Everyone here at Adventures Fantastic wishes each and everyone of you a very Merry Christmas. May your holiday be filled with love, laughter, family, and faith.
The staff and I have included our Christmas pictures. Everyone seems to be sending Christmas photos these days, so I and my helpers have decided to do the same.
Enjoy!
And All through the House
Ed McBain
I was going to post this over at Gumshoes, Gats, and Gams. Silly me, I downloaded WordPress 5.0. Big mistake. The entire interface is different. Rather lose my Christmas spirit, I decided to post this here. I hadn’t gotten around to updating here or at Futures Past and Present, and now I’m not going to.
It’s been a while since I read any of the 87th Precinct books. This one is an illustrated short story that was first published in 1984. Sadly it is long out of print and there is no electronic edition.
The story opens with Detective Steve Carella alone in the squadroom on Christmas Eve. It’s quiet and he’s having trouble staying awake. He is wishing for something to happen. He should know that he needs to be careful what he wishes for.
Soon the room begins to fill up with the other detectives. Accompanying them are a couple of drug dealers, a burglar, and a kid who stole a sheep from the zoo as a Christmas present for his kid sister, sheep in tow.
Then a detective brings in a young couple, Maria and Jose, from Puerto Rico who have squatting in an abandoned building. Maria is quite pregnant.
Of course you can see where this is going. This isn’t a major 87th Precinct story, but it’s a good seasonal tale. The illustrations by Victor Juhasz help set the mood, as does the dialogue. If you can get your hands on a copy, this is a nice little holiday tale.
“An Ordinary Brick House”
Joseph Payne Brennan
originally appeared in Shadows 9, Charles L. Grant, ed.
A lot of great short fiction appeared in the Shadows series, and much of it has never been reprinted. “An Ordinary Brick House” is a perfect example. An that’s a shame because it’s an interesting haunted house story. Continue reading
Today, December 20, marks the centenary of the birth of Joseph Payne Brennan. Brennan only wrote one novel, which was published by a small press. Most of his output was in the form of short fiction and poetry. Several volumes of both have been published, and are readily available on the secondary market. They ain’t gonna be cheap.
For example, The Shapes of Midnight, a paperback published by Berkley in 1980 shows eighteen copies available under a search on ABE. They cheapest is $27.63. The prices rise from there to a high of $176.04. That is not a typo. Someone is asking one hundred seventy-six dollars and four cents for a paperback. I don’t remember how much I paid for my copy, but it wasn’t anywhere near $27, let alone $176.
Brennan was a good writer. He was one of the last writers to write for the original incarnation of Weird Tales. I’ve liked everything I’ve read by him, which, granted, isn’t much. But that’s mainly because his work hasn’t been collected in a readily accessible form. Most of his books were published in limited print runs by small presses. It would probably be easier and cheaper to track down his stories in their original publications than to buy some of his books.
I would hope that Wildside or Centipede Press would do a large retrospective. While Centipede would do Brennan Justice by putting his work inside some very nice hard covers, the book would probably be out of nearly everyone’s reach due to the price. Not that I wouldn’t try to scrape the cash together. On the other hand, a couple of Megapacks of his work from Wildside would be great. There aren’t any electronic versions of Brennan’s work. Maybe one of these publishers will put something together soon. I would love to read some of Brennan’s poetry.
Yesterday we saw the surgeon who’ll be doing the lumpectomy, and today we did lab work and paperwork at the hospital. The surgery is scheduled for January 2. It hit Kathy that today was the last thing to do before the surgery. The next thing will involve general anesthesia and cutting. That made her a little nervous, but for now she’s not freaking out. She really doesn’t like anesthesia.
As far as what comes after that, we’ll have to wait on the pathologist’s report. In addition to the tumor, the surgeon will be removing the three lymph nodes closest to the tumor just to make sure the cancer hasn’t spread. The whole procedure will take about an hour and a half. Of course we’ll be at the hospital for a lot longer than that. We have to get there at six, and after checking in, the first thing on the agenda is X-rays. If I understood the surgeon, then they’ll work us into the surgery schedule. This is an outpatient procedure, so we should be home by the end of the day.
As usual, prayers are appreciated.
Today is December 18, and I want to point out three birthdays of significance. Because today is going to be one of those days, at least schedule-wise, this will be short.
Alfred Bester (b. 1913) is better known as a science fiction writer, but he did publish some stories in Unknown, so I’ll use that as an excuse to include him here rather than at Futures Past and Present. Besides, I have another post for FPaP this evening if I can get to it. Bester is remembered primarily for the novels The Stars My Destination (which I haven’t read yet) and The Demolished Man (which is awesome). Bester also wrote some really good short fiction, especially “Fondly Fahrenheit“.
Of the three authors whose birthdays I’m mentioning today, Sterling E. Lanier (b. 1927) is probably the most unfamiliar to modern writers. There’s been some interest in his apocalyptic sf novel Hiero’s Journey online lately. I’ve not read that one or its sequel. I have read some of the Brigadier Ffellowes stories, which are tall tale club style stories. They are currently available in electronic form, although the price ($9.99) is a bit high in my opinion.
And finally we come to the writer born today who has cast the longest shadow across the genre, Michael Moorcock (b. 1939). I’m not sure what I can say about Moorcock that others haven’t said, and said better. He’s still with us, and I’m glad to have had the privilege to have met him a few times. I’ve not read a great deal of his work, but that’s partly because he’s so prolific.
I’m not sure which of these writers I’ll read something by today. Like I said, it’s going to be busy. But I’ll try to work one of them in and report back.
I’d like to thank everyone who has expressed support for my wife’s cancer battle, whether in the comments of the post or via email. I’ve shared all of those comments and emails with her, and she is overwhelmed by the response. We both greatly appreciate the support and the prayers. We’ll have a better idea of how things stand later this week when we see the surgeon who’ll do the lumpectomy.
I want to make you aware of another situation. A number of you are probably aware of Mark Finn’s situation, but in case some of you aren’t, I want to put a plug in for him and his wife, Cathy. They both are facing some serious medical issues.
Cathy has Stage 3 ovarian cancer. She is currently undergoing chemo and taking blood thinners to reduce a clot in her leg so she can have surgery. That will be followed by more chemo. Mark has two surgeries coming up himself. They are also having Fun With Insurance.
Mark is an author and a leading Robert E. Howard scholar. He and Cathy own the movie theater in Vernon, Texas. As you can probably imagine, their dual medical situations have placed a real strain on them financially. They’ve set up a GoFundMe account here.
Please consider contributing something to help Mark and Cathy out. And not just at Christmas time. Their insurance deductibles will reset next month, and surgeries and cancer treatments aren’t cheap.
Today, December 9, is Margaret Brundage’s birthday. She was born in 1900 and passed away in 1976. Since I have a few minutes before I have to start giving final exams (rescheduled due to snow), here are a few of her covers for Weird Tales.
I made reference to a medical situation the other day. Things have developed to the point I can say something with certainty.
My wife went in for her annual mammogram a couple of weeks ago. They can do these things in 3-D now. They can tilt, rotate, and spin the image with just a click of the mouse. Ain’t video game technology grand?
There was a small spot that wasn’t there last year. They did an MRI and a biopsy. My post was from the day before the biopsy when we met with the doctor. The results of the biopsy came back yesterday afternoon. It’s cancer.
We’ll meet with the doctor on Monday and have an appointment on the 18th with the surgeon who’ll perform the lumpectomy. At this point, no one is freaking out. They caught it early, and I expect they’ll be able to get everything. We’ll know for sure on Monday, but the nurse told my wife she should expect to beat this and that she wasn’t going to die.
So that’s what’s going on. I’m not sure who this is going to affect things. I’ll probably miss some work here and there. I’m still waiting on the university to tell me when (or if) they’re going to send me to inspect the labs at the new Costa Rica campus. Depending on the timeline we get on Monday, I may cancel that whether the university likes it or not. Blogging, reading, and writing? That remains to be seen. I may blog everyday or multiple times a day just to have an outlet for stress. I may drop off the radar for an extended period of time.
Right now, we’re doing fine, although a little tense. I’ll post updates as we learn more things or if there’s a big shift is the situation.
Leigh Brackett was born on this date, December 7, in 1915. I’m not sure what I can say about her that I haven’t said before. Today is the first day of final exams and I just sent the last of over 2000 lab grades to the lecture instructors, so I haven’t had a chance to read anything by her or come up with a good angle for a birthday tribute.
Or to put it another way, consider this post a placeholder. I’ll try to read a Brackett story I haven’t read before or reread since I was a teenager and post a review sometime in the next week or so.
Until then, lift a glass in her memory and read one of her stories. You’ll be glad you did.