Ambrose Bierce’s Birthday, with a Guest Appearance by Robert E. Howard

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What follows is a guest post from John Bullard. – KW

Ambrose Bierce

Today, June 24th, is the birthday of writer, reporter, and Civil War veteran, Ambrose Bierce. He became famous for his reporting, his fiction writing and his satires. He disappeared while down in Mexico covering the Mexican Revolution around 1914. His work is readily available. An online site that has most of his fiction, including all of the stories mentioned in this piece, and some of his non-fiction is here:

http://www.ambrosebierce.org/works.html

So, why on Bierce’s birthday am I going to talk as much about Robert E. Howard as the birthday boy? Simple: Ambrose Bierce had a big influence on some of Howard’s weird western stories. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “And the Gods Laughed” by Fredric Brown

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So the next few Retro Hugo posts are going to be focusing on the short stories that I haven’t already looked at.  I covered “Far Centaurus” for A. E. van Vogt’s birthday, and a scheduling slip-up resulting in my post on “The Wedge” by Isaac Asimov going live before I finished the novelettes.

Today we’re looking at “And the Gods Laughed” by Fredric Brown. It was first published in the Spring 1944 issue of Planet Stories.  It is currently available in hardcover in From These Ashes: The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown from NESFA Press and in electronic format in The Second Fredric Brown Megapack from Wildside Press.

Planet stories is remembered today as a pulp with lots of sword and planet tales and space opera from the likes of Leigh Brackett and Poul Anderson, full of exotic adventure. But it also published more laid back stories as well, albeit usually at shorter lengths.

“And the Gods Laughed” is one of these. Continue reading →

Haggard and Quatermain

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Sir H. Rider Haggard

Today, June 22, marks the birth of Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925). Haggard was one of the premier adventure writers of the 19th Century. Best known for his character Allan Quatermain, H. Rider Haggard wrote many other novels.

His work has has a major influence on many writers, from his friend and contemporary Rudyard Kipling to such fantasy giants as Robert E. Howard.

These days he’s fallen out of favor because he wasn’t woke enough. I don’t care.  I’m smart enough to not judge people from previous centuries by today’s shifting standards. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: Final Thoughts on the Novelettes

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The Retro Hugo nominees for best novelette are (links are to reviews):

  • “The Big and the Little”, Isaac Asimov (Astounding Science Fiction 8/44)
  • “Arena”, Fredric Brown (Astounding Science Fiction 6/44)
  • “No Woman Born”, C.L. Moore (Astounding Science Fiction 12/44)
  • “The Children’s Hour”, Lawrence O’Donnell (C.L. Moore & Henry Kuttner) (Astounding Science Fiction 3/44)
  • “When the Bough Breaks”, Lewis Padgett (C.L. Moore & Henry Kuttner) (Astounding Science Fiction 11/44)
  • “City”, Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science Fiction 5/44)

All of these stories are strong contenders. There isn’t a bad one in the bunch. but they aren’t all equal. With the exception of “Whent he Bough Breaks” and “The Children’s Hour”, I’ve not read any of them since high school. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “The Wedge” by Issac Asimov

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“The Wedge” was originally published in the October 1944 issue of Astounding.  It’s a Foundation story and was reprinted as “The Traders” when the stories were collected in book form. It was published after “The Big and the Little” but placed before that story (as “The Merchant Princes”).

I thought this was a fairly weak story. A trader gets an emergency message instructing him to go to a particular planet where another trader has gotten himself in trouble with the local potentate.

The trader who is in trouble is actually an agent of the Foundation, and the protagonist knows this. The Foundation has been trying to gain influence and power two ways. With missionaries of the religion the Foundation has set up and through agents who act as traders.

The agent in trouble has violated a ban on nuclear power.  Many of the star systems have reverted to a pre-atomic level of technology since the Empire pulled back from the edge of the galaxy.

The trader uses entrapment to bring about a a change in the policy by blackmailing his main opponent. The story was worked out logically and held my interest, but it is the weakest of the Retro Hugo stories I’ve read so far.

Retro Hugos: “Trog” by Murray Leinster

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Today, June 16, is the birthday of Murray Leinster (1896-1975).  I was going to cover the novellas on the Retro Hugo ballot after I read the short stories, but with Leinster’s birthday today, I’m going to cover this one.

Leinster was a prolific author in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. He won the Hugo Award in 1956 for “Exploration Team”. At his best, Leinster had few peers. He was the author of such classics as “First Contact” and “Sidewise in Time”, for which the Sidewise Award is named. He anticipated the internet in “A Logic Named Joe”. I wonder if Al Gore read that one before he invented the internet.

“Trog” appeared in the June 1944 issue of Astounding. It has never been reprinted. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “No Woman Born” by C. L. Moore

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This is the second to last Retro Hugo post on the novelette category and the last of the stories.  I’ll do a summary post on the novelettes before moving on to the short stories.

“No Woman Born” was first published in the December 1944 issue of Astounding. It is the story of a dancer and singer named Deidre who has been badly burned  in a fire. The story opens a year later, when everyone thinks she is dead.

Only she isn’t dead. Her brain has been transplanted in a robot body by a man named Maltzer. Her press agent, Harris, is the only other person in on it. Her new body is human in shape, but instead of having joints, her limbs are flexible metal rings. This allows her to move in a much more sinuous way than she could before the fire. Entirely new dance forms are possible with her new body. She can also modulate her voice so that it sounds exactly the way it did, husky and distinct. Continue reading →

Retro Hugos: “The Big and the Little”

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“The Big and the Little” was originally published in the August 1944 issue of Astounding. This is a Foundation story. It was published before “The Wedge” (10/44) but was placed after it when the stories were collected in book form.

There is a bit more substance to this story than there is to “The Wedge”, which I’ll review when I get to the short story nominees. A trader who was born on Smyrno (rather than Terminus, the location of the Foundation) is given the task of investigating the disappearance of ships in the Republic of Korell.

Spoilers Ahead Continue reading →

Not Exactly Howard Days

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If things had gone the way the were supposed to, instead of writing this post, I would be at Howard Days enjoying a nice dinner, listening to Roy Thomas giving his Guest of Honor speech, and wondering if I would win all my bids in the silent auction. But as you are probably aware, nothing this year has gone the way it was supposed to. Continue reading →

Lin Carter’s Legacy: The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series

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Lin Carter was born on June 9, 1930.  He passed away in 1988. I’m not going to review any of his fiction for this birthday post.  It’s been one of those days. I’m going to try to read something by Keith Laumer for Futures Past and Present.

Lin Carter

Today I want to discuss what was arguably his greatest contribution to the field of fantasy. No, I’m not talking about his involvement with L. Sprague de Camp and the Conan revival of the 1960s. I mean, of course, the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.

BENE NOTE: If you want to do a web search, type “Ballantine Fantasy” in your search engine.  Don’t say “Ballantine Adult Fantasy” unless you want to set off all kinds of bells and whistles. Especially at work. Continue reading →