RIP, George Barr, (1937-2025)

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Locus magazine is reporting that art Geroge Barr passed away on April 19. He hadn’t been active as an artist for a number of years. Barr’s work graced a number of paperback covers in the 1960s and 1970s.  Much of his work was for DAW or Ace.  That’s the cover of The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories: 2 there on the left.

Barr had a easily recognizable style. I remember when it was pretty common to see his artwork both on covers and on the interiors of various publications, such at the late 80s/early 90s incarnation of Weird Tales. 

There hasn’t been a collection of his work for nearly fifty years, which is a shame.

Jack Williamson, Master of Science Fiction

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I’m writing this on April 29. It’s the birthday of Jack Williamson (1908-2006). Williamson was one of the first sceince fiction writers I read in middle school when I was transitioning from the kid’s section in the library to the adult section. I found a copy of The Best of Jack Williamson at the flea market in Wichita Falls for a quarter. The cover had been ripped off.

I didn’t realize at the time that it was a stolen book. Bookstores stripped the covers off books when they took them off they sent the covers back to the publisher for credit and supposedly pulped the books. As far as I know, this is still the practice. Some unscrupulous boosellers would then sell the stripped copies, which the publishers consider to be theft.

But I digress. I was blown Continue reading →

Frank Belknap Long

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Today, April 27, is the birthday of Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994) .It’s the end of the semester, and I’ve been slammed the last couple of weeks. (Apologies to those who commented on earlier posts for the delay in approving the comments. I just did that.) I hadn’t realized it had been about three weeks since the last time I posted something. I’ve been busy grading exams and wokring on a cople of fiction proojects.

Long was a protege of H. P. Lovecraft. In a way, he never completely got out of Lovecraft’s shadow. He was a fine writer in his own right.Fortunately, Wildside Press had published at elast three Megapacks of his work.

He wrote under a variety of pen names. I want to read some of the gothics he wrote in the late sixites and early seventies under the name Lyda Belknap Long. Has anyone read those.?

Kuttner’s Time Travel

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Today, April 7, is the birthday of Henry Kuttner (1915-1958). Kuttner is one of my favorites. I’ve been doing birthday posts on his work for years. As long as this blog is active, I’ll keep doing them.

For today’s post, I want to look briefly at some of his time travel stories. He wrote a number of them, the best in collaboration with his wife C. L. Moore.

I haven’t read all of his time travel, but these three are some of his best and among my favorites of all his work. Continue reading →

Bloch’s “Hungarian Rhapsody”

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Today, April 5, is the birthday of Robert Bloch (1917-1994). Valancourt Books has begun reprinting a number of titles by Robert Bloch. Today’s story is from Pleasant Dreams. This was one of Bloch’s first collections that moved away from Lovecraft pastiche.

This is a great collection and one that is worth checking out. If you’ve read much Bloch, you’ll frecognize a number of the tales therein, but Bloch is always worth rereading.

“Hungarian Rhapsody” was originally published in the June 1958 issue of Fantastic. It’s about a retired gangster who is liviing in an isolated house on a lake when a gorgeous woman moves in next door. She paid for the house in antique gold coins.

The gangster desires both the cons and the woman. As the story goes on, he moves from being a sympathetic character to a total creep. When he gets his  comeuppance, What happens to him isn’t a huge surprise, but Bloch handles it well.

It has a twist, and that’s in the last line. I won’t spoil it for you. Bloch was well-known for his sense of humor and his love of puns. That tenddency is on full display at the end of the story.

One thing I want to note. Pleasant dreams was originally published by Arkham House in 1960. There was a mass market paperback of the same title published 1979.

That book was a different book, although there was a great deal fo overlap. That’s the cover there on the left. Four stories were removed from the Arkham House edition (“Mr.Steinway”, “Catnip”, “that Hell-Bound Train,” and “Enoch”) and three were added (“TheMandarin’s canaries”, “Return tot he Sabbath”, and “One Way to mars”).

Why these substitutions were made, I don’t know. I have always found it annoying that the paperback lists three of the deleted stories on the back cover.

So Robert Bloch is being brought back into print thanks to Valancourt Books. They are available in electronic editions as well. Reading (or rereading) some of his stories is a great way to celebrate bloch’s birthday.

Finally a big thank you to John Bullard who picked up for me a couple of older Bloch books at Windy City yesterday that I didn’t have. Another great way to celebrate bloch’s birthday.

Trump Administration Declassifies Isaac Asimov Autopsy Files

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In a stunning move that surprised almost everyone, earlier today the Trump administration declassified all files relating to the autopsy of Isaac Asimov.

Asimov, whom  most of the world believed died in 1992, was a prominent writer of science and science fiction in the Twentieth Century.

Shock waves rippled through the scientific and science fiction communities as interested parties combed thtough the documents. Autopsy photos clearly show that Asimov wasn’t human.

He was a type of robot built to resemble a human known as a humaniforom robot. Video footage shows the removal of his positronic brain, which was transported to a government controlled laboratory in the basement of one of the buildings at Coumbia University under the direction of a Dr. S. Calvin.

Dr. Calvin could not be reached for comment. Her assistant, R. D. Olivaw released the following statement:

Now that the cat is out of the bag, I can say that examinatnion of Dr. Asimov’s positronic brain has allowed us to make great strides forward in robotics, cybernetics, and computer science. Facebook, Tik-Tok, and Angry Birds all owe their development to our study of Asimov’s positronic brain. The advances in artificial intelligence alone have allowed us to leap forwards decades sooner than we would have otherwise. We here at the lab are working on developing an AI known as Seldon, which will aid humanity in expanding out into the galaxy.

Certain details in the documents indicated that while Dr. Asimov’s humaniform body may have failed, his positronic brain is still alive. Skeptics claimed that if this were really the case, then it would probably still be writing books. No such books have been published, at least not under Asimov’s name. Unfortunately, these hints refer to other files which have not been declassified.

This is a developing story. Further details will be provided as they become available.

Update on Sale of Digest Fiction Magazines

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I recently posted about the sale of the five major digest fiction magazines: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Analog Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Locus Online has posted an update with comments from the science fiction editors.

Here are the key points:

…have been acquired by Must Read Magazines, a division of a new publishing company, Must Read Books Publishing. All editorial staff from the magazines have been retained in the acquisitions. Jackie Sherbow has been promoted to editor of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. P.L. Stevens joins the group as publisher.

Must Read Magazines is financially backed by a small group of genre fiction fans. A major investor and board advisor is Michael Khandelwal, the founder of a writing nonprofit and Virginia’s Mars Con toastmaster. Macmillan Learning Ebook consultant and developer Franco A. Alvarado has joined the group as director, design & operations. Leading the executive board is former Curtis Brown literary agent Steven Salpeter, who will manage the distribution, translation, and Film/TV rights for the company, as he does for other companies at his new firm 2 Arms Media.

The link above will take you tot he  complete post, which includes further details and statements from  the editors of Analog and Asimov’s and Gordan Van Gelder, who was the publisher of F&SF.

My (not necessarily well-thought out) thoughts.

I think the fact that the people behind the purchase are a group of readers and fans iwth real-world business and publishing experience is a potentially good sign. It implies that they aren’t using the magazines as some corporate financial maneuver that won’t be in the best interests of the magazines or the readers. I hope they realize their goals of expanding the readership of all the magazines.

I agree 80% with keeping the same editorial staff for now. I’m sure there will be changes over the next few months or more, but for now everything, at least with the four Penny Press/Dell magaziines will continue with little interruption.

I do wish t hey would do something about the Alfred Hitchcock’s response time to submissions, thought. A year or more is too long a response time for a professional magazine.

Maybe now F&SF will begin publishing on a regular schedule again. I’m glad things seem to  be looking up for this particular publication. I’ve had a subscription for nearly 40 years, and I’ve got a complete running going back nearly 50 years. I don’t want to see it die.

What do you think, will this revialtize the genre digests? Or am I being overly optimistic?

Novalyne and Howard

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Today, March 9, is the birthday of Novalyne Price Ellis (1908-1999). Novalyne dated Robert E. Howard during the last two years of his life.

She kept a diary while they were dating, and it was published under the title One Who Walked Alone. It was filmed in the nineties as The Whole Wide World. The movie starred Vincent D’Onofrio as Robert E. Howard and Renee Zelwegger as Novalyne.

Without Novalyne’s diary/book, our understanding of Howard’s final years would be must less complete than it is now.

I think she was in some ways  a stabilizing influence on his life, especially as Hester Howard’s health declined. Sadly, their relationship wasn’t stable enough for her to be there for him when his mother died.

I don’t mean that last sentence to be a form of blame for his suicide. I’m not sure that could have been avoided. And that sort of speculation isn’t a game I’m interested in playing tonight. So, raise a glass to Novalyne Price Ellis tonight if you’re so inclined.

William F. Nolan

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Today is March 6, and that means 1) it’s the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo, and 2) it’s the birthday of William F. Nolan (1928-2021).

Nolan was a member of the California school, which included such luminaries as Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, and Charles Beaumont. There were others who drifted in and out, either because of geographic relocation, such as Chad Oliver, or who simply didn’t write as much, like chrles E. Fritch.

Nolan’s best known works isn’t dark fantasy. It’s dystopian science fiction, Logan’s Run, which he wrote in collaboration with George Clayton Johnson. Nolan wrote two sequels alone. I heard somewhere that Johnson had written his own sequel, but the ISFDB doesn’t list it. I saw the movie on television when I was a kid, although I suspect it had been edited for content a little. I also watched the television series that followed. I won’t say how many years ago that was.

There was a short-lived Twilight Zone type anthology show in the early eighthies called Darkroom. I remember an adaptation of one of Nolan’s stories, “the Partnership”.  It was a good story, and a good episode.

Nolan’s strengths were at shorter lenghts, though. (None of the Logan novels are very long. They might be considred novellas today.) It’s been a while since I read any of his short fiction. I will try to work a few stories in here and there over the next few month.

I’ve looked at some of Nolan’s short fiction here before. He was part of a group that excelled at shorter lengths. Bradbury. Matheson. Beaumont. Harlan Ellison came into that group as ti was beginning to splinter and the members go their separate ways. I’m not aware of any group today that is writing short fiction as consistently as the California school did.

I’ll raise a glass in their honor tonight, especially Nolan’s.

Five Major Print Digests Sold

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All five of the major print digest magazines have been sold, according to Amazing Stories. Amaziing Stories is only reporting on Asimov’s, Analog, and F&SF, but the sale also appears to include Hitchcock’s and Ellery Queen.

To quote Amazing Stories:

There’s been a change on the websites for Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.  The bottom of the page used to list “© 2024 PENNY PUBLICATIONS, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.”.

That same line now reads,  “© 2025 1 PARAGRAPH, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED”.

This same change can be seen on the webpages for the two mystery magazines.

I’ll post further details when I learn them.