Tag Archives: birthday

Retro Hugos: “Far Centaurus” by A. E. van Vogt

A. E. van Vogt (1912-2000) was born on this date, April 26. He was one of the most prolific and popular science fiction writers of the 1940s. In addition to a sizeable body of shorter works, he wrote the popular novels The Voyage of the Space Beagle, Slan, and The Weapons Shops of Isher. These were either serialized in Astounding or put together from individual stories.

Just as a side note, I haven’t given up on the Retro Hugo posts. The semester is about over, and I I’ve been swamped. I’ve also been reading Foundation. The two Asimov stories on the Retro Hugo ballot are the last two sections of the book. I decided to read the whole thing (something I was thinking about doing anyway) to give them some context.

I was going to look at all the novelettes before moving on to the short stories, but van Vogt doesn’t have an entry in that category.

“Far Centaurus” is one of van Vogt’s most reprinted stories. If I’ve counted correctly, I’ve got copies of it in about ten different publications. I first read it in middle school, and the last two paragraphs have stuck with me all these years. Continue reading →

Talbot Mundy’s “For the Salt He Had Eaten”

7 Replies

Talbot Mundy was born on this date, April 23, in 1879. He passed away in 1940. Mundy was one of the premier writers of adventure fiction of the early 20th Century. While not as well-remembered today as Haggard or Kipling, Mundy was prolific and left a substantial body of work that is held in high regard by connoisseurs of adventure tales set in far-off, exotic lands. I’ve read a few of his short stories and liked them, but this is the first longer work of Mundy’s I’ve read. I quite enjoyed.

“For the Salt He Had Eaten” first appeared in the March 1913 issue of Adventure. I read it in The Talbot Mundy Megapack, which you can grab for just ninety-nine cents. Continue reading →

“Slight of Hand” with Peter S. Beagle

3 Replies

Peter S. Beagle

Okay, I’m making another exception to may practice of only doing birthday posts on authors, artists, and editors who have passed on. Peter S. Beagle (b. April 20, 1939) is one of those few authors who I will buy in trade hardcover. (David Drake, Jack McDevitt, Larry Niven, and Patricia McKillip are among the few exceptions.) Limited hardcover editions are a different matter. But I digress.

I’ve had the privilege of meeting Peter several times over the years. The most recent was when he was in town for a showing of The Last Unicorn.

Today’s story is “Sleight of Hand”. It was first published in Eclipse 3. I read it in Sleight of Hand. The book is only available in trade paperback. Unfortunately the price is $29.95, which is a bit steep for a nine year old paperback that’s only 287 pages long, even if it is Beagle. Sadly, there is no electronic edition. Eclipse 3 is available in print for $14.95 and ebook for $9.99.

“Sleight of Hand” is a moving meditation on grief and life and the choices we make. There were times I thought I was reading Ray Bradbury. That’s both a compliment and a good thing. Continue reading →

Wearing The Mask of Circe

3 Replies

The Mask of Circe
Henry Kuttner
ebook $7.99
Originally published in Startling Stories, May 1948

Henry Kuttner (1915-1958) was one of the most prolific authors of the fantastic in the 1940’s. Or rather I should say he was half of one of the most prolific writing duos, the other half being his wife, C. L. Moore. Kuttner was born on this date, April 7.

(As an aside, I asked on Twitter if anyone had any suggestions as to what I should read for today, and the only response I got was “C. L. Moore”. And while pretty much everything they wrote after their marriage was a collaboration, for this birthday post, I’m focusing on things published under Kuttner’s byline. I will be doing a post of Moore’s Judgment Night in the near future.)

Today we’re going to look at an example of Kuttner’s science fantasy. The Mask of Circe was published in what was supposed to be a science fiction magazine, so there is some hand waving to keep it from being pure fantasy. Continue reading →

Robert Bloch’s “The Miracle of Ronald Weems”

8 Replies

The great Robert Bloch (1917-1994) was born on this date, April 5. He was a master of fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery. Fated to always be known as “The Man Who Wrote Psycho“, he wasn’t just a master of thrills and chills. He was a master of comedy.

I’m going to have to apologize up front for this post. I normally try to review something that is either in print or easy to come by in case anyone is interested in reading the story or book I’m reviewing.

I wanted to read something a bit longer than a short story, and I wanted to read something lighter in tone. There’s enough horror on the news right now, and my wife won’t turn it off.

“The Miracle of Ronald Weems” was just the thing I needed. It was funny, with several types of humor including wordplay, puns, and slapstick. Bloch’s sense of humor aligns very well with my own, and I chuckled more than once. There are few writers who can get me to do that.

Unfortunately this story, which was originally published in Imaginative Tales in the May 1955 issue, has only been reprinted once. That was in The Lost Bloch Volume Two: Hell on Earth, a limited edition book that was published in 2000. A quick search of ABE showed only one copy available. So if you don’t want to read the rest of this post, I understand. Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, Novalyne

7 Replies

Robert E. Howard’s girlfriend, Novalyne Price Ellis, was born on this date, March 9 in 1908. She passed away on March 30, 1999.

Her memoir, One Who Walked Alone, detailing her relationship with Howard, is one of the major sources of information about Bob’s life. Howard fans and scholars owe her a debt of gratitude for writing it.

If’ you’ve never read the book, I suggest you get your hands on a copy. It’s well worth your time.

One Who Walked Alone was the basis of the film The Whole Wide World, which starred Vincent D’Onofrio and an unknown-at-the-time actress named Renee Zellweger. (It was released a few months before Jerry McGuire.) It’s a fairly faithful adaptation and worth watching.

There have been two editions of One Who Walked Alone, the second published to coincide with the film and having a picture of Zellweger on the cover. The first edition is the one shown to the left. Both editions were published by Donald M. Grant.

“The Fireplace” by Henry S. Whitehead

Arthur Machen

9 Replies

March 3 marks the birthday of Arthur Machen (1863-1947). He is regarded as one of the influences on H. P. Lovecraft. among others.

I have a confession to make.

I’ve never read his work. (Don’t judge me.)

So rather than discuss a story I’ve read to commemorate Machen’s birth, I’m going to do something different. I’m going to ask what I should read.

Is there a particular Machen story that stands out among the others? Something that everyone who reads Machen should be familiar with? I ask this honestly, because I really don’t have a good idea where to start.

Let me know in the comments, and thanks in advance.

Sturgeon’s Teddy Bear

4 Replies

“The Professor’s Teddy Bear”
Theodore Sturgeon
Originally published in Weird Tales, March 1948
Currently available in Thunder and Roses Volume IV: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon
ebook $8.99

Things have been extra hectic this last week or two, and I’ve missed several birthdays that I wanted to post about. I’ll do some posts about the authors I wanted to discuss over the next few weeks. Today is Theodore Sturgeon’s birthday, and I didn’t want to miss it. Sturgeon (1918-1985) was born on February 26. He was one of the first sf authors I read as a teenager, and some of his short stories left a big impressions. Continue reading →

Brief Reflections on August Derleth

11 Replies

August Derleth

Today, February 24, marks the birth of August Derleth (1909-1971). He founded Arkham House publisher to keep the work of H. P. Lovecraft in print. For this we all owe him a great debt of gratitude. Derleth was something of a controversial figure in the field for the way he handled the literary estate of H. P. Lovecraft, especially his “posthumous collaborations” in which he completed some stories Lovecraft left unfinished at his death.

My purpose with this post is not to focus on Arkham House, but on an aspect of Derleth’s legacy that is sadly neglected today, and that’s his work as a writer of weird fiction.

It’s been over a decade since there was a collection of Derleth’s work published. I did a quick check online, and the starting price for a collection of his ghost stories was $200. Too rich for my blood.

I was going to review a couple of short pieces I have in anthologies, “Muggeridge’s Aunt” and “The Shuttered House”. Both were fairly standard ghost stories. While not rising to the level of a James or Wakefield, they were still well told and provided a pleasant way to while away a few spare minutes. The problem is the former isn’t readily available in either electronic or print format, and the latter is only in a facsimile of The Avon Fantasy Reader Number 1. For these birthday posts, I’m not going to review stories that aren’t readily available.

I would hope some ambitious publisher would take a chance and produce an inexpensive collection, or better yet a set, of Derleth’s weird fiction.

Adventures Fantastic

Reviews, Views, & Occasional News