Today,, May 27, marks the births of two of my favorite writers, Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) and Harlan Ellison (1934-2018). We’ll take a quick look at one of their stories each.
Dashiell Hammett
Hammett didn’t write much in the genres of the fantastic, but his hardboiled style has influenced a number of writers, especially in the grimdark subgenre. (I’m looking at you, DJW.) He’s probably best remembered today for creating Sam Spade and the married duo Nick and Nora Charles. Both of these detectives enjoyed successful film and radio adaptations in the 1940s, which certainly hasn’t hurt their continued popularity. But my favorite is the Continental Op, an overweight, middle-aged, unnamed operative of the Continental Detective Agency, San Francisco Branch.
“The House in Turk Street” was first published in the April 15, 1924 issue of Black Mask. The Op is looking for a man who is supposedly living somewhere. His informant isn’t sure of the exact address, so the Op is pretending to be looking for a witness to an accident.
When an old woman answers the door and insists he join her and her husband for some tea, the Op soon finds himself in hot water. It isn’t long before there’s a gun in the back of his neck wielded by a man who recognized him when he was working on the East Coast some years before and thinks the Op is there looking for him.
“The House on Turk Street” is a tense game of cross and double cross, with the Op trying to stay alive. It also has one of the best femme fatales in detective fiction. This story is available in The Big Book of the Continental Op. It’s only available in paperback. I have two complete collections of Op stories in ebook, but they appear to be out of print.
Harlan Ellison was primarily a writer of short stories, although he wrote essays, screenplays, TV and comic strips, and any number of other things. He’s not for everyone. That was true of his personality and his writing. As much as I love some of his stuff, there are other stories I can’t stand. But he usually made me think, regardless of whether I like what he wrote.
“Working with the Little People” probably wouldn’t be considered on of Harlan Ellison’s major stories, but it’s one that has intrigued me since I read it in the July 1977 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Remember my mentioning finding an almost complete run of F&SF from the late 70’s to early 80’s in an earlier post? If this one wasn’t in that group, and I think it probably was, I picked it up not long after that. I’ll get to my reasons for why it has fascinated me in a bit.
Noah Raymond is a celebrated writer, achieving success when he is still and teenager. His problem is that he’s run dry, Then he discovers that gremlins are hopping up and down on his typewriter, turning somersaults and writing his stories, stories that propel him to even greater fame and accolades. This is a light-hearted story, filled with warmth, humor, and heart.
Harlan
It’s also a message to a writer friend of Harlan’s. The Harlan Ellison issue of F&SF had three new stories and a long article in which he talked about them. Ellision said the writer represented a dear friend and mentor who he felt had let acclaim go to his head and wasn’t writing the way he had twenty years before. Ellison didn’t name the writer. As far as I know he never has.
I think he’s talking about Ray Bradbury. In the introduction to this story in his collection Strange Wine, Ellison quotes Bradbury’s practice of writing a story a day, without naming him. The name is similar. There are parallels between Bradbury’s early career and those of Ellison’s fictional writer. Bradbury and Ellison were close friends if my memory is correct.
I don’t know for sure that Bradbury is the author Ellison is talking about. But at the time I read “Working With the Little People”, I had been working my way through all of Bradbury’s work that was available at the time. And the idea that Ellison was sending a message to Bradbury stuck with me.
Hammett does have a connection to the weird and fantastical other than his style influencing other writers. He edited a book that was a collection of horror/fantasy/thriller stories, “Creeps by Night: Chills and Thrills” which contains stories by Lovecraft, Frank Belknap Long, and Donald Wandrei, among others by Faulkner, Benet, etc., in 1931. It apparently was a decent seller as it was also published in the UK.
I know about that book, but I don’t think many people do. And did he really edit it, or was his name on the cover to sell copies? I’m thinking of the Alfred Hitchcock anthologies that used to be everywhere.
Whaaa???? You’re saying Alfred didn’t personally edit all his anthologies?!?!?!?!?
I’m shocked! Shocked, I say!
According to the ISFD:
“Note:
Hammett selected the stories as the judge of public nominations.
(quote)
The John Day Company is willing to pay $10 to any bookseller, literary editor or other person who suggests a story read in any English or American periodical which may be found acceptable for inclusion in “Creeps by Night”, a collection of chills and thrills planned for September publication. Dashiell Hammett will be the judge of eligibility and no story will be used which already has appeared in book form. It is preferred that they should have been printed in periodicals not more than three years old.”
He wrote an introduction to the book, so I guess if all this is to be believed, he did read through the stories and chose the ones he liked.
You clearly know more about this than I do. I missed that part, probably because I didn’t follow the right link in the ISFDB. I’m sure the stories werer vetted by a flunky-level editor. I can’t see Hammett reading slush. He probably chose from a curated list. But who knows?
I am fairly sure Robert Arthur was the editor for the AH anthologies.
I haven’t cracked open my copy of The Big Book of Continental Op Stories though I’ve read plenty of Op stories in other collections.
Not to long ago I read Ellison’s Alone Against Tomorrow which features classics like Repent Harlequin and I Have No Mouth and Must Scream. It also has works from early in his career which if not as good aren’t bad but more standard science fiction.
Ellison seems to be a guy who was really sweet or really abrasive depending on various factors.
I met Ellison once at a convention some years ago. He was everything I’d heard he was.
It’s been a while since I read Harlequin and No Mouth. I really ought to revisit them soon. *Looks at TBR pile and sighs.*
When I read Alone Against Tomorrow, it had been years since I read Harlequin and No Mouth. I noticed somethings about No Mouth that I hadn’t notice before. (Or maybe I forgot). One was how paranoid the narrator was. In one sequence he talks about how AM messed with other characters minds and how he was left alone. It’s apparent that this was self-delusion.
I have been rereading Ellison off and on for about a year and reading some things I hadn’t managed to get to yet, but all of that slowed down with the pandemic. I’m hoping once I get the labs converted to an online format, I can read a lot of short fiction, including Ellison.
It was basically because of the pandemic that I was able read Ellison again after so many years. I was stuck at home a long time so I had a lot of time to read. I also reread The Dying Earth and The Book of the New Sun.