More Fun With Theodore Cogswell

The Third Eye
A collection of short stories
by Theodore Cogswell
p. 1968







[There is absolutely no story in this book that includes a giant, green, glob with one eye... God I love sixties sci-fi covers.]

Last summer I read a collection of short stories under the title The Wall Around the World, the first collection by science fiction author, Theodore Cogswell, and was so unexpectedly charmed by his sense of humor and style that I couldn’t possibly pass up an opportunity to get my hands on more of his work. When his second short story anthology, The Third Eye, presented itself to me, I was eager to read it.

In The Third Eye, Cogswell employed that same sly, playful attitude he used to delightful effect in The Wall Around the World. I was expecting it this time, but it did not disappoint. Cogswell strikes me as the kind of guy who would have been really a real hoot to hang out with, as he never seems to take things too seriously. Even the most serious stories of Cogswell’s aren’t without their hint of the absurd. It's refreshing to read something like this from a sixties science fiction writer, because so many of those I read tend to take themselves very seriously, and it's nice to see someone poke fun at the genre every now and then.

My favorite stories are probably “Machine Record,” in which a mad scientist carries on a comedic dialogue with his assistant as he struggles with his chosen line of work, and “A Spudget for Thwilbert,” a lighthearted tale of unexpected fortune when two swindlers try to screw over a hapless galactic traveler by foisting their unusable diet product on him.

My only complaint about this copy of The Third Eye is that it was horribly edited. I personally noticed several typos, and on at least two occasions, the wrong name was used, possibly because Cogswell initially had another name lined up for a character then changed it later, only to miss one. It didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the stories, but it did take me out of them for a bit.

Post perusal of this second piece of work by what I had hoped would be my new favorite sci-fi author, I was disappointed to discover that Cogswell only ever released two collections. Aside from a random “Star Trek” novel which I have no interest in delving into, the only work I will be able to find by Cogswell now will be individual, unreleased short stories among the forty or so he has supposedly written. At this point I must have read half of his legacy and as Cogswell passed away in 1987, there won’t be any more. It’s a shame he has never written a full length novel, as I would very much like to see that. I suppose I’ll just have to find comparable authors to enjoy instead.

Eleven Reasons to Take a Valium

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness
by Richard Yates
p. 1962 (Stories written between 1951 and 1961)

It was the title that snagged me; I had never heard of Richard Yates, though I realized later, I’d heard of at least one of his novels, if only because it had been made into a movie a few years back—Revolutionary Road (which famously reunited Titanic costars DiCaprio and Winslet in a much different setting). This collection of short stories, released one year after the aforementioned novel, is a simple yet introspective reflection on the mundane life of 1950s Americans, and in my subsequent research on Yates’ legacy, I’ve come to understand that it not only embodies the spirit of what is known as the “Age of Anxiety,” but that Yates is generally regarded as the type of author that authors love... and one who is criminally under-read.

I’ll talk about this Age of Anxiety thing first, as that is a concept that was unfamiliar to me, and it guides a lot of my views on Yates’ collection. The term comes from a W.H. Auden poem (and later the Leonard Bernstein symphony upon which it was based). From what I understand, it refers to an era from the 1940s on when American society was unsettled, tense, trying to find their footing but feeling displaced in an increasingly industrialized world.

Well, I suppose there were a lot of things to feel tense about in the 1950s. Fresh off of one war and finding ourselves in another, the implementation of nuclear technology and the subsequent Cold War atmosphere, McCarthyism and Red Scare, and the wave of technology designed to bring us closer but irrevocably driving us further apart.

Unlike my beloved pulp sci-fi novels, which capitalize on Cold War fear and technological advances to create tension and intrigue, Yates’ work focuses more on the domestic—the subtle ways in which these changes affect our every day lives. The recurring theme in these eleven stark tales is, of course, loneliness, but not so much of the literal kind as the alone-in-a-crowd kind. I found that often times the central figure to each story (and almost all of the stories were told from a perspective outside of the subject) was someone with ‘vision,’ someone who possesses unique if unpopular traits that Yates believed should be more widely appreciated. It is a retrospective on the American Dream—not on the bright, shining possibilities and Land of Opportunity dogma you always hear about—but on what comes after, when you realize that perhaps that American Dream was not all it was cracked up to be and you must now struggle to find your place in a changing world that doesn’t care about your dreams.

If that sounds depressing then I’m doing it right, because these were eleven ridiculously depressing tales with very little relief. Seriously, I couldn’t read more than one in a single sitting because I needed to take a break for something lighter.

What makes it so much worse is that reading about the Age of Anxiety—fear of constant war, of religious fundamentalism, of out of touch politicians running things, of degradation of society, of a crumbling environment, of technology isolating us even while it ‘unites’ us—you realize that all of these things are as alarmingly applicable to today’s society as they were then. Sure, some of the details have changed, but the loneliness prevails. I need only look at my friends and family struggling with unemployment and displacement after decades of hard work—or at myself even, 26 and working a job unsuited to my own ‘dreams’ and aspirations—and I realize that we’re still deeply embedded in our own version of the Age of Anxiety. Perhaps reading Yates’ eleven tales of lonely people in a lonely world is so very depressing because it hits all too close to home.

I can’t say that Richard Yates’ writing style resonated with me—the prose is spartan and not very poetic, and he relies a bit too heavily on the cliched Italian-American ‘New Yawkah’ dialect but in spite of this the characters are deeply drawn and for the first time since this project of mine began, I can say I’ve encountered the first example of a story written in the 1950s that presented women as complex characters, perhaps not quite equal to men, but nonetheless relatively positive in their representation. The pulp sci-fi authors who think they’re doing women a favor by including them in the action could have learned a lesson or two from Yates about giving them a soul and a voice, but sadly, as I’ve come to find out, Yates wasn’t appreciated in his own time. He never sold more than 12,000 copies of any of his first editions and wasn’t recognized until after his death. He’s still not widely recognized today, which is a shame, because while his writing is simplistic, his ideas are far from such.

Many Thanks to the Woman Who Dumped Harlan Ellison for Inspiring This Collection

I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream *
by Harlan Ellison
p. 1967

This collection of short stories was my first introduction to science fiction writer, Harlan Ellison, lent to me by a friend who knew I would enjoy Ellison’s style. Indeed, the man does have a certain offbeat approach to science fiction which focuses on the characters over setting and plot. Ellison is not afraid to disgust his readers, to challenge them to form opinions on his writing. The titular story—which details the horrific, torturous lives of the five remaining humans in the wasteland reality that was the result of a vengeful supercomputer taking over the world—is an ugly, violent picture of a dystopian future of our own doing. In each of his stories, Ellison is nothing if not insistent that we bring our greatest pain on ourselves.

My favorite story of the bunch was “Delusion for a Dragonslayer,” the dreamlike account of a man’s immediate entry into the afterlife after living an unfulfilled life. Upon arrival, he is given the opportunity to achieve the more eminent life he’s always coveted, but only upon completion of a quest... which he promptly fails in a hilarious rejection of convention that I was not expecting. It’s only then he is confronted with the reality of his failures in life as the ‘dream’ turns into a hellish nightmare. I particularly liked the unusual intro to this story, a list of unplanned and peculiar deaths reminiscent of the protagonist's own untimely demise.

If I had one complaint about Ellison’s collection presented here, it’s that almost every single story in the bunch had a female character who betrayed the male protagonist or at the very least failed to love him. As a consequence, the female characters—even if they did nothing to deserve it—are frequently abused, verbally or physically, and not given much care or consideration, much less characterization. It’s hard not to wonder how much of Ellison’s true character is peeking through in these depictions; if I had to hazard a guess I’d say Ellison’s own experience with feminine betrayal inspired a great deal of these stories.

Ellison had the unique habit of preceding every story in this book—and the collection as a whole—with his own personal introductions, a little slice into the mind of the man poised above the typewriter. I found them to be a little cheesy but it was interesting to get an idea of what Ellison was all about when he conceived of each story. Near the end, he mentions that some people hate the intros, some people abide them, and a select few absolutely love them and wish he would write an entire book just using his real voice. As I generally liked his self-deprecating and conversational style, I probably would the idea of some sort of creative nonfiction book by Ellison, assuming he had an interesting story to tell and not one about the bitch who double-crossed and abandoned him. Otherwise, that might get a little tedious. Until then, I will stick to his detours into the darker side of science fiction.

* Bonus points for the best title I've ever seen on a pulp sci-fi novel. As soon as Zach told me what this book was called I knew I had to read it for myself.

Harry Potter and the Supplemental Mythological Material

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

By J.K. Rowling
p. 2008

It took me an awful long time to get around to picking this book up, even after my roommate lent it to me and it sat on my dresser for months. I needn’t have put off J.K. Rowling’s supplemental addition to her famous Harry Potter series, seeing as it took me about 45 minutes to read the entire thing. I guess it could have been my way of prolonging the magic of Harry Potter by putting it off as long as possible... but more likely it’s because I had no idea what to expect from this book.

Picking up on a pretty important plot point from the final book in her series, Rowling’s small collection of witch and wizard fairy tales is a reflection of Grimm fairy tales in the human world, with the centerpiece tale being that of the three brothers, as told in The Deathly Hallows. The fable recounts an encounter that three brothers had with Death after avoiding him while crossing a river. Death coyly offers them gifts for besting him and they respectively request a wand that can win any duel (the Elder wand that appears in the series), a stone that can bring anyone back from the dead, and a cloak of invisibility which one can use to hide from Death. The first two backfire, naturally, and Death claims his victims anyway, but the third brother manages to evade Death until old age when he joins him willingly in peace. This tale, like the others in the collection, offer up not-so-foreign ideals and lessons applicable to more than just a wizard, despite its ‘target audience.’

Supposedly the collection is a new translation by our very own Hermione Granger, but following each selection is a lengthy (and a tad boastful) interpretation of the fable by none other than Albus Dumbledore (supposedly his notes were found posthumously by Headmistress McGonagall and allowed to be published alongside his pupil’s translations). The tales themselves read as fables do, but it’s the discussion material by Dumbledore that offers new insight into the world Rowling painstakingly crafted. Connections are made between ‘wizarding history’ and our history, making the whole thing feel relevant and relatable.

I found it rather refreshing and commendable that Rowling made sure to add a footnote about the difference between heroines in wizarding mythology versus "Muggle" mythology. Whereas the women in our fairy tales often need princes to save them while they lie down and allow things to happen, the women in this collection are much more active about controlling their own fates. It's been a constant disappointment growing up with so few female role models in popular legend. Even these days it's a struggle for girls to find a positive role and it will continue to be until the day when we no longer have to point out the inequality.

Unless you’re a rabid fan of fables and myths, this book is not for people who aren’t fans of Harry Potter. There’s just not enough substance there for it to be a worthy read without the context of the seven books that precede it. The best reason I saw for enjoying this little slice of world-building mythology is that it was nice to feel like the legendary Albus Dumbledore was alive and with us once more, if only for a little while.

The Line Between Science Fiction and Fantasy

The Wall Around the World

by Theodore Cogswell 
p. 1962

Published in 1962, this collection of ten short stories by Theodore Cogswell begins with a pair of introductions by two of his contemporaries. Both introductions seem to focus in particular on the blurry line separating science fiction from fantasy. I wondered why until I read a couple of the stories and realized that was a line Cogswell loved to hover over throughout his line of work. Containing spaceships to vampires to alien planets to flying broomsticks, almost all of his stories could fall into either category and invoke the struggle to define the two. Cogswell probably loved that old maxim, “magic is just unexplained science.”

The lack of distinction between magic and realism is not what made this book unique to me; indeed, I’ve read plenty of ‘science fiction’ stories that could alternatively be labeled as ‘fantasy.’ What stood out most was actually Cogswell’s playful sense of humor. All of his stories have a comical edge and a lighthearted tone that I don’t generally find in his contemporaries. Reading all these fifties and sixties science fiction books I often find myself shaking my head and laughing at some ludicrous plot point or an occasional melodramatic piece of dialogue; with Cogswell, I chuckled because it was a legitimately funny situation or line.

My favorite was probably “The Specter General,” a ‘novelette’ about a long-forgotten unit of the Imperial Space Marines and an ambitious young tech engineer fond of getting into trouble. The story—told in a handful of short chapters alternating between Kurt’s mini-adventure and a Commander in charge of their enemy, the Galactic Protectorate—was a little hard to follow at first, but even before the plot fell in line, I found myself laughing at the military mens’ interactions.

Some of Cogswell’s stories fell flat to me, or evoked an ‘Oh, so that’s where he was going’ when some sort of ‘twist’ developed, not unlike the eye-roll-inducing reaction to the types of jokes your uncle makes. But, for the most part, I found myself entertained by this quick read. The last story in the collection, the titular “Wall Around the World,” was about a boy named Porgie who lived in the city within the Wall but longed to find out what was beyond it. Weirdly, nobody else seemed curious and berated poor Porgie for his eagerness but the world within the Wall was one where magic and flying on broomsticks was commonplace so I guess I can forgive them for thinking things were well enough not to mess with status quo. After all, Harry Potter didn’t go to Hogwarts then graduate and think to himself, “Yes, I think I’ll become an investment broker instead.”

Speaking of Harry Potter, one can’t help but make the connections in their brain between the wizard and Porgie. Both were nice boys who grew up with their aunt and uncle and a quarrelsome bully of a cousin then learned how to fly a broomstick... I’m not saying J.K. Rowling plagiarized because the similarities really end there, but if Cogswell’s short story was any sort of inspiration for the epic series that unfolded more than three decades later, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Space Monkey to the Rescue!

S.O.S. From Three Worlds

by Murray Leinster 
p. 1966 

In much the same way that I sit down with a bowl of homemade popcorn and a friend and watch cheesy disaster movies on SyFy, I anticipate reading old, pulpy science fiction novels from the fifties and sixties. I know they’re going to be corny and melodramatic and, at best, wildly inaccurate, given the limited expanse of knowledge available to writers at the time, but I also enjoy them for these same reasons. Often times, it can be exciting to see what the top minds of the decade were imagining the future to be like. And of course, the cheese factor is also pretty appealing.

It’s the latter that primarily attracted me to Murray Leinster’s S.O.S. From Three Worlds, which I had assumed was a single short novel, but turned out to be a collection of three short stories connected by the same core duo: Calhoun, the human ‘super medic’ from the intergalactic (but evidently short-staffed) Med Service, and his tormal companion, a little monkey-like alien named Murgatroyd—who pilot the Esclipus Twenty, a Med-Ship that tours the galaxy taking distress calls. Despite the fact that only one of the three emergencies Calhoun attends to in this book was an official call (the other two the Esclipus happens upon accidentally), the Med Service seems to be in dire need of employees. And who can blame them? Even paramedics in reality work in pairs and Calhoun’s expected to traverse the galaxy even in emergencies where no one wants his help. I thought that’s what the monkey was for, but then it turns out the tormals are only there because they famously don’t get sick, and are often used to create vaccines for illnesses. In fact, Murgatroyd isn’t even anthropomorphic, as I’d assumed, and can only communicate through a series of multi-toned ‘Chee-chee’s, like an intergalactic Pikachu. At first I thought maybe the monkey was talking in his own language and Calhoun was interpreting for the reader’s sake, but as the story wore on, it became evident that Murgatroyd’s understanding of human interaction was very much affected by whether or not they gave him snacks and coffee, and that he did not, in fact, understand a word they were saying. Knowing that Murgatroyd can understand only body language—and even then in a limited capacity—does not stop Calhoun from conversing with him as if her were an equal conversational contributor, or from interpreting various ‘chee’s as if they were complex analyses, without a hint of irony. For example:

“Chee,” [Murgatroyd] said shrilly.

“To be sure,” agreed Calhoun distastefully. “That is a very sage observation, Murgatroyd. Though I deplore the situation that calls for it. Someone’s bilged on us.”

Murgatroyd liked to think that he was carrying on a conversation. He said zestfully, “Chee-chee! Chee-chee-chee!”

“No doubt,” conceded Calhoun. “But this is a mess! Hop down and let me try to get out of it.”

I kept wondering at what point the book was going to acknowledge that Calhoun’s isolation from society had caused him to personify his animal companion to the point where he essentially began talking to himself... but it never did. In fact, in one of Calhoun and Murgatroyd’s missions, they encounter a planet with three segregated cities that are afraid to interact with one another for fear of contracting some long-ago sickness. Calhoun concludes that their fear is psychological and labels it “Crusoe condition”, brought on by long bouts of isolation and some primitive living situations... The irony is totally lost on him.

I really wish Leinster would have considered this psychological twist, but it would seem that is not the way of these stories. All three follow a pattern: the Esclipus Twenty happens upon a large disaster, Calhoun and Murgatroyd are the only ones who can help, there’s a complication, Calhoun thinks a lot and is kind of cocky in his diagnoses, and subsequently single-handedly solves massive problems of whole planets that no one else could figure out. It strains the bounds of believability, to have such an allegedly under-appreciated hero swoop in with a miracle revelation that any basic medical professional should be able to figure out, but the seventies always were kind of indulgent and exaggerated. I think the appeal in this story lies more in the fact that paramedics were uncommon, and kind of a novel idea back then, much less so today now that they are standard.

Since Leinster isn’t in the medical field himself, none of the emergencies are particularly complex, and since Calhoun is apparently a genius who is always right when everyone else doubts, there are no moral ambiguities for the reader to wade through either. I had [wrongly] assumed that the three emergencies would crop up at the same time, resulting in some tough calls for Calhoun based on immediacy and urgency, but since they were separate stories, that didn’t happen either. The result is that S.O.S. from Three Worlds is largely dull fiction, with very little real conflict or characterization. Calhoun is a dud, Murgatroyd is a chirping tool and the whole story is far more boring than “a man and a monkey-alien zoom around the galaxy solving medical crises!” should conceivably be. For shame! And I had such high hopes...