Category Archives: musings

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Derleth went on to write some “posthumous collaborations” with Lovecraft by finishing or revising unpublished stories by Lovecraft.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 →

The Science Fiction of C. L. Moore

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Today, January 24, is the birthday of C. L. Moore (1911-1987). I’ve been doing birthday post in honor of her for more eyars than I can count off the top of my head. For a while I was posting about the Jirel of Joiry and Northwest Smith stories, her two major works of fantasy. And yes, Northwest Smith is fantasy. It just happens to be set in space.

But Moore did write science fiction. Judgement Night and “No Woman Born” come to mind. “Vintage Season”, a masterpiece of time travel and tragedy, is usually attributed to her, even though her husband Henry Kuttner contributed to the story.

C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner

And that’s the rub. Once Catherine and Hank married, nearly everything they wrote was a collaboration.

Supposedly, one could sit down at the typewriter and pick up where the other left off, even if the first one stopped in mid-sentence. I’m still not sure how that works. Moore is on record as saying she wasn’t sure who contributed what to different stories. She said there were a few differences in spelling, such as “gray” and “grey”.

I think they each brought a strength to their work that was different than the others. That’s easy to see if you read some of their solo work that was published before they married.

Moore was the better stylist. Her porse was lush and rich whereas Kuttner’s was more utilitarian. Kuttner on the other hand, tended to come up with more ideas, some of them pretty screwball, such as the Gallagher stories or the Hogben stories.

Together, though, I think what they produced was generally superior to what they could do individually. After all, their best-known science fiction tended to be collaborations. For example, Fury, “Mimsy were the Borogoves”, “The Twonky”, “We Kill People”, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow”, and “A Gnome There Was”.

Much of their work was published under Kuttner’s byline because, as Moore has gone on record saying, he got a better word rate than she did. So much of her contribution has been lost  to time as a result of the apparent sexism of pulp editors.

That’s a shame, because I don’t think we’d  have any of those stories if it hadn’t been for Moore. At least not in the form they are now.

Who Remembers Walter M. Miller, Jr.?

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Probably not a lot of people these days, which is a shame. Miller (1923-1996) was born on Jnauary 23. He was once a prominent figure in the filed.

Miller wrote the classic post nuclear war novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz. It was originally published in three parts in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1955,1956, and 1957 and collected in book form iin 1959.

Miller wrote a sequel, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman. He arranged with Terry Bisson for Bisson to finish the novel in case he died before he could complete it. Which is what happened. The book was published in 1997.

Miller did most of his work at shorter lengths, mostly short stories, novellettes, and novellas. I’ve not read much of his shorter work, but I did read “The Darfsteller” in eighth grade in The Hugo Winners, Volumes 1 and 2, edited by Issac Asimov. The only thing I remmeber about it was that the protagonist’s landlord kept calling him a “bom”. I was going to try and reread it for tonight’s post, but it is seventy pages of fairly small print in The Best of Walter M. Miller, Jr., and I didn’t have that much time.

Miller shacked up with Judith Merrill for a short time.  Her birthday was two days ago.

Miller wrote consistently through the ninteen fifties. I’m not sure why he stopped writing. It may have been writer’s block. I know he struggled with it while writing Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman.

Terry Bisson has stated that Miller usffered from depression. He became a recluse after the publication of Canticle. He wrote over thirty pieces of short fiction. Several collections of his work have been published, but they all reprint the same handful of stories, with few exceptions. It would be nice if someone would published a more extensive collection of his work, even if it was POD.

Miller died of an intentional self-inflicted gunshot on Jnauary 9, 1996, not long after his wife died.

Listening to Howard

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Today, January 22, is the birthday of Robdert E. Howard (1906-1936).

There are a handful of writers who have their own dedicated shelves in my library. Leigh Brackett. Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore. Ray Bradbury.

But the one with two shelves, plus spillover for paperbacks and duplicate copies, I robert E. Howard.

I’vd been writing these posts for so long, I’m runnig out of things to say for them. But over the last year, I’ve begun enjoying Howard in a new way.

That’s through audio books. I”ve spent so much time behind the wheel of a car in the last dozen months or so that I’ve begun building up a small library.

All the Del Rey editions of Conan, Bran Mak Morn, Kull, Solomon Kane, and the Horror Stories are available. There are other productions of many of  the individual storeis included in these volumes as well as stories Del Rey didn’t publish. I’ve not gotten any of those.

I’m slowly working my way through the Conoan stories right now, interspersing them with full-length books. I’m alternating between fiction and nonfiction, so I’ll be enjoying these yarns for quite some time.

The production is good, so if you listen to audio books, you might want to give them a try.

Judith Merrill

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Judith Merrill (legal name Josephine Juliet Grossman) (1923-1997) was born on this date, January 21. She was an author, editor, Futurian, and political activist.

Merrill joined the Futurians, the New York science ficton club whose members included Fred Pohl (to whom she was briefly married in the late 1940s and early 1950s), C. M. Kornbluth (with whom she collaborated on several novels). After her divorce from Pohl, she lived with Walter M. Miller, Jr. for about six months.

Her first published science fiction story was “That Only a Mother” in the June 1948 issue of Astounding. Up unitl this timehe had been writing sports stories. “That Only a Mother” was one of many stories John Campbell published that dealt with the after effects of nuclear  bombs, and one of the best. It’s been reprinted a number of times.

Her most significane contribution as an editor was editing one of the earliest series of year’s best anthologioes. The series had several variations in name and ran for ten years. Merrill went outside the standard genre magazines to include stories from the slicks as well as literary journals. Merrill, along with James Blish and Damon Knight wanted to make science fiction respectable and improve the literary standards of the field. This was met with some resistance.

She eventually left the US for Canada over the Vietnam War.

 

Rembering Merritt

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Today is January 20, which means it’s the birthday of Abraham Merritt (1884-1943).

Merrit isn’t as well known as he once was, and certainly not as well as he should be. He was a pioneer in the fantasy genre. He once had a fantasy pulp named after him. He was an influence on a number of writers, including Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore, and Edmond Hamilton.

Most of his work was at novel length with only enough short fiction to fill a small collection. Part of the reason he didn’t write more was because he was a magazine editor.

I’ve been slammed today, so I haven’t had a chance to read anything he wrote. But I didn’t want this day to past without a post in his honor.

Honoring Poe

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Today, January 19, is the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849).

One of the forerunners of gothic, weird, and horror fiction, Poe also wrote early detective and science fiction stories.

His writing style might be a bit challenging to modern readers, but he is worth the work and effort. His influence his still being felt today. Lovecraft and Bradbury both list him among the writers they admired.  Richard Matheson adapted a number of his stories to screenplays that were filmed by Roger Corman. Vincent Price stared in most if not all of them.

A numbre of years ago, i reviewed a book with  the title In the Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe. The premise of the book was that a number of writers who followed in his footsteps have been forgotten because they worked in his shadow. While the premise might be accurate, and the anthology was definitely worth reading, it speaks to the power of Poe’s work.

Poe’s death is shrouded in mystery. I have several Poe biographies on the shelf. One of the reading projects for this year is to read at least one of them.

And to read more of his work. I’ve got  his collected works in audiobook. I’ll be dipping into it over the next semester as i drive back and forth to work.

What is your favorite Poe story, especially if it isn’t as well-known as some of the others? Let us know in the comments.