I tried sending Patti a notice that I'd like to take part in Forgotten Books Friday but I don't think we managed to connect. It's the first time in a long time I've had a chance to do anything for that. Anyway, here's an unofficial entry for Forgotten Books Friday:
Anything that I could find at our small-town library that
smacked of science fiction got checked out and brought home. Thus it was I
stumbled upon a little paperback called “Crashing Suns,” by Edmond Hamilton. I
didn’t recognize the author’s name at the time; I was more familiar with
Asimov, Clarke, Anderson, Heinlein. It didn’t matter. The cover showed a
rocket-ship and a round, pink, fuzzy alien with multiple limbs pointing a
blaster at an astronaut. More importantly to me, the words “Crashing Suns” and
the catch phrase on the cover of “Red alert for the Interstellar Patrol”
ignited my imagination. Many, many years later, I found a copy of this book in
a used book store and snapped it up. It’s too brittle and worn to read again
but I still cherish it.
The book contains five novella length space opera stories,
the title piece, “The Star Stealers,” “Within the Nebula,” “The Comet Drivers,”
and “The Cosmic Cloud.” From what I can find out, all five of the stories were
published in Weird Tales between 1928
and 1930. All but the first involve the Interstellar Patrol, sort of a
pre-Federation Starfleet that defends the galaxy from evil. Hamilton apparently
wrote these tales in a white heat and they sometimes show it. The science is
often inaccurate and the language is quite overblown with flights of fancy in
many places. But, you know, I don’t care. Hamilton was clearly enjoying himself
and I enjoyed right along with him. There’s passion and excitement and that can
make up for a lot of technical slights. I still want to join the Interstellar
Patrol. I may be 56 on the outside, but inside I’m still 12 when I hear the
siren call of “Crashing Suns.”
18 comments:
I loved Hamilton's work when I was a kid. Still enjoy it on occasion. You can't go wrong with a cover like that, no matter what's inside.
I always buy books like this from my childhood to regain that magic and share it with my kids too.
Bill, I know. Those old covers had such pizazz
David J., I need to get a copy I can reread
I may have read this in my sci-fi phase, but know for sure.
Charles, you have to check the blogs! I'm covering for Patti this week; happily, Rick Robinson shot a note about this one my way. Thanks, gents.
Also, I'll say this is a book full of old fashioned SF fun. I like it a lot.
Edmond Hamilton was a great story-teller! And ACE Books had some great cover artwork!
Along with Lovecraft only moreso, Hamilton was the sf star of WEIRD TALES, which liked to tag his early work "weird-scientific"...
Your response to this book as a boy no doubt influenced your writing!
ALOHA from Honolulu,
ComfortSpiral
=^..^=
James Reasoner directed my attention toward Hamilton a few years back. Like Mr. Crider I enjoy dipping in those waters on occasion.
Charles you make me feel as if I wasted my youth with the reading I did. Both of my parents were voracious readers, like weekly trips to the library voracious and literally hundreds of paperbacks and three newspapers a day in the house (all local) and a weekly on top of that.
The old man like some science fiction, but I gravitated to historical fiction *meh* now, as I said you make me feel like i missed something in my childhood. Although i read a lot of the usual comics I don't think it's quite the same thing.
I agree. Hamilton enjoyed his writing. The passion was there.
I've never read Hamilton, but can relate to the excitement you felt in such a "find"
Charles, thanks for spotlighting Edmond Hamilton who is new to me.
Oscar, if you read it when you were young you'd likely remember it. Maybe not later. It's exciting for young ones, I thought. Me included at the time.
Todd, Mason, ahh. I've tried to do it twice and messed up both times. I check blogs very regularly but don't always get every post for sure.
R.K., exactly!
George, yes, even though the alien looks rather poofy it was still so cool to me when I was a kid.
Cloudia, I'm sure it did. Of course, all this early stuff probably did to some degree.
Mark, I actually missed out on a lot of the comics. They weren't readily available in our small town.
Bernard, he definitely seemed to like what he was doing.
Sage, would love to recapture that excitement.
Prashant, he also did some Sword and sorcery stuff as well.
I read just about everything science fiction or fantasy I could find at the library too, but somehow I missed this one. Thanks for mentioning it.
Greg, fun book
Just the cover looks cool!
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