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Joachim Boaz

@joachimboaz.bsky.social

1K followers 160 following 2.1K posts

History PhD. Defender of Liberal Arts. History of Leftist Thought. Joachim Boaz (he/him) maps the topography of science fiction between 1945-1985. Creator of the fanzine Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations: https://sciencefictionruminations.com/

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 2d

New fanzine post: What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading? + The Power of the List

Come join the discussion: sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/10/12/w...

What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading? + Update No. XXVI

A selection of read volumes from my shelves What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading or planning to read next month? Here’s the August installment of this column. The Power of the List. I ador…

sciencefictionruminations.com

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 8h

My comments aren't the clearest. Sorry!

Great movie co-written with László Krasznahorkai -- Werckmeister Harmonies (2000). www.imdb.com/title/tt0249...

It adapts Krasznahorkai's equally great novel The Melancholy of Resistance (1989)

Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) ⭐ 7.9 | Drama, Mystery

2h 25m | Not Rated

www.imdb.com

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 8h

As I adored the movie in college I tracked down the novel and enjoyed it as well! It was a long time ago though.... 2008 or something.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 8h

....It's a slightly possibly magical realist novel in which a circus comes to town with only a massive whale. And of course the strange events that transpire.

It adapts László Krasznahorkai's novel The Melancholy of Resistance (1989)

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 9h

I was obsessed with his collaborations with Bella Tarr -- the film director. My favorite Tarr movie (which is an adaptation of his novel with a co-written screenplay) is the Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)...

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Reposted by Joachim Boaz

Making Gay History @makinggayhistory.bsky.social · 9h

The March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights stepped off #OnThisDate 1979. An estimated 100,000 people from around the country had streamed into the nation’s capital, all united to advance five primary demands... 1/3

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 11h

Mick van Houten's cover art detail for the 1st edition of Ian Watson's The Book of Being (1986)
#scifi #sciencefiction #art #artist #books

A hot air ballon floats above similarly shaped islands (mountain and coast). THe islands float in space. The earth is down below and clouds above.

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Reposted by Joachim Boaz

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 18h

Uncredited interior map depicting a flooded UK in 3000 C.E. from Richard Cowper's novel Road to Corlay (1978)
#scifi #sciencefiction

Map showing the Seven Kingdoms circa A.D. 3000. The UK is flooded and broken into small islands due to the rising sea levels.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 16h

New history purchase. Jennifer Dominique Jones’ Ambivalent Affinities: A Political History of Blackness & Homosexuality after World War II (2023)

#history #books

Photo shows the book and a pencil on a desk. Cover is Lyle Ashton Harris’ photo Americas (Triptych) (1987-1988)

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 18h

I wrote about the book here: sciencefictionruminations.com/2019/04/01/b...

Book Review: The Road to Corlay, Richard Cowper (1978)

(Gary Viskupic’s cover for the 1979 edition) 3.75/5 (Good) Nominated for the 1980 Nebula Award for Best Novel Richard Cowper’s The Road to Corlay (1978) charts the ethereal pastoral wan…

sciencefictionruminations.com

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 18h

Uncredited interior map depicting a flooded UK in 3000 C.E. from Richard Cowper's novel Road to Corlay (1978)
#scifi #sciencefiction

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 18h

Virgil Finlay's interior art for Robert Bloch's "Slave of the Flames" in Weird Tales (June 1938)
#art #weirdfiction #fantasy

"Everybody was so excited. Why didn't they watch this pretty thing while they could!"

Man's head, who I assume is thinking the quote above, is amongst the flames. There are people behind him screaming, a burning city, and a worried face.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

I have zero interest debating definitions of science fiction (and genre).

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

....although I'd have browse (can't, at work) to see when the later versions (in the thread) of some of those banners appeared.

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

I think the first banner -- Scientifacts -- is M. Marchioni as he's the primary early interior artist and it appears in the second issue. If I were to guess, again, no evidence, I suggest the others are Wesso. He appears in the second year of the magazine.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

Nope.

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

If you want to read the columns below the banners -- here's an electronic copy of the magazine: archive.org/details/Thri...

Thrilling Wonder Stories v21n02 (1941 12) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Thrilling Wonder Stories v21n02 (1941 12)

archive.org

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

December 1941 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories, ed. Oscar J. Friend

#scifi #sciencefiction #art

Banner: The Reader Speaks. The letters mimic the flow of speech. There is a man speaking -- the words flow from his mouth. There is a SF city behind the letters.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

December 1941 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories, ed. Oscar J. Friend

#scifi #sciencefiction #art

BANNER: Looking Forward. The letters are dynamically placed to mimic the trajectory of a rocket. There are rockets and a nice SF pulp city behind the letters.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

December 1941 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories, ed. Oscar J. Friend

#scifi #sciencefiction #art

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY. Man with pipe writes at a typewriter with a fantastic pulp SF world is behind him.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

I'm a sucker for a gorgeous SF magazine banner. This thread is from the December 1941 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories, ed. Oscar J. Friend

#scifi #sciencefiction #art

Banner: SCIENTIFACTS. Incredible but true.

Banner is a composite image with various animals, spaceships, planets, people, in an angled checkerboard pattern.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

In my relentless search for the esoteric, I have reviewed both of the books above:

A Time For Survival (1966) sciencefictionruminations.com/2020/05/17/s...

The Day of the Coastwatch (1968) sciencefictionruminations.com/2024/11/06/s...

Short Book Reviews: Lisa Goldstein’s A Mask for the General (1987) and Philip McCutchan’s The Day of the Coastwatch (1968)

Note: My read but “waiting to be reviewed pile” is growing. Short rumination/tangents/impressions are a way to get through the stack before my memory and will fades. My website partially serve…

sciencefictionruminations.com

Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 1d

Philip McCutchan (1920-1996) was born on this day. Speculative fiction bibliography: www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.c...

L, uncredited, 1968; R, uncredited, 1966
#scifi #sciencefiction #books

Cover for The Day of the Coast Watch. Cover shows a map of the UL with various stations that protect the coast.

Cover for A Time for Survival. Beyond the title, there's an explosion (a reference to the nuclear explosion in the novel).

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 2d

isfdb.stoecker.eu/cgi-bin/ea.c...

Summary Bibliography: Mick van Houten

isfdb.stoecker.eu

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 2d

I mean, I guess… Dean is a bit more fantastical. Look through Van Houten’s covers — there’s a simple realism to the trees and mountains etc. even if it gives off an Otherworldly vibe.

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 2d

I also should have said 1st paperback edition (Panther/Granada). It is not the 1st hardback edition (received a hideous yellow Gollancz "cover"). Alas.