Dwellers of the Deep was first published in 1970 as half of an ACE Double with Barry N. Malzberg’s pseudonym “K. M. O’Donnell” on the cover. Dwellers of the Deep is set in the summer of 1951. The story revolves around 23-year-old Izzinius Fox who quits his job conducting interviews of welfare recipients in New York City to devote himself full-time to collecting science-fiction magazines. Izzinius Fox is a passionate collector of Tremendous Stories, a Science Fiction magazine Fox is more interested in owning than reading. Clearly Malzberg is poking fun at rabid SF collectors.
This is also a parody of the once dominant Astounding facing competition from Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Science Fiction fandom is divided over the changes in the SF magazine market.
Fox also has his consciousness transported to an alien spaceship orbiting the Earth. The aliens want Fox to give them a copy of “A New Engineering of the Mind” (a dig at Dianetics). Fox resists and suspects he’s going insane. Malzberg captures the essence of SF fandom at that time and the controversies that various sects found mesmerizing. GRADE: B
Gather in the Hall of the Planets was published in 1971 as half of an ACE Double again with “K.M. O’Donnell” on the cover. Mazberg returns to poking fun at Science Fiction fandom in Gather in the Hall of the Planets. A struggling Science Fiction writer named Sanford Kvass is approached by aliens who tell him that Earth is being tested: an alien will appear in disguise at the 1974 World Science Fiction Convention. Unless Kvass can identify the alien, the Earth will be destroyed.
Malzberg mocks many writers and fans at the World Science Fiction convention. A big part of the snarky plot of Gather in the Hall of the Planets is that in becomes apparent that SF fans and SF writers are so weird there is no way Sanford Kvass can determine if one of them is actually an alien. GRADE: B
Dwellers of the Deep and Gather in the Hall of the Planets shows Barry N. Malzberg is a master of sarcasm and irony. Malzberg’s use of ambivalence and humor buffers the ridicule and mockery of SF fandom and SF writers Dwellers of the Deep and Gather in the Hall of the Planets are wrapped in. If you’re looking for dark, delicious Science Fiction satire, this wonderful STARK HOUSE omnibus delivers a double dose!
Sounds like a couple of sharply-observed satires that have somehow acquired a patina of wistful nostalgia for old-timers who remember the scene–and their youth!
Dan, I’ve been to SF and mystery conventions over the years. Fun, fun, fun!
Malzberg has written a LOT over the years, hasn’t he? All those short stories and novels with Bill Pronzini, for one thing.
Jeff, Malzberg was a writing machine in the 1970s: a bunch of SF novels and THE LONE WOLF series. It’s great that STARK HOUSE is bringing these early works back to a new audience.
I’ve made (reasonable) jokes that the Syracuse University Library might have a large bookcase devoted to Malzberg’s and Joyce Carol Oates’s books, with a small part of a shelf on that bookcase devoted to the published books from everyone else in their graduated class.
Todd, there’s no doubt Oates and Malzberg wrote a lot of books!
May I borrow these?
Bob, I’ll send you a copy in the OWLHOOT Box in late September.