Author Archives: Keith West

Happy Birthday, Charles Beaumont

2 Replies

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”

Leave a reply

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

9 Replies

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

Leave a reply

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

1 Reply

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 →

Blogging Brackett: “The Woman From Altair”

8 Replies

Best of Brackett paperback“The Woman From Altair”
The Best of Leigh Brackett
Del Rey, 1977, 423, $1.95
Originally published in Startling Stories, July 1951

I was asked in the comments of a previous post what I thought of this story. I had only read it once when I first read The Best of Leigh Brackett, back in the fall of [redacted].  I liked all the stories, but this one didn’t have much of an impact on the 14 year-old me who read it, unlike some of the other selections in the book.

So I reread the story the other day.  Here are  my thoughts, spoilers included: Continue reading →

RIP, George Clayton Johnson (1929-2015)

5 Replies

George Clayton JohnsonGeorge Clayton Johnson passed away yesterday, Christmas Day, of cancer at the age of 86.  While Mr. Johnson’s name may not be familiar to some of you, his work almost certainly is.  He wrote eight episodes of The Twilight Zone (plus one unproduced episode) and the first episode of the original Star Trek series to air, “The Man Trap”.  He also coauthored Logan’s Run with William F. Nolan.  His other credits include scripts for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Honey West, and Kung Fu.

Johnson was a member of the group of writers known as the California school which included (in addition to Nolan) such writers as Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, and Charles Beaumont.  He was known for his openness and willingness to assist authors trying to break into the field.

Rest well, sir.

Blogging Leigh Brackett: “The Vanishing Venusians”

8 Replies

imagesThis was the second Leigh Brackett story I ever read.  How do I remember that detail?  Easy, it’s the second story in The Best of Leigh Brackett, which was the first Brackett book I ever read (in the SFBC edition you see there).  And in those days, I read anthologies and collections in order.  This was still a few years before I went through my read-anthologies-backwards phase.

I found the story to be powerful, with the image of snow capped mountains in the distance to be a powerful one.  I still find the story powerful today.

Note:  there will be spoilers after the “Read More” break. Continue reading →

Checking In

2 Replies

No, I haven’t forgotten I said I was going to do more posts on Leigh Brackett, starting with “The Vanishing Venusians”.  Things have been total chaos.  My son has had multiple band concerts, I’ve had the crud, there was a funeral to attend, a student disciplinary hearing on a Title IX case, a night at a hotel due to a plumbing issue (that required more than one visit from the plumber), and various other things to deal with.  I’ve been a bit distracted.

I’ll be back to posting in the next day or so.  I’ve got several titles to discuss across more than one blog.

Just so you know.