Author Archives: Keith West

Kuttner

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Henry Kuttner (1915-1958) was born today, May 5. He’s been my favorite science fcition and fantasy writer ever since I read “Mimsy were the Borogoves” in The Best of Henry Kuttner the summer before I started high high school.

I was going to read and review Lands of the Earthquake (thanks for sending me a copy, Deuce), but I’ve been on the road with one of the dayjobs most of the past week. It took me all week to read “The Brood of Bubastis” for the Robert Bloch post, and I was falling asleep over the keyboard as I wrote it. So, obviously, I didn’t get to it. I’ll try to read it and post something in the next few months. Continue reading →

Brooding with Bubastis

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For Robert Bloch’s birthday, I’m going to spend a few minutes looking at one of his early short stories, “The Brood of Bubastis”. It was published in the March 1937 issue of Weird Tales. It’s one of Bloch’s early Lovecraftian telas. That’s the cover to the right. Another amazing Margaret Brundage cover.

Bloch was born on April 5, 1917 and passed away in 1994. We was a prolific author in the horror, fantasy, mystery, and science fiction fields.

“The Brood of Bubastis” is your typical Lovecraft plot, although it’s better executed than most. Here’s the setup. Continue reading →

Weinbaum

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One of the brightest stars of the pre-Campbell pulp era was Stanley G. Weinbaum (1902-1935). His aliens were truly alien, and his stories often had a sense of whimsey to them that is missing in much of today’s fiction. He helped to break the mold of stories that were gadget stories with cardboard characters.

In other words, reading him was fun.

He could be serious. “Pygmalion’s Spactacles” comes to mind as an example. He was just beginning to stretc h himself as a writer when he died of cancer. Much of what he was writing at the end of his career was romance.

Weinbaum’s style is a little dated now, but his work is still enjoyable.

Remembering Carolynn Catherine O’Shea

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Carolynn Catherine O’Shea

One of the themes of the blog this year has been bringing attention to writers who have faded into obscurity and whose work has been forgotten. No other writer fits this description more than Carolynn Catherine O’Shea. Even many of the most knowledgeable pulp scholars know little about her. When I asked Mark Finn for information while researching this article, he told me he had never heard of her. That was when I knew I had my work cut out for me.

Lynn, as she preferred to be called, knew (and in some cases worked with) many of the major writers of the pulp era, and was an accomplished author herself. This was before she became a screenwriter in Hollywood. Blacklisted in the early 1950s, she turned to writng crime novels under a variety of male psuedonyms. Later in her life, she took bit parts in movies and television shows before withdrawing completely.

Unfortunately, hard facts about her life and writing are scarce and are mixed with a great deal of conjecture. I’ll try to separate the reality from the myths in this post. I’ll start with the facts I’ve been able to verify and then deal with the conjecture. I’ll list all my sources at the end of the post. Continue reading →

RIP, James A. Moore

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It is with extreme sadness that I write this post. James A. Moore passed away on March 27, 2024. That’s yesterday as I write this.  He was born in 1965. Mr. Moore was 58.

I got home late last night from being on the road and noticed a post on Twitter/X announcing Mr. Moore’s passing. I stayed up later than I should have looking for more information, but didn’t find much.

James Moore wrote sword and sorcery, dark fantasy, and horror. Much of his work was in collaboration with other writers. Charles R. Rutledge and Christopher Golden are the two I’m most familiar with.

I’ve reviewed some of his work here, always positively. He was one of the best. I’ve got several of his recent books in the eTBR pile that I’ve been looking forward to reading.

I never had the privilege of meeting James Moore. I had hoped to at the World Fantasy Convention in San Antonio a few years ago, but he wasn’t able to make it. by all accounts, he was a warm, gegerous man. He will be missed.

I would like to extend my deepest condolences to James Moore’s family, friends, and collaborators. Christopher golden is organizing a GoFundMe to cover the expenses of Mr. Moore’s cremation.

I Thought It Would Never Happen

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OK, so back a few months ago we had a discussion about how science fiction and fantasy have changed. I titled that post “From Dangerous Visions to Safe Spaces”. Part of the discussion revolved around Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions anthology series. One of the things mentioned was Last Dangerous Visions, which was announced in 1973.

Last Dangerous Visions also came up in the tribute post to Christopher Priest, because he wrote a history of it entitled The Book on the Edge of Forever. Before Harlan died, I would joke that we should take bets on which book would be published first, Last Dangerous Visions or George R. R. Martin’s next sequel to A Game of Thrones.

Well, now we know the answer, and it’s not the one I would have expected since Harlan Ellison, the editor of the anthology, was dead. But… Continue reading →

H. Beam Piper

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Today, March 23, is the birthday of H. Beam Piper (1904-1964). Piper was one of  John W. Campbell’s stable of authors from the late 1940s until his death.

Piper wrote two major series. The first is the Paratime Police, consisting of a collection of shorter works (collected in Paratime!) and the novel Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. As you can probably tell from the series title, it concerns an organization dedicated to preserving the timeline across multiple dimensions.

The seond series is sometimes called the Terro-Human Future History. This series contains much of Piper’s best known works, including the Fuzzy books and the novel Space Viking, as well as a few lesser-known novels and a number of shorter works. It was by reading Piper when I was in high school, that I really got interested in knowing more history.

Piper wasn’t the only author who ignited my interest in history. The other was Poul Anderson. Continue reading →

RIP Vernor Vinge (1944-2024)

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Locus Online is reporting that Vernor Vinge has passed away at the age of 79 from Parkinson’s. He  died on March 20. He was a mathmatician and hard science fiction writer.

Vinge is best remembered for two main  things. He was the first person to postulate the Singularity. And he wrote the Zones of Thought series. the first book A Fire Upon the Deep, won the Hugo Award in 1992. He followed it up in 1999 with A Deepness in the Sky, which won the Hugo, the John W. Campbell, and the Prometheus awards. The third book, The Children of the Sky, came out in 2011. It doesn’t seem to have attracted the attention the first two did. Vinge also won a Hugo for his 2006 novel Rainbow’s End as well as Hugos for “Fast Times at Fairmont High” (2001) and “The Cookie Monster” (2003).

I’ve only read a little of Vinge’s short fiction. His novels look intrioguing, but I’ve not gotten to them due to their length. I’m afraid I’ll get bogged down and won’t finish them.

Our condolences to Vernor Vinge’s family and friends.

Blackwood

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March 14 (today as I write this) is the birthday of Algernon Blackwood (q869-1951), one of the greatest practitioners of the weird tale. H. P. Lovecraft considered him to be one of the four great living masters of the weird tale. The other three were Arthur Machen, M. R. James, and Lord Dunsay.

It’s been a while (years) since I read any of his work, and I don’t think I’ve read  more than two stories. Those stories are “The Willows” and “The Wendigo”.

My memroy is vauge on the details, but I really liked both of them. Of the two, I remember “The Willows” the best. It concerns a pair of men on a canoe trip who spend the night on an island in the middle of a river. I remember there was a lot of wind, and the willows on the island seemed to move.

My memory of “The Wendigo” is a little fuzzier. I think I read it a couple of years before I read “The Willows”. It’s about a some men who are either hunting for fishing in the wilds of Canada (I think) and experience some strange things.

I apologize for the vagueness of these descriptions. Like I said, it’s been a few years. If I’ve gotten any of those details wrong, I’m sure somone will  correct me in the comments, and that would be appreciated. I’d like to reread both of those stories if I can work them in. Finding time to write this week, much less read, has been a challenge, and it looks like the next few weeks are going to not be much better.

So what other stories by Blackwood should I read? His works are readily available in a variety of formats, from electronic editions to cheap (relatively speaking) paperbacks to high-end collectible volumes.