I'm not sure who painted the cover for this issue of STARTLING STORIES. I immediately think of Earle Bergey when it comes to that pulp, but somehow this doesn't quite seem like Bergey's work to me. I'm sure one of you out there reading this knows, though. Inside this issue is a fantastic group of writers: Arthur C. Clarke, John D. MacDonald, Sam Merwin Jr., Charles Harness, Willy Ley, Eando Binder (Earl and Otto Binder, with an Anton York story that's a reprint from the August 1937 issue of THRILLING WONDER STORIES), and Rene LaFayette, who was really L. Ron Hubbard, of course. That's a pretty potent bunch, and as it happens, this entire issue can be found online here, if you want to check it out for yourself.
3 comments:
Though not his best work — the guy looks wimpy, and the gal’s face is oddly vague — I ‘m 99% sure it’s a Bergey. The ISFDB’s ‘Cover by’ credit seems to agree, at least.
The featured novel is a wild, hugely entertaining Van Vogtian whirligig. I first read it as half of an Ace Double decades ago, where it was re-titled THE PARADOX MEN, under a gorgeous cover by Richard Powers.
b.t.
Was Earl still doing anything in the Binder brothers' partnership even this early?
b.t.,
It was the girl's face that made me wonder if this was Bergey's work. Her outfit is certainly Bergeyesque, if such a word exists. And if it didn't, it does now. But I'm confident that the ISFDB is right. It nearly always is.
Todd,
Wikipedia says Earl stopped writing "by 1939". The SFE says he stopped in 1934. I guess technically those statements don't disagree with each other. I suspect that most, if not all, of the writing on the Adam Link stories was by Otto.
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