Category Archives: birthday

Remembering Frazetta

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Today, February 9, is the birthday of Frank Frazetta (1928-2010). It’s hard to believe it’s been over fifteen years since we lost him.

His influence is still felt today and will be for years to come. His iconic covers for the Lancer edition of Robert E. Howard’s Conan collections alone will ensure that.

He is arguably the greatest fantasy artist of the last century.

There’s not much I can say about Frazetta that hasn’t been said before, and better, by toher people. I’m not going to write a long post.

I just wanted to acknowledge his birthday.

“Heir Apparent” by C. L. Moore

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Today is January 24, as I write this, and it’s the birthday of C. L. Moore (1911-1987). She’s a favorite around here.

Being cooped up in the house most of the day due tot eh weather, I was able read one of her stories. I chose “Heit Apparent” from the collection Judg,ment Night. That’s the cover of the original Gnome Press edition there on the left with a great cover by Kelly Freas.

It’s one of two stories in this volume that the ISFDB calls the Threshholders. The other is “Promised Land”.

Judgment Night was published in 1952.It contains five novellas that Moore was  the primary author on. Her husband Henry Kuttner didn’t collaborate much if at all on these stories. They were all published under the pen name of Lawrence O’Donnell.

I read this book in the DCell paperback edition when I was in high school. I remember very little about it, which is why I chose a story from it for this post I wanted to look at some of her work that doesn’t get a lot of attention. There’s a slight C. L. Moore reviavl going on at the moment. At least it looks like it to me. While Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry are her best known works and my favorites of her stories, there’s more to the work of C. L. Moore than jsut those two characters. Continue reading →

Robert E. Howard at 120

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So today, January 6. is the one hundred and twentieth birthday of Robert E. Howard. The day is nearly over as write this. I’ve been occupied by work and winterizing before the temperatures drop into the single digits.

But I didn’t want the day to get away without some sort of post.

I doubt there’s much I could say that I either haven’t said before or that someone else has said better.

But when have I ever let that stop me? Continue reading →

Ruminations on Merritt

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Today, January 20, is the birthday of Abraham Merritt (1884-1943). At one time, Merritt was arguably the priemere writer of fantastic fiction in the United States, if not the world. For a while there was a fantasy magazine named after him. Sadly, outside of a small number of aficianados of fantasy, he pretty much forgtotten today.

Not entirely, though. Centipede Press as reprinted some of his novels in nice hardcover editions. Paperback copies of his works are available on the secondary market. Continue reading →

An Appreciation of Clark Ashton Smith

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As I mentioned in my previous post, today (January 13) is the birthday of Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961).

I’m not sure what I can say about Smith that hasn’t been said, and said better, by someone else. This isn’t the first post I’ve made about Smith.

I havne’t read anything by him in a while, so I’m not going to try and review any of his stories. But I do want to acknowledge his birthday

So here goes. Continue reading →

Northern Shadows

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Today is January 3. It’s the birthday of J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973). His shadow over the field of fantasy is arguably the longest of any author. Many writers have written in imitation of him (think early Terry Brooks) or in reguttal to him. (Michael Moorcock and George R. R. Martin).

Tolkien drew on northern European mythology in crafting his worlds. That topic alone is worth multiple dissertations, and I’m not going to try to dwell on it in any great scholoarly depth.

Instead, I want make some general observations. Continue reading →

Crafting the Short Story: Reflections on Charles Beaumont

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This is the second birthday post for today. It’s on Charles Beaumont (1929-1967), if you couldn’t tell from the title. The first birthday post was on Isaac Asimov.

Beaumont couldn’t have been more different than Asimov.  Where Asimov focused on science, often at the expense of the humanity of his characters (it’s been said), Beuamont was a master at crafting believable, individual characters. But then Asimov wrote science fiction, whereas Beaumont primarily wrote fantasy.

Beaumont was a protege of Ray Bradbury, something I’ve commented on before. That’s not to say Beaumont was inferior to Bradbury. He wasn’t, although he was to soem extent a different kind of writer.  For a compasrison of two stories written by Beaumont and Bradbury from the same prompt, see this post.

What I want to focus on today is Beaumont as short fiction writer. Continue reading →

Reflections on Robotics

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Today is January 2, which is the birthday of Isaac Asimov (1920-1992). It’s the first of two birthday posts for this date. The other is Charles Beaumont.

Asimov needs no introduction, I’m sure. Some of his work is still in print, primarily the Foundation books (at least the early ones although I’m not sure about the later ones) and some of the robot stories. His other short fiction, both science fiction and mysteries, as well as his later science fiction novels that are stand-alones haven’t fared so well.

The Foundation series, along with some associated novels (The Stars LIke Dust, Pebble in the Sky, and The Currents of Space) are set in the far future. The robot stories were relatively near future at the time, a future that is now in our past. Not all of the robot stories directly connected to the main series which concerned scientist Susan Calvin. (Note to self: write an essay about Asimov’s choice of a female scientist as protagonist in the early forties.) Then, there were the novels featuring R. Daneel Olivaw, which were set a little further in the future and were a blend of detective and science fiction.

In the last few years of his life, Asimov connected the two series, bridging the near future Susan Calvin and R. Daneel Olivaw with the Foundation series. The wisdom of this decision could be open to question, but it’s been so long since I read some of those works, that I’ll refrain from comment.

He also cowrote some prequels to the Foundation series with some of the major science fiction writers of the early nineties. I’ve not read them and won’t mention them further in this post.

What I’d like to focus on here are the robot stories.

They were first collected in 1950 in I, Robot which was published by Gnome Press. That’s the cover above.  Some of them, especially the earlier stories in the book, are rather dated and don’t hold up well. Susan Calvin isn’t a character in the first few storeis. Once she makes an appearance, though, the quality increases. Remember, these are some of Asimov’s earliest stories. He was still learning his craft. Continue reading →

A Multitude of Birthdays

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As I’m writing this, it is December 18. I just did a Christmas ghost story post. I usually don’t do two posts a day. Buy there were enough birthdays, I wanted to mention some of them.  Murphy has been with me this week, and I’ve not gotten as many posts done as I had intended. So to make up for the derth of posts, here are some birthdays of authors I like and recccomend. Continue reading →