Here you’ll find fanzines from 4sj, Doc Lowndes, J. Michael Rosenblum,
Bob Tucker, Jack Speer, Larry Shaw, F. T. Laney and other stalwarts of
1943 fandom. There are FAPAzines, newszines, and letterzines. There is
fannish artwork, and fannish poetry. There’s even the first publication
of Lovecraft’s “Funghi From Yuggoth”. Fanzines which meet the issue
requirements for Best Fanzine are so marked. We hope you enjoy the
material, and nominate in support of the Retro Hugos.

The link is: http://fanac.org/fanzines/Retro_Hugos1943.html

If you have additional material for this list or corrections, write to
fanac@fanac.org

The post Diving deeper into 1943 fandom appeared first on Dublin 2019.

There is a raft of other categories beyond fiction and dramatic presentations in which work from 1943 can be nominated for the Retro Hugos that will be awarded this August in Dublin. As with previous posts, the items listed below are being offered as a guide, but readers are free to nominate such other eligible works or persons from 1943 as their researches uncover.

Comics

Comics have sometimes been a bit of a problem category for the Retro Hugos. Lots of people like comics and lots of comics were published in years eligible for Retro Hugo recognition, but many 1940s comics were extremely ephemeral, never reprinted and only read in more recent years by serious collectors. There are online databases containing scans of vintage comics now in the public domain, notably Comic Book Plus and the Digital Comic Museum, but they are a bit terrifying in the amount of material they offer. The Digital Comic Museum unfortunately does not have an obvious means of searching its database by year, but Comic Book Plus does at least allow readers to see comics published month by month in 1943. If readers start here they will see comics books whose precise 1943 cover date is unknown. Clicking on next brings up January 1943 comics, and so on. Comics here can be downloaded (after registering) or viewed online. So, trawling there might uncover comics worth nominating, but beware: many big comics of the era are still in copyright and are not included in Comic Book Plus (or indeed in the Digital Comics Museum). Batman and Superman appeared in a variety of titles and formats in 1943 but neither of them are to be found in these datasets.

Another comic that is not in either of those databases, presumably because it remains in copyright, is The Victory Garden, which appeared in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #31. This sees a popular anthropomorphic duck’s attempts to grow vegetables being thwarted by some greedy crows. The Victory Garden is noteworthy as the first Donald Duck comic drawn by Carl Barks. Carl Barks also gave us The Mummy’s Ring (originally appearing in Four Color Comics #29) in which Donald and his nephews find themselves caught up in Egyptological adventures.

Wonder Woman and Plastic Man have appeared separately in two 1943 comics that have received some praise. In Battle for Womanhood (created by William Moulton Marston and Harry G. Peter for All-American Publications and appearing in Wonder Woman #5) Wonder Woman faces up against Dr. Psycho, who attempts to undermine the US war effort by impersonating George Washington and warning against the employment of women in war industries. Plastic Man and the Game of Death (by Jack Cole for Quality Comics) sees the stretchable superhero take on a death cult, Japanese spies (with the usual problematic stereotyping), and cowboys in a series of bizarre adventures.

Newspaper strips were an important part of the comics firmament in 1943. The year saw the conclusion of the Flash Gordon series Fiery Desert of Mongo (by Alex Raymond for King Features Syndicate). Two Buck Rogers strips concluded this year, Martians Invade Jupiter and Mechanical Bloodhound (both by Dick Calkins for National Newspaper Syndicate); these were subsequently collected as Volume 9 of the Buck Rogers In The 25th Century: Dailies

The Brick Bradford newspaper strip On the Throne of Titania, created by Clarence Gray and William Ritt for the Central Press Association, finished its run of more than two years in 1943. Like Flash Gordon, Brick Bradford started life as a Buck Rogers knock-off before embarking on his own adventures, travelling through both time and space, eventually becoming better known in Europe than in the USA. As well as the daily strips, Gray and Ritt also produced a weekly Brick Bradford strip for the Sunday newspapers, with The Men Of The North and Ultrasphere both finishing in 1943.

1943 also saw the conclusion of the Sunday newspaper strip John Carter of Mars, adapted by John Coleman Burroughs from his father’s books and distributed by United Feature Syndicate. The strip was less successful than Rice Burroughs’ novels and was sadly cancelled in midstream in March 1943.

A more popular newspaper strip in 1943 was Prince Valiant, created by Hal Foster for King Features Syndicate. Readers may have encountered Fantagraphics’ reprints of Prince Valiant, volume 4 of which includes stories from 1943. Little Orphan Annie (by Harold Gray, for Tribune Media Services) was also widely read.

In 1943 as now comics were not just being published in the Anglophone world. In Nazi-occupied Belgium, Hergé was writing Tintin comics, with Secret of the Unicorn published in book form by Casterman and its sequel Red Rackham’s Treasure serialised in Le Soir. Unlike some other Tintin titles, neither of these deal particularly with science fictional or explicitly fantastic themes, yet there is a strange outlandishness to all of Tintin’s adventures that could slide them into Hugo eligibility.

Another noteworthy Belgian comic of 1943 is Le Rayon U (translated much later into English as The U Ray) by Edgar P. Jacobs (more famous for his subsequent Blake & Mortimer comics). Le Rayon U appeared in the pages of Bravo and is a fantasy/science fiction tale in the Flash Gordon mould, which it was produced to replace, as the US entry into the war meant that Flash Gordon comics could no longer be imported into Europe.

Best Professional Artist

As with the contemporary Hugos, professional science fiction and fantasy artists of 1943 are eligible for Retro Hugo recognition. Many of these saw their work appearing on the covers of the era’s magazines, samples of which can be seen at the links below:

A. R. Tilburne: Weird Tales, January 1943, Weird Tales, September 1943, & Weird Tales, November 1943

Earle K. Bergey: Startling Stores, June 1943 Captain Future, Summer 1943, & Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1943

George Gross: Jungle Stories, April 1943, Jungle Stories, February 1943, & Jungle Stories, Summer 1943

George Rozen: Planet Stories, Fall 1943 & Planet Stories, May 1943

Harold W. McCauley: Amazing Stories, May 1943, Fantastic Stories, May 1943, & Fantastic Adventures, June 1943

J. Allen St. John: Amazing Stories, January 1943 & Amazing Stories, February 1943

Jerome Rozen: Planet Stories, March 1943

Lawrence: Famous Fantastic Mysteries: December 1943

Margaret Brundage: Weird Tales, May 1943

Milton Luros: Astonishing Stories, February 1943, Future Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1943, & Science Fiction, July 1943

Robert Fuqua: Amazing Stories, March 1943, Amazing Stories, April 1943, & Amazing Stories, August 1943

Robert Gibson Jones: Fantastic Adventures, February 1943, Fantastic Adventures, March 1943, & Amazing Stories, November 1943

Virgil Finlay: Famous Fantastic Mysteries, March 1943, Super Science Stories, February 1943, & Super Science Stories, May 1943

William Timmins: Astounding Science Fiction, February 1943, Astounding Science Fiction, June 1943, & Astounding Science Fiction, October 1943

Of course, not all artists got to do covers in 1943. Artists who only did interior art this year include Alex Schomburg, Edd Cartier, Frank R. Paul, H. W. Wesso, Hannes Bok, & Hubert Rogers. Readers may have encountered some of their 1943 work.

Mervyn Peake would subsequently gain a measure of fame as the author of the Gormenghast novels, but in 1943 he was attempting to earn a living as an artist. His illustrations for an edition of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner could perhaps earn him a Retro Hugo.

Children’s book illustrations might also be the kind of thing that appeals to Retro Hugo nominators. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry‘s own illustrations for The Little Prince are a big part of that book’s appeal. Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree would not be the same without Dorothy M. Wheeler‘s illustrations.

Editors

There are two editor categories in which people can be nominated for Retro Hugos, short form and long form. In the short form category, the nominee must have edited at least four (4) anthologies, collections, or magazine issues (or their equivalent in other media) primarily devoted to science fiction and/or fantasy, at least one of which was published in 1943. In the long form category, the nominee must have edited at least four (4) novel-length works primarily devoted to science fiction and/or fantasy published in 1943; they must also not have qualified in the short form category.

Your guess frankly is as good as mine with regard to the long form editor category. In the short form category there are however a great many people to choose from. Science fiction was still something that people experienced primarily in periodical magazines, whose editors played a vital role in developing the genre. Some eligible editors of 1943 periodicals and anthologies include:

Alden H. Norton, editor of Super Science Stories

Dorothy McIlwraith, editor of Weird Tales

John W. Campbell Jr., editor of Astounding Science Fiction & Unknown Worlds

Malcolm Reiss, editor of Jungle Stories

Mary Gnaedinger, editor of Famous Fantastic Mysteries

Oscar J. Friend, editor of Thrilling Wonder Stories

Raymond A. Palmer, editor of Amazing Stories & Fantastic Adventures

Robert A. W. Lowndes, editor of Science Fiction Stories

W. Scott Peacock, editor of Planet Stories

Donald A. Wollheim‘s editing career meanwhile saw him compiling the The Pocket Book of Science Fiction in 1943.

Fan categories

As with the regular Hugos, a variety of fan publishing activities from 1943 are eligible for Retro Hugo awards. There was probably nothing in that year eligible in the Best Fancast category, as few science fiction fans had their own radio stations, but by 1943 the explosion of fandom meant that there is plenty of material that could now be honoured in the Best Fanzine, Best Fan Writer, and Best Fan Artist categories. There might also be an overlap between the Best Fanzine and Best Semiprozine categories.

Fan produced material is almost by its very nature ephemeral and there are probably few Hugo Award nominators who have an extensive collection of fanzines from 1943. However, this in no way prevents people from nominating material from that year. The Fanac Fan History Project collects scans of old fan publications and has posted up links to Retro Hugo eligible zines published in 1943. Browsing here may well throw up items worth nominating in all of the fan categories. Even people who have no interest in nominating for the Retro Hugos will I think find the Fanac Fan History Project a fascinating window into the history of fandom.

The post More Retro Hugo categories: comics, art, editors and fandom appeared first on Dublin 2019.

As with the contemporary Hugos, dramatic works are also eligible for nomination to receive Retro Hugos awards. In Dublin Retro Hugos will be awarded for works appearing in 1943. There are two categories for dramatic presentations: long (over 90 minutes) and short (under 90 minutes). In both cases, eligible works must be productions in any medium of dramatized science fiction, fantasy, or related subjects that has been publicly presented for the first time in its present dramatic form during 1943. This discussion of potentially eligible works is intended as an assistance to Retro Hugo nominators and is not an endorsement of any of the listed works; readers may well find that their own researches throw up other eligible works more to their taste.

These days films and TV programmes dominate the dramatic categories, which is unsurprising given their global reach. Stage productions are however also eligible in these categories, even if the smaller number of people who can see them makes it much harder for them to win. As noted above, this year’s Retro Hugos will of course be awarded in Dublin. The Irish film industry of the 1940s was relatively small and not particularly focussed on science fiction and fantasy, so it is unlikely that a local film will win either of the dramatic categories. However, two eligible plays were premièred in Dublin in 1943, both written by Flann O’Brien (better known as a novelist or for the surreal humour pieces he wrote as Myles na gCopaleen for The Irish Times). Faustus Kelly appeared on the Abbey Stage and is an updating of the Faust myth, telling of an Irish local politician who sells his soul to the Devil so that he can become a member of the Dáil, Ireland’s national parliament. Rhapsody in Stephen’s Green (also known as The Insect Play) was staged in the Gaiety Theatre and is an adaptation of a play by Josef and Karel Čapek (of robot fame); in this work O’Brien uses a world of anthropomorphised insects to satirise his Irish contemporaries. Sadly, both these plays finished after short runs and it is unlikely that many Retro-Hugo nominators have seen them performed.

Another play that premièred in 1943 was Les Mouches (in English, The Flies) by future Nobel laureate Jean-Paul Sartre. Performed in Paris under German occupation at the Théâtre de la Cité, the play is a retelling of the myth of Elektra and Orestes killing their mother Clytemnestra and her lover to avenge their murder of Agamemnon, their father.

Science fiction pictures as we know them now were still relatively rare in 1943. However, horror films provide a rich vein of Retro Hugo eligible material, admittedly of variable quality. Universal brought out another version of The Phantom of the Opera, with Arthur Lubin directing Claude Rains in the title role. Somewhat unusually for horror films of the era, this film was awarded Academy Awards in the cinematography and art direction categories. At just over 90 minutes it is eligible for the long form dramatic Retro Hugo.

Universal also brought out the short Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, directed by Roy William Neill. This was the first of their films to feature an encounter between two of their monsters. Lon Chaney Jr. reprised his role as the Wolf Man while Bela Lugosi finally played Frankenstein’s Monster, a role he had famously turned down when the 1931 Frankenstein was being cast. Chaney also appeared in the Universal short films Calling Dr. Death (directed by Reginald LeBorg), a lost memory murder mystery, and Son of Dracula (directed by Robert Siodmak), in which he took on Lugosi’s Dracula role. By 1943 Lugosi meanwhile was ageing, but he still managed to play another vampire role in Columbia’s short Return of the Vampire (directed by Lew Landers) and The Ape Man (a short for Banner Pictures, directed by William Beaudine), in which he plays a scientist who transforms into an ape-man hybrid following some ethically dubious experiments.

The short films produced by Val Lewton for RKO Radio Pictures and edited and/or directed by Mark Robson make for an interesting horror subset. These display an aesthetic sensibility that both looks forward to the emerging film noir genre and back to the German expressionist cinema of the 1920s. Directed by Jacques Tourneur and edited by Robson, the highly-regarded I Walked With A Zombie deals with the zombies of the Voodoo tradition and not the flesh eating reanimated corpses popularised by later films. Tourneur also directed The Leopard Man, whose title suggests that it is a companion piece with his superlative Cat People of 1942; although the film does indeed feature the same black leopard as its predecessor, it takes a different tack and sadly does not involve human-leopard hybrids. The Ghost Ship, directed by Mark Robson, is more straightforwardly psychological horror, barely relevant to Retro Hugo nominators, though its claustrophobic setting and disorienting camera angles give it a surreal air. Robson also directed The Seventh Victim in which a young woman stumbles onto a coven of Satanists in Greenwich Village, who then decide to make her their next sacrifice.

Superman was a popular fellow in 1943, inspiring works eligible in both the long and short dramatic presentation categories. Paramount brought out a number of self-contained Superman cartoons in 1943, all of which are available to view online and are individually eligible in the short dramatic presentation category. Jungle Drums and Secret Agent both see Superman taking on the Nazis (operating in league with jungle dwellers and gangsters respectively). The Mummy Strikes has an Egyptological theme, while The Underground World involves an exploration of caves inhabited by hawk people.

1943 also saw Superman appear in the long-running radio serial The Adventures of Superman, directed by George Putnam Ludlum for the New York station WOR-AM and then syndicated across he USA. Individual story arcs in this are mostly long enough to feature in the long form drama category. Unfortunately, recordings of most of the 1943 broadcasts no longer exist so few nominators will have first-hand familiarity with these serials. The most complete 1943 story from The Adventures of Superman is The Tin Men, of which 14 out of 15 episodes can listened to or downloaded from the Old Time Radio Downloads site, as can other episodes from other less complete stories of 1943.

The popularity of Superman gave rise to parodies, themselves Retro-Hugo eligible, of which the short cartoon Super-Rabbit, is particularly notable. Directed by Chuck Jones for Leon Schlesinger Studios and distributed by Warner Bros, this sees Bugs Bunny develop superpowers.

Other comics characters had their own movie serials in 1943. The year saw Batman’s first onscreen adventures, in the serial Batman directed by Lambert Hillyer for Columbia Pictures. Instead of squaring off against costumed villains, Batman and Robin instead find themselves battling against Axis saboteurs led by a sinister Japanese agent. The tone is considerably more serious than the day-glo 1960s TV version.

Japanese saboteurs are also dealt with by a masked hero in The Masked Marvel, a Republic serial directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet. The year also saw Columbia serving up an adaptation of The Phantom (directed by B. Reeves Eason) the seemingly immortal masked hero who rules and protects tribal peoples in a hitherto unexplored jungle location. The plot involves the search for lost cities and secret agents working for an unnamed power that sounds suspiciously like Nazi Germany.

Numerous short cartoons were released in 1943, many of them sufficiently outlandish in subject matter as to be Retro-Hugo eligible. Despite cartoons’ association with escapist entertainment, the spectre of the world war hung over many of these. Der Fuehrer’s Face, directed by Jack Finney for Disney, presents a nightmare world in which Donald Duck finds himself living in Nazi Germany. Disney’s Education for Death (directed by Clyde Geronimi) is a grim and barely fantastical account of how the Nazis’ education system turned children into brutal and pitiless soldiers.

But US cartoonists were not the only ones producing propaganda. Working for the Geijutsu Eiga-sha company, Mitsuyo Seo directed Momotaro no umiwashi (Momotarô’s Sea Eagles in English), in which anthropomorphic animals join the Japanese war effort. Only slightly too short for the long dramatic Retro Hugo, the film features a furry assault on Pearl Harbour and the animals staging a kawaii paratrooper attack on Japan’s enemies. Imperialist expansion never looked so cute.

The Axis nations were also capable of producing non-propagandistic cartoons. Kumo to Chūrippu (also known as Kumo to Tulip and in English as The Spider and the Tulip), directed by Kenzô Masaoka for Shôchiku Dôga Kenkyûjo tells of a ladybird taking refuge in a tulip from a predatory spider. Scherzo-Verwitterte Melodie (Weather-Beaten Melody), directed by Hans Fischerkösen for Deutsche Wochenschau is ostensibly a charming addition to the anthropomorphic-animals-have-party genre, but there is a slight subversive subtext to the film that may have slipped past the Nazi censors: what happened to the humans whose portable phonograph and jazz records have been left abandoned?

Other non-propagandistic short cartoon films with fantastic elements include Imagination, directed by Bob Wickersham for Columbia Pictures, with its plot involving an evil toy attempting to disrupt the romance of two other dolls. Some of the other shorts from 1943 subsequently nominated for Oscars might also be eligible for Retro Hugos, given the surreal plotting of most such films. 1943 also saw the first appearance of laconic dog Droopy in the Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer short Dumb-Hounded; starting as they went on, this first Droopy cartoon is a Kafkaeqsque nightmare presenting itself as a children’s entertainment.

A surprising number of films in 1943 feature celestial judgment as a plot device, with protagonists having to justify themselves after death to avoid damnation or worse. Heavenly Music, a short directed by Josef Berne for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer sees a 1940s big-band leader being judged after death by the great composers of history, who doubt the quality of his work and thus his worthiness to join them in the corner of Heaven reserved for great musicians. Also from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Cabin in the Sky (directed by Vincente Minelli) boasts a dissolute protagonist killed over gambling deaths who is then resurrected and given six months to turn his life around in order to avoid Hell; the film is notable for its African American cast and Busby Berkeley choreographed musical sequence. The short version of A Christmas Carol directed by George Lowther for W2XWV New York City broadly fits this pattern, though no recordings of this early television presentation survive. The feature-length A Guy Named Joe (directed by Victor Fleming for Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer) also has celestial judgement elements, though the film seems to be more focussed on showing off the hardware of the US air force than in grappling with the fantastic.

Celestial judgment films usually involve the protagonist seeking to prove their worthiness for salvation. The feature length Heaven Can Wait, directed by German exile Ernst Lubitsch for 20th Century Fox, turns this around, with its recently-deceased protagonist arriving in Hell to seek admittance from a sceptical Satan (played with panache by Laird Cregar). The film lost to Casablanca in the best picture and best director categories of the Academy Awards.

Finally, it is worth mentioning the feature length Münchhausen, directed by Josef von Báky for Germany’s UFA. This is not a cartoon and despite being made under the auspices of Josef Goebbels it is apparently not strictly speaking a work of Nazi propaganda. Scripted by Erich Kästner (a controversial choice, as he was known for his anti-Nazi views), the film presented the outlandish adventures of the Baron von Münchhausen (of which his riding a cannonball is most celebrated) and was intended by Goebbels as morale-boosting escapist entertainment. Some of the Nazi leaders however appear to have found the film problematic, with Hitler reputedly instructing Goebbels to make sure Kästner received no further film assignments.

Other films that that could be nominated in the short dramatic presentation category include:

Captive Wild Woman, directed by Edward Dmytryk for Universal Pictures: brain transplantation, human-gorilla hybrid rampage. Trailer & film

Dead Men Walk, directed by Sam Newfield for Sigmund Neufeld Productions: sibling rivalry, evil twin returning from beyond the grave, black magic, etc.; film

Revenge of the Zombies, directed by Steve Sekely for Monogram Pictures: Nazi scientists plot to create a zombie army; film

La main du Diable (known in English as The Devil’s Hand and Carnival of Sinners), directed by Maurice Tourneur (father of Jacques Tourneur) for Continental Films: surreal French film about an artist’s Faustian pact; trailer

The Mad Ghoul (also known as Mystery of the Ghoul), directed by James Hogan for Universal Pictures: experiments with ancient Mayan nerve gases lead to rampage by eponymous mad ghoul; film

The Mysterious Doctor, directed by Benjamin Stoloff for Warner Bros.: a headless ghost terrorises Cornish miners, disrupting the British war effort; trailer & film

Other films eligible in the long-form dramatic presentation category include:

El espectro de la novia (The Spectre of the Bride), directed by René Cardona for Films Mundiales: Fu Manchu movie serial from Mexico, featuring problematic stereotypes; clip (in Spanish)

Flesh and Fantasy, directed by Julien Duvivier for Universal Pictures; less saucy than the title suggests, this is a horror anthology film that includes an adaptation of a short story by Irish author Oscar Wilde; trailer

Le loup des Malveneur, directed by Guillaume Radot for Union Technique Cinematographique; gothic French drama based on an ancient family struggling under a terrible curse; film (in French)

Ram Rajya, directed by Vijay Bhatt; Indian film adaptation of the Sanskrit epic, The Ramayana; film (in Hindi)

The post Retro Hugos: dramatic Presentations in 1943 appeared first on Dublin 2019.

At the 2019 Worldcon in Dublin the Retro Hugos for works published in 1943 will be awarded. In the world at large, 1943 was another dark year. To people in Europe and Asia, the war by now would have seemed like it had been going on forever, with no end in sight. We know looking back that 1943 was when the tide turned decisively against the Axis, with Soviet victories at Stalingrad and Kursk, Italy knocked out of the war and an increasingly devastating bombing campaign all pointing to eventual Allied victory in Europe. The war against Japan meanwhile saw US victory at Guadalcanal and island-hopping advances while the Japanese were contained on land by the British and Chinese. But while the tide of war was turning in favour of the Allies, the horrors of the conflict continued unabated, with the Nazis continuing their murder of Europe’s Jewish population even as they began to contemplate the possibility of defeat.

As can be imagined, the war diverted the attention of science fiction and fantasy writers. Robert A. Heinlein was so consumed with his war work that he published no fiction in 1943. James Blish also published nothing this year, while Isaac Asimov managed just one story, Death Sentence. War service appears also to have delayed Arthur C. Clarke’s transition from amateur to professional writing; one has to assume that he was just one of many writers whose career was retarded or cut short before it even began.

Nevertheless, despite the demands of the war and restrictions on the use of paper, books kept being printed and science fiction magazines published, leaving a rich legacy of works that can now be nominated for the Retro Hugos.

This guide is an indicative overview of Hugo-eligible works published in 1943. It is by no means exhaustive and readers’ own researchers may well uncover eligible works that are not listed here. Dublin 2019 and the World Science Fiction Society are neutral and are not endorsing the works listed but are providing this guide as an assistance to Retro-Hugo nominators.

Novels

For Hugo award purposes, a novel has to be over 40,000 words. To the best of my knowledge the following all meet this criterion.

Northern Ireland’s C.S. Lewis is most famous for the children’s fantasy of his Narnia series, but he also wrote a trilogy of science fiction novels aimed at adults. The middle volume, Perelandra, was published in 1943. Mostly set on Venus, it is an odd work, with the religious elements displayed more overtly and less symbolically than in the Narnia books. It is also more fantasy than science fiction (the protagonist is carried to Venus by angels and once there finds himself battling the Devil himself to prevent original sin tainting the planet) but nevertheless clearly Retro Hugo eligible.

Fritz Leiber wrote long and short fiction in a variety of genres and is possibly best-known for his Fafrhd and the Grey Mouser fantasy stories (one of which is eligible in the short fiction categories). His satirical and dystopian novel Gather, Darkness! was serialised in Astounding Science Fiction in 1943, subsequently appearing in one volume. 1943 also saw the appearance of his novel Conjure Wife, in which a college professor discovers that his wife has been advancing his career through witchcraft. The novel has been adapted several times for the screen. Norman Matson‘s Bats in the Belfry (sequel to The Passionate Witch) also deals with a man whose wife is a witch; this and its predecessor were apparently the basis of the TV series Bewitched.

A.E. Van Vogt also wrote both long and short fiction. The Book of Ptath sees the eponymous Ptath, some kind of deity from the far future, travelling backwards in time and trying to resolve a conflict between his two wives (who are also semi-divine). The Weapon Makers meanwhile was serialised in 1943 and later revised. It appears to peddle some kind of libertarian political philosophy and explicitly supports the right of individuals to bear arms, making it an interesting example of NRA SF.

In 1943 the pulp hero Doc Savage may have been heading into his twilight years, but neither this nor war-time paper shortages stopped his creator Lester Dent (writing as Kenneth Robeson) from producing a vast array of novels featuring Doc and his friends in ever more bizarre adventures. Waves of Death sees Doc battling pterodactyls and the possible extinction of the white race, The Black, Black Witch features a struggle to prevent the Nazis utilising the prophecies of Nostradamus, The Goblins features an Idaho ghost town overrun with goblins, while in Hell Below Doc has to liberate a cowboy’s ranch from agents of the Third Reich. Similarly outlandish adventures feature in Mystery on Happy Bones, The King of Terror, The Mental Monster, The Running Skeletons, The Secret of the Su, The Spook of Grandpa Eben, The Talking Devil, and Waves of Death. The sheer volume of Doc Savage novels (“reams and reams of sellable crap” as Dent reputedly described them) also means that they would easily qualify collectively in the best series category.

Sax Rohmer (pen name of Arthur Ward) is best known for his problematic Fu Manchu stories, but in 1943 he published Seven Sins, one of a series featuring French detective Gaston Max. While the novel mostly deals with a murder mystery opening up into a plot involving spies and smugglers, its passing use of supernatural elements might scrape it over the line into Retro Hugo eligibility.

H.P. Lovecraft died in 1937 but somehow he managed to keep publishing new work from beyond the grave. His novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward appeared in its final form in 1943. That it would be eligible for the Retro Hugos in the same year that a BBC podcast adaptation is eligible for the dramatic presentation award in the 2019 Hugos is an irony that the man of Providence may have found amusing.

The husband and wife team of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore mostly published short fiction in 1943, but together they also brought out one novel, Earth’s Last Citadel, which sees four participants in the Second World War transported to the far future, where they must evade giant worms, flying monsters and various entities reminiscent of the works of H. Rider Haggard and H.P. Lovecraft. C. L. Moore’s novel Judgment Night
meanwhile was serialised in Astounding Science Fiction, later appearing in one volume.

From the world of literary fiction meanwhile Herman Hesse produced his last novel, Das Glasperlenspiel (known variously in English as Magister Ludi and The Glass Bead Game). Set in the far future in the fictional European land of Castalia, the book deals with austere intellectuals who have given themselves over to The Glass Bead Game, meaning that it may prefigure works such as Iain M. Banks’ Player of Games. Hesse’s anti-Nazi views meant that the book could not be published in his native Germany.

1943 also saw some noteworthy children’s novels published. Mary Poppins Opens The Door is the third and last of P.L. Travers‘ Mary Poppins books. The Magic Faraway Tree is the second of Enid Blyton‘s Faraway Tree novels. Like the others, The Magic Faraway Tree sees children using the eponymous tree to bring them on magical adventures to such strange places as the Land of Dreams, the Land of Topsy Turvy, the Land of Presents, and the Land of Do-As-You-Please (referenced by Alan Moore in V for Vendetta). Julie Sauer‘s Fog Magic meanwhile is also a novel about travelling to strange places, in this case the journeying through time of a Nova Scotian girl.

Other Hugo-eligible novels include:

Lord of the Horizon by Joan Grant
Malpertuis by Jean Ray (subsequently filmed by Orson Welles)
Ravage by France’s René Barjavel (translated much later into English as Ashes, Ashes).
World Shadow of Night and The Seven Who Waited, by August Derleth
Star of Dread by Edmond Hamilton (in the Captain Future series)
Warrior of the Dawn by Howard Browne
Without Raiment by Louise Dardenelle

Even more Retro Hugo eligible novels can be seen at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Short fiction

The Hugo Awards divide fiction up into short stories (under 7,500 words), novelette (7,500 to 17,500 words) and novella (17,500 to 40,000 words). It is not always entirely clear in which category short fiction falls but I have done my best to identify this for the items below.

In 1943 short fiction remained the life blood of speculative fiction, with work continuing to appear in the magazines notwithstanding paper rationing. While some of the big names had their work curtailed by their own involvement in the war effort, others stepped forward to fill their places.

As noted above, Isaac Asimov had just one short story published in 1943. Death Sentence appeared in Astounding and dealt with a first contact between humanity and a robot civilisation. It is a sign of how the form was developing (and how people like Asimov were pushing it) that this first contact does not immediately give rise to a war between man and machine.

The writing partnership of husband and wife Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore should also be mentioned. As well as their novel, the couple appear to have produced some 26 short stories, novelettes and novellas between them. They wrote both separately and together and were apparently often unable to remember who had written which parts of works they had collaborated on. Their colleagues were reputedly astonished by their ability to continue each other’s work mid-sentence. Their work appeared variously under pseudonyms (notably Lewis Padgett but also Lawrence O’Donnell), sometimes under their names jointly and sometimes under their names individually, regardless of whether it had been produced collaboratively or individually (Moore sometimes submitted her work under her husband’s name, as he received more generous page rates). The quality of their output is witnessed their having five of the twelve stories appearing in the 1981 anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 5 (1943). Some of their stories have been extensively reprinted while others have sadly sunk into obscurity. The novelette Mimsy Were The Borogoves, originally published in Astounding, is perhaps particularly noteworthy, with its Lewis Carroll referencing themes of children’s minds being accidentally reprogrammed by the discarded toys of higher dimensional beings. Other widely reprinted stories of theirs that people may have come across, all originally published in Astounding (apart from Doorway Into Time, which appeared in Famous Fantastic Mysteries), include the short stories Doorway Into Time, Ghost, The Iron Standard, Nothing But Gingerbread Left, Endowment Policy; the novelettes Gallegher Plus, The Proud Robot, Time Locker; and the novella Clash by Night.

The novella Skeleton Men of Jupiter appeared in Amazing Stories, the last of Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ Barsoom series. With some ten novels’ worth of material having previously appeared, Barsoom would in all likelihood be eligible in the Series category.

As noted in the novels section, H.P. Lovecraft‘s death did not stop him producing new material. His novella The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath first appeared in 1943 and is thus eligible for the Retro Hugos. More problematic are the short story and novella The Curse of Yig and The Mound that Lovecraft ghost-wrote for Zealia Bishop; these appear to have both appeared in a variety of formats on a number of occasions, with the 1943 publications of these being different but perhaps not substantively so to versions that had been published in previous years.

Aside from his previously mentioned novel Fritz Leiber only published a handful of short pieces in 1943, but these included the novelette Thieves’ House in Unknown Worlds. This is part of the popular Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series, though there may not have been enough of that published by 1943 for it to be nominated in the Best Series category.

Robert Bloch (best known perhaps as author of the original novel Psycho) wrote a frightening amount of material in 1943. His Weird Tales short story Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper reveals the Victorian murderer to have been some kind of immortal entity killing to extend its monstrous life. Many of Bloch’s fictional works from 1943 have now sunk into obscurity after never being reprinted, but heavily reprinted short stories that people may have encountered include The Fear Planet (originally published in Super Science Stories) and Almost Human, from Fantastic Adventures.

1943 also saw Ray Bradbury developing into a literary powerhouse, with his stories including The Crowd, The Scythe, and The Wind appearing in Weird Tales, R Is for Rocket (AKA King of the Gray Space) in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Doodad in Astounding, and The Piper in Thrilling Wonder Stories.

In 1943 Scientology’s founder L. Ron Hubbard was still primarily known, if at all, as a pulp science fiction writer. Although serving in the US Navy he still managed to publish the short story The Great Secret in Science Fiction Stories. In its account of men travelling to a magical city to learn a powerful secret it could almost be a precursor of the Strugatsky Brothers’ Roadside Picnic (and so of the film Stalker), though this most likely is indicative of how tropes recur in science fiction.

From the world of more literary fiction, Jorge Luis Borges‘ short story The Secret Miracle appeared in the Argentinian journal Sur in 1943; it is unusual in that it deals with the persecution of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe, albeit in the style of weird fiction.

Notable short works aimed at children include the novellas The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, which surely needs no introduction, and Mary Norton‘s The Magic Bed-Knob (subsequently adapted in the Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks).

Other pieces of 1943 short fiction include:

A. E. van Vogt
Concealment Astounding Science Fiction (short story)
The Great Engine Astounding Science Fiction (novelette)
The Search Astounding Science Fiction (novelette)
The Storm Astounding Science Fiction (novelette)
The Witch Unknown Worlds (novelette)

Anthony Boucher
Expedition Thrilling Wonder Stories (short story)
Q. U. R. Astounding Science Fiction (short story)
They Bite Unknown Worlds (short story)
We Print the Truth Astounding Science Fiction (novella)

August Derleth
Baynter’s Imp Weird Tales (short story)
McElwin’s Glass Weird Tales (short story)
No Light for Uncle Henry Weird Tales (short story)
A Thin Gentleman with Gloves Weird Tales (short story)
A Wig for Miss DeVore Weird Tales (short story)

Clifford D. Simak
Hunch Astounding Science Fiction (novelette)
Infiltration Science Fiction Stories (short story)
Message From Mars Planet Stories (novelette)
Shadow of Life Astounding Science Fiction (short story)

Dennis Wheatley (all from an original anthology)
The Case of the Haunted Chateau (short story)
The Case of the Long Dead Lord (short story)
The Case of the Red-Headed Woman (short story)

E. Mayne Hull
The Patient Unknown Worlds (short story)

Edmond Hamilton
Exile Super Science Stories (short story)

Eric Frank Russell
Symbiotica Astounding Science Fiction (novelette)

Fredric Brown
Daymare Thrilling Wonder Stories (novelette)
Paradox Lost Astounding Science Fiction (short story)
The Geezenstacks Weird Tales (short story)

James Thurber
Many Moons (short story length, though published as standalone illustrated children’s book)

Leigh Brackett
The Halfling Astonishing Stories (novelette)

Malcolm Jameson
Blind Alley Unknown Worlds (novelette)

Manly Wade Wellman
The Devil Is Not Mocked Unknown Worlds (short story)

P. Schuyler Miller
The Cave Astounding Science Fiction (novelette)

Ross Rochlynne
Backfire Astounding Science Fiction (novelette)

More Retro Hugo eligible short fiction can be seen at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

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