Matthew Wayne Selznick

I haven’t been to the local library lately, but I needed to get out of the house and around people and I needed to write, so I visited today. Before I did anything, I checked out their little library bookstore, where hardcovers are a buck, paperbacks fifty cents, and magazines are a dime.

I checked out the new arrivals cart first, and promptly discovered a 1975 book club hardcover edition of L. Sprague deCamp and Fletcher Pratt’s “The Compleat Enchanter,” and a 1988 hardcover book club edition of Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing’s “The Fifth Child.”

Then. Then… I turned around, and saw a bunch of old issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (and one Analog.) I looked closer, and the dates started hitting me: August 1969… February 1975… June 1966…!

There were fourteen. I grabbed ‘em all. I got that chest-swelling, eight-year-old, Christmas morning feeling. I think I bounced up and down, a little. I might have said, “Hee..!!” very quietly (because I was in the library, where you’re still supposed to be quiet, y’know.)

I took the mags and the two books to the counter. I fully expected to be charged more for the magazines… I mean, they’re classics! Antiques! I would have paid more.

I paid $3.40 for everything. There wasn’t even tax.

I took ‘em out to my car, where I did, absolutely, let out as full-throated a “Squeeeee!!!!!!” as one can when exclaiming “Squeeeeee!!!!!”

Let’s look them over, shall we? I took this with my phone, so it’s not the best:

The oldest issue is June of 1966 and features “This Moment of the Storm” by Roger Zelazny, “The Pilgrims” by Jack Vance. It is stunning to me to hold an issue of a magazine that is 13 months older than I am.

The newest issue in an Analog from June of 1977 (”Star Wars” had just hit theaters and I was about to turn ten) — a “Special Women’s Issue” featuring “Eyes of Amber” by Joan D. Vinge, “Salamander” by Leigh Kennedy, and, though he is not a woman, part three of a serial, “After the Festival” by George R.R. Martin.

Between those two issues… oh, just check out some of this magic:

From April, 1970: The first publication of Fritz Leiber’s “Ill Met In Lankhmar.”

From October of 1970: the “All-Star 21st Anniversary Issue” — The second of Larry Niven’s Svetz stories, “A Bird In The Hand.” Very special to me, as I read it when I was probably nine or ten as part of a collection of Institute For Temporal Research stories called “The Flight of the Horse.”

From June of 1973: A Cthulhu Mythos story from Brian Lumley, “Haggopian,” and a poem from Ray Bradbury, “Old Ahab’s Friend.”

From February of 1975: John Varley’s “Retrograde Summer” and David Drake’s “Something Had To Be Done.”

From December 1975: Another of Lumley’s Lovecraftian tales, “Born of the Winds,” and Pamela Sargeant’s “Exile.”

From January 1976: “Friday the Thirteenth” by Isaac Asimov.

And something striking… so many stories by authors I’ve never heard of, who were only represented once, or twice, in those fourteen magazines. Where are they now? Did they continue to write? To publish?

If they didn’t — if that one appearance in a magazine thirty years or more in the past was their one shot — I feel privileged to be able to enjoy their work, still. I read it, they live on.

Many of these magazines still have the subscription label on the back cover. It’s an address here in Hesperia. Richard M. K******. My impulse is to write to him… but I fear he may be dead, and that’s how his treasures ended up for sale for a dime apiece at the local library. Would his relatives appreciate knowing how much these magazines mean to me? I’m not sure. I’m thinking of writing. I feel so much gratitude that these gems ended up in my hands, you know?

I’m going to enjoy reading these. Very much. What a lucky, happy thing.