Catherine Lucille Moore was born on January 24, 1911, in Indianapolis, Indiana. I’ve written multiple birthday tributes to her. As I said for Robert E. Howard’s birthday two days, ago, I’m eulogized out. So today in honor of her birthday, I’ll be revising a series I let go dormant, that of the Northwest Smith stories. There will be spoilers below the fold. Continue reading
Robert E. Howard was born on January 22, 1906. I’ve been reading through the Conan stories for the series at Black Gate. (The latest post is here.)
I realize a lot of people have favorite Howard characters other than Conan. Conan was the first Howard I read. Call it imprinting, but Conan is still my mental template for what a sword and sorcery character is like. I see more and more things each time I reread one of those stories.
I’m also not into the pastiches very much. I’m open to reading some, especially some of the ones that will be published this year in the new comics, but to my mind they will never be canonical. No offense intended to anyone writing them. I feel the same way about the James Bond books. Continue reading
Two birthdays I want to draw attention to today (January 20).
Abraham Merritt
The first is A. Merritt (b. 1884). His name should be familiar to most anyone who swings by this blog. Merritt was one of the most influential fantasy authors of the first half of the 20th Century. At one point there was even a fantasy magazine named after him. Merritt was first assistant editor and then editor at The American Weekly. Writing was only a side job for him.
I’m going to read some of his work this year. I”ll probably start by rereading The Dwellers in the Mirage. Merritt wrote very little short fiction, but I’m going to read some of that as well.
William F. Nolan (l.) and Charles E. Fritch (r.) at Expo 67
The other author only wrote short stories in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror fields. A member of the so-called California School, Charles E. Fritch (b. 1927) wrote short stories on a fairly consistent basis until the early 1970s, after which his output slowed to a trickle until his death in 2012. Several of his later works appeared in Whispers. In the early to mid 1960s he was editor of the magazine Gamma. He was also editor of Mike Shayne’s Mystery Magazine from1979 until 1985.
I may have read one or two of his stories when I was a teenager, but if so, I don’t recall them. I do know his name pops up in the tables of contents of horror and dark fantasy anthologies from the seventies and eighties. His work is also showing up in some of these anthologies that sell on Amazon for a buck or two. I have a few of those and will read the stories in the ones I have.
If anyone has read any of his work, please let me know.
Edgar Allan Poe was born on this day, January 19, in 1809. He died in 1849.
My father-in-law was buried this morning, a cold and windy morning, so today is a good day to read Poe. But which Poe?
I got to thinking about this a few nights ago on an extended drive with my son. I asked what they were reading in English this six weeks, and he said they had a variety of short stories to choose from, including “Harrison Beregeron”, “The Veldt”, some other Bradbury stories, and some by Poe. My son had read “The Cask of Amontillado”, so we got to talk about that one.
But how many other Poe stories are still widely-read today? “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Raven”, “The Pit and the Pendulum”, “The Masque of the Red Death”, and “The Tell-Tale Heart” are all probably still widely read. But what about “The Purloined Letter”,” Hop-Frog”, “The Gold Bug”, or “The Premature Burial”? “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”? “A Descent into the Maelstrom”?
I don’t know. Stories wax and wane in popularity. What are your favorite Poe stories? I’m going to try to read something I’ve not read before.
This is an update, and it’s going to be a rather negative one. Feel free to skip if you like. This post is personal and has nothing to do with books or fiction writing. Academic writing will come into play.
My wife had her lumpectomy on the 2nd. Everything went fine, and she came home that day. We will get the results of the pathology report on Wednesday, the day after tomorrow. My in-laws came up from where they live, a city three hours drive away. My father-in-law stayed through Saturday, the fifth. It was the last time I ever saw him. My mother-in-law stayed through the next week.
I went to Costa Rica on Sunday the sixth. This was a business trip that had been in the works since before my wife was diagnosed with cancer. The university at which I’m employed opened a branch campus there last fall. Physics was being taught for the first time this spring, and I was helping set up a lab.
While I was gone: Monday night the sewer line under the house backed up; my wife had to call the plumber on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, my mother-in-law was running errands in my wife’s car (formerly known as the Out of Town Car) when a guy ran a red light and hit her. No one was hurt, but the car isn’t going to be going out of town until the insurance is settled and repairs are done. My car wouldn’t start later that day for some reason, but it works fine now. Fortunately my son has a car.
Thursday night I opened my work email to followup on a prior conversation with my department head. I found an email from a sales rep at a textbook publisher. I am coauthor on our lab manuals. The sales rep claimed she had met me and my coauthor before. Maybe, maybe not; I don’t remember her. The email was addressed to both of us, and the sales rep told us that they had taken our lab manual, scanned it, added some figures, and printed it. They had also created an ebook version. They had had a meeting with some of the faculty earlier in the day and discussed bundling their version of our manual with their text book. She was sending us a copy for our convenience.
Uh, no. This was all news to me and my coauthor. This was done without our knowledge or consent. And we won’t give it. I said as much in a sharply worded email (after I cooled off enough to maintain a level of semi-professionalism) to the sales rep. She had CC’d three other people at her publishing house. I made sure they were included in my response. I haven’t heard a response from them yet. If anyone knows a good intellectual property attorney in west Texas, please let me know. I hope it won’t come to that, but I want to be prepared.
I thought my life couldn’t get any worse until Friday evening when I was packing to fly home at dark-thirty the next day and got a text from my wife telling me my father-in-law had passed away. This was unexpected, as he was supposed to have come back and picked up my mother-in-law over the weekend.
Obviously, this has been hard on everyone. Because of some issues with family members being able to get here for the funeral, it won’t be held until the weekend.
I don’t know when I’ll get back to posting on a regular basis. It probably won’t be for at least a week or two, although there may be the occasional Save My Sanity post. I will be back, but don’t be surprised if there is some radio silence for a bit.
As you might guess, I am not having Happy New Year.
So I was hoping this year would start out on a better foot. Didn’t happen. I’ll post about the events of the last two weeks later. That will probably go live tomorrow.
Today, I just want to acknowledge one of the all time greats of weird fantasy, Clark Ashton Smith. Smith was born in 1893 in Long Valley, California. He would go on to become one of the so-called Big Three of Weird Tales, the other two being H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard.
I’ve read a number of Smith’s stories over the years, but I’m not nearly as familiar with his work as I am that of Howard and Lovecraft. So I’m going to seek counsel from those who are wiser than I.
What story by Smith do you suggest I read? Please answer in the comments below.
Today, January 3, is the birthday of J. R. R. Tolkien (b. 1892). A month or so ago, a minor writer of short stories pulled the ol’ drum-up-publicity-for-my-book-launch-by-attcking-someone-greater-than-me trick.
It worked, just not the way the guy that thought. At least with me. I’ve started rereading The Lord of the Rings. Other than The Hobbit, I’ve never read deeply in Tolkien’s other works. I’ve decided to change that and have gotten several volumes in The History of Middle-Earth. I don’t know if I’ll blog about them, but I’m going to dip into them over the course of 2019.
Also, there are two birthdays from yesterday I didn’t mention because I was slightly distracted by my wife’s surgery.
Those were Charles Beaumont (b. Jan. 2, 1929) and Robert Nathan (b. Jan. 2, 1894). Beaumont I’ve written about before. A protege of Ray Bradbury, he wrote some great short stories and a number of well-regarded Twilight Zone scripts. I’ll try to read something of his in the next day or so.
Robert Nathan is best remembered for his short novel Portrait of Jenny. It’s a love story set in the Great Depression about an artist who keeps meeting a girl in the park. He meets her every few weeks, but each time she’s a few years older. It’s not an adventure story, but it’s one of my favorite novels. It’s definitely worth tracking down.
My wife had her lumpectomy this morning. We had to be at the hospital by 6:00, and I think we were ten or fifteen minutes early. She was given a room in pre-op. After some waiting, they sent her to radiology to have some type of dye injected into the lymph nodes. I asked if she was going to glow in the dark. That would be an interesting side job, being a living night light to a child in a wealthy family, don’t you think?
Shortly after she got back, the anesthesiologist came in, went over some things, and they wheeled her out. I went down to the waiting room and hung out with my in-laws. There was one scary moment, and it was only a moment, when I got a call from the operating room. They were simply calling to let me know things were going well. Once I realized there wasn’t a problem, I appreciated the update.
The surgeon removed the tumor and the three lymph nodes closest to it. The whole thing took a little over an hour an a half. We were home by 2:00. My wife is doing well, and so far hasn’t experienced much pain. They told her that will change tomorrow.
My wife and I would like to thank everyone for their concern, well-wishes, thoughts, and prayers.
Seabury Grandin Quinn was born on New Year’s Day in 1889. He passed away on Christmas Eve in 1969. Now where have I heard that name “Grandin” before?
Oh, yeah. Jules de Grandin, the French occult detective. He appeared in over 90 stories and one novel in Weird Tales beginning in 1925. The last story was published in 1951. They are currently being reprinted in hardcover by NightShade Books. Four of a projected five volumes have been published as of this writing.
Quinn wrote other stories that didn’t feature de Grandin. The first Quinn story I ever read was “The Phantom Farmhouse”.
Given how prolific he was, I’m surprised he isn’t better remembered today. Hopefully someone will publish a collection of his non-de Grandin work in an affordable edition.
Happy New Year, everyone!
People tell me I should be making resolutions.
Why? Aren’t most resolutions broken within days/hours/minutes? Why would I want to set myself up for failure?
Still, in the interest of going along with the herd, here are a few of my resolutions.
I think that about covers it. Oh, wait, I left one thing out.
I resolve to try to be less cranky.