[Sfts-faculty] Klein Librarian update October 2023

Fri Oct 13 16:17:02 PDT 2023

Dear all,

Happy Friday the 13th!

I believe it was Isaac Asimov who wrote "if you're lookin' for the goodies, keep on lookin,' 'cause they stay in the jar" - and plenty of goodies have arrived in SCUA this month. Fortunately for you all, they are certainly not staying in the jar (although it may be another few weeks before they are accessible in the reading room as they go through the accessions and cataloging processes). Without further ado, here are the new acquisitions this month for the Eaton Collection:

  *   Penny Dreadful. The Ghost's House in the Lonely Road. A Story for Christmas. London: Newsagent's Publishing Company, 1866. A rare penny dreadful<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_dreadful>, not located complete institutionally, and containing all seven instalments of an eerie ghost tale.

  *   Catalyst, 1-3. 1949. A scarce, Mexico-printed zine, covering the subjects of Marxism, fantasy, poetry, and travel, published by WWII veterans who moved to the country in the post-war period. Another scarce object, and one that contains wonderful fictional vignettes - as well as articles on the creation and printing of zines.

  *   Bradbury, Ray. Typed letter signed "Ray Bradbury" to Richard Hodgens. 1959. An unusual letter from Ray Bradbury discussing racism within the film industry.

  *   Garner Jr., Louis E. Selecting World Science-Fiction Convention Sites. 1949. Another post-war item, this is a scarce copy of a speech given at the seventh World Science Fiction Convention in 1949; the 'how' and 'why' of convention locations was subject to some controversy at the time (and arguably still is, today!)

  *   Lu T'ung, illustrated by Paul Wong. The Eclipse of the Moon. 1998. An exquisite, hand-made book of a translation of a poem from Tang-dynasty China.

The following four titles require their own sub-section, being the first items from a currently un-cataloged Peruvian science fiction collection. I'm so thrilled to share their details:

  *   Belli, Carlos Germán. Oh Hada Cibernetica! Lima, 1962. Belli was a poet and translator known for poems that braid technological vocabulary, colloquial Peruvian, and Spanish Golden Age diction and meter. This collection of poems is a beautiful showcase of his style.

  *   Collazo, Miguel. El libro fantástico de Oaj. 1966. A science fiction novel which develops a parallel story between a Cuban writer named Juan, who narrates the arrival of Saturnians to Earth, and the Saturnian author named Oaj, who is writing a science fiction novel about Earth.

  *   Palma, Clemente. Mors Ex Vita. 1923. Palma was an important literary critic in Peru, and this novel ("Death and Life") has similarities with the science fiction novel The Invention of Morel, published by the Argentine Adolfo Bioy Casares in 1940.

  *   Palma, Clemente. XYZ (Novela grotesca). 1935. Written while the author was in exile in Chile, this novel constitutes one of the biggest scandals in Peruvian literature. It concerns a machine that can turn movie characters into real beings,and is an early example of "media fantasy"; fiction that incorporates, and directly comments on, mass culture.

Phew!

I'll leave you with one final plug for the 'Ancestral Futures' literary magazine call for submissions and accompanying workshops; more information can be found on the website: Ancestral Futures: Speculative Imaginings from the Archive | Special Collections & University Archives (ucr.edu)<https://scua.ucr.edu/ancestral-futures-speculative-imaginings-archive>.

Have a wonderful spooky season!

Warmth and light,

Phoenix

Recommended book of the month:  Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind, Molly McGhee (2023)

Dr. Phoenix Alexander

Jay Kay and Doris Klein Librarian for Science Fiction and Fantasy

UCR Library | University of California, Riverside

P.O. Box 5900 | Rivera Library, Room 406c

Riverside, CA 92517-5900

Office: 951.827.2840 | phoenix.alexander at ucr.edu

Department Website: https://scua.ucr.edu/

[cid:5bdf306b-3b9e-4a0a-8906-da322cc72e48]

My pronouns are he/him/his

We at UCR would like to respectfully acknowledge and recognize our responsibility to the original and current caretakers of this land, water, and air: the Cahuilla, Tongva, Luiseño, and Serrano peoples and all of their ancestors and descendants, past, present, and future. Today this meeting place is home to many Indigenous peoples from all over the world, including UCR faculty, students, and staff, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on these homelands.
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