Category Archives: Vintage Science Fiction

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A 1968 Letter from Damon Knight to Hayden Howard

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I’m holding a letter typed 56 years ago, signed by Damon Knight (1922-2002.) It was sent from The Anchorage, in Milford PA, to author John Hayden Howard.

Image of Damon Knight’s home called The Anchorage. It burned down in 1979, according to the Times Herald-Record.

Damon Knight was a science fiction author who wrote over seventy stories and twenty novels. He edited the Orbit anthology series (see Knight in the Oregon Encyclopedia). Knight also founded the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association) and was later inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

He and his sci-fi writing wife Kate Wilhelm co-founded the Milford Science Fiction Writer’s Conference, and hosted workshops in their big aging Victorian home, The Anchorage.

One of his Knight’s stories, written in 1950, became an episode of The Twilight Zone. In “To Serve Man,” men find an alien cookbook with a recipe titled by the same name. They think it’s about how to feed humans. Spoiler Alert: it becomes apparent that they are the meal. I’ve seen that episode, which makes it even more fun having his signature in front of me.

Knight also wrote for the Captain Video television show. (Incidentally, Hayden Howard was later asked by his agent Scott Meredith to audition to write for Captain Video. However, that would have involved a move to New York, so he didn’t go for that. He loved living in Santa Barbara!)

Back to Damon Knight’s letter:

At first glance, Knight’s letter to Hayden Howard looks like a simple a rejection letter. Those always sting for writers. Wrote Knight:

I return this one with regrets. I grok some of it, but am not sure what the story as a whole is intended to mean.”

Grok?  I see now that means grasped. Yay, a new fun word to use. You grok that?

But then Knight followed that comment up with thoughtful questions about Howard’s plot and characters in the story he was rejecting, The Brave Candidates.

I have an original copy of that. It’s interesting, yet agree that it’s not one of his best (unlike the other 17 stories I chose for the Reawakened Worlds anthologies). The Brave Candidates is a political story set on a planet where aliens (Earthmen) intrude.

Howard had better success throughout his writing career with publishing other politically themed stories, so remember authors: no writers bat a thousand! In 1971, Hayden Howard’s political story To Grab Power was published by Isaac Asimov in one of his anthologies. It’s now being included in Reawakened Worlds Book 2, coming soon. So that one hit it out of the ballpark.

On serialized stories vs. stand-alones:

Knight mentioned that the story felt incomplete, “. . . as if it were one of those segments of novels Fred Pohl keeps printing.”

Ironically, before Knight wrote this letter in August of ’68, Hayden Howard’s works had actually been serialized by Pohl, in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine. One novelette in that series was nominated for Hugo and Nebula awards. The resulting novel, The Eskimo Invasion (1967, Ballantine) was also nominated, for best novel.

Back to Fred Pohl: Frederick Pohl–in the same writing groups as Knight–was the 12th recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award, awarded by SFWA. Pohl also was later inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. So I suspect what Knight was saying (referring to Pohl’s segments of novels) was that he (Knight) was seeking standalone stories instead.

A redeeming final comment from Knight:

In Damon Knight’s letter to John, he revealed openness to more of Howard’s work:

If I have missed the point, please forgive–and send me some more.”

That makes this letter– in my opinion, one Holy Grail of a rejection! Any writer should feel fortunate to get such an intriguing and affirming rejection–as well as honest advice–from a future Hall-of-Famer.

Fast-forwarding to the future, you can now download some stories by both Knight and Howard for free here, to read online or via Kindle, at Project Gutenberg.

READ MORE ARTICLES ABOUT VINTAGE SCIENCE FICTION & HAYDEN HOWARD by Laurie Winslow Sargent

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We Specialists: a sci-fi story in the Reawakened Worlds, Vol. 1 anthology

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(John) Hayden Howard wrote his fictional short story We Specialists in 1967: three years after a horrific crime had been reported in the newspapers. Sixty years later, that case–and its reported “bystander effect”–is still discussed in countless psychology classes.

Page 60 of Reawakened Worlds, with the story We Specialists, by John Hayden Howard. Story written in 1967,

While Hayden couldn’t possibly have known that specific case would still be discussed sixty years later, it’s obvious it impacted him at the time. I know I never forgot the story from my own psych classes in the late 1970s. Imagine my surprise when I found something similar among Hayden Howard’s yellowing manuscripts.

I nearly missed the association with his character’s futuristic name: Kitty G-3, because he makes no mention of any news story. As with Hayden’s usual subtle style, he simply tells a story and lets readers experience their own “ah-hah!” moments.

For those of you unfamiliar with the original crime and hate spoilers, of course avoid Googling it. You can read John Hayden Howard’s sci-fi story in Reawakened Worlds Vol 1 before exploring the related news story. In the meantime, I’ll share no more details of the original crime previously mentioned!

Let’s focus instead on the underlying message in Hayden’s story:

Even in the distant future, no matter how high-tech that may be, I hope people will learn to all look out for each other. That, I’m sure, is the message Hayden meant to convey in We Specialists. That we can’t make excuses for not helping strangers, even if the government (as in his fiction story) were to attempt to box us into specific roles. That we should never become so desensitized to violence that we focus only on ourselves or on rules or laws.

Yes, this brief short story is one of violence. I’m not a fan of anything truly gory, but I’d give this short story a PG 13 rating for violence, as he focused more on the ridiculousness of allowing ourselves to be confined by roles that exclude helping others. Showing that ridiculousness, his last line referring to a Homicide Specialist is a real kicker.

About John Hayden Howard:

John Hayden Howard was well-known in the 1960s for his science fiction writing (see the International Science Fiction Database) but also had published many mysteries and detective stories, in magazines including Ellery Queen’s (originally called Ellery Queen) mystery magazine. Perhaps Hayden saw “We Specialists” as a bit of a crime and sci-fi genre merge. Here’s where you can find the story (one of eight):

To read descriptions of some of his other stories in Volume One, see my former posts on:

The Tragedy of Henry Diddoh: a 1950s Frankenstein-ish story in Reawakened Worlds

Gremmie’s Reef: in Reawakened Worlds Vol 1

Hayden Howard: Short Stories with Creative Wordplay (featuring “Ten Rounds for the All-Time Champ”)

More stories to come!

Volume Two of Reawakened Worlds, MORE Dystopian and Sci-Fi Short Stories, is slated for release in September, with pre-ordering soon! Here’s a sneak peek at the cover of book 2! Contact me (or Subscribe) to know the moment it’s released. And as always, I’d love to read your comment below. Let me know if you’ve read Volume One and how it grabbed you!

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Gremmie’s Reef: in Reawakened Worlds Vol 1

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In Gremmie’s Reef–a 1964 science fiction short story in the anthology Reawakened Worlds Vol 1 by (John) Hayden Howard–a teen surfing off the Santa Barbara, California coast finds something bizarre.

Previously published in If Worlds of Science Fiction, October 1964 (illustrated by Finlay) the story Gremmie’s Reef puts us in the flip-flops of a young teenager. He is an eager surfer, but desperate for his older teen brother’s attention. We first meet young Ted at the beach:

A strange new sight off the Santa Barbara coast . . .

Then Ted sees, offshore, some terrific new swells. It’s strange–as if giant waves are over a submerged reef he knows can’t be there. Still, he gets excited about trying to surf. He has some success. That is, despite getting clobbered in the process and getting something oddly purple on his skin.

Ted rushes home to tell his brother David. Maybe, finally, his brother will pay attention to him.

David gets very annoyed at Ted bothering him. He keeps calling him a “gremmie. ” (That’s 1960s slang for an inexperienced and objectionable surfer.) He finally goes with Ted to the beach, though David doesn’t believe there are any strange new swells at Chalk Cliff.

Then they both encounter something even more bizarre, and the story takes an ironic and subtly humorous intergalactic twist.

As I review what I like about this story, I think Hayden Howard showed well what it can be like for a teen in any era to feel ignored and sometimes bullied by a sibling. The author himself only had a sister. Yet perhaps when young he had peers bully him, so might have known what that felt like. (He had an ear deformity he hid most of his life under long hair, but when he was a child long hair was not in style.)

That human element, mixed into an entertaining science fiction tale, gives Howard’s characters depth. Meanwhile, slang throughout the story immerses me in the 1960s.

Here’s a copy of the cover of the 1964 science fiction magazine in which this story by (John) Hayden Howard was originally published. Other authors in this publication included Robert A. Heinlein. Below that is a 2023 anthology of Howard’s works, Reawakened Worlds, Vol 1. In that book is the full story of Gremmie’s Reef, including its surprise ending.

If Worlds of Science Fiction, October 1964
Reawakened Worlds Vol 1, July 2023, WildBlue Press, available in hardcover, paperback, audiobook and eBook.
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The Tragedy of Henry Diddoh: a 1950s Frankenstein-ish story in Reawakened Worlds

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In John Hayden Howard‘s vintage sci-fi anthology, Reawakened Worlds, Vol One (WildBlue Press, 2023) Henry and Hank share an strange and untenable bond.

This novelette by John Hayden Howard, written in 1951, kicks off the Reawakened Worlds series with a bang. Or I should say, with a headset.

Here’s the gist of the Diddoh story (the first of eight stories in the book):

Henry is a professor, leading an extremely predictable and somewhat boring life. He’s considering a few life-changing options. Suddenly a third, more macabre choice presents itself:

Image with Kindle quote: Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, as the result of a long, off-the-record talk with Professor Renworth of the Physiology Department concerning an unusual experiment, Henry's choices increased to three. Henry Diddoh paid his fated visit to the lab where Renworth, a dabbler in neural electronics, was probing a handsome cadaver. The body's lifelike twitching made Henry's Adam's apple return distress signals.
(Image links to Reawakened Worlds paperback.)

Henry opts to connect his brain to the body of that once-a-cadaver. The idea is to allow him to be in two places at the same time–to accomplish more. I think that could be useful– what if I could write a book at home while also being with my grandchildren in another state? What would you do if you could be in two places at the same time?

At first, for Henry, it seems exciting:

Kindle Quote: Henry and Hank grinned at each other like a pair of newly successful ventriloquists.
(Image links to Reawakened Worlds on Kindle.)

But as the story progresses, Henry’s bizarre attempt to manipulate Hank’s brain becomes problematic. Hank desperately wants to be independent–to be his own person and have his own family. Yet the two men are inexorably tied together.

Kindle Quote: The professor had underestimated him. He was a man now. And as Hank walked the streets, he worried about summer, when the experiment with him might end. Soon Hank found he did not have to sleep just because Henry dozed off. Yet he did learn that when he took a bus out of the city, he had to pull the stop cord at about 20 miles from Henry. If he traveled much farther, his sight blurred.
(Image links to Reawakened Worlds audiobook.)

As this vintage sci-fi story progresses, I find myself rooting for Hank, although he does commit a murder in self-defense. (The stories in Reawakened Worlds are clean, but yes, some people die.) And being permanently tied to Henry is impossible, leading to a dramatic ending to the story.

To truly immerse yourself in the story and enjoy Howard’s unique storytelling skills, you can find the full story, along with seven other stories, in the anthology in Volume One. But if you’ve already read “The Tragedy of Henry Diddoh,” can you tell me what you liked about it in a comment below?

As compiler and editor of this anthology series, I’ve gone over all the stories multiple times. Yet with each read I end up pondering a different aspect of this story. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Laurie

All stories in the Reawakened Worlds Series were written between 1950 and 1977, including some previously published stories. Copyright of the author’s stories belongs to the Estate of John Hayden Howard.