Category Archives: birthday

Jack Williamson, Master of Science Fiction

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I’m writing this on April 29. It’s the birthday of Jack Williamson (1908-2006). Williamson was one of the first sceince fiction writers I read in middle school when I was transitioning from the kid’s section in the library to the adult section. I found a copy of The Best of Jack Williamson at the flea market in Wichita Falls for a quarter. The cover had been ripped off.

I didn’t realize at the time that it was a stolen book. Bookstores stripped the covers off books when they took them off they sent the covers back to the publisher for credit and supposedly pulped the books. As far as I know, this is still the practice. Some unscrupulous boosellers would then sell the stripped copies, which the publishers consider to be theft.

But I digress. I was blown Continue reading →

Frank Belknap Long

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Today, April 27, is the birthday of Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994) .It’s the end of the semester, and I’ve been slammed the last couple of weeks. (Apologies to those who commented on earlier posts for the delay in approving the comments. I just did that.) I hadn’t realized it had been about three weeks since the last time I posted something. I’ve been busy grading exams and wokring on a cople of fiction proojects.

Long was a protege of H. P. Lovecraft. In a way, he never completely got out of Lovecraft’s shadow. He was a fine writer in his own right.Fortunately, Wildside Press had published at elast three Megapacks of his work.

He wrote under a variety of pen names. I want to read some of the gothics he wrote in the late sixites and early seventies under the name Lyda Belknap Long. Has anyone read those.?

Kuttner’s Time Travel

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Today, April 7, is the birthday of Henry Kuttner (1915-1958). Kuttner is one of my favorites. I’ve been doing birthday posts on his work for years. As long as this blog is active, I’ll keep doing them.

For today’s post, I want to look briefly at some of his time travel stories. He wrote a number of them, the best in collaboration with his wife C. L. Moore.

I haven’t read all of his time travel, but these three are some of his best and among my favorites of all his work. Continue reading →

Bloch’s “Hungarian Rhapsody”

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Today, April 5, is the birthday of Robert Bloch (1917-1994). Valancourt Books has begun reprinting a number of titles by Robert Bloch. Today’s story is from Pleasant Dreams. This was one of Bloch’s first collections that moved away from Lovecraft pastiche.

This is a great collection and one that is worth checking out. If you’ve read much Bloch, you’ll frecognize a number of the tales therein, but Bloch is always worth rereading.

“Hungarian Rhapsody” was originally published in the June 1958 issue of Fantastic. It’s about a retired gangster who is liviing in an isolated house on a lake when a gorgeous woman moves in next door. She paid for the house in antique gold coins.

The gangster desires both the cons and the woman. As the story goes on, he moves from being a sympathetic character to a total creep. When he gets his  comeuppance, What happens to him isn’t a huge surprise, but Bloch handles it well.

It has a twist, and that’s in the last line. I won’t spoil it for you. Bloch was well-known for his sense of humor and his love of puns. That tenddency is on full display at the end of the story.

One thing I want to note. Pleasant dreams was originally published by Arkham House in 1960. There was a mass market paperback of the same title published 1979.

That book was a different book, although there was a great deal fo overlap. That’s the cover there on the left. Four stories were removed from the Arkham House edition (“Mr.Steinway”, “Catnip”, “that Hell-Bound Train,” and “Enoch”) and three were added (“TheMandarin’s canaries”, “Return tot he Sabbath”, and “One Way to mars”).

Why these substitutions were made, I don’t know. I have always found it annoying that the paperback lists three of the deleted stories on the back cover.

So Robert Bloch is being brought back into print thanks to Valancourt Books. They are available in electronic editions as well. Reading (or rereading) some of his stories is a great way to celebrate bloch’s birthday.

Finally a big thank you to John Bullard who picked up for me a couple of older Bloch books at Windy City yesterday that I didn’t have. Another great way to celebrate bloch’s birthday.

Novalyne and Howard

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Today, March 9, is the birthday of Novalyne Price Ellis (1908-1999). Novalyne dated Robert E. Howard during the last two years of his life.

She kept a diary while they were dating, and it was published under the title One Who Walked Alone. It was filmed in the nineties as The Whole Wide World. The movie starred Vincent D’Onofrio as Robert E. Howard and Renee Zelwegger as Novalyne.

Without Novalyne’s diary/book, our understanding of Howard’s final years would be must less complete than it is now.

I think she was in some ways  a stabilizing influence on his life, especially as Hester Howard’s health declined. Sadly, their relationship wasn’t stable enough for her to be there for him when his mother died.

I don’t mean that last sentence to be a form of blame for his suicide. I’m not sure that could have been avoided. And that sort of speculation isn’t a game I’m interested in playing tonight. So, raise a glass to Novalyne Price Ellis tonight if you’re so inclined.

William F. Nolan

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Today is March 6, and that means 1) it’s the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo, and 2) it’s the birthday of William F. Nolan (1928-2021).

Nolan was a member of the California school, which included such luminaries as Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, and Charles Beaumont. There were others who drifted in and out, either because of geographic relocation, such as Chad Oliver, or who simply didn’t write as much, like chrles E. Fritch.

Nolan’s best known works isn’t dark fantasy. It’s dystopian science fiction, Logan’s Run, which he wrote in collaboration with George Clayton Johnson. Nolan wrote two sequels alone. I heard somewhere that Johnson had written his own sequel, but the ISFDB doesn’t list it. I saw the movie on television when I was a kid, although I suspect it had been edited for content a little. I also watched the television series that followed. I won’t say how many years ago that was.

There was a short-lived Twilight Zone type anthology show in the early eighthies called Darkroom. I remember an adaptation of one of Nolan’s stories, “the Partnership”.  It was a good story, and a good episode.

Nolan’s strengths were at shorter lenghts, though. (None of the Logan novels are very long. They might be considred novellas today.) It’s been a while since I read any of his short fiction. I will try to work a few stories in here and there over the next few month.

I’ve looked at some of Nolan’s short fiction here before. He was part of a group that excelled at shorter lengths. Bradbury. Matheson. Beaumont. Harlan Ellison came into that group as ti was beginning to splinter and the members go their separate ways. I’m not aware of any group today that is writing short fiction as consistently as the California school did.

I’ll raise a glass in their honor tonight, especially Nolan’s.

Derleth

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Today, as I’m writing this, is February 24. It’s the brithday of August Derleth (1909-1971).

Derleth, along with Donald Wandrei, founded the small press Arkham House, to keep the works of H. P. Lovecrzft in print. Arkham House went on to publish a number of other weird fiction writers,  many of whom published in Weird Tales.

Derleth went on to write some “posthumous collaborations” with Lovecraft by finishing or revising unpublished stories by Lovecraft. He also wrote Lovecraftian pastiche.

These works are controversial among Lovecraft fans, and I’m not going to venture an opinion on them.

Derleth also wrote a number of original short works of macabre and weird fiction. Tot he best fo my knowledge, most of it is out of print. Derleth also wrote historical novels set in Wisconsin. I’ve never read one of them. My understanding is that the are better than average in that genre. Anyone who has read them, pleast share your thoughts in the comments.

Despite the controversies he caused, I think it is safe to say that the face of weird fiction would look very different today if it had not been for Arkham House.

 

Frazetta

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Legendary artist Frank Fazetta (1928-2010) was born today, February 9.

What can I say?

Frank Frazetta was one of the most influential artists of the Twentieth Cneeury. His covers for the Lancer Conan books are iconic.

In addition to Robert E. Howard, Frazetta did covers for Edgar Rice Burroughs, Karl Edward Wagner, Michael Moorcock, John Jakes, Henry Kuttner, Frank Belknap Long, and Lin Carter.

He also did covers for such magazines as Creepy, Vampirella, and National Lampoon.

While his women sometimes display a little more pulchritude than is to my taste, there’s no denying the power of his work.

There are a lot of things that can be said, and I won’t try to repeat them here. I wanted to note his birthday. I’ll raise a glass in his memory shortly. Until then, enjoy some of his work. Continue reading →