Hal Clement

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Today is May 30, and it is the birthday of two writers I want to highlight. Because they wrote such different types of fiction, I’m going to do two separate posts.

Hal Clement, Photo courtesy of Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia

The first of these is Hal Clement (1922-2003). Clement wrote what is generally regarded as hard science fiction, and he was among the hardest of hard sf writers. Clement taught high school chemistry and astronomy at Milton Academy in Milton Massachusetts.

His work has sadly fallen out of print.

It was while he was an undergraduate at Harvard majoring in astronomy that he sold his first short story, “Proof”, to John W. Campbell, Jr. It was published in the June 1942 issue of Astounding.  Three more stories appeared in 1942

After graduating in 1943, Clement was a pilot in World War II and flew 35 combat missions. He would go on to earn master’s degrees in education and chemistry.

I had the privilege of meeting him at Conestoga. He attended in 2001 and caem back every year until his death. Continue reading →

Fleming, Ian Fleming

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Today, May 28, is the birthday of Ian Fleming (1908-1964). Fleming created the character of secret agent James Bond. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.

James Bond was the ultimate Cold War spy. He was the seventh agent in the Double Oh series, so he was known as 007. That meant he had a license to kill. He used it like some people used their driver’s license.

Let’s be honest. He was a male fantasy. He traveled to exotic locations, drove a great sports car, had cool and deadly gadgets, drank like a fish without any negative results. And had sex with beautiful women. Lots of sex.

So of course, he’s been called all sorts of “ists” and is politically incorrect these days. Attempts have been made to rehabilitate him, make him more sensitive, and emascualte him.

And yet the original still has fans and readers. He probably always will.

A number of actors have portrayed him on film. Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Davide Niven (in the original film version of Casino Royale, which as I understand was not considered film canon since it was  done as a spoof), Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig. Everyone has their favorite.

Other authors have tried to continue the series. There have been eight so far: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffrey Deaver, William boyd, and Anthony Horowitz. How successful they were is a matter of each reader’s opinion.

But this post is about Fleming. So, I want to end it with a story that relates to another writer. Fleming worked in British Naval Intelligence during World War II. That is easily verified. What isn’t so easily verified is what Jack Chalker wrote in the introduction to the 1986 edition of Russell’s novel Wasp, that Russell worked in British intelligence and worked with Ian Fleming. That isn’t what Russell’s official record states.

If you’ve read Wasp, it is basically a handbook on how to be a nonviolent terrorist. There is definitely a James Bond-Ian Fleming vibe to the book. If you haven’t read it, you should. It isn’t long and is very entertaining.

Anyway, Happy Birthday to Ian Fleming.

Dashiell Hammett

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Today, May 27, marks the birth of Dashiell Hammett (1896-1961).

As far as I’m concerned, he was the greatest writer of detective fiction we’ve seen. Of his competitors and those who came after him, only Raymond Chandler comes close. I realize some of you might disagree with me, and that’s all right. It’s a free  cocuntry. You can be wrong if you want to. 🙂

Hammett didn’t invented the private detective genre, but he perfected it.  Probably because he worked as a detecitve himself for the Pinkerton Agency and was able to bring a level of realism to his work that no one else at the time could. Continue reading →

Multiple Birthdays of (Mostly) Forgotten Authors

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Today is May 23, and there are three birthdays I want to highlight. One author is still remembered today, but his work is fading from the public consciousness. The other two are pretty much forgotten. These men are James Blish, J. Brian Clarke, and Isidore Haiblum.

We’ll start with Blish. Continue reading →

Wallace West

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This birthday post is a little different. Wallace West (1900-1980) was born on May 22. We are not related, at least as far as I know.

I’ve seen his name a time or two before, so when it appeared on the ISFDB list of today’s birthdays, I thought I would see what he had written.

It turns out that with the exception of a story published in 1978, he stopped writing in the late 1960s. And that story may have been written years earlier. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Wallace West started writing in the late twenties with sales to Weird Tales. He worked in public relations and was one of the first writers to be concerned about pollution. Most of his work was at shorter lengths. He had a few novels published after the Second World War, but they were mostly fix-ups of some of his short fiction.

After the war, much of West’s fiction was published in magazines edited by Robert A. W. Lowndes.  He never really hit the top paying markets very often, but there were at least two appearances in Thrilling Wonder Stories in the 1950. I don’t know how this particular pulp ranked as far as pay was concerned, but it was one of the best science fiction pulps of the post war years.

I’ve not read any of his work, at least that I’m aware of. I think I would remember reading something by someone with the same surname as I have. I do, however, have copies of some os  his stories. I’ve got electronic copies of the original run of Weird Tales. Plus a few of  his stories were reprinted in anthologies that I have picked up over the years but haven’t gotten around to reading.

I’ll be checking them out.

Arthur Conan Doyle

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Today, May 22, marks the birthday of Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930).

Maybe you’ve heard of him? He created a detecive names Sherlock Holmes.

But he did so much more than that. There was the Professor Challenger series, starting with The Lost World. And there were other adventure stories and books. Most of those have been forgotten in the shadow of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle wrote a number of ghost stories. If you haven’t read “Th eCaptain of the Polestar”, you should.

And then there was the descent into spiritualism. And that bjuisness with the Cottingley Fairies.

But let’s not dwell on that. Doyle wrote a great many works of fiction that are worth reading today.

The Cowboy and the Contest: A Guest Post by John Bullard

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The Cowboy and the Contest:

Teel James Glenn’s Latest Bob Howard Adventure

I was looking for something to read, and checked to see if Teel James Glenn had written anything new in his “Adventures of (Robert E.) Bob Howard” series where  an alternate universe Howard didn’t kill himself and went travelin’. He has written a third one, The Cowboy and the Contest, and it is a novella that is very different from the first two books in the series: A Cowboy in Carpathia , and The Cowboy and the Conqueror. Those two previous books were definitely set in the “new pulp” style of world-threatening adventures by first having Bob Howard fighting Dracula, and then taking on an evil cult trying to bring Lovecraftian horrors in to the world. They were action-fests from practically the first word on. This third story is shorter, quieter, and very enchanting. And, while it has its action scenes, they aren’t of a world-threatening nature, but more “down-to-earth” so-to-speak, (or actually write), within the story’s setting. Continue reading →

Writing Update and Publication News

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I should have psoted  this at the first of the month, but the link to the current issue of Pulphouse hadn’t gone live.

I have a story in the current issue of Pulphouse. It’s a short little science fiction tale that I’m quite pleased with.

You can get an electronic copy at the Pulphouse Store by clicking the link. Print copies are also available.

On the writing front, I hit my goal of 2024 words per day on average in April with a little extra. I’m still a few days behind for the year, but I’m on target to meet and probably exceed that number for May. With luck, I’ll end the year ahead.

Donaldson

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In addition to today (April 13) being Roger Zelazny’s birthday, today is also Stephen Donaldson’s birthday (b. 1947).

I’m not trying to start something, but I’m going to start something.

I’ve read The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I think it was the summer after I graduated college, but it might have been the summer between my junior and senior years. It’s been too long.

The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant came out while I was in high school. I read them while I was in graduate school.

The first volume of The Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant,  The Runes of the Earth, was published right after we got back from Kazakhstan with our adopted son. I read it, but I never read the rest of them. I did pick up the rest of the series at various Friends of the Library sales. At least I think I did. I may not have the last one. I’ll have to check. Most of my library is still in boxes.

There was a recent thread about the first trilogy on Twitter/X/Whatever a few weeks ago. The general consensus is that most people didn’t like the books, or at least loathed the character of Covenant.

I have to admit that if a friend who had read them hadn’t given me a heads-up about what happens at the end of the (I think) second chapter of the first book, I probably wouldn’t have read any further.

I still probably wouldn’t have finished the first set if Covenant hadn’t stopped whining and tried to actually do something heroic by trying to save the little girl who had been bitten by a snake early in The Power That Preserves.

I have to admit that the Darrel K. Sweet covers were what first caught my eye. I had somehow gotten trade paperback copies of the series instead of the mass markets, and those were the editions I read.

I’ve read some of Donaldson’s shorter works and liked them. I’ve not read any of his novels in either his science fiction or fantasy series.

So, here’s where I’m going to start something. I’m curious.

Have you read any of the Thomas Covenant books, and if so, at which point did you stop (if you did) and why?

What do you think of Covenant as opposed to the world Donaldson created? I loved the world and the other characters. Even while despising Covenant.

Not that I’m trying to start something or anything.

Roger Zelazny

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There is one writer of the fantastic  whose work I’ve not read nearly enough of, and that writer is –

Who am I trying to kid? There are a lot of writers whose work I’ve not read enough of.

But today, April 13, I’m going to focus on one, Roger Zelazny (1937-1995) because it’s his birthday.

I’ve read some of his short fiction, but it’s been years. I read the first of the Amber books when I was in graduate school. We won’t dwell on how long ago that was except to say it was in a prior millenium.

I’ve liked all of the stories I’ve read. NESFA Press has published a nice set of colletions with covers whose illustrations on the spines combine to make a picture. If I come into a nice sum of moola, I’m going to get them. (Those of you wondering what to get me for Christmas…)

But it’s been a long time since I read any of Roger Zelasny’s work. The one exception is A Night in the Lonesome October. That’s the one told from the point of view of Jack the Ripper’s dog. I’ve read that one more than once. It’s great.

I never had the chance to meet him. And you don’t see his books in bookstores any more. Maybe an omniubs of the Amber novels, because those are classics.

But that’s it.

At least for print. I’m not sure what’s available in ebook.

Again, we have someone who made significant contributions to the fantasy and science fiction fields who is in danger of fading into obscurity.

I’m going to try to incorporate more Zelazny into my reading  this year. What do you suggest?