Category Archives: birthday

A Pair by Hamilton

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Today, October 21, is the birthday of Edmond Hamilton (1904-1977).  He’s a favorite around these here parts. In observance of his birthday, I’m going to look at two stories from What’s It Like Out There?. I snagged a copy in great condition for a song last weekend, so this was the book I went to. This is a break from my usual practice of reviewing stories that are easily available. Copies of What’s It Like Out There? aren’t too hard to come by, though.

The back cover copy of What’s It Like Out There? says this is a collection of Hamilton’s best stories. The publication date is 1974, and the publisher was Ace, so this collection predates the Ballantine collection The Best of Edmond Hamilton by roughly three years.  It’s interesting to note that What’s It Like Out There? has a dozen stories from the 1940s and 1950s, with one story from the early 60s, with the majority from the 40s. The Best of Edmond Hamilton has 21, from the 1920s to the late 60s. The title story of the Ace collection, “What’s It Like Out There?”, is the only duplication between them.

Hamilton is best remembered as a science fiction writer, but he wrote his share of fantasy and weird tales. In fact both of the stories we’ll look at are from Weird Tales. Neither are major works, but they are both entertaining. Continue reading →

R. H. Malden’s “The Dining-Room Fireplace”

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Today, October 19, marks the birth of R. H. Malden (1879-1951). Malden was a friend of M. R. James. He only published one collection of stories, Nine Ghosts, in 1943, but it was a popular seller, even with World War II raging.

Tonight’s story is a little chiller about a group who rent an old Irish house. The owner is an officer in the army who is single.

The sitting room, dining room, and billiard room compose the rooms on the south side of the house. Portraits of family members going back a couple of centuries line the walls. In the dining room there is one picture over the fireplace that isn’t of a family member.  It’s a menacing picture showing a man astride a chair with his back to the viewer and facing the fireplace. He’s turning to look over his shoulder, but it looks like his neck is twisted more that is should be.  The man’s neck doesn’t appear to be broken because in the painting, he’s very much alive.

There are dark family secrets, strange winds coming from and blowing into the fireplace, a mysterious figure in a dream, and a secret society that came to a bad end in some way.

If that sounds like a lot, it is, although when I read the story, it didn’t seem that way. Malden did an excellent job with his tale, and I found reading it to be an entirely satisfying experience. I’ll be reading the rest of this book.

Remembering Dorothy McIlwraith

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Dorothy McIlwraith

Dorothy McIlwraith (1891-1976) was born on this date, October 14. She was the editor of Weird Tales from 1940-1954, when the publication died its first “death”.

Most fans of the Unique Magazine don’t consider her tenure at the editorial helm to be as good as that of Farnsworth Wright. I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison. By the time Ms. McIlwraith took her position, the greatest three writers were gone: Howard and Lovecraft were dead, and Clark Ashton Smith had pretty much stopped writing fiction. Other writers from the 20’s and 30’s had also passed on, such as Henry S. Whitehead.

But other regulars continued to publish there, such as Seabury Quinn and Carl Jacobi. And look at some of the names that graced the covers and tables of contents in those years. Ray Bradbury. Manly Wade Wellman. Robert Bloch. August Derleth. Theodore Sturgeon. Plus Lee Brown Coye illustrated many of those issues.

Of course the tone and contents of the magazine changed with the passing of the Big Three, but things were changing anyway. That can be seen in the other pulps as well. I, for one, like what McIlwraith published in the magazine. Bradbury’s stories from Weird Tales were some of the first dark fantasy and horror that I read as a kid. There’s a lot noise these days about how women weren’t welcomed in the fields of the fantastic before [insert current Year Zero here].

As I’ve stated elsewhere in more than one place (such as here and here),  there were women in the field in the early days, and they and their achievements need to be remembered.

Wandering with Melmoth

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Today, September 25, is the birthday of Charles Maturin (1782-1824). Maturin was the author of Melmoth the Wanderer. Karl Edward Wagner was influenced by the book when creating his character of Kane.

Published in 1820, Melmoth isn’t light reading but can be rewarding if the reader is diligent. The structure of the book is one of nested stories, or flashbacks within flashbacks. The book opens with John Melmoth being summoned to his dying uncle’s bedside. There he learns of a mysterious figure named Melmoth the Wanderer.  The Melmoth of the title sold his soul to the devil for an extra 150 years of life. His time is about up.

There are several spooky passages, such as early in the book when John Melmoth is waiting for his uncle to die and the Wanderer opens the door, looks into the room, and then shuts the door. No one but John sees him. Or the wedding officiated by an undead priest towards the end.

The flashback within flashback structure can be a bit hard to follow at times. Another feature that might make this challenging to modern readers is that in a modern novel a new paragraph starts if the character speaking changes. Not so in Melmoth. The paragraphs run long and can contain several changes of speaker without any breaks or indentations

All of which is to say, don’t read this book at bedtime or when you’re not alert. Not that it isn’t worth reading. It is. It’s just not going to be a quick, light read that you can daydream your way through. Melmoth the Wanderer is one of the important novels in the development of the Gothic. I enjoyed it. It won’t be for everyone, but if you like Gothics, give it a try.

Birthday Bounties

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There are a number of birthdays today (September 24). I’ve been slammed this week with the first exam of the semester, general job responsibilities, and more emails from students who didn’t bother to read their syllabus than you can shake a stick at. (I’d like to hit a few of them with a stick.)

Which is to say that I’ve not read anything to review for this post. Consider this just information and informal recognition. Continue reading →

Traveling with Tanith Lee’s “Companions on the Road”

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Tanith Lee’s birthday is today (September 19). She was born in 1947 and passed away in 2015. For her birthday, I decided to read something a bit longer than a short story.  (I promise I will review Melmoth the Wanderer soon.) I settled on “Companions on the Road”. It’s the title story of the collection of two novellas pictured there on the right.

Havor was orphaned at five, ran away from the orphanage at ten, and after wandering about doing a variety of odd jobs, he joined the Bear King’s army at sixteen. Now eighteen, he’s risen to the equivalent of sergeant in the army. The war is almost over. The Bear King is laying siege to the city of Avillis. Avillis is ruled by a dark mage, along with his son and daughter, a beautiful blond.

On the first night of the siege, the boy Lukon, a recent recruit in Havor’s unit comes and asks Havor to take what little pay he has earned to his mother and sisters if he should die in battle. Lukon tells Havor how to find the farm. Havor agrees.

The siege doesn’t last long. The people of Avillis hate their ruler and open the gates to the Ber King. Lukon doesn’t survive, and Havor, who has grown tired of the killing, resigns his commission. Before he can leave the city, He gets lured into a scheme his former second in command and a cutpurse to steal a treasure in a secret chamber under the castle. Havor thinks to give some of the treasure to Lukon’s family to mitigate the sting of grief that will accompany the news of Lukon ‘s death. The treasure turns out to be a golden chalice embedded with jewels. The men take and flee the city.

Too bad for them. Continue reading →

Happy Birthday to Howard Waldrop

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Howard Waldrop reading at Armadillocon in 2016.

Today, September 15, is the birthday of Howard Waldrop (b. 1946). Waldrop is one of the most original short story writers working today. Although he’s written a couple of novels, Waldrop is a short story writer. I’ve not seen him in several years, since I haven’t made it to Armadillocon in a while. My understanding is that his health hasn’t been very good. He’s only published a couple of stories in the last decade, most of them in the early twenty-teens.

Waldrop’s work is worth seeking out. He has a gonzo way of looking at things that I find refreshing.  I would suggest starting with “The Ugly Chickens”, a truly heartwarming and heartbreaking tale about dodos. You can find it in Howard, Who?, his first collection.

I’ve maintained that short fiction is the lifeblood of any genre, a form that allows for a wider variety of voices, techniques, and ideas than novels.  For Exhibit A I present Howard Waldrop.

Remembering Charles L. Grant

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Charles L. Grant

September 12, AKA today, is the birthday of Charles L. Grant (1942-2006). Grant was a practitioner of what is known as quiet horror. It’s the type of horror I prefer. In addition to being an amazing writer, he was one of the most influential anthology editors of the late 1970s and 80s.

I first became aware of Shadows, the groundbreaking anthology series he edited when I was in the 8th grade.  We had recently moved to Paris, TX.  The public library had a good selection of anthologies for a library of that size in those days, including at least one, and probably more, titles from the Shadows series. The first volume I read was Shadows 3. I was hooked. I hunted down the others, especially Shadows 2, which had “The Chair” by Jane Cozart and Alan Dean Foster, Foster being my favorite writer at the time.  This was about a year before I discovered Kuttner and Brackett. Continue reading →