A New Series of Posts in Honor of Ray Bradbury

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Ray Bradbury was born on this date, August 22, in 1920.  We lost him in 2012.  Bradbury was one of the first science fiction and fantasy writers I read.  A friend of our reading teacher came to class one day and read “The Screaming Woman” to us from the collection S is for Space.  I was hooked.

The public library in Wichita Falls had a number of Bradbury paperbacks in the children’s section, mostly the editions that had a drawing of Bradbury on the cover.  I’d seen them but didn’t really know what they were about.  After the man read the story, I checked out every one of them.  And when I read all of those, I tracked down the rest over the next few years.  I was fortunate because not only were they all in print at the time, but new editions were being published.  Those were the days.

A few weeks ago, something came across my twitter feed about the influence Henry Kuttner and Leigh Brackett had on Bradbury.  They both mentored  him, and Bradbury had written about his friendship with the two writers.

So I decided I could do a series of posts on those.  They’ll start sometime in the next month.  I’ve already got the first one planned.  I just need to reread the stories I’ll discuss in it and then write the post.  That will be after classes start next week.

 

Reflections on H. P. Lovecraft

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As I promised in the previous post, here’s one devoted to someone who has had an important role in my life and who has a birthday today.  My mother-in-law.  Happy birthday, June.

Wait, what?  Oh, sorry about that.  Got confused for a minute.

I want to talk about H. P. Lovecraft on his birthday (August 20).  I’m gong to vent my spleen a bit.

A day or two ago a link came across my Twitter feed to an article ranting about Lovecraft’s racism.  Yeah, that again.

Let me make something clear for everyone who didn’t quit reading at the last paragraph.  I do not condone, subscribe to, or approve of Lovecraft’s views on race. Period.  Full stop.

That does not mean I don’t enjoy his work.  Do certain aspects of it bother me? Sure.  But I’m a big boy. I can handle viewpoints that aren’t the same as mine.  I can even  handle viewpoints I find offensive.

What I get tired of are people who continually judge writers from other periods in history by today’s standards.  For some reason those writers are always found wanting.   If you don’t want to read an author because of their views on race/politics/religion/how they pronounce tomato, that’s fine.  Just don’t tell me I can’t or shouldn’t read those authors.  There’s a tendency to go beyond that and try to shame people who enjoy certain authors whose views aren’t politically correct.  And people who do this have been awfully loud lately.

I’ll read what I damn well want to, and I don’t need anyone’s approval to do so.  Certainly not the approval of some shrill scold, regardless of whether I agree with their point or not.  If the fact I like Lovecraft, or Haggard, or Howard, or Burroughs, or any other writer offends you, then you can go pound sand.

Me, I’m going to read some Lovecraft in honor of his birthday.  Hmm… “The Dunwich Horror” is looking pretty good.  I think I’ll try that one.

The Art of Darrell K. Sweet

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Artist Darrell K. Sweet was born on this date, August 15, in 1934.  He passed away in 2011.  When I was in junior high and high school, if  book had cover he’d done, I always picked it up and gave it a look.  I didn’t always buy the book, but based on positive experiences with some of the first books I read that he’d done the cover art for, I always gave it a look.  I had the privilege of meeting him a couple of times, and I had the opportunity to tell him that at the 2006 WFC.

Rather than continue to blather, I’m going to post some examples of his art.  Enjoy! Continue reading →

Ghosts, Heroic Fantasy, the Shaver Mystery, and Some Really Groovy Illustrations

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If the birthdays and the day job both slow down at the same time, I’ve got a review of a Joseph Payne Brennan collection to run.  Until then, let’s look at four birthdays that fall on this date (August 1).

M. R. James

We’ll start with M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James (1862-1936).  He’s the master of the classic English ghost story.  His only potential rivals to that title might be H. R. Wakefield or E. F. Benson.  (What is it with these English ghost story writers and initials, anyway? Must have been something in the water.)  Many of James’s s stories dealt with antiquarians who stuck their noses in places they shouldn’t and disturbed things best left alone.  Full of atmosphere, the ghost stories of M. R. James are worth reading.  Most anthologies of classic ghost stories will have one of his tales, and there are a number of electronic and print editions available.

David Gemmell

David Gemmell (1948-2006) is no stranger to these parts.  The now defunct David Gemmell Awards were established in his honor.  Gemmell’s first novel, Legend, is now a classic in the field of heroic fantasy.  Gemmell is someone I’ve only read bits and pieces of, coming to his work only in the last couple of decades.  I had the pleasure of meeting him at the 2000 World Fantasy Convention in Corpus Christi.  I got to listen in on him and Jane Lindskold discuss Louis L’Amour and his influence on their own writing.

Richard Shaver (r.) with Ray Palmer

Our editor for today is somewhat problematic.  As the discerning blog reader will discern from the title of this post, I’m talking about Raymond A. Palmer (1910-1977).  (No, he was named after the DC Comics superhero, The Atom. It was the other way around.) Palmer was the editor of Amazing Stories, founded the short-lived Other Worlds Science Fiction (which published Eric Frank Russell’s classic “Dear Devil”), and later became the editor of Fate a publication which specialized in UFO’s and other pseudo-scientific phenomena.

Palmer receiver a piece of fiction from Richard Shaver in which Shaver claimed to have knowledge of an ancient and malevolent civilization hiding in caverns deep under the surface of the Earth.  Palmer published it, and many other stories soon followed.  Sales skyrocketed. The thing is, Shaver actually believed this tripe, and apparently so did many of the readers.  I’m not sure if Palmer ever completely bought into what came to be called The Shaver Mystery or if he was cynically doing whatever he needed to in order to boost sales.  Doesn’t really matter at this late date.  Palmer and Shaver did a lot of damage to the science fiction and fantasy fields with their insistence that all of this was real.

Finally, we come to one of my favorite artists, Edd Cartier (1914-2008).  Cartier’s work graced the pages of Astounding and Unknown during John Campbell’s tenure as editor.  He had a distinctive and whimsical style that was really unique and fun.  Here’s some of his work.

The Weird Tales Covers of C. C. Senf

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Farnsworth Wright (l.) and C. C. Senf, Chicago, late 1920s

Artist C. C. (Curtis Charles) Senf was born in this date, July 30, 1873. He passed away in 1949.  Senf did a number of covers for Weird Tales.  The ISFDB lists 45 covers between 1927 and 1932.  I’m not sure why Senf didn’t do any others.  His last cover was July 1932.  Margaret Brundage’s first cover was September 1932. She had already provided the covers for the Spring and Summer 1932 issues of Oriental Stories.  Maybe Farnsworth liked her covers better.

Or maybe Senf left to pursue other, more lucrative projects.  I don’t know.  I’ll do some checking, and if I find out anything interesting, I’ll report back.

Senf’s covers definitely have what I would call a 1920’s look to them, with Victorian overtones.  For more discussion of Senf’s technique and a more detailed biography, see these three posts at Tellers of Weird Tales.

Now, let’s enjoy some of his covers. Continue reading →

Farnsworth

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Today, July 29, marks the birth of legendary Weird Tales editor, Farnsworth Wright (1888-1940).  Modern fantasy would be very different without his influence.  It’s arguable whether we would have the works of Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, C. L. Moore, Seabury Quinn, Henry S. Whitehead, and many others if he hadn’t bought their stories and encouraged them.

I’ve enough to do for the rest of the day that I’m not sure I’ll be able to read anything he published in Weird Tales, but I’ll raise a glass in his memory sometime before I go to bed.

Remembering Bill

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We lost Bill Crider to cancer in February of last year.  February 12, 2018, to be exact.  Today (July 28) would have been his 78th birthday.

I took the picture on the left at the 2017 World Fantasy Convention in San Antonio. That’s Joe Lansdale on the left.  It was my last time to see Bill.  We didn’t get to visit much; his stamina was low.  I understood and was thankful for the time I did get to chat with him.

Bill Crider is best remembered as a mystery writer, and that’s as it should be.  He was good, very good at that genre.  Along with some westerns, he also wrote bit of fantasy and science fiction.  It would be great if someone could collect those stories.

I first became aware of Bill in 1999, when he was the guest at a writing symposium held at the university I was at.  We didn’t meet then, but I started watching for his books.  Then I moved to another part of the state.  About a year or two later, ConDFW got started.  Bill was a regular attendee there, as well as Aggiecon and Armadillocon, two other conventions I was attending at the time.  Although he didn’t write much fantasy and science fiction, Bill was a fan especially of the older, pulpier stuff.  We’d both grown up reading a lot of the same authors and stories, although he had read them in their original publications while I had read reprints.

We had some mutual friends, and I got to know Bill and and to a lesser extent his wife Judy by hanging with that group.  I tended to stay at the back of the crowd and just listen.  Bill was an accomplished raconteur, and when he and Joe Lansdale got going, well, you couldn’t find better entertainment than that.

Bill was always a gentleman, courteous, kind, approachable.  He was soft spoken, and he never failed to have something interesting to say.  I didn’t know him as well as Joe or Scott Cupp or James Reasoner did.  They knew him for far longer after all.  Still, he was my friend, and I miss him.

If you’ve not read Bill Crider, give his work a try.  He never engaged in literary pyrotechnics.  He just told good stories.

John D. MacDonald Makes Children Cry

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“A Child is Crying”
Originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1948

Even though he’s best remember as a writer of crime novels and the Travis McGee series of thrillers, John D. MacDonald was also an accomplished author of science fiction.  He only wrote three sf novels (The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything; Ballroom of the Skies; Wine of the Dreamers), but the ISFDB lists 70 short stories if I’ve counted correctly.  Not all of those are necessarily science fiction, but that’s more than enough for a retrospective collection or two.  (Stephen Haffner, are you paying attention?)  Some of his science fiction was collected in Other Times, Other Worlds.  That little paperback is long out of print, although copies can still be found.  I bought one at a secondhand bookstore in Colorado a few weeks ago.

MacDonald was born on this date, July 24, in 1916, and passed away during surgery in 1986.  In observance of his birth, I managed to read one of his tales.  “A Child is Crying” is one of his best-known sf short stories, and it’s easy to see why. Continue reading →