This post is brought to you by the upcoming Steel and Stone by M. D. Jackson. This novel is made up of three parts, “Rolling Stone” which appeared in Ships of Steel last year, plus two further adventures about Stone the secret agent working with Marella, a woman he saves from invisible foes aboard a spaceliner. Later stories feature Steel’s ship Darlin’ (Darling Buds of May), a killerbot like you’ve never experienced before, as well as Marella’s adventure aboard a Niven Ring at the edge of the galaxy. All three parts combine to make a Space Adventure novel that will keep you turning pages!
Cyril Kornbluth (1923-1958) was a satiric Science Fiction writer, perhaps best known today as a collaborator with Gunner Cade (1952) with Judith Merrill and Frederik Pohl on The Space Merchants (1953). Some of his stories were adapted for television, and many are well-remembered for their witty and economical touches. Like Henry Kuttner, Kornbluth’s early death certainly costs us many great stories.
This post could have been called The Early Kornbluth after the Doubleday series that featured Isaac Asimov, Fred Pohl, Jack Williamson and Frank Belknap Long. The 1976 The Best of C. M. Kornbluth (edited by Fred Pohl) only includes two stories from this list: “The Rocket of 1955” and “The Words of Guru”. This may be because Kornbluth was young and larning his craft, but I think it also was because so many of these stories are collaborations.
Cyril Kornbluth, like the other Futurians, found their first magazine publication (after the fanzies) with three of their friends, Frederik Pohl, Donald A. Wollheim and Robert A. W. Lowdnes. These young men were all editors of shoe-string budget magazines, not much more than professional fanzines really. After their tiny budgets ran out, if their friends couldn’t provide manuscripts, they wrote them themselves. While this meant these pulps were not jammed with big names, it did mean new developing writers like Kornbluth had a place to see their work in print. For CMK, that meant the work if not his name.
The young Kornbluth was the pseudonymous Kornbluth, using a dozen nom de plums. He might have chosen this because he wanted to use his own name on more serious fare but mostly it was either a hangover from the fanzines (which were often irreverent) or because he had three or more stories in an issue. The pseudonym “S. D. Gottesman” reportedly was like Lynyrd Skynyrd, named after a hated school teacher.
And young is right, for some of these stories were written when Cyril was only sixteen. Like Cyril’s friends, his earliest work appears in fanzines but his transition is quick to professional magazines. By 1942 he had cracked John W. Campbell’s Astounding (with Donald A. Wollheim) and began his short career in the Detective Pulps.
1939
“The Pursuit of Crame” (Scienti-Tales, March 1939) reprinted in The Phantagraph, March 1945) as Cyril Kornbluth
“The Ill-Advised Abracadabrations of Magus Heslich” (Cosmic Tales, March 1939)
“The Rocket of 1955” (Escape, #2, August 1939) (as Cyril Kornbluth) reprinted in Stirring Science Stories, April 1941 (as Cecil Corwin) and Worlds Beyond, February 1951
“A Funny Article on the Convention” (Escape #3, September 1939) was Kornbluth’s take on the First World Science Fiction Convention in 1939
1940
“Ye Fantasie Bookes” (The Science Fiction Fan, March 1940)
“The Song of the Rocket” (Super Science Stories, March 1940) as by Gabriel Barclay – The Barclay house name would later be used by Manly Wade Wellman
“Stepsons of Mars” (Astonishing Stories, April 1940) with Richard Wilson and Dirk Wylie as Ivar Towers
“King Cole of Pluto” (Super Science Stories, May 1940) as S. D. Gottesman
“Grave” (The Phantagraph, May 1940)
“Stone” (The Phantagraph, May 1940)
“The Indefatigible Minimum” (The Phantagraph, June 1940) as by S. D. Gottesman
“Before the Universe” (Super Science Stories, July 1940) as S. D. Gottesman
“The Return of the Indefatigible Minimum” (The Phantagraph August 1940) as by S. D. Gottesman
“Nova Midplane” (Super Science Stories, November 1940) with Frederik Pohl as S. D. Gottesman
“Trouble in Time” (Astonishing Stories, December 1940) with Frederik Pohl as S. D.Gottesman
“The Martians” (Escape #7, January 1940) as Gabriel Barclay
1941
“Vacant World” (Super Science Stories, January 1941) with Frederik Pohl and Dirk Wylie as Dirk Wylie
“Dead Center” (Stirring Science Stories, February 1941) as S. D. Gottesman
“Thirteen O’Clock” (Stirring Science Stories, February 1941) as Cecil Corwin
“New Directions” (Cosmic Stories March 1941) as by Walter C. Davies
“Return From M-15” (Cosmic Stories, March 1941) as S. D. Gottesman
“The Martians Are Coming” (Cosmic Stories, March 1941) with Robert A. W. Lowdnes and Donald A. Wollheim as Robert W. Lowdnes
“The Reversible Revolutions” (Cosmic Stories, March 1941) as Cecil Corwin
“The Psychological Regulator” (Comet Stories, March 1941) as Arthur Cooke
“Sir Mallory’s Magnitude” (Science Fiction Quarterly, Winter 1941) as S. D. Gottesman
“The Castle on Outerplanet” (Stirring Science Stories, April 1941) with Robert A. W. Lowdnes and Frederik Pohl as S. D. Gottesman
“A Prince of Pluto” (Future Fiction, April 1941) with Frederik Pohl as Paul Dennis Lavond
“Exiles of the New Planet” (Astonishing Stories, April 1941) with Robert A. W. Lowdnes and Frederik Pohl as Paul Dennis Lavond
“Best Friend” (Super Science Novels, May 1941) with Frederik Pohl as S. D. Gottesman
“So You Want to Be a Space-Flier?” (Cosmic Stories, May 1941) with Donald A. Wollheim as by Martin Pearson
“Dimension of Darkness” (Cosmic Stories, May 1941) as S. D. Gottesman
“No Place to Go” (Cosmic Stories, May 1941) as Edward J. Bellin
“What Sorghum Says” (Cosmic Stories, May 1941) as Cecil Corwin
“Callistan Tomb” (Science Fiction Quarterly, Spring 1941) with Frederik Pohl as Paul Dennis Lavond
“Forgotten Tongue” (Stirring Science Stories, June 1941) as Walter C. Davies
“Kazam Collects” (Stirring Science Stories, June 1941) as S. D. Gottesman
“Mr. Packer Goes to Hell” (Stirring Science Stories, June 1941) as Cecil Corwin
“The Words of Guru” as Kenneth Falconer (Stirring Science Stories, June 1941) reprinted Avon Fantasy Reader, No. 5
“Fire Power” (Cosmic Stories, July 1941) as S. D. Gottesman
“Interference” (Cosmic Stories, July 1941) as Walter C. Davies
“The City in the Sofa” (Cosmic Stories, July 1941) as Cecil Corwin
“Mars-Tube” (Astonishing Stories, September 1941) with Frederik Pohl as S. D. Gottesman
1942
“Error in Guinea Pigs” (10 Story Mystery Magazine February 1942) as by Walter C. Davies
“Masquerade” (Stirring Science Stories, March 1942) as Kenneth Falconer
“The Golden Road” (Stirring Science Stories, March 1942) as Cecil Corwin
“The Perfect Invasion” (Stirring Science Stories, March 1942) as S. D. Gottesman
“Segment” (The Phantagraph, March 1942)
“The Embassy” (Astounding Science-Fiction March 1942) with Donald A. Wollheim as by Martin Pearson
“Crisis” (Science Fiction Quarterly, Spring 1942) as S. D. Gottesman
“Einstein’s Planetoid” (Science Fiction Quarterly, Spring 1942) with Robert A. W. Lowdnes and Frederik Pohl as Paul Dennis Lavond
“The Core” (Future Combined with Science Fiction, April 1942) as S. D. Gottesman
“The Objective Approach” (The Phantagraph, May 1942) as Cecil Corwin
“An Old Neptunian Custom” (Super Science Stories, August 1942) with Frederik Pohl as Scott Mariner
“The Extrapolated Dimwit” (Future Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1942) with Robert A. W. Lowdnes and Frederik Pohl as S. D. Gotteman
1943
“Cure for Killers” (10 Story Mystery Magazine February 1943) with Frederik Pohl as by Scott Mariner
1944
“Chant of the Black Magicians” (The Phantagraph, November 1944)
Conclusion
Cyril would not write another story until “Beer Bottle Polka” (Black Mask, September 1946). He spent 1943-1945 in the army, where he lugged a machine gun around the Ardennes Forest in the Battle of Bulge. This strain on his heart would ultimately kill him in 1958. But C. M. Kornbluth had many more stories to write, including The Space Merchants with Fred Pohl.
Next time: 1946-1958
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