Author Archives: Keith West

In the Merry Month of May

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Actually, I’m not sure what’s so merry about it, but that’s the saying, so there you go.

Finals finished up this week.  I got my grades in yesterday, and spent today dealing with all the emails from the students who weren’t happy about their lab grades.  I did have one student who sent me an email telling me I had done more than teach her physics this semester, I had taught her to believe in herself.  That’s the sort of thing you frame.  I guess some days it really is worth chewing through the straps.

Sworn-in-Steel-US-appvdI’ve been getting a little reading done, which I’ll blog about over the next few days.  I’m hoping to finish Sworn in Steel by Douglas Hulick tonight, but I may not be able to stay awake that long.  This is the sequel to Among Thieves, which was one of my favorite books the year it came out.  One of the next things up is The Silver Stallion, the next volume in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.  Other than that, I’ll be trying to get as many things read as possible.  I’m a bit behind on what folks have been sending me, so I’m going to read amongst those titles as the fancy hits me, whether it’s fantasy, science fiction, or crime.

There are some other things, but I’ll save mentioning them for another post.

Moore Than Just a Kuttner Kornucopia

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Detour to OthernessDetour to Otherness
Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore
Cover art by Richard Powers
Introduction by Robert Silverberg
Afterward by Frederik Pohl
Haffner Press
Hardcover $40, limited edition hardcover $150

In the history of the science fiction and fantasy fields, there have been few authors as versatile as the husband and wife team of Henry Kuttner and Catherine L. Moore. This is especially true at short lengths. (Since Kuttner was an early mentor of Ray Bradbury, this is hardly surprising.)

In the early 1960s, Ballantine Books published two collections of their work, Bypass to Otherness and Return to Otherness. Stephen Haffner states on the page for Detour to Otherness that a third volume was planned but never published. I’ve never heard this before, but I’m more than willing to take his word for it.

The first two Otherness titles contain selections from several of Kuttner’s most popular and well-remembered series. The Hogbens are represented, as is Galloway Gallegher, a scientific genius but only when he’s drunk. Also included is the first of the Baldy stories that comprised the mosaic novel Mutant. They don’t have some of his best known stories, which may not have been available at the time because they were in another book from a different publisher (Line to Tomorrow, Bantam), but this is one of the best samplings of Kuttner and Moore’s work.

Haffner has assembled enough stories for a third collection and combined them in the present volume. That section of the book is called Detour to Otherness, which is also the title of the omnibus.

Haffner had nothing to do with the selections in Bypass and Return, he was responsible to the stories in Detour. Thus, while critiquing the choices in the original volumes is a waste of time, it is very much on the strength of the stories in Detour that the volume will rise or fall. None of these stories has appeared in a Kuttner collection before, although most of them have been reprinted somewhere. I’d read almost all of them before. Let’s look at them more closely. Continue reading →

A Review of Jo Spurrier’s Second Novel, in Which I Taunt You Again

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Black Sun Light my WayBlack Sun Light My Way
Jo Spurrier
Harper Voyager
trade paper, 473 p., $29 AU

The “you” in the title doesn’t refer to Ms. Spurrier. Rather it’s to all you readers in the US. I’m taunting you because I got to read this book and you don’t. This is NOT a good thing. (More of this later.)  The novel, however, is quite good.

Some of you may be wondering how I got to read it.  Would you believe I had my agents scouring the globe…No.  Okay, would you believe I have a coworker from Australia who had his wife pick up a copy for me while she was home on a visit?  I’d like to thank Dr. and Mrs. Maurice Clark for getting the book for me.  See, it’s not what you know, but who you know.

This trade paperback cost me more than a hardcover would here in the US (and I didn’t have to pay shipping), but it was worth it.  I liked the first book in this series, Winter Be My Shield, very much.  Black Sun Light My Way is even better. Continue reading →

Gemmell vs. Gernsback

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_41941602_gemmellrex_203300 I was indulging one of my vices (reading other people’s blogs, Sarah Hoyt’s in this case) and noticed in the comments a quote from a different blog.  That particular quote had some disparaging thing to say about the Gemmell Awards.  I’m not going to bother linking to the quoted blog because I’m not directly responding to the argument there, which concerned the number of white male authors nominated for awards, specifically the Hugos.  I will quote the relevant passage, because it’s representative of a pretty common attitude.  It also kicked off a train of thought that should be addressed.  Namely, the how relevant the Hugos are compared to the Gemmells.

The Gemmell Awards are named after David Gemmell and focus on heroic fantasy.  The Hugo Awards are named in honor of Hugo Gernsback, who published the first magazine devoted entirely to science fiction, Amazing Stories.  The Gemmell Awards specialize in heroic fantasy, while the Hugos encompass the entire sff field.

Hugo Gernsback (1884–1967) magazine publisher

Huog Gernsback

Here’s the quote:

“Why not just let the works speak for themselves?”

The issue is that when we let the works speak for themselves, we wind up with the Gemmell Awards: 70,000 votes (several orders of magnitudes greater than the Hugos), and every single nominee for Best Novel is a White Dude.  Every best debut novel is a dude, most of them white.

Of course these comments are totally bogus.  I’ll explain why in a second.  But it got me to thinking, always a dangerous thing.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, in addition to the shortlist for the Gemmell Awards, the shortlist for  the Hugo Awards, was announced recently.  And the internet has been having a major hissy fit ever since.

Continue reading →

Talus and the Frozen King

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talus_and_the_frozen_king_250x384Talus and the Frozen King
Graham Edwards
Solaris
mass market paperback, 336 p., $7.99
ebook $6.99 Kindle Nook

Talus and the Frozen King is the start of a new series, and one that I’m looking forward to. It’s a genre blending work of heroic fantasy and mystery.

The hero, known only as Talus, is a wandering bard. He and his companion Bran are looking for the source of what we would call the Aurora Borealis, also known as the northern lights. They enter a village on the island of Creyak, where they discover that the king has been murdered, his body left out in the cold and frozen.

Because of the timing of their visit, they aren’t allowed to leave. The king left behind six sons. Each of them had a motive to commit murder. Continue reading →

And Now the Award Shortlist You’ve All Been Waiting For

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I’m referring, of course, to the David Gemmell Awards.

david gemmell

David Gemmell

What, you were expecting a different award?  Everyone around here knows that the only awards worth paying attention to are the Gemmell, the Shamus, and in a good year, the World Fantasy Awards.

The shortlists are as follows (I’ll comment at the end): Continue reading →

Walk the Path of Anger

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The Path of AngerThe Path of Anger
Antoine Rouaud
Tom Clegg, trans.
paperback L14.99 UK
$11.38 US (pre-order, pub. date Aug 14, 2014)

The Path of Anger is an impressive debut. Antoine Rouaud has created an enthralling novel in which the things you think you know aren’t necessarily so.

The Empire has fallen. In its place the Republic has risen. This doesn’t sit well with everyone. For instance, the Fangolin monks don’t like it since people are choosing not to follow their teachings anymore. One of those beliefs is that the destiny of mankind has been recorded in a book, a book that has been lost for centuries. The very concept of free will is frowned upon.

Dun-Cadal Daermon was a general in the Imperial army, some would say the greatest of his generation, who devoted his life to defending the Empire and his Fangolin faith.. Now he spends his time in taverns getting drunk in the southern city of Masalia where he mourns the fall of the Empire and the death of his apprentice, waiting to die. He was rumored to have stolen the Emperor’s sword when the Empire fell. From time to time he sends treasure hunters to the eastern parts of the kingdom, telling him that’s where he’s hidden it.

The book opens with an attractive young historian from the capital finding him. She’s also interested in the sword. But her interest goes far beyond treasure hunting. At first Dun-Cadal tries to brush her off.

There’s a major holiday coming up, though, and this year all the representatives are meeting in Masalia. Dun-Cadal realizes he knows many of them. They were once the generals and nobles who fought alongside him trying to preserve the Empire. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Mostly.

No sooner do the representatives begin arriving than they start dying. Someone dressed as the late Emperor’s personal assassin is targeting them. The post of assassin was one Dun-Cadal held before being promoted to general.

Now Dun-Cadal finds himself being drawn back into battle. He may get his death wish sooner than he thought. Continue reading →

I Look at Lilith by George MacDonald

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Lilith Back Cover HRMy latest post of Black Gate on the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series is George MacDonald’s Lilith.  This one is an allegory that has some really weird passages in it.

The book also had a major influence on C. S. Lewis.  There’s some speculation that MacDonald’s use of mirrors to travel to other worlds may have influenced The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.   And of course, MacDonald was friends with Lewis Carroll, so Alice may have influenced George.

Blogging Northwest Smith: Nymph of Darkness

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Gosh Wow“Nymph of Darkkness”
C. L. Moore

For years, “Nymph of Darkness” was one of the rarest Northwest Smith stories. The reason was because C. L. Moore refused to give permission for the story, first published in 1935, to be reprinted. It wasn’t until the 1981 Worldcon that she relented. The first book reprinting occurred the following year in Gosh! Wow! Sense of Wonder, edited by Forrest J. Ackerman.

Ackerman, it turns out co-wrote the story with Moore, although she retained 75% of the rights, meaning it wouldn’t be reprinted without her permission. A technicality in the copyright for the story actually allowed it to be reprinted once against her wishes.

“Nymph of Darkness” first appeared in Fantasy Magazine in April 1935 and was later reprinted in Weird Tales in the December 1939 issue. It wasn’t included when most of the other stories were published in the 1950s by Gnome Press.

I’m not sure why Moore didn’t allow for its reprinting. The story, in my mind at least, is a good story. It’s not as long as most of the others, but still, it’s solid. Continue reading →

RIP, Miguel Martins

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Al and Miguel

Al Harron (left) and Miguel Martins atop Caddo Peak, Howard Days 2011

I’ve begun to hear from people in Robert E. Howard fandom that Miguel Martins has passed away.  I don’t have any details at this time.

I only met Miguel once, at Howard Days in 2011.  I liked him immediately.  Miguel was one of the first people to follow this blog.  When I met him, he complemented me on it.  That meant a lot to me, as I had been blogging for less than a year, and at one point a few months prior I had considered shutting it down.

This was the year that the Conan movie was released.  Miguel asked for my thoughts after a presentation on the movie Saturday afternoon at Howard Days.  I was somewhat caught offguard and babbled something.  It couldn’t have been too incoherent because Miguel took a drag on his cigarette and gave a reply that showed he had listened and seriously considered what I’d said.  That also meant a lot to me because I wasn’t as involved in Howard fandom then as I am now.  Someone who was much more involved wanted to know what I thought, and listened carefully.

Saturday evening at Howard Days is the barbeque and hike up Caddo Peak for those willing to brave the heat, the snakes, the prickly pear, and the steep climb.  I climbed the peak with Al Harron and Miguel.  We had a great time, managed to avoid any snakes and the copious thorns on the prickly pears that covered the top of the peak.  They asked me to take a picture of them, which I did.  It’s the one at the top of this post.  It was one of the best years as far as company on the hike, and company in general, was concerned.

I didn’t hear from Miguel after that, and he drifted away from Howard fandom over the next few years.  Since he was from France, I wasn’t surprised that I never saw him at Howard Days again, although I always hoped he’d be back.  Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.

Rest in peace, my friend.

Jeff Shanks has posted a tribute here.  Al Harron’s is here.  Barbara Barrett’s is here.  I’ll post other links as I become aware of them.