Judith Merril

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18 Quotations from Judith Merril

Arcturan n. 2	1968 J. Merril The Best of Sci-Fi 12 (1970) 177 (editorial introduction to Brian W. Aldiss’s Confluence) Science-fiction writers carry this farther than most: there are very few that have not at least once constructed an extensive glossary of an ‘alien’ language, (If a story contains five words of Arcturan, you may be assured that a lexicography of 50 or 500 more was on a wall chart or in a notebook at the author’s left hand as he worked.)
automatics n.	1952 ‘J. Merril’ Whoever You Are in Startling Stories Dec. 65/1 Thus far, it was routine homecoming for a starscout. It was only when the BB-3 entered the detector field that the automatics on the scanner-satellite stations began to shrill the alarms for human help.
Earthish n.	1956 J. Merril Homecalling in Science Fiction Stories Nov. 36/1 If she answered the silly questions right out loud, that was all right too, because they couldn’t understand her anyhow. How would they know Earthish?
Heinleinian adj.	1969 ‘J. Merril’ in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Jan. 43/1 I also found Panshin’s Elder Philospher, Mr. Mbele, more agreeable than any Heinleinian counterpart since Waldo.
intersystem adj.	1966 J. Merril in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Mar. 52/1 A technology advanced enough to permit intersystem trips for bickering feudal lordlings' fetes and festivals.
jumpship n.	1957 ‘R. Sharon’ The ‘Lady’ was a Tramp in Venture Science Fiction Magazine Mar. 45/1 On a Navy transport, a full Lieutenant IBMan would be in charge of SolNav only, with two petty officers under him, both qualified to handle maintenance, and one at least with a Navy rating, capable of relieving him on duty at the control board during the five or twelve or twenty hours it might take to navigate a jump-ship in or out of the obstacle course of clutter and junk and planets and orbits of any given System.
jumpship n.	1957 ‘R. Sharon’ The ‘Lady’ was a Tramp in Venture Science Fiction Magazine Mar. 51/1 Like every jump-ship, the Lady was Navy built, equipped, and staffed.
medikit n.	1952 J. Merril Whoever You Are in Startling Stories Dec. 67/1 He made a routine extra check of his equipment: tank, jetter, axe, welder, magnograpple, mechitape recorder, (no radio in an insul-suit), knife, gun, signal mirror, medikit.
near-future adj.	1961 ‘J. Merril’ in Year’s Best S-F 6 (1962) 93 Readers of previous S-F annuals will remember Theodore L. Thomas’s ‘The Far Look’ and ‘Satellite Passage’ particularly for the vivid personal realism of his near-future portraits of man in space.
New Wave n.	[1965 J. Merril Books in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction May 71/1 In the new wave of avant garde ‘fanzine’ publishing, there is hardly a hectographed, mimeoed, or offset effort that does not contain at least its page or two of Burroughs.]
planet hop n.	1951 J. Merril Survival Ship in Worlds Beyond Jan. 61 Because it wasn’t just another planet hop. It wasn’t just like the hundreds of other takeoffs. It was the Survival, the greatest spaceship ever engineered.
pseudo-science n.	1966 ‘J. Merril’ Books in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Mar. 48/1 Actually, this is a more than adequate adventure yarn—well-told, well-paced, filled with thrills, chills, and spills, and the very model of the modern version of the Pseudoscience Story.
science fantasy n. 1	1956 ‘J. Merril’ Year's Greatest Science-Fiction & Fantasy 345 Science-fantasy has long outgrown both its worship of machines and its fear of emotion. Where emphasis once was on the mechanical sciences, it has shifted now to the psychological; where Scientific Progress was once the unquestioned goal, the more usual objective now is to question just what sort of progress might offer the most satisfaction for human needs.
sci-fic n.	1952 ‘J. Merril’ The Reader Speaks in Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec. 6/1 Does your science-fiction story taste different lately? Is the flat familiar stale taste disappearing? Have you noticed a new tingling sensation in the area of your brain? Do you suffer from discomfort in your social thinking? Dislocation of perspective? There’s a reason. Its name is Synthesis, and sci-fic is its prophet.
speculative fiction n. 2	1952 ‘J. Merril’ Preface in Beyond Human Ken xii The stories included in this collection were written and published over a period of some fifteen years; I think they are the forerunners of the speculative fiction of tomorrow.
stef n.	1968 J. Merril Books in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Feb. 53/2 American genre writers have kept whatever thoughts they were having on the Revolutions (Youth, Sexual, Black, Psychedelic, et al.) pretty much to themselves [...] [T]he publishers have clearly been convinced that Hip is Hip and Stef is Stef, and never the twain. But the category gap is closing: one of the four crossover novels on hand today was published by Pyramid as part of their regular s-f line.
Sturgeon’s Law n.	1963 ‘J. Merril’ Proceedings: Chicon III 35 I think it was probably the final statement which sort of eliminates this discussion but we will go ahead with it anyhow and that was the memorable Sturgeon Law that 90 per cent of everything is crud; including, we regret to say, science fiction.
subgenre n.	1966 ‘J. Merril’ What do You mean—Science Fiction? in Extrapolation May 42 There had been some overlapping before, but now there was fluent admixture of those writers from both areas who were least satisfied with their own sub-genre patterns.