Under the Skin

By Leslie Perri and John Betancourt

The road to Ul was paved with danger, difficulty, and good intentions—and it's an open question which of the three was most disastrous! Includes a new introduction by John Betancourt.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Mar 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667600277

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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION

UNDER THE SKIN, by Leslie Perri

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2022 by Wildside Press LLC.

Originally published in Infinity Science Fiction, June 1956.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

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INTRODUCTION

Who was Leslie Perri, and why—since she only published 3 short stories—is she important to the science fiction field?

Leslie Perri was actually a pen name. The author behind it was Doris Marie Claire Doë Baumgardt, an American science fiction fan, writer, and illustrator. She was one of the handful of women involved in early science fiction fandom, and she was a member of the Futurians—the science fiction fan club that boasted as members many of the top writers and editors to emerge in the golden age of science fiction. Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Donald A. Wollheim, Robert A.W. Lowndes, James Blish, Damon Knight, Virginia Kidd, C.M. Kornbluth, Larry Shaw, and Richard Wilson were all members, among others.

Baumgardt was introduced to the Futurians through Pohl, who she was dating at the time (and briefly married). She later married Richard Wilson, with whom she had two children. Her accomplishments in science fiction fandom are also notable she—was also a founding member of FAPA, the Fantasy Amateur Press Association, and one of only five members of the Futurians allowed into the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939 by Sam Moskowitz (the other four were Isaac Asimov, Richard Wilson, David Kyle, and Jack Robinson). The Futurians were largely barred over political ideology; Moskowitz thought they might cause trouble if admitted to the convention. In addition to her short fiction, Baumgardt contributed both artwork and written pieces to a variety of fanzines such as Future Art, Futurian News, Le Vombiteur Literaire, Mind of Man, Mutant, and Fantasy Fictioneer.

She edited several romance pulp magazines briefly, and she became a reporter when husband Richard Wilson took a job with Reuters. Her 3 professional science fiction publications were Space Episode, (Future Combined with Science Fiction, Dec. 1941), In the Forest, (If,Sept. 1953), and Under the Skin, (Infinity Science Fiction, June 1956). Space Episode has been often anthologized in feminist science fiction anthologies because if features a strong female heroine—a rarity in 1941 pulp fiction.

—John Betancourt

Cabin John, Maryland

UNDER THE SKIN,

by Leslie Perri

I ran a story the other day about the arrival on Earth of a Martian diplomat and his wife. And I okayed a picture of the lady presiding over a tea at the Martian embassy. I looked at the picture for quite a while. The lady in her costume, fresh from the Couture Syndicate in Rio, was a carbon copy of every other woman. What was different about her was no longer very different. It was sad, and it was frightening, too.

It took me back to the days when Deborah and I were pioneering in the gloomy bureau Universal News had set up in Marsport. I remember the biggest story we ever