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I know many of you have read Threshold and are well aware of the four stories I'm going to discuss. However, I haven't plunked down the thirty dollars or so needed (and that's just for the first of six volumes!) to be equally fortunate. I therefore must rely on my imagination to recast the scene. Correct me if I'm wrong on any detail please.

Zelazny just turned or is about to turn 25 in May 1962. He has decided it's time to try to become a professional writer. He has heard great things about Cele Goldsmith and her editing. "I mean, didn't she just a couple years ago pull Fritz Leiber out of his alcohol-induced funk, get him writing the challenging high-brow stuff he always really wanted to write, and then take a chance by publishing it? Maybe she'll take a chance and publish my stuff. I think my writing might be at a similar level."

The gamble pays off! Cele Goldsmith not only published one of his stories in 1962, she published all four he submitted:

Horseman!
Fantastic Stories of Imagination, August 1962


Passion Play
Amazing Stories, August 1962


The Teachers Rode a Wheel of Fire
Fantastic Stories of Imagination, October 1962


Moonless in Byzantium
Amazing Stories, December 1962


I thought this post worth submitting because even if you have already read these four stories, here's an opportunity to see them again in their original setting with the original illustrations.

Cheers!

Excellent, Dan! I hadn't realized some of his stories were in the public domain. Great quote & bit of his history, too. It is nice reading them in their original setting. I read 'Horseman' just now & I'll take a look at the rest later.

We have a folder devoted to the NESFA collection here:
/topic/group...
and Christopher S. Kovacs, one of the editors of the collection, is a member of this group. He can probably answer any questions you might have. I think the 7th book of the collection, a bibliography, is all his doing.

I bought a set when they first came out & got a second for my youngest boy. I read them all & they're fantastic. Each has notes after each story explaining some of the references & allusions which can be very helpful. There are also great introductions by authors that knew him & a lot of other information surrounding each story. They're well worth the $30 price tag. The cover art is also exceptional. They make a really pretty picture on my shelves.

Interesting post, but the scene isn't at all like what Dan described. Many more than four stories submitted to many different editors, many many rejections, and finally the delight of one of them being accepted. And many more rejections lay ahead.

None of Zelazny's stories are in the public domain. The images of those magazines may be.

They aren't only images of magazine covers. The link is to the entire magazine, including all the stories in the issue. I don't see how that could be possible if the stories were not out of copyright.

You are probably right about Zelazny not having it as easy as depicted getting started. I was guessing. I've never read a Zelazny biography. I was under the impression he didn't struggle too much getting into print because I had read elsewhere that his stories began being accepted within one month of his first sending them out, an unusually fast time for an unknown writer. And four stories were accepted in the first six months period by one of the field's top editors of the time.

Thanks in any event for the clarification. Instead of guessing wrong, as I apparently did, perhaps it's best if I stick to the facts I know and rewrite message one as follows:

I know many of you have read Threshold and are well aware of the four stories I'm going to discuss. However, I haven't plunked down the thirty dollars or so needed (and that's just for the first of six volumes!) to be equally fortunate. For those not able or willing to do so, I at least found Zelazny's first four published stories freely available. Cele Goldsmith, a prominent editor during this period, not only published one of the four 1962 stories, she published all of them!

Horseman!
Fantastic Stories of Imagination, August 1962


Passion Play
Amazing Stories, August 1962


The Teachers Rode a Wheel of Fire
Fantastic Stories of Imagination, October 1962


Moonless in Byzantium
Amazing Stories, December 1962


I thought this post worth submitting because even if you have already read these four stories, here's an opportunity to see them again in their original setting with the original illustrations.

You mentioned that you haven't read Threshold or any of the six-volume collection. There's an extensively researched biography that I wrote which is published in six parts, one per volume. Threshold documents the lengthy frustrating process Zelazny went through to become a writer. You wouldn't be having to guess about his story then...

None of Zelazny's works are in public domain. The owner of the Fantastic and Amazing magazines can have the right to publish images of the magazine pages, and that's different from saying that Zelazny's works are in the public domain. In the same way past issues of OMNI have been available for some time now on the web through the publisher. But those issues of Amazing and Fantastic are in the internet archive rather than a publisher's website, and it's unclear to me if that was done legally. It may have been done by fans. If not the owner of the magazine, it could be a problem if the authors or their estates complain about it.

In the meantime I'll just enjoy reading four stories in their original setting with the original illustrations for free.

Copyright is such a PITA. Makes so little sense in so many cases.

I know, right? I mean, why should the products of sperm and egg profit from dead Dad's intellectual property? It's not their work or effort. What a messed up system we live in. If I wrote the law, copyrights end with the creator's death and not until. But that would be too simple and give lawyers no way to cash in by doing unnecessary work for us.

You've put it bluntly and succinctly, and I agree. There's the added complication of copyright laws being specific to countries and differing between them.

Wilderness Champion: The Story of a Great HoundDan wrote: "I know, right? I mean, why should the products of sperm and egg profit from dead Dad's intellectual property? It's not their work or effort. What a messed up system we live in. If I wrote the law, ..."

Not what I was referring to, as I think you know. The fact that an image of a magazine wouldn't be under copyright & yet a story contained within could be makes no sense. I'm not sure it's true, but the laws are such a mess that I couldn't hazard a guess either way. As Chris pointed out, copyright law is all over the place around the globe, but that's to be expected. Since these magazines are on Gutenberg.org, I believe they follow US copyright law, though.

I have no problem with an author keeping the copyright to their work for their life or a reasonable amount of time after their death. I remember when Louis L'Amour had his stories published by others while he was still alive & writing. Definitely unfair, but I hate that others can buy copyrights & then orphan the works. Take REH's work. He died 90 years ago without any direct heirs & at least one of his stories is under copyright until 2066 in the US.

Another egregious example is Joseph Wharton Lippincott's books Wolf King & Wilderness Champion: The Story of a Great Hound. Lippincott wrote the books in the 1930s & they were out copyright until someone bought them & reissued the second book in the 60s or 70s. They never reprinted the first one, though. Since the second is a sequel to the first, it sucks. Last time I looked, there was one battered copy of Wolf King for sale for $300. If we must resell copyrights to strangers, there should be a use it or lose it policy. Orphaning books does no one any good & encourages piracy.