Author Archives: Keith West

H. L. Gold’s “Trouble With Water”

H. L. Gold

Okay, I’m going to violate one of my unwritten rules and post two items today. In addition to being A. E. van Vogt’s birthday, it’s also Horace L. Gold’s birthday. Born on April 26 in 1914, Gold passed away in 1996.

Although best remembered as the editor of Galaxy during the 1950s, Gold was also a successful writer of fiction in the 1930s and 40s. While not one to the top tier, Gold’s fiction tended to the humorous.

“Trouble With Water” is probably his best known story. I started to post this on Futures Past and Present because Gold was a science fiction editor. But this is a fantasy story (even if it was reprinted in Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 1: 1939, where I first read it). Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “Far Centaurus” by A. E. van Vogt

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A. E. van Vogt (1912-2000) was born on this date, April 26. He was one of the most prolific and popular science fiction writers of the 1940s. In addition to a sizeable body of shorter works, he wrote the popular novels The Voyage of the Space Beagle, Slan, and The Weapons Shops of Isher. These were either serialized in Astounding or put together from individual stories.

Just as a side note, I haven’t given up on the Retro Hugo posts. The semester is about over, and I I’ve been swamped. I’ve also been reading Foundation. The two Asimov stories on the Retro Hugo ballot are the last two sections of the book. I decided to read the whole thing (something I was thinking about doing anyway) to give them some context.

I was going to look at all the novelettes before moving on to the short stories, but van Vogt doesn’t have an entry in that category.

“Far Centaurus” is one of van Vogt’s most reprinted stories. If I’ve counted correctly, I’ve got copies of it in about ten different publications. I first read it in middle school, and the last two paragraphs have stuck with me all these years. Continue reading →

Talbot Mundy’s “For the Salt He Had Eaten”

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Talbot Mundy was born on this date, April 23, in 1879. He passed away in 1940. Mundy was one of the premier writers of adventure fiction of the early 20th Century. While not as well-remembered today as Haggard or Kipling, Mundy was prolific and left a substantial body of work that is held in high regard by connoisseurs of adventure tales set in far-off, exotic lands. I’ve read a few of his short stories and liked them, but this is the first longer work of Mundy’s I’ve read. I quite enjoyed.

“For the Salt He Had Eaten” first appeared in the March 1913 issue of Adventure. I read it in The Talbot Mundy Megapack, which you can grab for just ninety-nine cents. Continue reading →

“Slight of Hand” with Peter S. Beagle

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Peter S. Beagle

Okay, I’m making another exception to may practice of only doing birthday posts on authors, artists, and editors who have passed on. Peter S. Beagle (b. April 20, 1939) is one of those few authors who I will buy in trade hardcover. (David Drake, Jack McDevitt, Larry Niven, and Patricia McKillip are among the few exceptions.) Limited hardcover editions are a different matter. But I digress.

I’ve had the privilege of meeting Peter several times over the years. The most recent was when he was in town for a showing of The Last Unicorn.

Today’s story is “Sleight of Hand”. It was first published in Eclipse 3. I read it in Sleight of Hand. The book is only available in trade paperback. Unfortunately the price is $29.95, which is a bit steep for a nine year old paperback that’s only 287 pages long, even if it is Beagle. Sadly, there is no electronic edition. Eclipse 3 is available in print for $14.95 and ebook for $9.99.

“Sleight of Hand” is a moving meditation on grief and life and the choices we make. There were times I thought I was reading Ray Bradbury. That’s both a compliment and a good thing. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos” “Arena” by Fredric Brown

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Of all the stories on the Retro Hugo ballot, “Arena” by Fredric Brown is probably the most familiar to readers, for no reason other than it was adapted as an episode of the original Star Trek series. (They changed the ending.) Published in the June 1944 issue of Astounding, the story is currently available in The Fredric Brown Megapack. The price as of this writing is 99 cents. Plus tax, of course.

The plot is pretty straight forward. Mankind has begun to spread out into the galaxy. Before too long, it encounters another sentient species. At first, the Outsiders commit a few raids. No one survives, so the appearance of the Outsiders is a mystery.

The two species seem fairly evenly matched. The Outsiders’s ships are a little faster and more maneuverable. The humans are slightly better armed. A showdown is inevitable, and mankind builds a fleet in preparation. At last the day comes. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “The Children’s Hour” by Lawrence O’Donnell (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore)

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OK, I’m gonna do it. With the exception of some of the novels, I’ll be looking at the nominees for the 1945 Retro Hugos, which are awarded for stories published in 1944. I’m going to start with the novelettes. I read “The Children’s Hour” earlier this week as a possibility Henry Kuttner birthday post before the Retro Hugo shortlist was announced. Might as well tackle it while it’s fresh on my mind.

“The Children’s Hour” was originally published in the March 1944 issue of Astounding. (I’m going to get a lot of mileage out of these posts since many of them will double as Astounding 90th Anniversary posts.)

Before we go any further, I want to address something, and that’s where to find these stories so you can read them. As a general rule, I don’t do review posts of things that aren’t readily available, although I do make exceptions to that rule from time to time. For the Hugos, the voting members of Worldcon get copies of the short fiction to read, and the last time I had a membership, that was true for the Retro Hugos as well.

I don’t have a copy of this year’s Retro nominees that was provided to the Wolrdcon membership. The one year I was a voting member, pretty much everything from the year under question was provided so members could read the stories and nominate for t he short list. If anyone wants to send me a copy, I won’t snitch. Promise.

The only short fiction I don’t have a copy of is “Intruders From the Stars” by Ross Rocklynne, and I was able to order a reprint of that one. I have no illusions that everyone who takes the time to read these posts will have access to all of the stories. The only reason I have copies of some of them is because I bought several complete runs of pulps on CD last year for myself for Father’s Day.

“The Children’s Hour” is one of the tales that will be hard to come by. According to the ISFDB, it has only been reprinted in English four times: twice in 1959, once in 1983, and once in 2010.If you want to read my review, it will be below the “Continue Reading ” link. I will try to avoid as many spoilers as possible in all of these reviews. Continue reading →

Thoughts on the Retro Hugos and a Question

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The nominees for the Retro Hugos were announced yesterday. If you aren’t familiar with them, they are given for the best science fiction or fantasy for the previous year, only for a year 75 years prior. In this case, it’s the 1945 Retro Hugos for the works from 1944. Here are the fiction nominees. I’m not going to worry about editors, artists, fanzines, or any of the other categories. I’ll have a few things to say below the list, as well as a question for you. Continue reading →

Wearing The Mask of Circe

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The Mask of Circe
Henry Kuttner
ebook $7.99
Originally published in Startling Stories, May 1948

Henry Kuttner (1915-1958) was one of the most prolific authors of the fantastic in the 1940’s. Or rather I should say he was half of one of the most prolific writing duos, the other half being his wife, C. L. Moore. Kuttner was born on this date, April 7.

(As an aside, I asked on Twitter if anyone had any suggestions as to what I should read for today, and the only response I got was “C. L. Moore”. And while pretty much everything they wrote after their marriage was a collaboration, for this birthday post, I’m focusing on things published under Kuttner’s byline. I will be doing a post of Moore’s Judgment Night in the near future.)

Today we’re going to look at an example of Kuttner’s science fantasy. The Mask of Circe was published in what was supposed to be a science fiction magazine, so there is some hand waving to keep it from being pure fantasy. Continue reading →

Robert Bloch’s “The Miracle of Ronald Weems”

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The great Robert Bloch (1917-1994) was born on this date, April 5. He was a master of fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery. Fated to always be known as “The Man Who Wrote Psycho“, he wasn’t just a master of thrills and chills. He was a master of comedy.

I’m going to have to apologize up front for this post. I normally try to review something that is either in print or easy to come by in case anyone is interested in reading the story or book I’m reviewing.

I wanted to read something a bit longer than a short story, and I wanted to read something lighter in tone. There’s enough horror on the news right now, and my wife won’t turn it off.

“The Miracle of Ronald Weems” was just the thing I needed. It was funny, with several types of humor including wordplay, puns, and slapstick. Bloch’s sense of humor aligns very well with my own, and I chuckled more than once. There are few writers who can get me to do that.

Unfortunately this story, which was originally published in Imaginative Tales in the May 1955 issue, has only been reprinted once. That was in The Lost Bloch Volume Two: Hell on Earth, a limited edition book that was published in 2000. A quick search of ABE showed only one copy available. So if you don’t want to read the rest of this post, I understand. Continue reading →

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