Countdown to Vintage Science Fiction Month!

Posted by: Redhead on: December 4, 2016

• In: Vintage SciFi
• 26 Comments

Ahh, January.   The post-holiday slump,  the pressure of News Years Resolutions,  the local $10 a month gym is packed to the rafters.  And let’s not even talk about how long it takes to unbury you car when it’s time to go to work.

What’s so great about January, you say?  Not only is there 3 more minutes of daylight each day, but January is Vintage Science Fiction month!  a few years ago (ok, more than a few!), I started reading older than me science fiction every January as a way to get in touch with the roots of science fiction.  Thanks to the blogosphere, book vloggers, twitter, and other social media,  Vintage Month has become an actual thing!  If you’re interested in the history of Vintage Month, click  on the Vintage SciFi tab up at the top of my blog or type “Vintage” in the side bar search thingy.

Vintage Month is also connected with Stainless Steel Dropping’s The SciFi Experience, and many bloggers are already talking about their plans for The SciFi Experience and Vintage Month, including  Red Star Reviews‘ Vintage reading plans, Jim Harris’s in-depth essay at Auxiliary Memory and the vintage and SciFi Experience announcement post at Lynn’s Book Blog

Ok, so Vintage Month.   The idea is to read (or watch or listen to) anything scifi / fantasy / spec fic / fantastika  from 1979 or earlier.   You can read a book, listen to an audio book, watch old movies or TV shows.   Then talk about it online.  Or comment on someone else’s post online.  Don’t have time to experience something Vintage-y in January?  That’s OK too. If you comment on someone else’s Vintage post, guess what? You’re a participant in Vintage Month.  Why 1979 you ask? It’s the year I was born.

 

Are you on twitter?   Feel free to follow VintageSciFi_ , which is run by the amazing RedStarReviews.  Use the hashtag #VintageSciFi or #VintageSciFiMonth.  If you’re on Instagram or Pinterest, those tags work there too.

 

Due to some day-jobbery projects that are scheduled to hit in January,  my Vintage dabblings may be less than usual.  That’s OK, because Vintage Month is in good hands! Your hands!

 

Anyways, here’s whats on my TBR or at least dabbled in pile for Vintage Month:

Voyage of the Space Beagle by A.E. Van Vogt – this is a “fix up” novel that was published in 1950. A “fix-up” is when an author takes a bunch of somewhat related short stories and literally fixes them up into a (mostly) functioning novels. Not all fix ups were a success. To be honest, I’m most interested in this Vogt because it includes a version of the 1939 short story “Black Destroyer”. That short story is credited with having started the Golden Age of Science Fiction and it was the inspiration for the movie “Alien”, one of my favorite movies of all time.

 

Andre Norton’s Sargasso of Space and Uncharted Stars – Sargasso just looks hella fun, and Uncharted Stars is a sort of sequel to The Zero Stone, which is my all time favorite Norton.

 

Early Days, by Robert Silverberg -This is actually a brand new publication from Subterranean Press. It contains over a dozen now impossible to find Silverberg short stories that were published in the 1950s, along with story notes and commentary.  An issue I’ve found with Vintage stuff, is because I’m not familiar with the context in which these stories were written, I have trouble connecting with the subtleties. I’m looking forward to the commentaries and story notes in this book, so that I can delve deeper into the context. Scifi + history = Andrea is a happy camper.

 

And last but so very not least, is The Universe Wreckers, an Edmond Hamilton volume of his pulp short stories, and let me just tell you, the photo doesn’t do this book justice.   A three volume set gifted to me by someone very special to me,  The Collected Edmond Hamilton is all of this prolific author’s prose works.  It’s from Haffner Press, which means it’s a beautifully produced collector’s item.  Since receiving these as a gift, I’ve been intimidated by them.  It’s like that Sub Press numbered edition you bought as a gift to yourself, and now you’re afraid to take it out of the plastic? Yeah, like that.  So, here’s to getting over being intimidated by beautiful bindings! This volume has 10 short stories, letters to the editor, and correspondence between Hamilton and his magazine editors. That means more historical context for me, YAY!!   Also, if his name sounds familiar, it’s because he was married to Leigh Brackett.

 

Well, that’s enough rambling from me.  What Vintage-y stuff are you excited to read in January?

 

 

Tags: Vintage SciFi