Author Archives: Keith West

Henry Kuttner at 101

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Kuttner pensiveToday, April 7, 2016, marks the 101st birthday of author Henry Kuttner.

I was going to read and review one of Kuttner’s longer works and had chosen The Fairy Chessmen.  That review will come in a few days.  I’m not quite halfway through it and won’t be able to finish it before tomorrow.

Since Robert Bloch’s birthday was a few days ago, I though I would share a few photos of Kuttner and Bloch.  Bloch and Kuttner were friends and collaborated on a few short stories.  Those stories were “The Black Kiss“, “The Grip of Death“, and “The Grab Bag“. Continue reading →

Robert Bloch Hits 99

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Robert BlochRobert Bloch was born on April 5, 1917, in Chicago.  He passed away on September 23, 1994 in Los Angeles.

Although he will be remembered as the author of Psycho, and justifiably so, he was a writer of great range and depth.  While I’ve found his novels to be somewhat hit and miss, I’ve almost always enjoyed his short fiction.

Bloch was a member of the Lovecraft Circle and published in Weird Tales, but he quickly moved on to other types of fiction than Mythos pastiche.  (Not that there’s anything wrong with Bloch’s Mythos tales, but they were his early work.)  He appeared as Robert Blake in Lovecraft’s “The Haunter of the Dark.”

Bloch was adept at mystery, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy.  Bloch managed to infuse humor into some of the grimmest situations.  His story “That Hell-Bound Train” won the Hugo Award in 1959.  A favorite theme was Jack the Ripper, beginning with the classic “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper”.

Bloch worked in Hollywood, and many of his stories reflect his experiences there.  He wrote two sequels to Psycho which had nothing to do with the movie sequels.  I’ve only read the first sequel, but it’s set almost entirely in Hollywood.  I wondered how many of the scenes in it were based on actual events.

Anyway, Bloch isn’t as well remembered these days as he should be.  Subterranean Press (among others) have published collections of his work in the years since his death, but those are starting to go out of print.

I’m going to read one or two of his stories this evening and toast his memory and literary legacy.

With the lights on and the doors locked, of course.

 

The Silent Army Takes on the Gods of War

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TheSilentArmy-144dpiThe Silent Army
James A. Moore
Angry Robot Books
UK Print
Date: 7th April 2016
Format: Medium (B-Format) Paperback
R.R.P.: £8.99
North American Print
Date: 3rd May 2016
Format: Small (Mass-Market) Paperback
R.R.P.: US$7.99 / CAN$9.99
Ebook
Date: 5th April 2016
Format: Epub & Mobi
R.R.P.: £5.49 / US$6.99

The fourth volume in James A. Moore’s Seven Forges series hits shelves in the US today May 3.  [After I posted the review Angry Robot informed me the release date in the US has been moved back, so you’ve got time to get caught up on the series in need be and can preorder the book.  Meanwhile, I’m going to taunt you because I’ve been able to read this book and you have to wait.]  If you’ve been reading this blog long, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of this series.  (See reviews of the previous volumes here, here, and here.)  I’d like to thank Angry Robot Books for providing me the review copy.

The Silent Army has a lot to live up to from the previous volumes in this series.  I’m glad to say that it does.  The Fellein Empire has been losing every battle in the war with the Sa’ba Taalor.  Things are about to change.  The question is will it be enough or will they go down in defeat.

Moore pulls a few tricks out of his sleeve.  One thing about this series is that it keeps you on your toes.

I don’t want to give too much away, especially if you haven’t read the series.  (And if not, why not?  C’mon, what’s the matter with you?)  I will say this.  The silent army is awesome.  They’re stone warriors who protect the City of Wonders.  The first time one of them comes out of a wall to engage in combat, it’s one of the best, most exciting scenes in the book.

Which brings me to something I would like to point out.  At the risk of sounding like I’m sucking up, James A. Moore keeps getting better.  The cast of characters expands.  Moore juggles them with ease, giving each one some background so that they don’t all run together.

And the battle scenes, whether it’s individual combat or armies clashing, are riveting.  Plus the intrigue keeps on getting more complex.

The silent army has their work cut out for them.  They’re fighting a war against gods who are gods of war.  The Sa’ba Taalor are only the soldiers, they’re not the ones calling the shots.  What chance do stone and human armies stand against gods who can reshape the landscape and the armies that serve them?

The ending has some surprises in it.  My take on it is that The Silent Army is the end of an arc but not the end of the story.  The last few pages fairly say as much.

I don’t know if we’re going to see another volume in the Seven Forges series anytime soon or not.  I hope it won’t be long.  But if it is, or if The Silent Army wraps things up for good, it’s been a great ride with a good conclusion.

This is one is highly recommended.

Caught Between Warring Gods

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MarauderMarauder
D. W. Roach
trade paper $12.99
ebook $2.99

I’ll confess, I bought this one based on the cover art as much as anything.  I’m a sucker for a knockout blond with a sword.  It turned out to be a good buy.

Audan is a young Viking, son of an ambitious chieftan.  A raid goes wrong, and by wrong I mean they don’t kill everybody, and the survivors come for revenge.  Audan’s father answers to another chieftan higher ranking than he is.  As punishment, he send Audan’s father and his men on yet another raid.

It turns out to be a fight they can’t win. Continue reading →

Veil of the Deserters

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Veil of the DesertersVeil of the Deserters
Jeff Salyards
Night Shade Books
Trade Paper $15.99
ebook $13.99

Jeff Salyards emailed me late last year asking if I would be willing to review his new novel, Chains of the Heretic. Having quite enjoyed his first novel, Scourge of the Betrayer, I immediately said yes. And created for myself a small problem. Chanins of the Heretic is the third novel in Bloodsounder’s Arc. And I hadn’t at that time read the second, Veil of the Deserters.  So that’s what I did.

I commit dayjobbery in acdemia, and this semester has been unusually hectic.  You may have noticed I’m not posting as often as I have in the past.  There are reasons for that.  I finished Veil in about thrice the amount of time I normally would; the reasons it took so long had nothing to do with the book.  The reason it’s taken nearly a month to get the review up have nothing to do with the book, either.  (Unless the universe takes aim at me this week, there will be a flurry of reviews of books I’ve readover the course of the last three months.)  I’m hoping to read and get the review of Chains up in a few weeks.

If you’re a fan of grimdark fantasty, then Jeff Salyards is an author you will want to check out.  He’s extremely good. Continue reading →

A Visit to the Frank Frazetta Exhibit

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20160314_135938So last week was Spring Break.  I had to go in to work a couple of days to get some stuff ready for labs, plus there were a number of things that simply didn’t get done, such as writing some reviews (although I did finish the first draft of the WIP), the backyard is still covered with pecans, etc.

I did manage to sneak off to Austin for an overnight trip.  I went down to see an exhibit about violence on the border in the early 20th century, which will be the next post at Dispatches From the Lone Star Front.  That will be followed by posts on La Salle and rural cemeteries.  These will be lengthy posts in some cases, so it may be a week or three before they start showing up.220px-Ffrazettaself

I got to Austin on Sunday with plans to see the museum on Monday, when a notice about a Frank Frazetta exhibit came across my Twitter feed.  An exhibit that was only a short walk (9 blocks or so) away from the Bullock State History Museum, where the exhibit I had come to see was on display.  It was at the Robert Rodriguez museum, a block off the state capital.

The impression I got from the announcement, reproduced at the end of the post, was that the exhibit was only for a week.  I think the dates were a draw for the SXSW crowd.  I didn’t care.  There were original Frank Frazetta paintings that I could go see near where I was going to be in the morning.

So you know I had to go. Continue reading →

Quick Update

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Things have been rather hectic in the last couple of weeks, which is why I’ve not posted anything.  I’ve got several reviews to write, and I’ll problably finish another book or two before I get them all done.  Real life things have taken priority more than I have liked.

We’re out on Spring Break, or at least the students are.  I’ve had to go in a couple of times this week.  I did make a quick trip down to Austin to see some museum exhibits.  I should get at least five posts on Dispatches From the Lone Star Front out of the trip.  Plus I need to write up the visit to the Fazetta exhibit here.

Right now my top priority is to finish a story that’s due in a couple of weeks.  I’ve not made as much progress on it as I would like.  I’m hoping to finish it this afternoon after I run a couple of errands.  We’re leaving when my wife gets off work to go pick up my son from his gradnparents, so if I’m not done, I’ll have to finish next week. I won’t be able to get much writing done there.  I should be able to finish.  I’m writing the last scene now.

Hopefully there will be a string of posts the rest of the month to make up for the lack for the last few weeks.

 

In Observance of Henry S. Whitehead’s Birthday

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Weird_Tales_March_1929Henry S. Whitehead was born today, March 5, in 1882.  He wrote a number of stories for Weird Tales during its early years before his untimely death in 1932.  Much of his fiction focused on the Caribbean, where he was stationed for a number of years as a minister of the Episcopal Church.  H. P. Lovecraft visited Whitehead for several weeks in 1931.  He had a great respect for Whitehead as a person and as a writer.

To mark the occasion, I read “The People of Pan”, which was first published in the March 1929 issue of Weird Tales.  The story is available in Voodoo Tales  The Ghost Stories of Henry S. Whitehead.  Continue reading →

An Open Letter to …?

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This is going to be an open letter to two people, neither of whose identity is known to me.  I have a first name for one person (which I will not be revealing).  The other person’s identity I don’t know at all.  This is the person I would like to talk to.

I get most of my mail at a PO box for security reasons.  I want things with financial information safely locked away, not in a mail box on my porch.

Anyway, after lunch today I swung by the post office.  There were a couple of pieces of mail with computer generated addresses, such as an insurance statement, things like that.  On top of these envelopes was a letter-sized envelope with a hand-written address.  The handwriting was unfamiliar.  I glanced at the return address but didn’t look any closer than to see it was in town.   Through the envelope I could see and feel what appeared to be a card.

Wondering who it was from, I took a closer look at the return address.  There was no name, just a PO Box, city, and zip code.  My PO Box. Continue reading →

Strange Spam

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No, this post isn’t about mutated meat by-products I found in the back of the pantry.  I started getting comments on some of the posts last night.  The first was obviously spam.  The second seemed to somewhat fit the post it was associated with, although there were one or two odd things about it.  It was definitely about books, though, and not some random gibberish or the odd flattery that sometimes shows up.  I typed a brief reply and went to bed.  Both the comment and my reply have since been deleted.

When I got up this morning, there were more.  Five more have shown up today, for a total of seven.  Some appear to be in a foreign language.  The others seem to be lifted from someone else’s blog.  One of them was an author’s reply to a fan about a particular book he had written.  There was enough detail for me to identify the author and the book with just a few keystrokes.

All of the bogus comments link back to Facebook accounts which may or may not be real and all of which block my seeing any posts on their pages.

Anyway, I’ve marked the lot as spam and hope that I’ve seen the end of it.  First time commenters are sent to moderation.  Returning commenters are automatically approved.  There have been some new commenters this week that I’ve aproved.  On the off chance that someone who is a first-time commenter doesn’t see their comment within 24 hours, please drop me an email at the email address on the sidebar.  This email address doesn’t go to my phone, so if I’m out of pocket, it might be a day or two before I see it.