Simak’s Robots: An Alternative to Asimov

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Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988) was born on this date, August 3. He is one of my favorite writers. I was planning on reading one of his stories, but I’ve been busy with other things. So I’m going to offer some reflections on one of the things he wrote about a lot.

Robots.

Robots are a trope that was once almost ubiquitous in science fiction. You don’t see them much anymore. At least I haven’t seen any new stories about them. To be fair, though, I’ve not read much science fiction in the last few years. I’ve mostly been reading mysteries and thrillers.

Anyone who has read robot stories (I’m thinking primarily short fiction here), please drop a line in the comments. Continue reading →

F. Marion Crawford and “The Upper Berth”

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August 2, today as I’m writing this, is the birthday of F. Marion Crawford (1854-1909).

Crawford wrote a number of stories about the supernatural, but he his brest remembered for two that have become classics, “For the Blood is the Life” and “The Upper Berth”.

Although an American, Crawford lived most of his life in Italy. He began his career as a novelist. Of his novels, the only one I’m aware of that has fantasatic elements is Khalid, which was reprinted in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.

I took a look at “For the Blood is the Life” a few years ago. Today, I’ll look at “The Upper Berth”. M. R. James considered it one of the best ghost stories and defnitely Crawford’s best tale.  Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, Farnsworth

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Farnsworth Wright (1888-1940) was born on this date, July 29.

He was the editor of Weird Tales during what is regarded as the best years of the magazine. He was the greatest fantasy editor of the first half of the Twentieth Century, if not the whole century. The only other editor who even came close was John W. Campbell, Jr., who was the editor of Unknown/Unknown Worlds. And  as a general rule, Campbell didn’t publish the same type of fantasy as Wright.

One can argue that Dorothy McIlwraith, who tooks Farnsworth Wright’s place at the helm of Weird Tales was a more significant editor than Campbell. But that’s an argument for another post. Continue reading →

Remembering Scudamore Jarvis

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Scudamore Jarvis (1879-1953) was born today, July 20.

And no, I’m not making this up. If I were going to do something like that, I would pick a more conventional name, such as, say, Carolynn Catherine O’Shea or something along those lines. With a name like that, I couldn’t pass up writing a post about him.

Claude Scudamore Jarvis was a member of the British colonial governor in the Middle East. He wrote a number of works of naturual history, history, and farming. As far as I know, “The Tomtom Clue” was his only work of fiction. This story was cowritten with Cecil Morgan. I haven’t been able to find out anything about him. Continue reading →

Jacobi and Others

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Today is July 10 as I’m writing this. It’s late, though, so most of you probably won’t see it for a day or two. But there are half a dozen birthdays I want to highlight. I’m going to start with the person who was probably the most significant in terms of the coverage of this blog. That’s Carl Jacobi. Continue reading →