Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Playboy magazine bought Science Fiction stories to wrap around their popular nude photos. Playboy’s rates were much higher than Galaxy, Analog, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction could pay so SF writers would try selling their stories to Playboy first.
After these stories were published in Playboy magazine, Playboy Press would publish anthologies of those stories. From the “S” File, published in 1971, features 16 stories…all written by SF writers whose last names start with “S.” And, some of the “S” writers are included multiple times–a rarity in most SF anthologies.
My favorite stories are Robert Sheckley’s snarky “The Same to You Doubled” about the problem of making the wrong wish, and Henry Slesar’s classic “Examination Day” where passing a test can have dire consequences. Jack Sharkey takes a different view of making wishes in “Conversations With a Bug.” I enjoy these Playboy Press anthologies, and you would too! Were you a fan of Playboy back in the day? GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
PREFACE — 4
The Nail and the Oracle (1965) by Theodore Sturgeon –7
The World of Heart’s Desire (1959) by Robert Sheckley — 32
Can You Feel Anything When I Do This? (1969) by Robert Sheckley — 42
Triplication (1959) by Robert Sheckley — 55
The Same to You Doubled (1970) by Robert Sheckley — 63
Cordle to Onion to Carrot (1969) by Robert Sheckley — 77
Control Somnambule (1962) by William Sambrot — 97
The Man from Not-Yet (1968) by John Sladek — 115
Melodramine (1965) by Henry Slesar — 128
Victory Parade (1957) by Henry Slesar — 146
Examination Day (1958) by Henry Slesar — 152
The Jam (1958) by Henry Slesar — 158
After (1960) by Henry Slesar — 164
The Pool (1964) by Jack Sharkey — 171
Conversation with a Bug (1961) by Jack Sharkey — 179
Deathwatch (1965) by Norman Spinrad — 187
This, and at least ten other SF anthologies from Playboy Press that were published anonymously, was edited by Ray Russell (1924-1999), who was a long-time editor at Playboy. Russell was best known for the story “Sardonicis,” and for the novels THE CASE AGAINST SATAN and INCUBUS. He received a World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1991.
Jerry, thanks for the information on Ray Russell. In my opinion, Russell did a great job editing these PLAYBOY PRESS anthologies!
Don’t think I have ever read an issue or an anthology by Playboy. Too much baggage re: Hugh Heffner.
Patti, although PLAYBOY was aimed at a young male audience, these PLAYBOY PRESS anthologies appealed to a wider group of readers.
Ellen Datlow credited THE PLAYBOOK BOOK OF HORROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL with putting her on the path to her career, as a fantastic-fiction editor, leaning particularly toward horror. Her entry in HORROR: THE 100 BEST BOOKS celebrates that Ray Russell anthology.
PLAYBOOK? Well, in a sense…your football enthusiasm is shaping typos, George!
Todd, WORDPRESS is at it again! It liked “Playbook” better than “Playboy.”
Like everybody else back in the day, I only bought Playboy for the articles. The Playboy empire bottomed out precipitously once Hefner became too old, distracted, and/or bored to care about it any more. It didn’t help that his decline coincided with the advent of internet porn, making his printed magazine irrelevant.
Fred, Internet porn crushed magazine porn. Hefner, despite all his success, didn’t realize his Playboy Empire was built on sand.
I read it back in my college days and, really, not since. I’d never claim that I read it for the articles, but I can honestly say that the interviews were a big factor, some of the most interesting I ever read.
Michael, I, too, loved the PLAYBOY interviews. They occasionally made news like the time Jimmy Carter admitted:”I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.”
Yes, the articles, that’s the ticket. No, really, I liked the interviews a lot. Alex Haley on George Lincoln Rockwell. John Lennon. Many others. Of course, the other stuff got a glance too. Playboy Press published some mystery paperbacks too, as I remember it.
Jeff, I liked some of PLAYBOY’s cartoons, also. Yes, I think I have at least one PLAYBOY PRESS mystery anthology around here somewhere.
https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2013/02/ffb-ray-russells-fiction-anthologies.html lays out some of the information….including in comments.
PLAYBOY was in many ways the 1940s ESQUIRE pushed a bit more along into geek-cool and photos of more skin than Vargas had airbrushed for the older magazine. But Hefner was a creep, for all of his no few good intentions and hopes to be remembered more for the latter (and apparently the editorial staff, as opposed to the personal and the club staff, generally had a good time working, quite aside from whatever extracurricular activities they were involved with).
As a kid, the height of my engagement with the magazine, it seemed very adult, though even then the degree of drowning women in makeup and airbrushing seemed a bit much (I didn’t know anything about the uglier bits of business); some of the women were gorgeous, but even the prettier ones did often seem, as I think it was Katha Pollitt or Nora Ephron who noted, looked as posed as poodles in similar photography.
But they published some good fiction (and a fair amount of trivial and shallow fiction…oddly enough, high pay doesn’t always draw the best work) .I read as well as looked at he magazine on occasion after early adolescence…a subscription was even misdirected to me briefly, meant for someone else in the apartment complex…but, by the end of the magazine’s run, it was a pale shadow of what it had been, and what it had been was not uniformly great by any means.
Todd, at the time I was “reading” PLAYBOY in the 1960s, PLAYBOY seemed to be the class of the soft-core porn magazines of that era.
https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2015/11/ffb-ei-2003-annualdecember-2003-edited.html for some accounts of ROGUE and Regency Books and their relation to PLAYBOY at the height of their influence…and how Hefner and Hamling were spending some lunchtimes and coffebreaks as staff at the publishers of skin magazine MODERN MAN and work out plans to make a more sophisticated and interesting version…that, again, harkened back to the less bland ESQUIRE of the ’40s…
Todd, I remember buying a couple copies of ROGUE because they had Harlan Ellison stories in them. Now, I drive a Nissan ROGUE!
If you ever drive a Ford Swank, we’ll know we’re all in trouble.
No Silverberg? I know he had stories published in Playboy.
Jeff, this PLAYBOY PRESS anthology was published in 1971. I think Silverberg wrote his PLAYBOY stories later.
Interesting. I had never heard of these anthologies but they do sound good.
Tracy, SF and mystery writers sent PLAYBOY their best work in hopes of earning a Big Payday. PLAYBOY PRESS anthologies collected plenty of good stories!
Playboy magazine was much too expensive for a German student to buy but I remember my surprise when later I found SF stories with the remark:
originally published in Playboy.
Wolf, PLAYBOY editors bought a surprising number of good SF and mystery stories over the years.