Tag Archives: Weird Tales

Three by Wellman

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Today, May 21, marks the birth of Manly Wade Wellman (1903-1986). Much Wellman’s work incorporated the folklore of the Southern Mountains. Wellman is best remembered for his stories of John the Balladeer, but he wrote a number of stories in mountain settings that weren’t part of that series.

Worse Things Waiting was Wellman’s first non-John the Balladeer collection. It was published by the legendary Carcosa. It’s the only Carcosa title I don’t have in the original edition. Fortunately it has been reprinted in trade paper at a reasonable price, as has Lonely Vigils. The new publisher is Shadowridge Press. For today’s post, I’m going to look at three stories from Worse Things Waiting. Continue reading →

Blogging Northwest Smith: “The Tree of Life”

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C. L. Moore (1911-1987) was born on this date, January 24. Shen  was one of the greatest writers of the fantastic in the 20th Century.

For today’s post, I’m going to continue the series I’ve been doing on her character Northwest Smith. Smith is frequently regarded as a Han Solo prototype.

In “The Tree of Life” he’s on his own, without his Venusain partner Yarol.

The opening of the story could have been written by Leigh Brackett, and I had to remind myself that this story is set on a different Mars than the one Brackett wrote about. Continue reading →

Blogging Bran Mak Morn: Worms of the Earth

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So for Howard’s birthday (January 22), I thought I’d look at a story I haven’t read in a long time, “Worms of the Earth”.  This is one of the Bran Mak Morn tales. There aren’t a lot of them. Some weren’t published in Howard’s lifetime, but this one was, in the November 1932 issue of Weird Tales.

The opening is one of Howard’s best. A Roman governor, Titus Sulla, is showing a Pictish ambassador Roman justice by executing a Pict by crucifixion. The ambassador watches stoically without saying anything. The ambassador is of course the Pictish king Bran Mak Morn in disguise.The dying man provokes one of the guards into killing him, which angers the Sulla. It was the quickest death the Pict could experience, and the governor wanted him to suffer. The guard is sentenced to jail. Continue reading →

Klar-Kash-Ton

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Today, January 13, is the birthday of one of the greatest writers of fantasy of the Twentieth Century or any other. Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961) was one of the big three in what many consider to be the best years of Weird Tales. The other two are Robert E Howard and H. P. Lovecraft.

I last looked at some of Smith’s work last summer when I reviewed Zothique from the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. I had started Hyperborea, which was the next volume Lin Carter published in that line, but summer school started. Trying to figure out how to teach online in a summer session was time consuming, and I never got back to it.  I’m going to try to get back to in sometime in the next few months.

Smith doesn’t seem to be as well-known these days as REH and HPL. Part of that, I think, is because his writing isn’t light and breezy. Neither are Howard’s nor Lovecraft’s, but Smith used a vocabulary that was extensive. As a result reading him can be something of a challenge. You see, kids, back in the day, we had these things called dictionaries, and anytime we didn’t know what a word, meant, well, we just looked ’em up. Now git off my lawn.

I’m not sure what story of Smith’s I’m going to read tonight. Maybe I’ll reread “The City of the Singing Flame”. It was the first story by CAS I ever read. I was in the seventh grade, and the junior high library had a nice collection of Robert Silverberg anthologies. It was in one of those.

Regardless, I’ll raise my glass to Clark Ashton Smith and enjoy some of his fiction this evening.

Seabury Quinn

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Seabury Quinn

Seabury Quinn was born on New Year’s Day, 1889. He died Christmas Eve, 1969. At one time he was the most popular author publishing in Weird Tales. These days, his fame pales in comparison to that of HPL, REH, and CAS.Some people really like his work, while others (looks at Rusty Burke) consider him to be a hack. I’ve not read enough of his work to have an opinion (yet).

The stories about his occult detective, Jules de Grandin, were recently published in an affordable five volume edition. Quinn wrote more than just de Grandin stories, though. I’m going to try to read some of them this year as well as start working my way through the de Grandin stories.

A Birthday Post and a Sneak Peak at Coming Attractions

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Today, November 19, marks the birth of Mary Elizabeth Counselman (1911-1995). She died on November 13, six days shy of her 84th birthday. She wrote short fiction with much of her early stories appearing in Weird Tales. “The Three Marked Pennies” is probably her best known story.

I haven’t had time to read any of her work today, but I have two books sitting on my shelf from Valancourt Press that are on the docket for the holidays. Monster, She Wrote is a nonfiction book full of brief biographies of women who wrote horror and science fiction. It has launched a series of collections under that title, the second of which is The Women of Weird Tales. Several of Ms. Counselman’s stories are included.

I wrote a post a few years ago about women in the early days of the fantasy and science fiction fields, so the reviews of these books will act as followups to that one.

A Pair by Hamilton

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Today, October 21, is the birthday of Edmond Hamilton (1904-1977).  He’s a favorite around these here parts. In observance of his birthday, I’m going to look at two stories from What’s It Like Out There?. I snagged a copy in great condition for a song last weekend, so this was the book I went to. This is a break from my usual practice of reviewing stories that are easily available. Copies of What’s It Like Out There? aren’t too hard to come by, though.

The back cover copy of What’s It Like Out There? says this is a collection of Hamilton’s best stories. The publication date is 1974, and the publisher was Ace, so this collection predates the Ballantine collection The Best of Edmond Hamilton by roughly three years.  It’s interesting to note that What’s It Like Out There? has a dozen stories from the 1940s and 1950s, with one story from the early 60s, with the majority from the 40s. The Best of Edmond Hamilton has 21, from the 1920s to the late 60s. The title story of the Ace collection, “What’s It Like Out There?”, is the only duplication between them.

Hamilton is best remembered as a science fiction writer, but he wrote his share of fantasy and weird tales. In fact both of the stories we’ll look at are from Weird Tales. Neither are major works, but they are both entertaining. Continue reading →

Remembering Dorothy McIlwraith

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Dorothy McIlwraith

Dorothy McIlwraith (1891-1976) was born on this date, October 14. She was the editor of Weird Tales from 1940-1954, when the publication died its first “death”.

Most fans of the Unique Magazine don’t consider her tenure at the editorial helm to be as good as that of Farnsworth Wright. I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison. By the time Ms. McIlwraith took her position, the greatest three writers were gone: Howard and Lovecraft were dead, and Clark Ashton Smith had pretty much stopped writing fiction. Other writers from the 20’s and 30’s had also passed on, such as Henry S. Whitehead.

But other regulars continued to publish there, such as Seabury Quinn and Carl Jacobi. And look at some of the names that graced the covers and tables of contents in those years. Ray Bradbury. Manly Wade Wellman. Robert Bloch. August Derleth. Theodore Sturgeon. Plus Lee Brown Coye illustrated many of those issues.

Of course the tone and contents of the magazine changed with the passing of the Big Three, but things were changing anyway. That can be seen in the other pulps as well. I, for one, like what McIlwraith published in the magazine. Bradbury’s stories from Weird Tales were some of the first dark fantasy and horror that I read as a kid. There’s a lot noise these days about how women weren’t welcomed in the fields of the fantastic before [insert current Year Zero here].

As I’ve stated elsewhere in more than one place (such as here and here),  there were women in the field in the early days, and they and their achievements need to be remembered.

Reflections on the Retro Hugos

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Leigh Brackett

I’ve decided I’m not going to do a post on Henry Kuttner’s “A God Named Kroo” for the Retro Hugos.  I reviewed it a few years ago here. I’ve got too much Real Life stuff going on, and the winners were announced yesterday. At least I saw a notice last night after posting about Brackett’s “The Jewel of Bas“.  That was the one I was hoping would win.  Brackett did win in the novel category (which I might review because Brackett) and Best Related Work.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the other categories. I’m not a member of Worldcon and am not likely to be anytime in the foreseeable future. So it was entertaining to see the reactions on Twitter today.

Seems the wrong people won some of the awards. Continue reading →