This is going to be a short post because I’ve been on the road most of the day, and it’s past my bedtime. But I wanted to acknowledge the birthdays of two writers whose work, although I’ve not read as much by either as I wish, I greatly admire. Those writers are Talbot Mundy (1879-1940) and Avram Davidson (1923-1993). They were both born on April 23.
Mundy wrote adventure. While some of his work had fantastic elements, he is best remembered as an adventure writer. I would classify him as being similar to Harold Lamb, although they were very different writers in some ways. But both wrote of advetures in exotic lands, so I would consider them to be similar in that regard.
Avram Davidson was a unique writer. He didn’t write lean prose, or deal with cosmic horrors, or heroic fantasy as we tend to think of it in terms of Robert E. Howard or Karl Edward Wagner. But his imaginataion was fertile. His stories may require a little work to read, but they are usually worth the effort. While he wrote novels, I’m primarily know him through his short fiction. He was a unique voice, and I can’t think of anyone else like him. Who else could write a story about cigar store Indians and make it work?
Mundy is interesting in that he was fairly anti-imperialist for a early 20th Century adventure writer. He could take this a bit far making desultory comments about the West and Christianity. Unlike writers who do that today, he could however still tale a good story and actually knew about the cultures he wrote about.
Avram Davidson, if the world were fair, would be considered one of the best short story writers ever. If the world were fair most people would read more short stories too. He also wrote novels but his best work was in the short form. He was also a master of both speculative fiction and crime fiction.
I agree with yuou on Mundy.
I wasn’t aware Davidson wrote crime fiction. I’ll have to track some of it down.
The Investigations of Avram Davidson is probably the easiest collection of his crime fiction you could get.
Thanks. I’ll look for it.