Monthly Archives: April 2025

Jack Williamson, Master of Science Fiction

2 Replies

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

2 Replies

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

8 Replies

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”

3 Replies

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

3 Replies

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.