Category Archives: birthday

Van Vogt Plus Gold

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Todayis April 26, the birthday of A. E. Van Vogt (1912-200) and Horace L. Gold (1914-1996).

Alfred Elton Van Vogt was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He was one of the major writers of science fiction in the early forties. His best known work was published in Astounding. His two novels about the weapon makers of Isher are classics of libertarian science fiction.

Slan was a novel about mutants that fandom idnetified with. At conventions, tehy are reported to chant “Fans are Slans!” becuase they felt they were superior to ordinary people, whom they called “mundanes”.

Van Vogt also wrote a great deal of short fiction. He got involved in dianetics  for a while. His reputatoin as a writer never recovered when he caem back to writing. Baen published several omnibus collections of his works and Tachyon Press has a collection of his short stories in print.

Horace L. Gold started out as a writer (see my review of “The Trouble with Water”) who went on to be the first editor of Galaxy magazine from 1950 until 1961. It is in that capacity that he is remembered today. Gold’s run on Galaxy saw the publication of a number of stories by the biggest names in science fiction, stories that went on to be soncisered classics.

One habit Gold had that irked Fred Pohl to no end was his tendency to change the titles of stories.

Are there any stories Van Vogt wrote or that Gold published that you are paprticularly fond of? Or maybe not fond of?

Benson and Grafton

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Today is April 24, the birthday of A. C. Benson (1862-1925) and Sue Grafton (1940-2017).

Arthur Christopher Benson is the brother of R. H. Benson and E. F. Benson. All three wrote ghost stories. E. F. is the better known of the three. He was also the most prolific having enough to fill four or five collections. A. C. and R. H. have had their ghost stories published together in a single volume. Twice, as it turns out, although the ISFDB doesn’t list Ghosts in the House, published by Ash-Tree Press. That was the volume that introduced me to them.

It strikes me as odd that Ghosts in the House isn’t listed on the ISFDB under either A. C or R. H. Benson. They are usually more thorough than that.

But I digress.

All the Bensons wrote good ghost stories. They are, of course, in the classic English tradition. And well worth reading.

Sue Grafton created one of the first female private investigators in the character of Kinseu Milhone. The gimmick she used in selecting titles was to use the format Letter is for Someting. Her intention was to write twenty-six books, one for each letter of the alphabet. “Y” was the last volume she completed before her death.

I’ve only read a few of the short stories. I enjoyed them. I’ll be reading the novels. At the church garage sale a couple of weeks ago, my wife picked up most of the set. I’m not sure if she has all of them, but she has the first ones. That’s good enough for me.

RIP and Happy Birthday, Ian Watson

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I was checking to see if there were any folks I wanted to do a birthday post on. There were three, Donald Wandrei (1908-1987), Peter S. Beagle (b. 1939), and Ian Watson (1943-2026).

Wait, Ian Watson? I hadn’t realized Watson had died.

He passed away a week ago, on April 13. I checked Locus Online to see if I had missed their obituary. They posted it today. Today, Appril 20,  is his birthday.

Watson’s name may not be familiar to many of you. He was British, and he never seemed to catch on here in the States.

He wrote a number of novels, the most notable the Books of the Black Current series, as well as several in the Warhammer series. Watson was a prooific short story writer, as well as a poet. I first encountered his work in short form.  It’s been a number of years since I read his work, but it was always entertaining.

If you’ve not read him, Watson’s work is worth checking out. He had over 20 collections of his short fiction published. A number of his novels and collections are in print, many in affordable electronic editions.

Biggle and Williamson

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Today is April 17. It is the birthday of Lloyd Biggle, Jr. (1923-2002) and J. N. Williamson (1932-2003), Both men were primarily short story writers, although they did publish some novels.

Biggle wrote science fiction and mystery. His work at  times codused on the arts and how advances in technology would affect them.

Williamson wrote horror. Time may remmeber him more as an editor than a writer, though. He edited the anthology series Masques. It ran to five volumes and published some of the top names in horror fiction. Volumes I and II were combined in the paperback Dark Masques, and volumes III and IV were combined as Darker Masques.

Both men are pretty much forgotten these days outside of hardcore scinece fictiona nd horror fans, which is a shame since short fiction can have soem of the best stories.

Two by Kuttner

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Today, April 7, is the birthday of Henry Kuttner (1915-1958). I encountered his work in the Science Fiction Book Club edition of The Best of Henry Kuttner when I was fourteen. That was the perfect age for imprinting.

Kuttner has been my favorite writer ever since.

Some years ago, someway, somehow, I managed to score a copy of Kuttner’s first short story collection, A Gnome There Was, published under his pen name Lewis Padgett. These are stories he wrote in collaboration with his wife, C. L. Moore. I don’t remember now how I obtained it. Legally, of course. Probably I found a copy online through ABE or somesuch site.

(The one I wish I had been able to buy was the copy of Robots Have No Tails that he inscribed to John W. Campbell, Jr. But the prpice was a grand, and that was over a quarter of a century ago. If I had had the money, I would have bought it. Alas, I didn’t have a spare thousand dollars sitting around. No telling what that book would go for today.)

But I digress.

It has been years since I read A Gnome There Was. It contains some of Kuttner’s best known and most reprinted stories, such as “Mimsy Were teh Borogorves”, “A Gnome There Was”,  “The Twonky”, “What You Need”, and two of the Hogben stories.

But it also contains some of the leasat reprinted stories, sotries that are just as good as the previously named. For this post, I’m going to look briefly at two of those stories, “The Cure” and “Rain Check”. Maybe I’ll look at some of the others in the future. Continue reading →

The Cunning of Robert Bloch

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First, Happy Easter to those who celebrate.

Today is April 5, which is the birthday of Robert Bloch (1917-1994). Bloch needs no introduction around these parts. Bloch will forever be known as the man who wrote Psycho. But his work encompassed so much more.

He was a member of the Lovecraft circle while he was still a teenager and much of his early work was pastiche. He would dabble in Mythos fiction off and on for most of his career. But Bloch was too talented a writer to lock himself into one genre.

He wrote science fiction humorous fantasy, and crime stories.

Today’s featured book is one of the latter, although the cover implies the book is supernatural horror.

It’s not, although there are ceertainly some horrific aspects to the book. Continue reading →

Weinbaum and Gallun

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One of hte most popular science fiction writers of the Pre-Campbell era was born today, April 4. I’m talking about Stanley G. Weinbaum (1902-1935).

Weinbaum’s career was short, not even two years before he died of cancer.

But in those two years he left an indelible mark on science fiction. During a time when aliens tended to fall intot he Bug eyed Monster trope more often than not, and when it was common for characters to consist of a scientist (mad  or otherwise) , his beautiful daughter, and the square jawed hero who exists to protect and serve as what passed for a love interest to the beautiful daughter, Weinbaum broke the mold. Continue reading →

Thinking of Anne McCaffery

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Today, April 1, marks the centennial of of the birth of Anne McCaffery (1926-2011).

I’ve been thinking about her books lately. More on that below.

I first became aware of Anne McCaffery when I was either in sixth grade or going into seventh grade. I had just started reading adult science fiction, mostlly whata I found at Wladenbooks at the mall or the flea market. I’d pretty much burned through what little science fiction was in the elementary school library.

What caught my eye was a book entiitled Dinosaur Planet. A whole planet with dinsoaurs? I’m in. Continue reading →