{"id":1404,"date":"2018-12-16T22:16:48","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T04:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/?p=1404"},"modified":"2018-12-16T22:16:48","modified_gmt":"2018-12-17T04:16:48","slug":"two-by-garrett-and-a-nod-to-clarke-and-pkd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/two-by-garrett-and-a-nod-to-clarke-and-pkd\/","title":{"rendered":"Two by Garrett and a Nod to Clarke and PKD"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Randall Garrett<\/p><\/div>\n

Today, December 16, marks a number of birthdays, but I want to focus on one, Randall Garrett’s, and mention two others, Arthur C. Clarke’s and Phillip K. Dick’s.<\/p>\n

Garrett (b. 1927) is a particular favorite of mine.\u00a0 He wrote both novels and short stories, as well as reviews of classic science fiction in poetry form.\u00a0 Garrett isn’t well remembered today, and to the extent that he is, he’s known for the Lord Darcy stories, which mix magic and mystery in an alternate timeline.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The two stories I want to look at today are “Despoilers of the Golden Empire” and “The Horror Out of Time”.\u00a0 “Despoilers” was written as a result of one of John W. Campbell’s (in)famous challenges, specifically whether there had been supermen in the past.\u00a0 Campbell maintained that there was historical evidence to support that suppositions.<\/p>\n

The result was “Despoilers of the Golden Empire”. It concerns a man in a society in which gold is the ultimate form of power.\u00a0 The man leads an expedition to a place he believes is full of gold.\u00a0 Because he is low on funds, he takes off without a complete crew.\u00a0 The story concerns the trials the man and his soldiers encounter as they try to bring down an empire and steal the gold.\u00a0 Garrett handles the combat scenes well.\u00a0 The last line puts a different spin on what came before, especially the names of some of the characters.\u00a0 I’ll be researching the basis of this one.<\/p>\n

“Despoilers of the Golden Empire” was first published in the March 1959 issue of Astounding Science Fiction<\/em> and most recently appeared in the Randall Garrett Megapack<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The next story, “The Horror Out of Time”, is a Lovecraftian pastiche that can hold its own with the best of them.\u00a0 After a volcanic eruption causes an island to rise from the sea floor, and a young man on a passing ship takes advantage of the opportunity to explore while the crew makes some repairs.\u00a0 He finds a fortress that was used as a temple, complete with altar.\u00a0 The theological implications of the last line are something I’m going to be thinking about for a while.\u00a0 I’m not sure how I feel about the twist at the end.<\/p>\n

“The Horror Out of Time” was published in the March 1978 issue of F&SF<\/em>.\u00a0 Its most recent appearance was in Acolytes of Cthulhu<\/em><\/a>, edited by Robert M. Price.<\/p>\n

Arthur C. Clarke (b. 1917) is well-known and needs no introduction.\u00a0 I didn’t read any of his work today, but I am wanting to work one or two of his novels into the queue.\u00a0 I read The Fountains of Paradise<\/em> in middle school and am thinking about rereading it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Phillip K. Dick<\/p><\/div>\n

The other significant birthday today is that of Phillip K. Dick (b. 1928).\u00a0 Again, I didn’t read any of his work.\u00a0 I’ve got a healthy selection of his novels and short stories, and I’m planning on reading some later this week.<\/p>\n

A number of his works have been adapted to film, to varying degrees of success.\u00a0 The best-known of these are Bladerunner<\/em>, which was based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?<\/em> and The Man in the High Castle<\/em>, currently running as an on-going series.\u00a0 My favorite novel of his (that I’ve read) is Time Out of Joint<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Dick was a master of the they’re-out-to-get-me school of fiction, where reality was always somewhat fluid.\u00a0 It’s been a number of years since I’ve read any of his work, and I’d like to revisit it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, December 16, marks a number of birthdays, but I want to focus on one, Randall Garrett’s, and mention two others, Arthur C. Clarke’s and Phillip K. Dick’s. Garrett (b. 1927) is a particular favorite of mine.\u00a0 He wrote both novels and short stories, as well as reviews of classic science fiction in poetry form.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[296],"tags":[853,775,854,852],"class_list":["post-1404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birthday","tag-arthur-c-clarke","tag-birthday","tag-phillip-k-dick","tag-randall-garrett"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P5pJ-mE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1409,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions\/1409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}