This is going to be a short post because I’ve been on the road most of the day, and it’s past my bedtime. But I wanted to acknowledge the birthdays of two writers whose work, although I’ve not read as much by either as I wish, I greatly admire. Those writers are Talbot Mundy (1879-1940) and Avram Davidson (1923-1993). They were both born on April 23.
Mundy wrote adventure. While some of his work had fantastic elements, he is best remembered as an adventure writer. I would classify him as being similar to Harold Lamb, although they were very different writers in some ways. But both wrote of advetures in exotic lands, so I would consider them to be similar in that regard.
Avram Davidson was a unique writer. He didn’t write lean prose, or deal with cosmic horrors, or heroic fantasy as we tend to think of it in terms of Robert E. Howard or Karl Edward Wagner. But his imaginataion was fertile. His stories may require a little work to read, but they are usually worth the effort. While he wrote novels, I’m primarily know him through his short fiction. He was a unique voice, and I can’t think of anyone else like him. Who else could write a story about cigar store Indians and make it work?
