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For May 2020, I have selected the short story "Created He Them" by .

This story was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in June 1955.

It can be read legally for free via Strange Horizons here:


They also have a free audio version:


The story is also available in several anthologies, including The Future is Female! Women's Science Fiction Stories from the Pulp Era to the New Wave edited by Lisa Yaszek.

More information about this author and story, taken from the anthology above, is here:

I chose this story because I was discussing the book "The Future is Female!" in a different group, as well as the question it raises: What percentage of writers and readers of pulp SF were female.

According to the author Lisa Yaszek, who has studied this question greatly, there were more women involved in the early days than you might think. For the early period (probably roughly 1920-1950, though I'm not sure what dates she used) she found about 15% female authors in the U.S.A. pulps, and more than 40% of female readers.

I selected this particular story because it is available for free in both text and audio versions, which is something we mods prefer for all our group story-of-the-month selections.

I would love to hear, what the title means. Could be that it is because English is not my language, but I have no idea.

And thank you, Ed, for the link to the podcast. Listening to short stories is my preferred way.

Gabi wrote: "I would love to hear, what the title means.

It is from the Bible. The King James Version, which was put together in the 1600's and intentionally used language that was already old-fashioned at that time. It's not the way we speak English today.

The story title is a reference to Genesis 5:2 (King James Version): “Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.�

Aw, thank you so much, Ed! Now I get it. I was turning the words around in my head, but I didn't come up with the idea that it could be a quote.

Sad story but typical of the dread felt by many during the Cold War of the 1950's. This story did a good job of beginning in a normal way but slowly building to a final description of how people were dealing with a horrible consequence that, fortunately, never actually happened. I was born in 1947 and I remember the "duck and cover" drills in grade school. Surprisingly I also remember thinking that this was just normal life and I don't remember my parents mentioning it much around me when I was a child.

Love the House of the Future set! -- at
The story, sadly, not so much. A dreary slice-of-life that I put aside, not far in. Even now, I have stacks of stuff WAY more promising than this! Sorry.

Forex:
"Robot & Girl", by Paul MacAuley. Love the cover art. Why haven't I read THIS one yet?

Or this one, /review/show...
"Hello, Moto" by Nnedi Okorafor
OK, I did look at the artists stuff, which is pretty great:
"Have a Sexy Halloween!"
Whee!
And she is a cutie-pie, too....😇

I'd *love* to see Jillian Tamaki in costume as a "Sexy Underemployed Contract Worker." Put your imagination to work here:
Down, boy!

Peeps, If you want to talk about other stories unrelated to this one, do it in the discussion Short Stories. You can also create a new dedicated topic for a particular short story if you think it warrants enough discussion.

If you want to share info on artists, feel free to make a new discussion in the folder Science Fiction in Other Media.

Peter wrote: "Love the House of the Future set! -- at
The story, sadly, not so much. A dreary slice-of-life that I put aside, not far in. ..."

I like the art in that article more than the story as well. It is very short, so not so hard to finish. Unfortunately, not all the great stories are available legally for free in multiple formats.

It is a slice-of-life, but a slice of a really unpleasant post-apocalypse life. What makes it different from many such stories is that it is told from the woman's point of view.

I found the depiction of the husband, the only adult male in the story, to be a broad stereotype. But, to be fair, there are many, many stories written by men where the only woman in the story is a stereotype.

This sort of story may be what caused a backlash from John Campbell who very rarely would accept a story which he know to be written by a woman.

Ha! I now read the short article you linked and there is the explanation of the title as well. Should have done that earlier.

The depiction of the husband didn't bother me. I have suffered through enough cardboard female characters by authors from that time that it was nice to have the tables turned for a change. But I have to admit that I was hoping for her to stand up and at least throw the meal in his face. This devote behaviour was cringeworthy.
I also appreciated the domestic POV. The feeling of "we can't do anything" was very palpable. She just let everything happen to her in her complete powerlessness.

Wow, that was depressing, but good. She painted the world really well through the story without a data dump.

I just started reading Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark & he mentions how his mother changed in time to greet his father when he got home from work. It's amazing how much times have changed.

Sagan! He's missed. He got a LOT of pushback from some of his sci-colleagues, as a "populizer". He made $$$ at it, which annoyed some. Bah.

Did you know he married Lynn Margulies, the pioneer in microbe-coevolution. When bacteria ate chloroplast-bearing prey, which (very occ) didn't digest, & turned into symbionts. She was a good pop-sci writer, too, with their son, Dorian Sagan. Both long gone now. Wonder what Dorian's up to?

I just put his bio of Margulies on my (ridiculously long) TBR. But this one goes to the top of the list!

Interesting about his wife & son. Thanks.

Sagan's writing has always been uneven for me. I thought the introduction & first chapter of 'Demon-Haunted World' were good, the second was fantastic, & the third made me want to tear out my hair as he repetitively beat his point into the ground. The 4th chapter is good... I seem to recall the same issue with 'Dragons of Eden' (It's been decades since I last read it.) & 'Contact'. I don't think it was as much of a problem with 'Pale Blue Dot', though.

There is another story "The Happy Clown" by Alice Eleanor Jones . HTML or e-book format.

I like it more than the story I picked for the group, but there isn't an audio version.

Like most stories about clowns, it is very disturbing.

I just downloaded it and will read it shortly. I'm always interested in the date a story was published to get a feel for the context, This one was in 1955. It appears she only wrote 5 short stories, all in 1955. It appears that she switched to mainstream fiction which paid better.

Matt wrote: "...I also found it effective how she conveyed the reality of what had happened through the deprivations in their lives like how the children were fascinated with a working washing machine, especially as these were the conveniences that were defining mainstream America at the time."

I agree that was a very catching bit of description, but I don't think I'd use 'deprivation' in regards to the washing machine. I remember being fascinated by my mother using one. Of course, they were a bit different back then. I recall it having everything exposed so I could see the motor working the washing tub & there was no spin. After the rinse, Mom had to pick each item out & run it through a ringer on the top. It was easy to imagine the ringer as a head & the tub with the motor under it as a body - a real-life robot.

Ed wrote: "There is another story "The Happy Clown" by Alice Eleanor Jones available free on project Gutenberg. HTML or e-book format.

I like it more than the story I picked for the group, but there isn't an..."

I read the story and it was pretty good. It had that fear of society forcing everybody to become homogenized to prevent the wars that were the result of people not understanding other cultures because they were different. The TV methods used as part of the indoctrination made me think of "The Advent on Channel 12" by C. M. Kornbluth which had a more sinister tone and use for it's manipulation of children through TV. Unfortunately it's not easy to find. I read it in "The Best of C. M. Kornbluth" collection.

And everybody just *had* to watch "The Happy Clown" show. Luckily that hasn't happened. Or has it?

Do I detect a hidden political statement here? Or maybe I am just watching too much TV during the shutdown !!!!

Interpret it however you wish! And turn off your TV!

"The Happy Clown" reminded me a bit of "Harrison Bergeron" which the group discussed here. It has a similar idea of everyone forced into becoming "equal".

By the way I also looked for some other stories from "The Future is Female". I found "Baby, you were great" by Kate Wilhelm, and I really enjoyed that. It is pretty dark and pessimistic but so am I!

Ed wrote: "Interpret it however you wish! And turn off your TV!

"The Happy Clown" reminded me a bit of "Harrison Bergeron" which the group discussed here. It has a similar idea of everyone forced into becomi..."

I can't find a copy of "Baby, you were great" so I decided to get a copy of the anthology to read later. According to Damon Knight, her husband, "Baby, You Were Great" was in response to his 1964 story, "Semper Fi", " because she disagreed with his POV.

Baby, You Were Great! is here:


I have not yet read "Semper Fi", but I imagine it had the same technology in it (ability to record and experience other people's emotions) but with a less cynical (realistic) description of how that technology would be used.

I would also like to read this whole anthology. But I have so many unread short-story collections right now....

I know what you mean. I use Kindle for about 98% of the stuff I read now. I store novels and stories that I want to eventually read in folders on my PC and there about 1000 stories and novels there. I then move the stuff I want to read in the immediate future to the Calibre app where I often have to convert stuff from Epub to Kindle format. I currently have about 130 on Calibre right now. I then choose the stuff I want to read over the next couple of weeks and put it on my Kindle. I'm 73 so I doubt very much if I will get through those 1000 novels and stories on my PC. I am a fan of classic Sf and classic crime/mystery/detective/noir. I find that there are more short stories than novels in those genres prior to the late 50's. I find that when I'm reading anthologies in either genre I come across many stories I have already read. Depending on how well I remember it I either pass it by or read it for a second (or third time), especially if it was a very good story.