Tag Archives: Weird Tales

Catherine Lucille Moore: Fantasy and Science Fiction Pioneer

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C. L. MooreNot to mention one of the most important writers of the past century.

Catherine Lucille Moore, better known as C. L. Moore, was born on this day in 1911.  She sold her first story, “Shambleau”, in 1933.  (review here)

In certain circles among science fiction and fantasy authors and fans, one can find a popular belief that women authors have been suppressed and had their voices silenced by The Patriarchy.  And That Has to Change.  While it is true that until recently more authors have been men than women, one has to wonder what parallel universe some of these people have fallen out of.  Either that or if what they’ve been smoking is home grown or Columbian imported.  Many of them act like they’ve never heard of Ursula K. Le Guin, Leigh Brackett, Kate Wilhelm, or Andre Norton, among others. Continue reading →

Clark Ashton Smith Turns 122

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ClarkAshtonSmithToday marks the 122nd anniversary of Clark Ashton Smith’s birth.  He was one of the Big Three of Weird Tales, the other two being H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard (but then I probably don’t need to tell you that).

Like Howard, Smith was also a poet as well as a fiction writer.  (Yes, Robert E. Howard wrote poetry, some of the best I’ve ever read.)  Unlike Howard, Smith’s fiction has a complexity to it Howard’s lacked, especially in word choice.  Isaac Asimov went on record complaining that he didn’t like reading Smith because he had to keep looking words up in the dictionary.  (You see, kids, in the dark days before computers we had these things called dictionaries and when you didn’t know a word, you went to the dictionary and…ah, never mind.)  And if Asimov had to look it up, then you know it probably wasn’t on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

smithPortrait01In spite of the work involved at times, Smith is still very much a writer worth reading.  I’ll be tackling at least one of his collections later this year for the posts I’m doing at Black Gate on the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.  There were four now highly collectible volumes of Smith’s work published as part of the BAF series.  In fact the very first BAF book I ever owned was Smith’s Hyperborea.  I’ve only dipped into Smith’s works a little, but he was a writer of wild imagination.  We could use more like him today.

The Shapes of Midnight by Joseph Payne Brennan

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Shapes of MidnightThe Shapes of Midnight
Joseph Payne Brennan
Berkley, 1980
mass market paperback, $2.25, 176 p.
Introduction by Stephen King

Joseph Payne Brennan has sadly become one of the more neglected writers of fantasy and horror from the second half of the 20th Century.  Fortunately there are were copies of his work available at reasonable prices.  Which is why a couple of weeks ago, after I’d read about half the stories in this book, I bought them.  By reasonable prices, I mean in the $10-25 dollar range for used hardcovers.  (Brennan created an occult detective named Lucius Leffing; I managed to snag a signed collection of some of those stories.)

When I did a search on Advanced Book Exchange for The Shapes of Midnight, the cheapest copy I found (there were only 4 of them at the time) was nearly $60.  Ouch.  Continue reading →

A Journey Through The October Country

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October Country 1The October Country
Ray Bradbury
Illustrations by Joe Mugnaini
mass market paperback 307 p., $7.99
ebook Kindle $7.21 Nook $10.99

I first read this collection in the early ’80s, around 1980 or 1981, I think.  Some of the stories have stayed with me (“The Small Assassin”, “The Scythe”), while some I’d completely forgotten (“Touched with Fire”, “The Cistern”).

Most of the stories were recycled from Dark Carnival, with a few being left out and a few being added.  I’d hoped to have time to read the ones left out and discuss the differences in the two collections, but that will have to wait for a later post.  For those unaware, Dark Carnival, from Arkham House, was Bradbury’s first collection.  Original copies are hard to come by and will cost you a pretty penny.  The author’s definitive edition from a decade or so ago isn’t cheap either.

Fortunately there isn’t that much difference in the contents, and the casual reader can enjoy the stories as they appear in this volume.  There will be spoilers on some of them. Continue reading →

A Look at Weird Tales 362

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weird-tales-issue-362-front-coverBefore I start the review, I’d like to thank Doug Draa for the review copy and apologize for taking so long to get the review posted.  The review  copy is a PDF file, and I’d intended to read it while traveling over the summer.  For some reason, my ereader (a first generation device) wouldn’t open the file.  Anyway, since I hate reading for fun on a backlit screen (which I do enough of for work), it was a while before I managed to read it.  So thanks and apologies, Doug.  I promise to do better in the future.

There are a total of seventeen pieces of fiction, five poems, a tribute to Parke Godwin by Marvin Kaye,an interview with Joyce Carol Oates, and a look at how one of the illustrations was developed by Jeff Wong.

Overall, I found this issue to be a strong one, though not without a few stories which weren’t to my taste.  The theme for this issue is The Undead.  And no, not all of the themed stories are about zombies.  Just some of them, which is good because I’m not a big zombie fan.  But overall I found this issue to be a great read for Halloween. Continue reading →

From Now Until Labor Day

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the_ravens_banquet_250x384I didn’t realize until a few minutes ago how long it had been since I’d posted here.  I guess I’d been posting more at Gumshoes, Gats, and Gams than I realized.  Of course two of those posts are obituaries/tributes.  I still have one review I need to write over there.

Anyway, I’ve gotten a bit burned out on novels.  Probably because I’ve been juggling too many of them lately.  Having multiple formats for reading has its downside.  I’ve got a novel I need to finish,   That would be The Raven’s Banquet by Clifford Beal, a gritty historical fantasy that I’m liking a lot.

There are a couple of more novels I need to make some progress on, but for the next couple of weeks, I’m going to concentrate on short fiction.  Classes start next Monday, but I’m back in the office trying to get ready.  That means the syllabus for my class, syllabi for all the labs I’m directly in charge of, and trying to get TA assignments complete.  We don’t normally run labs the first week because there are too many logistical issues, but the semester schedule has some quirks in it that necessitate doing so.

All of which is to say that I’m not sure what my time is going to be like.  I may have large blocks free (not likely, but hey, it could happen), or I may have to read and write in quick snatches.  Which means I’ll be focusing on short fiction.

I’ve got about half a dozen anthologies/single author collections in multiple genres I’m working my way through.  Plus some short fiction venues such as Weird Tales and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly.  The last two will be finished and reviewed by Labor Day for sure.  Beyond that, I’ve learned the hard way not to make promises I might not be able to keep.

The result could very well look like feast or famine as far as posts are concerned.  I might not post anything for a week, then have four or five posts go up at my various blogs over the course of a couple of days.  It will all depend on what I’m in the mood for and how much time I actually have.

And somewhere in there, I’d like to make some progress on my own writing…

 

Being Nibbled to Death by Ducks

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It’s been one of those weeks.  You know the kind.  Nothing really bad happens, but some many little things pop up that by the end of the day on Saturday you’re wondering why you didn’t accomplish what you thought you had sufficient time to complete.  It’s kind of like being nibbled to death by ducks.

WD-40Most of my disruptions were either work related or involved my son.  (I thought I had made it clear there was to be nothing further involving fire while I was at work.)  A wire in his braces popped loose, and instead of simply fixing it, the orthodontist went ahead and tightened everything.  This will save time later this month, but it cost most of an afternoon.  I finally figured out why one of the dogs was suddenly traumatized to the point of refusing to go outside. (Experiments to determine the flammability of WD-40 are expressly forbidden.  Which should have been obvious.)

Anyway, work was supposed to be quite slow this week.  As result I had intended to finish and post reviews of the latest issue of Weird Tales and the first installment of a new series by Joshua P. Simon, as well as finish a detective novel on my phone, Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz for for Black Gate, and a review for Amazing Stories.  Plus I had planned on commenting on Amazon’s announcement about pricing the other day.

The piece for Amazing Stories is done, uploaded, and should go live tomorrow.  I”ll start the BAF post for Black Gate either tonight or (more likely) tomorrow along with the review of the detective novel.  I’ll also try to the Simon novel and WT finished in the next couple of days.

Why It’s Been So Quiet Around Here Lately

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LeopardSome of you may have (hopefully) noticed that I’ve not posted much in the last month or so.  There are reasons for that.

When the spring semester ended, I thought I would have a few weeks where things slowed down.  Not so.  My son had few weeks of school left, and his schedule was pretty full.   Also, I’m on a 12 month contract, so I still had things to do at the office, things I’m still working on.

Memorial Day involved some travel, both to see family as well as visit Scarborough Renaissance Festival.  This makes 25 consecutive years I’ve attended. The next weekend was my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary celebration.  The actual anniversary was a week later, but that was when we could all get together at the same time.  Everyone had a great time.

Classes started the Monday after that, my son got braces, life happened.  Nothing bad, but time consuming.

The first Friday in June, a friend and I spent a couple of days in New Mexico.  He’s moving back to Kansas this week, and we’d been talking about taking this trip for months.  We got up early and drove over to the Lincoln National Forest and spent the afternoon hiking up to about 9k feet.  Then we went and spent the night at the Wortley Hotel in Lincoln, where no guest has been shot for over 100 years.  It was once owned by Pat Garrett, the man who shot Billy the Kid.

The next morning we took a walking tour of the town, which is a historic site.  The whole town, not just a few buildings.  I’ll probably write about that on Dispatches From the Lone Star Front.  I also intend to post something here about Lincoln and Robert E. Howard, since Howard was interested in the Lincoln County War.  I knew almost nothing about it, but I can see why Howard was so keen on it.  It’s fascinating stuff.

The day after we got back, I went with my son as a sponsor at his church youth camp.  The camp was in Estes Park, Colorado.  We had a blast.  The elk we walked up on before dawn on our hike to see the sun rise from a ridge above camp was worth getting up at that hour.

We got back at 2:30 in the morning Saturday.  The only downside (besides being on a bus full of middle school students for a total of 24 hours) was that I ended up missing Howard Days.  I had hoped to drive down for Saturday, but that wasn’t in the cards.

Since Memorial Day weekend, we’ve gotten almost 8 inches of rain, which is unusual.  I had to go buy a power mower when I got back because the grass was too high for my old fashioned push mower to handle.

Other than a diving competition in Corpus Christi at the end of the month, things should start settling down for the rest of the summer.

It’s been hard to squeeze much reading in, and when I’ve had the time, I’ve been too tired to read.  I’ve been trying to finish K. V. Johansen’s The Leopard.  I had intended to have the review up before the book went on sale, but no luck.  I should finish it tomorrow and get the review posted by Thursday.  After that, there are a number of titles I’ve been trying to get to or finish, including the new issue of Weird Tales.  I’ll try to get as many things read and reviewed as possible over the next few weeks.  Hopefully, everything will fall into a routine by the end of the week.

Long Looks at Short Fiction: “Seven Turns in a Hangman’s Rope” by Henry S. Whitehead

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Voodoo TalesVoodoo Tales The Ghost Stories of Henry S. Whitehead
Wordsworth Editions
704 p., ebook, $3.99

It is my opinion that had he lived, the Rev. Henry S. Whitehead would have be better remembered today. He was a prolific and popular writer for Weird Tales in the 1920s and early 1930s and a personal friend of H. P. Lovecraft.

Most of his work consisted of short stories, but there were a few novelettes and novellas. “Seven Turns in a Hangman’s Rope” is one of his best. In addition to the intriguing title, the story also has pirates, voodoo, and a painting that bleeds. How cool is that? Continue reading →

Blogging Northwest Smith: Nymph of Darkness

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Gosh Wow“Nymph of Darkkness”
C. L. Moore

For years, “Nymph of Darkness” was one of the rarest Northwest Smith stories. The reason was because C. L. Moore refused to give permission for the story, first published in 1935, to be reprinted. It wasn’t until the 1981 Worldcon that she relented. The first book reprinting occurred the following year in Gosh! Wow! Sense of Wonder, edited by Forrest J. Ackerman.

Ackerman, it turns out co-wrote the story with Moore, although she retained 75% of the rights, meaning it wouldn’t be reprinted without her permission. A technicality in the copyright for the story actually allowed it to be reprinted once against her wishes.

“Nymph of Darkness” first appeared in Fantasy Magazine in April 1935 and was later reprinted in Weird Tales in the December 1939 issue. It wasn’t included when most of the other stories were published in the 1950s by Gnome Press.

I’m not sure why Moore didn’t allow for its reprinting. The story, in my mind at least, is a good story. It’s not as long as most of the others, but still, it’s solid. Continue reading →