Anthony Boucher
See first quotes from Anthony Boucher
31 Quotations from Anthony Boucher
| actifan n. | 1960 in D. Knight In Search of Wonder Introd. p. viii, Successively or simultaneously, damon knight has been a science fiction fan, even an actifan (the uninitiated will have no trouble with that fannish word if they'll simply pronounce it aloud), an editor, a critic and a creative writer. |
| alternate universe n. | 1950 in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Dec. 104 At last the superlative magazine series by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, recounting Harold Shea’s experiences with the mathematics of magic in alternate universes, is all in print in a completely revised and expanded form. |
| alternate world n. | 1954 in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Nov. 99 Beyond Earth’s Gates, by Lewis Padgett and C.L. Moore (Ace, 35¢) is a highly agreeable bit of alternate-world foolishness, in which a sympathetically unheroic hero finds himself drowning in the clichés (from the sinister highpriest [sic] to the fair princess) of the world of Malesco. |
| Centaurian n. 1 | 1942 Rocket to Morgue 16 A pulsing arc of purple light grew in the middle of the room and forth from it stepped a green-bearded Centaurian. |
| completist n. | 1954 Recommended Reading in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Dec. 91 Robert Shafer’s The Conquered Place (Putnam’s, $3.50) is a long and pretentious ‘serious novel’ on the s.f. theme of the future occupation of the U.S. by an unnamed but obviously Russian military force, and I regret to say that it fails equally as fiction and as extrapolation; for completists only. |
| -con suffix | 1942 Rocket to Morgue 86 The next one’s here in Los Angeles, and I’m afraid it’s called the Pacificon. |
| Cthulhu mythos n. | 1944 in Acolyte (#7) Summer 29 The Cthulhu Mythos is one of the extraordinary imaginative achievements of our times, and I want to know everything I can about it. But I don’t care much what HPL thought about life and manners and things. It is as the transcriber of the Myth that he looms incomparable. |
| elsewhen n. | 1943 Elsewhen in Astounding Science-Fiction Jan. 112/1 (title) Elsewhen. |
| fanzine n. | 1942 Rocket to Morgue 135 But infinite numbers of pulp paper scientifiction magazines and those curious mimeographed fan bulletins that are known by the portmanteau name of fanzines, a complete set of Fowler Foulkes, almost as reverently bound as Hilary’s, a goodly lot of Shiel and Stapledon. |
| feghoot n. | 1968 Best Detective Stories of the Year 172 A true feghoot…not only culminates in a pun of singular beauty and terror; it is, even before that point, an entertainingly absurd episode of a possible history.… My successor at F&SF, the astute Robert P. Mills, stepped up the publication of feghoots to one every issue; he had observed that, though the readership was about equally divided into feghoot-lovers and feghoot-haters, both parties were united in always reading the feghoot before any other stories. |
| gadget story n. | 1942 Rocket to Morgue 51 The gadget stories were more interesting. They frequently made honest attempts at forecasting scientific developments. Atomic power, stratosphere exploration, the rocket flight that so absorbs Chantrelle, all the features that may revolutionize the second half of this century as thoroughly as radio and the airplane have transformed this half—all these became familiar, workable things. But the writers stopped there. Interest lay in the gadget itself. And science fiction was headed for a blind alley until the realization came that even science fiction must remain fiction, and fiction is basically about people, not subatomic blasters nor time warps. |
| golden age n. | 1952 Recommended Reading in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Apr. 94 Of 30 books (counting the two-in-one jobs) there were 11½ novels whose book publication marked their first appearance before the public! 7 other novels were (as is normal in other fields) serialized shortly before or even simultaneously with their book publication. 8½ novels were revivals of works that first saw publication in magazines of the period 1939—1949; we're sure no one will quarrel with the permanent preservation of the best of that ‘Golden Age’ of science fiction. |
| Luna City n. | 1943 One-Way Trip in Astounding Science-Fiction Aug. 112/1 All the life, all the supplies and communications of the Moon center in Luna City. |
| mainstream adj. | 1954 Recommended Reading in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Feb. 93 In its crystal-clear prose, its intense human warmth and its depth of psychological probing, it is a first-rate ‘straight’ novel; its ingenious use of telepathy, psychokinesis and other ‘psi’ powers make it admirable science-fantasy; and the adroit plotting and ceaseless surge of action qualify it as a distinguished suspense story. Symbiotically, these factors add up to more than their sum—add up, indeed, to one of the most impressive proofs yet of the possibility of science fiction as a part of mainstream literature. |
| micro book n. | 1943 One-Way Trip in Astounding Science-Fiction Aug. 100/2 There were even microbooks in the rocket, with a small pocket-model viewer; there was hardly space for a projector. |
| pseudopod n. | [1927 Ye Goode Olde Ghoste Storie in Weird Tales Jan. 123/1 Slowly it advanced on me. I was helpless, spellbound, standing there motionless with the razor in my hand. An arm appeared from nowhere on the shape, seemingly projected like the pseudopod of a protozoan.] |
| pulp science fiction n. | 1951 Rocket to Morgue 171 The causes were two: directly, my acquaintance with the Mañana Literary Society, which existed in fact precisely (aside from murders) as it is depicted in this book; indirectly, the fact that pulp science fiction had, at that time, just reached maturity both in thinking and in writing and was at a fine ripe stage to make converts easily. |
| science fantasy n. 2 | 1955 Intro. Best from Fantasy & SF (ser. 4) 7 F&SF has a broader editorial policy than most other science-fantasy publications—a policy which is, in effect, nothing more than to publish originally conceived and well-written imaginative fiction of any and every type. |
| science-fictionish adj. | 1965 Criminals At Large in N.Y. Times Book Review 18 July 28/1 It has always been difficult to draw a sharply defined line between the spy novel and science fiction. There is often something science-fictionish about The Plans at stake—which is a direct reflection of reality; there is often something science-fictionish about the secrets for which real-life agents contend. |
| scientifiction n. | 1942 Rocket to Morgue 135 But infinite numbers of pulp paper scientifiction magazines and those curious mimeographed fan bulletins that are known by the portmanteau name of fanzines, a complete set of Fowler Foulkes, almost as reverently bound as Hilary’s, a goodly lot of Shiel and Stapledon. |
| somewhen adv. | 1953 Other Inauguration in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Mar. 7 Mei-Figner’s experiment with nuclear pile 1959. Nobody knows what became of M-F. Embarrassing discovery that power source remained chronostationary; poor M-F stranded somewhen with no return power. |
| space crew n. | 1943 One-Way Trip in Astounding Science-Fiction Aug. 87/2 ‘What I'd even like,’ Uranov went on heatedly, ‘is to work in a little propaganda at the end on this Martian business—show how a true living peace can function. You know, a sort of ‘Join the space crews and see another world’ whoozit. And, God, there is something you can get really excited about. To think of those—how many is it, near thirty now?—who've made the landing, accomplished man’s impossible dream, and died there, on a bitterer one-way trip than any criminal ever made, all because this peaceful world—’ |
| space crew n. | 1972 Man's Reach in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Nov. 69/1 No space crew in history has ever mutinied, but few space crews have traveled with a contralto whose tremendous voice can fill and amphitheater—or a space liner. |
| space dinghy n. | 1952 Star Dummy in Fantastic Fall 54/2 That’s why I had to land. You see, she went off by herself in the…. I think if I invent the word ‘space dinghy’ it will give you the idea. I warned her that the…well, an important part was defective; but we had just had a small quarrel and she insisted on spiting me. She never came back. [both ellipses in original] |
| spacegram n. | 1972 Man’s Reach in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Nov. 77/1 More weeks passed and the spacegrams kept coming and the last one said it was the last one because music critic and correspondent Arthur was no longer employed and Jon Arthur did not give a damn. |
| Terrene adj. 1 | 1943 Q. U. R. in Astounding Science-Fiction Mar. 84/1 The drinks came. I went at the Three Planets cautiously. You know the formula: one part Terrene rum—170 proof—one part Venusian margil, and a dash or so of Martian vuzd. It’s smooth and murderous. I’d never tasted one as smooth as this of Guzub’s, and I feared it’d be that much the more murderous. |
| timeline n. | 1943 Elsewhen in Astounding Science Fiction Jan. 113 They cannot be made to see that to move along the time line with free volitional motion, unconditioned by the relentless force that pushes mankind along at the unchanging rate of—how shall one put it—one second per second—that to do this for even one little fraction of a second was as great a miracle as to zoom spectacularly ahead to 5900 A.D. |
| time machine n. | 1943 Elsewhen in Astounding Science-Fiction Jan. 114/3 The one completely practical purpose of a short-range time machine, Mr. Partridge had suddenly realized, was to provide an alibi for murder. |
| time warp n. | 1951 Rocket to Morgue 54 The gadget stories were more interesting. They frequently made honest attempts at forecasting scientific developments. Atomic power, stratosphere exploration, the rocket flight that so absorbs Chantrelle, all the features that may revolutionize the second half of this century as thoroughly as radio and the airplane have transformed this half—all these became familiar, workable things. But the writers stopped there. Interest lay in the gadget itself. And science fiction was headed for a blind alley until the realization came that even science fiction must remain fiction, and fiction is basically about people, not subatomic blasters nor time warps. |
| tri-v n. | 1954 Balaam in R. J. Healy 9 Tales of Space & Time 278 The situation was so hackneyed in 3V and microcomics that it was less a matter of explaining it than of making it seem real. |
| xenology n. | 1953 Conquest in Star Science Fiction Stories #2 126 Dr. Wenceslaus Hornung, xenologist—even more untried in his job than I was in mine. For the Giants were the first Xenoids (aliens to you) that an earth man had ever found. For more than two centuries we’d been developing what some of them called Contact-Theory. It had never proved necessary in the solar system, but the theoretical work went on. Of all the boys who’d ever taken the works in BLAM (Biology, Linguistics, Anthropology, Mathematics) Laus was reckoned the absolute tops in xenology—so damned good that he could even get away with eccentricities like taking a pet on a space trip or scraping the hair off his face like an ancient Roman or a Dawn-Atomic man. |