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The Silver Locusts by Ray Bradbury (Corgi 1963) Cover Anonymous Ray Bradbury was one of the leading men in SF in the sixties. His books were
made into films, and he was admired beyond the confines of the genre. The Silver
Locusts, which was originally Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement (Penguin 1963) Cover by Yves Tanguy. Mission of gravity is a typical Hal Clement. No sissy nonsense about
relationships, social issues, character development or any of that bilge. Oh no!
This is about designing a planet whose physical state is very different from
that on earth. Clement must have spent a year doing the Grey Lensman by E E 'Doc' Smith (Panther 1971) Cover by Jack Gaughan or (Pyramid 1965) cover by Chris Foss
The two covers are at the extremes. Foss' meticulous, but somehow majestic
spaceship which is really a submarine one feels, against that delightful
comic-book spaceship, organic and Click on Golden-Age at Booklovers logo to buy these books and others Back to F & SF Feedback to Golden Age
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entitled
The Martian Chronicles in the US, is typical of his very poetic and
sometimes grotesque work. His vision of an advanced but delicate Martian
civilization wiped out more or less accidentally by an invasion from earth is a
beautiful mirror of Wells' Martian invasion of earth. The inhabitants of the Red
planet, who have names like Mr. Xxx, and Mrs. Www have a fragility which comes
to life and contrasts with the vigorous people who rain down on them in their rockets. Even the use of the word
rocket influences our feelings about these
crude invaders. The book is a must for anyone who takes an interest in SF, as one
of the classics of the 20th century. People don't talk much about him now,
although most of the issues with which people are so heavily concerned today -
racism, the environment and a new morality are dealt with in a way which cannot
be faulted. He wrote many other classics including Fahrenheit 451 in
which books are systematically burned - a book that became a film directed by
Truffaut. The cover for this version of The Silver Locusts is almost perfect for the book - but Corgi
did not credit the artist so he must here remain anonymous.
calculations,
but it was worth it. Brian Aldiss once said he wrote the Helleconia series to
avoid using the "two sentences of double talk and anything goes"
approach to SF, and good for him. But that's for arts types, who have to
use double talk. Not so Hal Clement, whose book reeks with the authenticity of
his set up, a planet in a funny shape (an oblate spheroid - but very very
oblate) , which therefore has peculiar gravitational effects. Jack Cohen
compared Mission of Gravity with a large 500-page tome of near-future dystopia
by a self-important 'youngish' contemporary author and noted that there was a peculiar sort of symmetry about
the two. Mission of
gravity was a thin novel with a ghostly 500-page tome of physics in the background, the
other book was a huge 500-page tome with thin small pile of newspaper cuttings shimmering
behind it! The book is an excellent read for anyone who likes to think his SF is
plausible, but still wants a truly alien atmosphere. Buy it and spend some happy
hours on the surface of a really weird world, knowing all the time that it could
exist! Penguin used a fine art cover - by Tanguy - whose strange collection of
forms certainly suits an SF book, but maybe not Hal Clement. 
Every SF reader
older than fifty knows the Doc Smith sagas. Huge intergalactic battles between
the immensely powerful forces of good and evil fought around guess where?
"Yeah, gottit in one, lil' old earth!" Men were men in those days, blasting
away at each other and aliens from Atlantis to Sol Three. 'It's all up to Kim
Kinnison, using his fantastic powers, to infiltrate the Boskonian strongholds,
find the location of the enemy's grand base - and smash it forever' we discover
on the blurb on the rear cover. Yes - they were simpler times. No worries about
an environmentally friendly spaceship, no heart-aching about the ethnic balance
of the crew, just find that base and smash, smash, smash it - forever! And no
women ruining it all, either. Follow an encounter 
between
the Grey Lensman himself and 'a stunning blonde, ravishingly and revealingly
dressed in a dazzling blue wisp of Manarkan glamorette - fashion's dernier
cri'!! "'Scuse me for stepping on your feet" he apologized,
"A fellow gets out of practice, flitting around in a speedster so
much." "Thanks for taking all the blame, but its my fault
entirely" she replied flushing uncomfortably "....but well, you're a
Grey lensman you know." Well whaddya know? Later in the dance she admits
"Like most of the girls here, I suppose, I've never been out in deep
space at all. Beside a few hops to the moon" I wish I was a Grey Lensman,
and could cause 'a measure of the tall beauty's customary poise' to desert her. I'm gray
alright, but that isn't enough, somehow. Go on, buy one, and blast off!