weather catastrophes, people leaving their homes, their countries, dying, etc... So little survived this situation. She meets a sort of preacher who is against books and who is the perfect image of an authoritarian type of person. I remember a scene of the book that was too much futuristic when I read it: the woman looking at the tv where the present situation was so similar to what we are living now, war, hunger, strange weather, rebellions, etc. Specially weather strangeness that in the 80's was not a very important subject like now.I was not thinking that this scenario will be a realistic future, that one day myself would look outside my window to see all this for real.

I read a lot of excellent critics about the book A Canticle for Leibowitz. I think it is considered one of the best books of the genre, a sort of cult book also.

Someone read Solaris by Stanisław Lem ?
 
loreta said:
Yes Woodsman, thanks!

Mac, about nuclear war lately I read "Alas, Babylon" by Pat Frank. It was during the years when nuclear war, as you said, was very present in the mind of people. It is a very good book, if you took apart this idea that URSS was a very bad culprit. But this is not the important thing in the book, this book is about surviving during a catastrophe and how it is important to help one each other. I think it is a classic in the genre. It remind me of the tv series "Survivors".

I am looking for a book since many years but I forgot the title, maybe one of you have an idea? The story is about a woman that decides to protect books during the end of times, in a sort of apocalypse that is happening, many weather catastrophes, people leaving their homes, their countries, dying, etc... So little survived this situation. She meets a sort of preacher who is against books and who is the perfect image of an authoritarian type of person. I remember a scene of the book that was too much futuristic when I read it: the woman looking at the tv where the present situation was so similar to what we are living now, war, hunger, strange weather, rebellions, etc. Specially weather strangeness that in the 80's was not a very important subject like now.I was not thinking that this scenario will be a realistic future, that one day myself would look outside my window to see all this for real.

I read a lot of excellent critics about the book A Canticle for Leibowitz. I think it is considered one of the best books of the genre, a sort of cult book also.

Someone read Solaris by Stanisław Lem ?
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Yes Alas, Babylon was another that I read at the time. Very good and definitely depicts the consciousness of the times. How fragile the civilization built by Man really is.

I don't recognize the book you describe. I reminds me of the movie version of Fahrenheit 451. How precious books were to a few that sought to save them. I always cry at the scene in the end where the small community of people is walking or siting in the light falling snow reciting the books they have memorized to keep them from being lost. Or the scene where Montag, a man whose job is to destroy books, states "I read them" proudly and with deep conviction. What a treasure they are. Simple first lines that draw you in. "I am born" David Copperfield "It was the best of times and the worst of times." A Tale of Two Cities.

I haven't read Solaris yet I will look for it. Thanks.
 
I read Fahrenheit 451 last month and loved it - there's some very important themes in that book about the value of reading, knowledge, and creativity - and I also read a collection of essays by Bradbury after that one, called Zen in the Art of Writing, which was insightful. The next one by him I plan to tackle will probably be The Martian Chronicles, whenever I get to it. Currently, I started reading the collection of short stories by Philip K. Dick I purchased last week.

Clarke's Songs of Distant Earth sounds like a good one. It's already on my Amazon wishlist.

I just looked up A Canticle for Leibowitz and will definitely check it out. Thanks for the recommendation. :)
 
PhoenixToEmber said:
I read Fahrenheit 451 last month and loved it - there's some very important themes in that book about the value of reading, knowledge, and creativity - and I also read a collection of essays by Bradbury after that one, called Zen in the Art of Writing, which was insightful. The next one by him I plan to tackle will probably be The Martian Chronicles, whenever I get to it. Currently, I started reading the collection of short stories by Philip K. Dick I purchased last week.

Clarke's Songs of Distant Earth sounds like a good one. It's already on my Amazon wishlist.

I just looked up A Canticle for Leibowitz and will definitely check it out. Thanks for the recommendation. :)
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Songs of Distant Earth was originally published as a short story in a collection called The Other Side of the Sky. Many years later the story was expanded into a novel. Best I can say of the novel version is that they didn't mess up the story too much. :) The short story is better in this man's view. Kaleidoscope is also in this collection.

Mac
 
Sorry for not getting back to this thread earlier.

The little list of titles I've read over the last couple of weeks includes...

~~~~~~~

The World Shuffler -Keith Laumer - 1970

From the back cover:

"Lafayette O'Leary, penniless draftsman, was sick of sardine dinners and boarding-house rooms. He dreamed of something better...

And called Central. They put him into another universe, the kingdom of Artesia. In this colorful land, O'Leary fights a duel, hunts a dragon, is knighted, rich and happily married. He has the best deal in the world-in any world. But he's bored.

Until Artesia disappears... and he finds himself standing outside a bar run by a girl who looks exactly like the Princess of Artesia, in a town where a number of people seem to recognize him as someone they want very much to kill.

Someone has been shuffling universes like cards, and O'Leary needs a new deal fast - while he still has a head on his shoulders!"

My comments: This was a weirdly structured story, with a comedic style similar in tone to a standard Terry Pratchet yarn, but both more complex (demanding reader attention to work out what the heck is happening), and less finely crafted. Not a masterwork by any means, but definitely clever.

The thing which grabbed my attention was the ability of the protagonist to use will and visualization to alter reality around himself, expounding at one point upon the basic mechanics of this ability. Quote:

“That’s all I ask,” he murmered, squeezing his eyes shut. “Just a chance.” But I’ve got to be specific, he reminded himself. Focusing the psychic energies isn’t magic, after all. It’s just a matter of drawing on the entropic energy of the universe to manipulate things into a configuration nearer to my heart’s desire. Like, for example, if the ropes were to be loose...

“But they aren’t loose,” he told himself sternly. “You can’t change any known element of the situation. At best, you can influence what happens next, that’s all. And probably not even that.”

Well then - if there was a knife lying here on deck - an old rusty scaling knive, say, just carelessly tossed aside. I could get my hands on it, and-"

I don't think that's quite how it works. Being specific is actually a problem, as it diminishes the number of probabilities available. But it was interesting to be able to have a sort of internal conversation with the story as it explored the idea, thus helping to crystalize my own understanding of the phenomenon.

~~~~~~~

Deathworld -Harry Harrison -1960

"The worst piece of real estate in the galaxy.

"Welcome to Pyrrus, the killer planet. A world where all life forms, plant and animal, have undergone a savage evolution. It's kill or be killed, and no living thing is safe for long. Even the genetically hardened inhabitants cower behind the barricades of a fortress city.

Now Jason dinAlt, professional gambler and accomplished rogue, is about to begin the most dangerous game of his life. The stakes are higher than he ever imagined, and even the vegetation plays for keeps..."

-My comments...

Only casually noted at the beginning, the main character has the ability to subtly shift probabilities, leading to his success in dice games.

The main thrust of this story is that a world had been settled upon several centuries ago and the humans soon began an arms race with the world which viewed them as a pathogenic threat. Through the forces of evolution, the planet brought all the energies of the biosphere to bear upon them, resulting in an endless war between humanity and nature. The humans turn into hair trigger killing machines of Amazonian prowess, but emotionally deficient in all other respects. It was the main character's place to investigate the roots of this conflict and work out a way to solve it.

My thoughts paralleled the real events occurring on our own planet.

~~~~~~~

The Overman Culture -Edmund Cooper -1971

“Michael was quite young when he discovered that some of his playmates bled if they cut themselves, and some didn’t. For a long time he didn’t think about it. Nor did it seem strange to see Zeppelins being attacked by jet fighters above London’s force field, or glimpse Queen Victoria walking with Winston Churchill in the Mall. Not at first.

But later he thought about these things - he couldn’t help it. The world was real, and yet unreal. It was all desperately worrying. So Michael and his friends formed a society to investigate the world around them.

Despite the terrible things they discovered, things that made some of them insane, they never actually guessed the truth about the Overman culture. Until Mr. Shakespeare told them.”



-My comments...

This book feels like a young adult novel, similar in feel to better known (and better written) novels such as “The Giver” and Andre Norton’s “The Chrysalids”.

The protagonists go through a Matrix-like awakening, minus the Kung Fu and cool sunglasses. They discover an ancient abandoned library and teach themselves to read, while their android keepers, approximately 75% of the population of “London”, gently but firmly try to dissuade them from asking questions. “Isn’t it better to simply be happy?”

They eventually discover a secret passage under the wall and find themselves on a planet populated with giant lizards. I lost interest around this point, and picked up another book...

~~~~

Analog 1 -Collection of short stories by various authors. -1964

This one is really cool, with stories which hinge on details of government and bureaucratic structures which are realized with fair insight for the time they were written.

The first story was a sort of fairy tale about a low-tech indigenous people living on an ever-Summer ocean planet with a single large island reminiscent of Hawaii surviving the onslaught of a galactic empire eager to turn their paradise into a banana republic slave nation complete with tourist hotels. It reminded me of James Cameron's Avatar, but where the solution was not found through bloody combat.

It was bittersweet, because you could feel the heart of the author really wishing for a better reality than the one he had likely witnessed unfolding in the 1950's. -While his solution was clever and informed, it also depended upon several streaks of great luck and faith in the nobility of military officers. There is no psychopathic CIA in this author’s vision of the future.

~~~~~~~~
 
Just if you are interested, at the Gutenberg Project you can find many many Science Fiction novels and short stories from the 30's to the 60's, free because there is no more copy rights. The section is very huge.

https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Thank you Woodsman for the list and the description and your comments.
 
loreta said:
Just if you are interested, at the Gutenberg Project you can find many many Science Fiction novels and short stories from the 30's to the 60's, free because there is no more copy rights. The section is very huge.

https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Thank you Woodsman for the list and the description and your comments.
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Thanks for the reminder! Gutenberg is amazing, isn't it?

Right now, the qualities of old paper are the draw, -that and the Chinese Fortune Cookie quality afforded by randomly stocked shelves of used books.

Though, I've just started reading David M. Jacob's books, so for the present, I seem to have moved out of the 60's. (Only to re-discover that truth is stranger than fiction.) :)
 
Gutenberg is really amazing. For people that live in a country that it is difficult to find books in English is perfect. The even have books in Catalan! And very rare books, books out of print. But evidently nothing as when you find old books in old stores. I don't understand the expression "Chinese Fortune Cookie". Is this a type of paper? Or the surprise we have to find little jewels when looking in shelves?
 
loreta said:
Gutenberg is really amazing. For people that live in a country that it is difficult to find books in English is perfect. The even have books in Catalan! And very rare books, books out of print. But evidently nothing as when you find old books in old stores. I don't understand the expression "Chinese Fortune Cookie". Is this a type of paper? Or the surprise we have to find little jewels when looking in shelves?
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Oh, neat! I thought everybody was familiar with Chinese Fortune Cookies.

They're a cultural oddity experienced while eating at many Chinese restaurants in the West. (Wikipedia tells us that they are not something you'll actually see in China, and another site says that they were invented in Japan!).

Basically, at the end of a meal when the bill arrives, patrons will be served with these folded cookies which, when cracked open, reveal a slip of paper with a vague bit of prophetic wisdom printed on it. Everybody gets a different one. They're like cheap newspaper astrology readings, but super short. I think they can sometimes be taken seriously if you're correctly plugged into the global super-consciousness, but mostly they're just a silly treat.

I like to use them as a reference when trying to describe things like pulling messages out of used book store shelves.

Fortune-Cookies.jpg
 
Thanks Woodsman for your interpretation of the Chinese Fortune Cookies in relation with books in shelves in old libraries. And also it is always a pleasure, for us that like to read so much, to find old books and sometimes also things inside old books, like postal cards, receipts, sheets with words, pictures, cards, annotations. But also as you said, finding books in shelves is a sort of cookie. :) A very good one made by magic, synchronicity and destiny!
 
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