Today is Julyl 7. It is the birthday of W. C. Morrow (1854-1923) and Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988).
Morrow wrote weird fiction. He wasn’t very prolific, and I’m not sure how easy his work will be to find these days. The last English publication of his works was in 2012. The most complete collection of his short fiction seems to have been His Unconquerable Enemy in 2006 from Midnight house. The print run was only 460 copies, and I don’t want to think about what it would cost today, assuming you can find a copy. Midnight House books are collectible.
“His Unconquerable Enemy” is the story he is best known for these days. If this had been the only story Morrow had written, it would be enough to keep him from total obscurity.
I read it over foroty years ago, and I can still remember where I was when I read it. I read it in Horror Times Ten, edited by Alden H. Norton.
Sitting in the middle of a gravel road, waiting for the crop duster to come back with another load of spray. I was working as a flagger that summer. Several of us would walk waving yellow flags on tall poles so the crop duster could spray mesquites in a pasture and get a good coverage. I would always carry a paperbak in a backpack so I could read between loads. I was walking along the fence, staying in the road so I could see any snakes that might take exception to my presence.
[SPOILER ALERT]
The story concerns a man who has offended an Indian rajah. The rajah has the man’s arms and legs amputated and keeps him in a large birdcage suspended in the throne room. One particularly hot night the rajah decides to sleep in the throne room because it isw cooler there. The story is told from the point of view of a visitor who happens to see how the amputee gets his revenge.
The amputee gets the bridcage swinging. He uses his teeth to open the door of the cage. With perfect timing, he thrusts himself out of the cage so that he lands on the rajah’s chest.
And uses his teeth to tear the rajah’s throat out.
Pretty grisly stuff.
[END SPOILER]
Morrow showed his skill in making the story believable and suspenseful. It made enough of an impression on me that I can remember the story and where I was when I read it. This story has been reprinted many times, most recently in 2024.
Robert A. Heinlein once cast a long shadow of the science fiction field. To some extent he still does. But its been nearly forty years since his death. His books are mostly out of print. Starship Troopes, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is Harsh Mistress, and maybe a few others.
I saw a post a few years ago where the author, whom I will not name out of courtesy (most of you would recognize the name), said he thought Heinleiin would become a forgotten author.
Is that really true?
It’s pretty much a given, I think, that when a writer dies, only the best, or most notorious, of his works (or hers) will stay in priint, and those are what they author will be remembered for. There are exceptions, of course, but by and large, that has been the trend I’ve seen.
But will Heinlein be forgotten?
Sure, many of his ideas are out of favor these days. That could be said of most writers who worked in the middle of the Twenntieth Century. Fiction gets dated.
A certain author, who will also remain unnamed except that I’ll say they recently won a major award for essentially lifetime achievement even though their career hasn’t been as long as previous winners, said they read one of his books and found it to be, if I recall the quote correctly, “racist as f***”. I thought at they time they probably read Farnham’s Freehold. I found out later that was the book.
Yes, some, probably most, of Heinlein’s works may be forgotten. But will all of them? Will he?
I don’t know. I don’t care for everything I’ve read by him, but I do like his work. I haven’t read much of what he wrote the last decade or so of his life. I may not, since what I know about some of the books makes me think they won’t be to my taste.
But as influential as Heinlein was, I hope he isn’t completely forgotten.