Barry N. Malzberg died December 19, 2024 after a fall. He was 85. During his long writing career, Malzberg wrote in a number of genres, principally Science Fiction, and remained a critic of SF publishers for much of that time.
Malzberg was also a very good editor. Neglected Visions (1979) celebrates mostly forgotten Science Fiction writers. Malzberg’s detailed Introductions to these stories puts the writers into context and suggests reasons why their careers lacked growth and recognition.
Malzberg quotes H. L. Gold (editor of Galaxy) who admired Wyman Guin: “Wyman Guin has the intellect of a Heinlein, the sensitivity of a C. L. Moore, the guts of Philip Jose Farmer…combined with ideas so profoundly original they are decades ahead of the field.” (p. 153) And, after reading “My Darling Hecate” I suspect you would agree with Gold as I do.
Some of these writers, as Malzberg points out, simply stopped writing. Kris Neville for example. Others are complete unknowns like Peter Phillips and Norman Kagan. The prolific Christopher Anvil (aka, Harry C. Crosby), Malzberg writes: “has only himself to blame for his relative anonymity, for he is a maddeningly uneven writer.” (p. 35) But with “Mind Partner,” Anvil hits it out of the park!
My favorite story in this collection is F. L. Wallace’s “Delay in Transit,” a story where interstellar communications is a key factor. If you’re in the mood for forgotten writers who deserve a Second Chance, give Neglected Visions a try. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- vii • Introduction (Neglected Visions) • essay by Barry N. Malzberg
- 1 • Clerical Error • (1956) • novelette by Mark Clifton
- 35 • Mind Partner • (1960) • novelette by Christopher Anvil
- 65 • Ballenger’s People • (1967) • short story by Kris Neville
- 77 • The Hunting Lodge • (1954) • novelette by Randall Garrett
- 109 • Lost Memory • (1952) • short story by Peter Phillips
- 122 • Junior • (1956) • short story by Robert Abernathy
- 130 • Laugh Along with Franz • (1965) • novelette by Norman Kagan
- 153 • My Darling Hecate • (1953) • short story by Wyman Guin
- 171 • Delay in Transit • (1952) • novelette by F. L. Wallace [as by Floyd L. Wallace]
Well, I think you’re still feeling Dylan…these folks aren’t Complete Unknowns if one is aware of the history sf (and related literature…I first read Peter Phillips in Ramsey Campbell’s similar horror-fiction volume FINE FRIGHTS: STORIES THAT SCARED ME, which I FFB’d along with two Malzberg & Co. anthos, UNCOLLECTED STARS and UNCOLLECTED CRIMES)…but many of them are underappreciated. The way, say, Richard McKenna and even Howard Fast might also be (WP doesn’t believe McKenna exists except as a typo). But digging in is left to some of us who are still at it…
Here’s my old NEGLECTED VISIONS review, if one likes to dig further things out https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2011/11/ffb-neglected-visions-edited-by-barry-n.html
Thanks for some more good words about Barry.
Todd, I’ll be saying more about Barry N. Malzberg in a FFB review in a couple of weeks. Your NEGLECTED VISIONS review is first-rate!
Thanks…I seem to be recovering from something just annoying/draining/distracting enough that I can’t get my new one written.
About the only thing that’s timely, though, is that it’s Robert Silverberg’s 90th birthday today.
Todd, I admire Silverberg! I may have to read one of his books to celebrate!
I’m pretty sure I read this fresh off the library shelf in 1979 or thereabouts. I wonder how many other SF writers since then have joined the ranks of the “forgotten”?
Fred, I’d guess…a whole lot!
Good choice. Don’t know the writers involved but sounds worth checking out.
Jeff, all of these writers are talented. But their careers and fame were short-circuited.
Jeff, all of the writers Malzberg features in NEGLECTED VISIONS could have been Big Names in SF…but circumstances intervened.
As Todd implied, there writers are not complete unknowns and all contributed significantly to the field. the biggest name, I suppose is Garrett, who seemed to be everywhere in the 50s and 60s, followed by Anvil, if only because his stories were heavily reprinted in volumes from Baen. I have a soft spot for Mark Clifton, although I thought his Best Novel Hugo was overrated, and for Abernathy, whose writing reminded me of James H. Schmitz. Both Guin and Wallace had the makings of being big stars in the field. I’m not sure why Guin left the field but I suspect his day job took over; Wallace dropped science fiction in favor of some undistinguished mysteries around 1960.
I think real life interferes with promising writing careers much too often.
Jerry, I agree with you. Real Life does intrude on promising writing careers. Of course today, with limited markets for SF short stories, it is a lot harder to make a living from writing today than it was in the Fifties and Sixties.
That, and depending too heavily on one editor/wanting to deal with only one–and when that editor leaves… A lot of these writers, at least in their fantastica, fell into that habit. While Randall Garrett, who could write well, had the unfortunate ability to write Just Well Enough to get by and stroke an editor’s tastes, even if only for filler, and be satisfied with that. That doesn’t get one too much multigen readership.
Budrys once suggested Wallace was GALAXY’s correspondent to Clifton at ASTOUNDING/ANALOG…and then Gold was gone, and illness took Clifton. That might’ve nudged Wallace over the CF, or the greater range of markets for crime fiction. Wonder if anyone has done anything longer than an encyclopedia entry on Wallace.
This sounds like a very worthwhile book. I don’t recognize any of the authors. Even though I have read science fiction stories and novels off and on most of my adult life, there are many authors I am unfamiliar with, so that is not unusual.
Tracy, all of these writers in NEGLECTED VISIONS deserve to be re-discovered!
The only one I’m familiar with is Randall Garrett! I have a feeling he was brushed aside because of his political leanings, but that’s just a guess!
Bob, politics or personal problems…either way Randall Garrett’s career dwindled to nothing.
Not so much, Bob. He was reportedly often personally abrasive, particularly when drunk, and he was drunk a lot more than his health could stand..that didn’t help. I’m not sure that self-abuse contributed directly to his fatal disease, but it certainly slowed his production in the ’70s and more so in the early ’80s, and his wife Vicki Ann Heydron was often collaborating with him to help him get work out to market (I should check, but I don’t believer she’s ever published much on her own–ISFDB lists one short story, one poem, and introductions to his/their work and one other essay as her solo work, not sure how much else might be beyond their purview).
And it’s not as if SF editors were uniformly in disagreement with his politics during his lifetime…certainly George Scithers wasn’t, nor was Ben Bova nor Stanley Schmidt at ANALOG (or Bova later at OMNI) nor James Baen at GALAXY and later as a book editor who was fond of anthologies…you’d have a tough time making that argument stick.
Or, even, believe. Muscle memory typing, or “spell-correction””?
Todd, I recall stories of Randall Garrett’s drinking.
I appreciate the idea behind this book. Shall definitely search for it.
Neeru, I’ll be very interested in your reaction to NEGLECTED VISIONS.