Author Archives: Keith West

Honoring David Drake

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Onward DrakeOnward, Drake!
Mark L. van Name, ed.
Baen Books
Hardcover, $25
ebook $9.99

There’s been a long tradition in the field of honoring outstanding authors with an anthology.  Sometimes the anthology comes after they’ve passed on, but usually the anthology is published while the authors are still with us.  Such is the case with David Drake.  He’s a giant whose works have changed the genre, and for the better I might add.  It’s good to see this tribute to him, especially as he’s still with us to appreciate it.

Onward, Drake! contains both original fiction as well as essays in honor of Drake.  There’s a pretty wide range of stuff here.  Although David Drake built his reputation with his military science fiction, particularly the Hammer’s Slammers series, he’s written in a wide variety of subgenres:  epic fantasy, dark fantasy and horror, space opera, and humor.  As if that weren’t enough, he’s also been an editor and historian of the field with a great appreciation of the pulp writers.  I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything I’ve read by him

The highlights of the anthology are two new stories by Drake himself.  Continue reading →

“Philtered Power” by Malcolm Jameson

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Unknown March 1940“Philtered Power”
Malcolm Jameson
First published in Unknown, March 1940
Available free in Amazing Future Tales From the Past, Vol. 5

As a follow up from yesterday’s post about the Retro-Hugos, here’s a look at one of the stories that’s eligible.  It’s a fun fantasy romp about the misuse of a potion, one that’s misused with the best of intentions.  There will be spoilers, just in case you care.

Afterwards I’ll have a few things to say about Malcom Jameson, whose career was tragically cut short by cancer. Continue reading →

Some Thoughts on the Retro-Hugos

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No, I’m not going to talk about the Hugo Awards and all the drama associated with them in recent years.  I want to address a particular category that was introduced in the 1990s and has been on the ballot sporadically since then.

A bit of background first.  The Hugo Awards were named Hugo Gernsback, who was the editor of the first pulp devoted solely to science fiction, Amazing Stories.  The Hugos were first presented at the 1953 Worldcon.  There were none awarded in 1954, but they have been awarded annually every year since 1955.

In the mid-1990s, the Retroactive Hugos, commonly referred to as the Retro-Hugos were added to the list of categories which may be considered for an award.  They can be given 50, 75, or 100 years after a Worldcon in which no Hugos were awarded. These years are 1939-1941, 1946-1952, and 1954.  It is up the Worldcon of any given year as to whether a Retro-Hugo will be awarded.  They have been given in 1996 (1946), 2001 (1951), 2004 (1954), and 2014 (1939).  They will be given this year for 1941, meaning that stories published in 1940 are eligible.

I see both positive and negative aspects of this.   Continue reading →

Blogging Brackett: “Shannach – the Last”

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Planet Stories - November 1952“Shannach – the Last”
Originally published in Planet Stories, Nov. 1952

Another longer work, this time set on Mercury.  Brackett’s Mercury is a twilight world of valleys surrounded by mountains that pierce the shallow atmosphere.  From what I understand, life only exits in valley’s along a twilight zone along the terminator.  Since this story refers to the Sun rising and setting, either I’m missing something or there’s a slight wobble in the planet’s orbit which creates the day and night effect.

None of which stopped me from enjoying this adventure tale.  Trevor is a prospector whose ship has crashed.  There’s no life in the valley where he crashes, and he can’t get over the mountains because he doesn’t have a pressure suit.  (Don’t ask me why.)

He’s trying to find a way to another valley through a system of caves when he is swept away by an underground river.  He ends up in a large valley with a city in the distance.  And that’s when his troubles really start. Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, J. R. R. Tolkien

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tolkien treeToday is Tolkien’s birthday.  I’m not going to write a long post.  There are too many writers who have written better posts honoring him than I could ever write.  I just didn’t want the day to pass without acknowledging the man.  No matter what you think of his work and his influence on fantasy, he casts a long shadow over the field that still has influence today.

 

Happy Birthday, Charles Beaumont

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beaumontCharles Beaumont was born this day in 1929.  He passed away in 1967.  Beaumont was a protege of Ray Bradbury and a central figure in what’s come to be called the California School.  Other members were Richard Matheson, William F. Nolan, Chad Oliver, and the late George Clayton Johnson.  Johnson’s story “Your Three Minutes Are Up” is a tribute to his friend.

Beaumont is best remembered today for penning a number of scripts for Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone.  He also wrote the novel The Intruder which was filmed by Roger Corman and starred William Shatner.

Beaumont’s strengths lay in short stories.  I came across a slim volume when I was a sophomore in high school; I bought it on the strength of Ray Bradbury’s introduction and read it during a move across the state.  Not all of the stories worked for me.  Some of them were aimed for a more mature reader.  I don’t mean “mature” in terms of sexual content (although that was part of it) but that the themes weren’t something a young teen could relate to.

On the other hand, the stories that did resonate with me blew me away.  I was hooked and spent years haunting used book stores trying to find all of his collections.  In addition to being the epitome of a professional working writer, Beaumont was an avid race fan.  He and Nolan often raced.

charles_beaumontBeaumont’s death is usually attributed to some type of early-onset Alzheimer’s.  He began to age swifty at the age of 34.  His loss was deeply felt.

Centipede Press recently published The Intruder, crime thriller Run From the Hunter (written collaboratively with John Tomerlin), and a massive collection of short fiction, Mass for Mixed Voices (which sold out almost immediately, and no, I won’t loan you my copy.)  This past year penguin published Perchance to Dream:  Selected Stories.  Also available is the collection A Touch of the Creature, which contains all the stories in the limited edition published by Subterranean Press (2000) along with three more.  These stories weren’t collected during Beaumont’s lifetime.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going reread some Beaumont short stories.  Please turn out the light when you leave…on second thought, better not.

Blogging Brackett: “The Last Days of Shandakor”

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startling_stories_195204“The Last Days of Shandakor”
Originally published in Startling Stories, April 1952

So here’s a Mars story, a planet we’ve not looked at yet in this series of posts on Brackett.  As cool as her Venus stories are (and we’re not done looking at them), Brackett’s stories of Mars are what made her reputation.

In this one, an ethnologist named John Ross is on Mars studying the various tribes and hoping to be awarded an endowed chair at a university on Earth for his work.  He’s sitting in a dive, waiting for the final preparations to be made for his caravan, when a man walks in.  Ross can see immediately there’s something different about this person.  Everyone pretends he’s not there.  When Ross asks his caravan master about the man, the caravan master tells him to forget about him.  Curiosity getting the better of him, Ross approaches the man and engages him in conversation.  He’ll wish he’d heeded the caravan master’s advice. Continue reading →

A Brief Recap of 2015 and a Look Ahead to 2016

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Normally I do a long post discussing my favorite books and publishers of the year, but I’m going to pass on that.  Besides the thought of writing that kind of post simply making me tired, there were too many things I missed.  I’ll mention a few favorites, but that’s all I’m going to do.  Mostly this will be a recap of the year’s highlights and set some goals for next year. Continue reading →

Guest Post at Frontier Partisans

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Tales From The Otherverse webJim Cornelius runs the excellent blog Frontier Partisans.  It’s become one of my “go to” blogs that I always read.  I don’t always comment, but I read every post.

Earlier this year, in June, Jim posted about an attempt early in the 20th century to import hippos as a food source.  I was struggling to come up with an idea for a story to contribute to Tales From the Otherverse, and Jim’s post kicked off the train of thought that led to “The Assassination of President Broussard”.

Jim was kind enough to ask me to write a guest post about how I wrote the story.  So if any of you are interested in my thought processes in constructing this story, you can check them out here.

And make sure you read Frontier Partisans.  Jim writes about some fascinating stuff.

 

Blogging Kuttner: A Gnome There Was

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A Gnome There WasA Gnome There Was
Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore)
Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 276 pg., $2.50
Cover drawing by Ed Cartier

I’ve got about half a dozen posts I need to write, including one for another blog, but with the blizzard, we’ve been cooped up in the house.  That means between my wife watching TV with the volume up too loud and my son monopolizing the laptop everytime I have to do something responsible, I’ve not gotten much done as far as reading, blogging, or writing is concerned.  I’m typing this after everyone else has gone to bed.

I started A Gnome There Was just before Thanksgiving.  I tracked down a copy some years ago simply because I was trying to find a copy of the short story “Jesting Pilot”, and this was the easiest way.  Turns out there is another story in it that I discovered last night has never been reprinted since this book was published.  At the time I thought “Jesting Pilot” was the only story I hadn’t read.

Anyway, I was getting tired of some of the stuff I was being sent to review, something I’ll discuss in my year end post in a day or so.  I decided to revisit some of my favorite Kuttner stories (something like literary comfort food).  Since many of them are in this book, that’s the one I chose.   Continue reading →