[June 16, 1961] Analog astounds... (July 1961 Analog)

[galacticjourney]

Thomas

I'm going to stun you all today.

There are plenty of writers in this genre we call science fiction (or sometimes "scientificition" or "s-f"). I've encountered over 130 of them in just the few years that this column has been extant. Some are routinely excellent; many are excellently routine. A few have gotten special attention for being lousy.

One such writer is Randall Garrett.

This is the fellow whose smug misogyny and his utter conformity to John Campbell's peculiar editorial whims made his works some of the worst I had the displeasure to review. Sure, the stuff he wrote with other authors (Bob Silverberg and Laurence Janifer, for instance) was readable, but when he went solo, it was a virtual guarantee of disaster. It is thus with no undue trepidation that I dug into this month's Analog which features Garrett's pen in the first two tales.

Folks, I'm as amazed as you are. They were actually pretty good.

(read the rest at Galactic Journey!)