Today kicks off August. There are some significant birthdays on August 1, I’ll look at two writers, and editor, and an artist. I’m talking about M. R. James, Raymond Palmer, Edd Cartier, and David Gemmell. Continue reading
This is part 2 of John Bullard’s guest post.
This is the second part of a look at the ghost stories by M.R. James that the B.B.C. adapted for their series, “A Ghost Story for Christmas”. In part 1, we looked at the stories and films of “The Stalls of Barchester”, “Lost Hearts”, “The Treasure of Abbot Thomas”, “The Ash Tree”, and briefly at “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”. Now, we will examine “A View From a Hill”, “Number 13”, “The Tractate Middoth”, and take a deeper dive into the original 1968 version of “Oh, Whistle …” and its 2010 remake. There will be major spoilers for these last two films, and minor ones for “A View From a Hill”. Continue reading
This is the first of a two-part essay on M. R. James by John Bullard.
Being close to Christmas time, and Keith having established his annual ritual of looking at Victorian Christmas Ghost stories, I thought I’d help him out this year with a look at the second biggest person to uphold the tradition of a good ghost story for Christmas after Dickens, M.R. James, and how the B.B.C. ran several dramatizations of his stories for years for Christmas. We will look at nine of the ten stories that were adapted, starting with the first five. Continue reading
I’m up to my armpits in other projects today, so I probably won’t get around to reading anything by today’s featured authors, but I did want to give a shout-out to two of the greatest and one artist who deserves better recognition. So in order of their birth, here are… Continue reading
So yesterday’s post on Edgar Rice Burroughs and Harold Lamb and the recent post on the canon, coupled with today is the anniversary of the passing of J. R. R. Tolkien and the seventh anniversary of the death of Frederik Pohl, got me to thinking. I referred to Burroughs and Lamb as giants. In the canon post I quoted Newton talking about his achievements being due to his standing on the shoulders of giants.
So who exactly are the giants in the field? Continue reading
Today is August 1, and we have three birthdays of note. M. R. James (1862-1936), David Gemmell (1948-2006), and Edd Cartier (1914-2008). Let’s take a quick look at each of them. Continue reading
“Bone to His Bone”
E. G. Swain
available in Winter Ghosts: Classic Ghost Stories for Christmas
ebook only $0.99
E. G. Swain was a friend of M. R. James and wrote a series of ghost stories starring the Reverend Roland Bachtel, the Rector of Stoneground, This is one of them.
The story takes place on Christmas Eve, and the Reverend Bachtel can’t sleep. So he gets up and goes into his library to read. The matches aren’t where he left them. As he’s fumbling for them in the dark, someone puts the matches into his hand.
The good reverend lights a match only to discover that there’s no one there. What is there is a book on the desk. Bachtel never leaves books out. The book is one on gardening; it was part of a library left by a long-dead rector in a previous century.
The book is initially closed, but when Bachtel turns away, he hears the book open and pages turning. His eye is drawn to a line that seems to be telling him to enter the garden. The page turning happens twice more, and Bachtel believes he is being told to go to a particular place in the garden and dig.
When he goes to the directed location, he finds a shovel…
Swain’s ghost stories are similar in style and tone to those of James, but without the menace. This was the first of the Stoneground ghost stories I’ve read. I’ll be reading some of the others.
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.
Today, August 1, marks another birthday for two great authors and one great artist. Continue reading
Two practitioners of the fantastic were born this day. You might say they were Legends. *ducks and runs* Continue reading