When I moved from the North Bay area to Windsor, Ontario I got rid of a lot of books, especially old science fiction. But I kept some that I might well reread some day. Among them was R.A. Lafferty's Space Chantey ("the Odyssey of Space Captain Roadstrum.") One reason I kept it, no doubt is that it had a very attractive cover by Vaughn Bode, a fan and professional artist who was a rising star in the late 60s, when I was becoming serious about keeping current with science fiction. I liked Bode as did many of my fannish friends.
But my appreciation of Lafferty was much more serious, so that even decades later there was something in my mind saying, "No, don't let a Lafferty book go."
So I didn't, and last week I picked Space Chantey up, and had the pleasure of reading his whimsical Irish-American prose and remembering that time in the history of science fiction when just about any thing could happen.
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