Alex Lella's Blog

My New Blog Topic

Welcome. I have a new blogging topic.

I just recently discovered a wonderful old book called The Issue at Hand by William Atheling Jr. with an introduction by James Blish. Now, in the very introduction, we learn a little secret. You see, William Atheling Jr. doesn't exist and was just a pen name used by James Blish when he wrote a column criticizing magazine science fiction at the time. The book is a collection of those columns and Atheling was a truly no-holds-barred kind of critic. He showed mercy to no author--not even James Blish.

Anyway, one thing about reading this book is that it makes you want to read the stories which Atheling so harshly criticized. And in this digital age, that is not too difficult.Most of the magazines are available somewhere on the Internet. So why not do just that?

I am going to begin reading my way through the book pausing to seek out and read the stories in question. I will offer up my own two cents here.

The first story Atheling attacked is a story called Night Talk by Charles Fritch first published in the September 1952 issue of Startling Stories.

Tune in tomorrow for my review of that story.