I collect old science fiction magazines. Not as an investment. You can buy them for five or ten bucks on Ebay. I collect them for the great short stories. Sometimes by famous, sometimes by obscure authors. It’s kind of like Forrest Gump’s momma said about life; you never know what you’re going to get. Most of the time the surprise is a good one though.
The August 1951 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction is a good example. Arthur C. Clark’s Superiority was first published in this issue, along with A Peculiar People, Betty Curtis’s android moral tale.
Ms. Curtis is vastly underrated. Her style is more sophisticated than most of the Scifi writers of the time. Characterization is subtle, yet complete. The men are sensitive and the women are strong. Both of which were incongruous in forties and fifties science fiction literature. That said, the plot development is just as good or better than most of her male contemporaries. Putting her on par with the likes of Asimov; considered the master of robot tales.
In many ways Betty Curtis reminds me of Philip K. Dick. The idea of asking, “What is human?” is closely associated with PKD’s work, and Ms. Curtis does a really good job of making the reader feel empathy for the droids in A Peculiar People. This makes the fine line between human and machine even more obscure.
Finding a copy of this magazine might be difficult. However, Betty Curtis was included in some anthologies in the past, and it would be worth the effort to find one with A Peculiar People in the table of contents.
Gnostic Science Fiction 