Looking for Science Fiction Short Story "Lover"
Dates: 3/23/01,5:02 PM through 3/26/01,5:55 PM (4 postings)
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Fiction_L Archives
Looking for Science Fiction Short Story "Lover"
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FROM: Cindy Green <[removed]@monroe.lib.mi.us>
REC'D: 3/23/01, 5:02 PM
Thank you for the help!
Cindy Green
Monroe County Library System
Dorsch Memorial Library
18 E Center St
Monror MI 48161
(734) 241-7878
FAX (734) 241-7879
FROM: Dennis Lien <[removed]@tc.umn.edu>
REC'D: 3/23/01, 6:06 PM
Probably "Lover When You're Near Me" by Richard Matheson (GALAXY May
1952). It is set on an alien planet and involves an affair between
an earth astronaut and a female alien named Lover (who is not herself
an astronaut, but is more than she seems...).
If it's not that, I don't know, but I'm fairly sure it wouldn't be
Asimov or Heinlein. The best-known 1950s sf story with "Lover" in
the title is Philip Jose Farmer's THE LOVERS (which is a novel which
was complete in one issue in STARTLING STORIES in the early 1950s
and generally considered the first sf magazine story to be reasonably
sexually explicit (at least by 1950s standards). It's also set on an
alien planet and involves an earth human/alien female affair, but while
I forget what the female is named I'm pretty sure it's not "Lover."
But the Farmer story is so well-known and made such a splash on its
initial publication that it would be my second choice.
Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // [removed]@tc.umn.edu
FROM: [removed]@aol.com
REC'D: 3/24/01, 12:00 AM
<< Can anyone help? A patron has asked us to locate a science
fiction short story she read in the 1950s (maybe 1956). It may have been
published in Galaxy Magazine.
One of the characters may be an alien astronaut named Lover.
The story took place on an alien planet.
Our patron thought the story might be by Asimov or Heinlein - but
a check of Short Story Index doesn't list either author for this title.
Thank you for the help!
Cindy Green
Monroe County Library System
Dorsch Memorial Library
18 E Center St
Monror MI 48161
(734) 241-7878
FAX (734) 241-7879
>>
There is a story index (or indices) designed specifically to index SF and
fantasy short stories. And I'm sure Dennis knows what it is. <g> I used to
use it when I was involved with the Rosenfeld Science Fiction Collection at
UMBC.
Binnie Syril Braunstein
romance novelist/former librarian
FROM: Dennis Lien <[removed]@tc.umn.edu>
REC'D: 3/26/01, 5:55 PM
There's more than one such, but you are probably thinking of the Contento
indexes. In book form these are/were
Contento, William.
Index to science fiction anthologies and collections / William
Contento.
Boston : G. K. Hall, c1978.
xii, 608 p. ; 29 cm.
and
Contento, William.
Index to science fiction anthologies and collections, 1977-
1983 / William Contento.
Boston, Mass. : G.K. Hall, c1984.
xvi, 503 p. ; 29 cm.
I think the books are out of print, but for once that does not matter,
since Bill combined the two, added such corrections and additions as
he'd found in the meanwhile, and put the combined database up free on
the web at
http://users.ev1.net/~homeville/isfac/0start.htm
"An index to 3,428 SF anthologies and single-author collections published
before 1984, containing over 23,000 works by 3,850 authors."
This allows you to search by author or editor of book, author of story,
title of story, contents of book. The data on original publication of
each story (usually magazine name and date) are also given.
There are a few things it *doesn't* do: there's no keyword search function
(other than your browser's usual "find in page" command, but the database
is chopped up into many individual pages, so that doesn't help) and of
course there's no sort of plot summary. So in this instance finding
story titles starting with the word "lover" is easy, but finding those in
which the word "lover" might appear as a later word in title won't fly.
There are also three other reasons why the Contento database doesn't do
"everything" as related to locating sf/f stories:
First, it cuts off at 1983. However, it is hotlinked to the LOCUS
indexes (also compiled by Contento with same database architecture) at
http://www.locusmag.com/index/
which have the same information and more (including published novels
and associational items, and indexes to contents of recent sf/f
magazines) for 1984 to date. Unlike the Contento anthologies index,
the LOCUS indexes do have a keyword search function, so that you can
search just on the word "lover" in a story title and find "Dragon
Lover" and "The Ghost of Lover's Lane" and so on (and since many
pre-1984 stories have been reprinted again after 1984, this might be
the first place you'd want to go to hunt for such stories even if
you know they are older ones).
Second, the Cotento database covers science fiction and (to a large
degree) many types of fantasy (heroic, humorous, etc.) but it does
not generally include supernatural/horror fantasy. (Some stories
appear because some of the anthologies and collections Contento does
index are mixed sf/horror books.) For a thorough index to anthologies
(but not single-author collections) of supernatural horror, by far the
best source is this very extensive and very expensive print volume:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Ashley, Michael.
The supernatural index : a listing of fantasy, supernatural,
occult, weird, and horror anthologies / Mike Ashley and
William G. Contento.
Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1995.
xii, 933 p. ; 29 cm.
(and again the LOCUS online indexes will cover supernatural horror
stories from 1984 on, though I'd say a bit less thoroughly than they
usually do sf, since more of it tends to be very small press/fanzine
things that LOCUS does not always see).
Thirdly, the Contento indexes won't help you with stories that
originally appeared in the sf/f magazines but have not been reprinted
in book form. (Of course, finding such a magazine source even if you
have the citation can be problematic.) There are at least three
competing sources for indexes to the sf/f magazines, of which by far
the most comprehensive is again a Contento product, this time a cd-rom:
Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index (1890-1999)
by Stephen T. Miller and William G. Contento
An index to all professional and semi-professional magazines, and
major fanzines, published since 1890.
which sells for $50. A second possibility is the print volume
Murray, Terry A., 1953-
Science fiction magazine story index, 1926-1995 / by Terry A.
Murray.
Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland, c1999.
ix, 627 p. ; 27 cm.
which is more expensive and covers far fewer magazines in far less
detail (though it does index the major titles) and which uses a
system of abbreviations which makes looking information up slow and
tedious. The third possibility is a series of indexes published
(mostly) by the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA)
which, while very useful in their day, have many of the shortcomings
of the Murray index without even the benefit of a one-volume
cumulation.
Another online source, overlapping all of the above, is the Internet
Speculative Fiction Database, an intended eventual "index of
everything" which is so far very much a work in progress (though it
is large enough to be often useful). I hadn't looked at it for a
while and when I tried last week and again today at
http://www.sfsite.com/isfdb/sfdbase.html
I've been getting a file not found message. I assume they've either
moved (if so I've yet to find new address) or are having temporary
problems; I can't believe (or wouldn't want to believe) that they
might have packed it in.
More than you probably wanted to know, but perhaps useful to keep
in mind for future questions...
Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // [removed]@tc.umn.edu
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