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Joachim Boaz

@joachimboaz.bsky.social

1K followers 160 following 2.1K posts

History PhD. Defender of Liberal Arts. History of Leftist Thought. Joachim Boaz (he/him) maps the topography of science fiction between 1945-1985. Creator of the fanzine Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations: https://sciencefictionruminations.com/

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 2d

New fanzine post: What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading? + The Power of the List

Come join the discussion: sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/10/12/w...

What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading? + Update No. XXVI

A selection of read volumes from my shelves What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading or planning to read next month? Here’s the August installment of this column. The Power of the List. I ador…

sciencefictionruminations.com

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Reposted by Joachim Boaz

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 5h

Uncredited interior map depicting a flooded UK in 3000 C.E. from Richard Cowper's novel Road to Corlay (1978)
#scifi #sciencefiction

Map showing the Seven Kingdoms circa A.D. 3000. The UK is flooded and broken into small islands due to the rising sea levels.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 4h

New history purchase. Jennifer Dominique Jones’ Ambivalent Affinities: A Political History of Blackness & Homosexuality after World War II (2023)

#history #books

Photo shows the book and a pencil on a desk. Cover is Lyle Ashton Harris’ photo Americas (Triptych) (1987-1988)

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 5h

I wrote about the book here: sciencefictionruminations.com/2019/04/01/b...

Book Review: The Road to Corlay, Richard Cowper (1978)

(Gary Viskupic’s cover for the 1979 edition) 3.75/5 (Good) Nominated for the 1980 Nebula Award for Best Novel Richard Cowper’s The Road to Corlay (1978) charts the ethereal pastoral wan…

sciencefictionruminations.com

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 5h

Uncredited interior map depicting a flooded UK in 3000 C.E. from Richard Cowper's novel Road to Corlay (1978)
#scifi #sciencefiction

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 5h

Virgil Finlay's interior art for Robert Bloch's "Slave of the Flames" in Weird Tales (June 1938)
#art #weirdfiction #fantasy

"Everybody was so excited. Why didn't they watch this pretty thing while they could!"

Man's head, who I assume is thinking the quote above, is amongst the flames. There are people behind him screaming, a burning city, and a worried face.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 18h

I have zero interest debating definitions of science fiction (and genre).

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 23h

....although I'd have browse (can't, at work) to see when the later versions (in the thread) of some of those banners appeared.

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 23h

I think the first banner -- Scientifacts -- is M. Marchioni as he's the primary early interior artist and it appears in the second issue. If I were to guess, again, no evidence, I suggest the others are Wesso. He appears in the second year of the magazine.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 23h

Nope.

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

If you want to read the columns below the banners -- here's an electronic copy of the magazine: archive.org/details/Thri...

Thrilling Wonder Stories v21n02 (1941 12) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Thrilling Wonder Stories v21n02 (1941 12)

archive.org

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

December 1941 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories, ed. Oscar J. Friend

#scifi #sciencefiction #art

Banner: The Reader Speaks. The letters mimic the flow of speech. There is a man speaking -- the words flow from his mouth. There is a SF city behind the letters.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

December 1941 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories, ed. Oscar J. Friend

#scifi #sciencefiction #art

BANNER: Looking Forward. The letters are dynamically placed to mimic the trajectory of a rocket. There are rockets and a nice SF pulp city behind the letters.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

December 1941 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories, ed. Oscar J. Friend

#scifi #sciencefiction #art

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY. Man with pipe writes at a typewriter with a fantastic pulp SF world is behind him.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

I'm a sucker for a gorgeous SF magazine banner. This thread is from the December 1941 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories, ed. Oscar J. Friend

#scifi #sciencefiction #art

Banner: SCIENTIFACTS. Incredible but true.

Banner is a composite image with various animals, spaceships, planets, people, in an angled checkerboard pattern.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

In my relentless search for the esoteric, I have reviewed both of the books above:

A Time For Survival (1966) sciencefictionruminations.com/2020/05/17/s...

The Day of the Coastwatch (1968) sciencefictionruminations.com/2024/11/06/s...

Short Book Reviews: Lisa Goldstein’s A Mask for the General (1987) and Philip McCutchan’s The Day of the Coastwatch (1968)

Note: My read but “waiting to be reviewed pile” is growing. Short rumination/tangents/impressions are a way to get through the stack before my memory and will fades. My website partially serve…

sciencefictionruminations.com

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

Philip McCutchan (1920-1996) was born on this day. Speculative fiction bibliography: www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.c...

L, uncredited, 1968; R, uncredited, 1966
#scifi #sciencefiction #books

Cover for The Day of the Coast Watch. Cover shows a map of the UL with various stations that protect the coast.

Cover for A Time for Survival. Beyond the title, there's an explosion (a reference to the nuclear explosion in the novel).

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

isfdb.stoecker.eu/cgi-bin/ea.c...

Summary Bibliography: Mick van Houten

isfdb.stoecker.eu

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

I mean, I guess… Dean is a bit more fantastical. Look through Van Houten’s covers — there’s a simple realism to the trees and mountains etc. even if it gives off an Otherworldly vibe.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

I also should have said 1st paperback edition (Panther/Granada). It is not the 1st hardback edition (received a hideous yellow Gollancz "cover"). Alas.

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

I also should have said 1st paperback edition. It is not the 1st hardback edition. Alas.

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

I think each press licenses the cover -- many presses reuse the covers for later editions. This book received different editions with different covers: www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/titl...

Title: The Book of the River

www.isfdb.org

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Reposted by Joachim Boaz

Cris van Eijk @crisveijk.bsky.social · 1d

Like, the way P.L. Prattis (writing in the Pittsburgh Courier, 23 Dec 1961) frames space as antiracism as democracy as geopolitical critique is absolute poetry!!

1 of 3 screenshots of 'Horizons' by P.L. Prattis, writing in the Pittsburgh Courier on 23 Dec 1961.

Horizon
By P. L. Prattis
Outer Space

"MORE AND MORE as the years descend upon me, I become concerned with the nature or this white man with whom I live and must have my being. Long, long ago, he caused me to distrust him. I needed little sense of discernment to discover that where I was concerned, the ideals professed by whites meant little. There has always been a minority of whites who are true Christians and include me in their devotion to the Golden Rule.

But I know that there is larger group which doesn't, and that the largest segment or whites is unconcerned about me and my people."

"Even so, I'll get by. At present, I am thinking of the efforts to line up nations in the United Nations to take a position that no nation should have a special claim in Outer space."

"Thus, whatever values outer space may have to Russia should be shared with us and all other nations. There must be no Monroe Doctrine in outer space. "Who gets there fastest with the mostest" must have no application to outer space. The assumption, of course, is that if we had discovered that our exploration of outer space gave us certain advantages over Russia, we would share these advantages with all other nations, just like we did not do with the atom bomb."

"I cannot buy such an assumption. I know that WHITE MAN, the Anglo-Saxon American, will take what he calls a "tech" wherever he can find one."

Thus, when I try to use a so-called white waiting room at a bus stop in Alabama or Mississippi, I'll be arrested and thrown into jail for "breach of peace." Or, in most sections in Maryland, if I seek food in a public restaurant, I'll be seized and jailed for trespassing. This is a pure dodge and technicality. But this is how MY WHITE MAN works. He takes advantage of all existing "techs" to have his way, and if he does not have any ready-made "techs," he hastens to the legislature to fabricate some.

So, anti-Communist though I am, I think Senator Eastland will find me grinning when Adlai Stevenson tries to induce the United Nations to adopt our outer space objectives.

If Russia leaches the moon first, we don't want her to stake out a claim. Of course, this is a diversionary tactic. If we reach the Moon first, we'll change our minds - all of a sudden convincing ourselves that it is our God-given responsibility to establish democracy on the moon. I go along with that."

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

Mick van Houten's cover art detail for the 1st edition of Ian Watson's The Book of the River (1985)

#scifi #sciencefiction #art

A ship sails a river with steep mountainous banks. There are trees in the foreground and mist in the background.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

"Parent wants a meeting."

🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 4d

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

I enjoyed this collection: sciencefictionruminations.com/2014/08/20/b...