I want to mention the birthdays of two men today,August 20, the author Arthur Porges and the artist R. R. Van Dongen. Yes, I know it’s Lovecraft’s birthday. There will be a separate post devoted entirely to him later. Continue reading
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
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.
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
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.
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.
“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
What do writers Raymond Chandler (b. 1888) and C. M. Kornbluth (b. 1923), editors Alden H. Norton (b. 1903) and Gardner Dozois (b. 1947), and artist Virgil Finlay (b. 1914) all have in common? They were all born on July 23. Continue reading
Before I look at several folks born on this date, please indulge me by allowing me to explain one of the reasons I do these posts.
No, it’s not because I have nothing else to say. Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while should know that usually isn’t the case. (Well, okay, maybe a little.)
One of the main reasons I do these posts are for historical reasons. The fields of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and weird fiction have long histories. Aside from a few well-known authors such as Lovecraft, Howard, Asimov, Clarke, and a few others, most of the writers of the past are unknown to the general reading public.
Why does this matter, you ask? Because every few years some new writer will write a novel/short story/screenplay/ransom note/etc that young readers, critics, and other writers will hail as original and groundbreaking. Only it won’t be. It will have been done years or decades before by someone else. And usually done better, although YMMV as to how much better. The new work will be shinier, have more up to date technology, and express the correct sociopolitical opinions du jour. But the central conceit will be anything but original.
IOW, those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Case in point the undead myth that women weren’t represented in the field before [insert year of speaker’s birth here]. This is one of those myths that just won’t die, in spite of some of us trying to put a stake in its heart.
There was a conversation that came across my Twitter feed yesterday (and is probably still going on for all I know; I am on Twitter sporadically these days) in which someone stated that Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein came to dominate the science fiction field in their later years while many writers contemporary to the time these three did their most well-known work and were just as admired and respected became forgotten. And while this topic is better suited for another post, part of what I’m trying to do with these birthday posts is to prevent some of these formerly well-respected but now obscure writers from being completely forgotten.
So, with that in mind, here are today’s birthdays. Continue reading
Today, July 10, saw the birth of a number of writers of weird and fantasy fiction. I’ll list a few here, limiting myself to those who have passed on. If I fail to mention one of your favorites, feel free to mention them in the comments. Continue reading