Category Archives: Weird Tales

Reflections on the Retro Hugos

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Leigh Brackett

I’ve decided I’m not going to do a post on Henry Kuttner’s “A God Named Kroo” for the Retro Hugos.  I reviewed it a few years ago here. I’ve got too much Real Life stuff going on, and the winners were announced yesterday. At least I saw a notice last night after posting about Brackett’s “The Jewel of Bas“.  That was the one I was hoping would win.  Brackett did win in the novel category (which I might review because Brackett) and Best Related Work.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the other categories. I’m not a member of Worldcon and am not likely to be anytime in the foreseeable future. So it was entertaining to see the reactions on Twitter today.

Seems the wrong people won some of the awards. Continue reading →

Cave’s “Black Gargoyle”

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Pulpster Hugh B. Cave (1910-2004)  was born on this date, July 11. Cave wrote for a variety of pulps in the 1930s, including Black Mask and Weird Tales. He was prolific enough that he used multiple pen names, the most famous being Justin Case. He was a war correspondent during WWII. After the war he bought a coffee plantation in Jamaica. During this period his writing shifted from the pulps, which were fast on their way out, to writing for the slicks, primarily what would be called “women’s fiction” today and was considered romance at the time.

Karl Edward Wagner’s Carcosa published some of Cave’s stories from the horror and fantasy in Murgunstrumm and Others in the 1970’s. This opened the door to him returning to weird fiction. Cave was experiencing something of a renaissance in the early 2000’s, with collections of his pulp stories from Fedogan and Bremer and Ash-Tree Press, among others, in addition to a steady output of novels. He passed away shortly after his autobiography, Cave of a Thousand Tales, was published.

For his birthday, I read “The Black Gargoyle”. It was the cover story for the March 1934 issue of Weird Tales.   It is available in the collection of the same name. Continue reading →

A Pair by Price

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E. Hoffman Price

Pulpster E. Hoffman Price (1898-1998) was born on this date, July 3. Hoffman wrote in multiple genres. Wildside Press has published multiple Megapacks of his work. We’ll look at two stories from The 11th Golden Age of Weird Fiction Megapack: E. Hoffman Price.

Before I get to the stories, I want to gloat for a bit. Price was one of the authors published by Carcosa Press back in the 1970s.  Far Lands, Other Days was one of four published before Carcosa folded.

L. Sprague de Camp moved to Plano, a suburb of Dallas, a few years before he died. Upon his death, many of his books ended up in a the flagship location of Half Price Books. This was a big deal that was promoted by the bookstore.

Of course I went.  Most of the really desirable items were locked under glass, such as volumes inscribed to de Camp by people like Heinlein. Others, books that de Camp had owned, many with a signed bookplate, were on a set of shelves. Among them was a copy of Far Lands, Other Days. I had been wanting a copy and grabbed it.

After I got it home (I paid for it.), I was looking through it a bit more carefully than I had in the store and saw something I’d missed. The employee who had processed and priced the book had missed it, too. Understandable since it wasn’t on the title page. But there was a full page inscription to de Camp signed by Price. Continue reading →

Three by Wellman

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Manly Wade Wellman

Today, May 21, marks the birth of Manly Wade Wellman (1903-1986). Wellman is best remembered for his stories of the John the Balladeer, set in the Appalachian mountains. But he wrote a lot of other things, as well.

I first discovered Wellman’s short stories in the pages of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.  He had a number of  stories published there in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Someone who had had a subscription had sold an almost complete run to the local second hand bookstore when I was in high school. Wellman’s stories were among the first I read when I picked up an issue with his name on the cover.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, Wellman is a favorite around these here parts, so in honor of his birth, in addition to raising a glass in his honor later this evening, I’m going to look at three of his stories that feature the same  character, Sergeant Jaeger. Continue reading →

Two Shorts by Frank Belknap Long

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Frank Belknap Long

Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994) was born on this date, April 27.  A correspondent of Lovecraft, Long was a prolific author in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. He wrote science fiction as well as weird fantasy and horror.  His quality varied quite a bit, which is to to be expected when an author is that prolific.When he was good, he was very good.  Case in point, “The Hounds of Tindalos” is, in my opinion, one of the best Mythos stories ever written.  You may not agree, but that’s okay. It’s a free country. You can be wrong if you want to.

Let’s look at two of his shorter works.  Time has been tight today, or I would have reviewed a longer piece, such as “The Horror From the Hills.”  Maybe some other time.

Continue reading →

“The Fireplace” by Henry S. Whitehead

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“The Fireplace”
Henry S. Whitehead
originally published in Weird Tales, January 1925
reprinted in Weird Tales, February 1935
currently available in Voodoo Tales: The Ghost Stories of Henry S. Whitehead
paperback $8.51
ebook $3.99

Henry S. Whitehead (1882-1932) was born on this date, March 5. He was well on his way to becoming one of the major authors for Weird Tales when he died far too young.

I was going to take a look at “The Lips” for today’s post, which I had intended to call “The Lips of Henry S. Whitehead”.  Continue reading →

Margaret St. Clair’s Little Red Owl

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“The Little Red Owl”
first published in Weird Tales, July 1951
currently available in The Hole in the Moon
Dover Books
Paperback $14.95

Margaret St. Clair was born on this date, February 17, in 1911.  She passed away in 1995.

St. Clair wrote primarily short stories, with most published in the 1940s and 1950s. She also published eight novels between 1956 to 1973. In addition to writing under her own name, she published under the name of Idris Seabright. These stories appeared primarily F&SF in the 50s. Continue reading →

Blogging Northwest Smith: “Lost Paradise”

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One of my favorite writers, C. L. Moore (1911-1987) was born on this date, January 24.

Moore needs no introduction to readers of this blog. She was not only one of the best female writers of science fiction and fantasy of the pulp era, she was one of the best of either sex of any era.

Today’s post continues my series of looking at the Northwest Smith stories in order. For those of you who may be new around these here parts, Northwest Smith is widely regarded to be the inspiration for Han Solo.  Only ol’ Han never had adventures like these. There will be spoilers. Continue reading →

C. M. Eddy, Jr.’s Notorious Love

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Today, January 18, marks two birthdays of note.  I’ve decided both people are of enough significance, and different enough, that I’ve done separate birthday posts rather than one.  This one concerns C. M. Eddy, Jr (1896-1967).  The post on Clare Winger Harris can be found here. Continue reading →

Of Kisses and Seeds and Klarkash-Ton

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Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961) was born on this date, January 13.  Along with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft, Smith was considered one of the Big Three of Weird Tales. Smith lived the longest of these three gentlemen, but his writing career wasn’t much longer. He wrote during the 1920s and 30s but stopped writing around 1937. Smith was a poet as well as a short story writer, and it shows in his lush, baroque prose.  In fact, one of the more common criticisms of Smith is that reading him requires too much work and too large of a vocabulary. His stories were often set in imaginary worlds such as Hyperborea, Poseidonis, and Zothique.  They are well worth seeking out.  Fortunately they are available in inexpensive electronic editions.

In observance of his birth, let’s look at two of his stories set in more modern times. Mild spoiler warning. Continue reading →