Happy Birthday, Dear Fred
Today, Frederik Pohl completes his 90th trip around the Sun. His wife and 18 of the best sf writers alive planned to celebrate by presenting him with a festschrift book containing stories and...
View ArticleWorking with Robert A. Heinlein
I mentioned that greatest of Campbell-era sf writers, Robert A. Heinlein, a while ago, and that got me to thinking about the man and what it was like to be his editor, at least for the magazine...
View ArticleWhat Made the Futurians Laugh: The Shaggy Dog Story
In the 1930s, few of us had any excess of spending money. What money we had was scarce and hard-won. Radio was our great professional source of comedy, with those two titans Jack Benny and Fred...
View ArticleJudith Merril, Part 1: ‘That Only a Mother’
For the first couple of years after World War II, I was living in Greenwich Village, as a civilian, along with my second wife, Dorothy Louise LesTina (about whom see The Way the Future Was.). We had a...
View ArticleDogs, Wolves and Babies
For the science-minded among us, there’s a home scientific experiment that you might like to try. For it, you will need the following research materials: 4–6 little opaque cups with lids 1 piece of...
View ArticleWhat Does Your Dog Think ‘Ball’ Means?
Psychologist Emile van der Zee, at the University of Lincoln in the U.K., is studying how dogs perceive differences between objects. When a human being hears the word “ball” he forms a visual image of...
View Article
