The 1980s saw the pinnacle of small press magazines that began back in the 1930s as fanzines and improved over the decades as copying technology evolved. Editors collected fine writers into special interest zines published on pages that were photocopied, folded in half and then saddle-stapled. These zines were then distributed through the mail. When email became big, the paper zine had met its end. Today we have Twitter instead of Letters of Comment, we have chat rooms and Facebook to vent our spleen; we have print-on-demand and electronic books like Kindle. The day that saw great zines like Crypt of Cthulhu, Dark Terrors, Deathrealm, Fantasy Macabre, Fantasy Crossroads and Cromlech are gone.
One such magazine, a treat for fans of Space Opera, was Robert M. Price’s Astro-Adventures. It ran for eight issues, from January 1987 to June 1989. Each issue was approximately 40 pages long with cover art by Stephen Fabian, except for one issue by Robert H. Knox. Interiors were not often illustrated, with neat type from a typewriter. Production values were good but not professional. You might think the contents was a scattering of juvenile fan fiction. Far from it!
To Price’s credit, he knew all the old pros who still survived from the days of the Pulps. In some cases, he knew the agents who held finished and unfinished works by masters who had passed on. His connections were so good he included in his line-up: Frank Belknap Long, Carl Jacobi, Lin Carter and Clark Ashton Smith. And that’s just the first issue! Price also includes knowledgeable scholars in Will Murray and Mike Ashley. Their articles and interviews add another dimension to the entire experience.
Robert makes his goal quite clear in his opening editorial:
Return with us now to the thrilling days of the future of the past. The future as pictured in every era is a function of that present. Speculative fiction always tell us more about the age in which it is written than about the future age it tries to describe. One can easily denominate distinctive periods in the development of modern science fiction. One decade differs from another in readily perceptible ways. Today’s “hard science fiction” is much, much different from the “scientifiction” of the pulp era. And it may be somehow contradictory to pine nostalgically for a “past future”, but many of us do. In this case, backward-looking futurism has led to the creation of Astro-Adventures.
Price models his magazine on the Pulps of old, Planet stories in particular with an editorial section called “The Control Room” and a letter column called “Ethergrams”. Malcolm Reiss would have been proud. He also includes a small amount of art. I wish he would have included more but that would have probably pushed the writing out as there are only so many pages. Artwork was done by Stephen Fabian, Robert H. Knox, Allen Koszowski, Bruce W. Timm, Jason C. Eckhardt and others. Sometimes it was recycled from the original Pulp pages.
“The Soaring” by Frank Belknap Long
“Murder in Space” by Lin Carter
“Prisoners of Vibration” by Carl Jacobi
“Mnemoka” by Clark Ashton Smith
“Corsairs of the Cosmos” by Lin Carter
“The Other Place” by Richard L. Tierney
“The Eyes of Thar” by Henry Kuttner (Planet Stories, Fall 1944)
“Rescue Mission 2030” by Charles Garofalo & Robert M. Price
“Captain Future Vs. the Old Ones” by Will Murray (Fantasy Mongers 8, fall 1983)
“Ghosts of Ganymede” by Lin Carter
“Sauce For the Gander” by Frank Belknap Long
“The Nebula and the Necklace” by Carl Jacobi
“Brain-Slaves of the Asteroid Belt” by Pierre Comtois
“Mono-Rail to Eternity” by Carl Jacobi
“Planet in Peril” by Lin Carter
“Zeppelins of the Void” by Jason Rainbow
“What Hath Me?” by Henry Kuttner (Planet Stories, Spring 1946)
“The Gentle Anger” by Raymond Z. Gallun
“The Dragon-Queen of Jupiter” by Leigh Brackett (Planet Stories, Summer 1941)
“Beyond the Worlds We Know” (Part 1) by Lin Carter
“The Fifth Spacesuit” by Charles Garofalo
“The Rienza Lectures” by Carl Jacobi
“Philosopher’s Asteroid” by Raymond Z. Gallun
“Invaders of the Forbidden Moon” by Rayond Z. Gallun (Planet Stories, Summer 1941)
“Beyond the Worlds We Know” (Part 2) by Lin Carter
“Captain Future: Yesterday’s Man of Tomorrow” by Will Murray
“The Immortal Professor” by Mike Ashley
“Exiles From Below” by Neil R. Jones
“Pursuit to Perihelion” by Carl Jacobi
“Sort of Like Atlas” by Raymond Z. Gallun
“An Interview with Don Wilcox” by Mike Ashley
“A Visit to Yo-Yo Falls” by Don Wilcox
“The Brothers Dalfry” by Carl Jacobi
“A Swordsman of Mars” by Lin Carter
These eight magazines represent a look back into the days of Sword & Planet, Space Opera as well as weird fiction that simply can not be done any longer. Too many of the old pros are gone. SF and Fantasy fans are avid devourers of old scraps from the pens of their favorite authors. Consider how many Robert E. Howard “collaborations” we saw between 1955 and and 1990. As Fredric Brown said about fans (not all that kindly) “They want it all.”
For me these small booklets hold some treasures I would not have wanted to miss, in particular, Neil R. Jones’ Zoromes story. The last half dozen of these were never published. I wish Price had used them all. Also the interview with Don Wilcox is fascinating for anyone familiar with Ray A. Palmer’s magazines. It is great to get more perspective on Palmer, who is a controversial figure. Wilcox’s feelings tend to be kind and not has harsh as Howard Browne’s in “A Profit Without Honor” (1984). In terms of fiction, the tales by Jacobi, Long and Carter were some of the last they produced.
