Today, January 13, is the birthday of both Ron Goulart (1933-2022) and Roger Elwood (1943-2007). It’s also Clark Ashton Smith’s birthday, but I’ll devote a separate post to him. Continue reading
Ron Goulart and Roger Elwood
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Well, Well, Well, What Have We Here? It’s not Dead After All
I had a surpise in my mailbox on Friday. A very unexpected and pleasant surprise.
That’s it on the left, the latest issue of F&SF. Someone had commented in a previous post that they had gotten an electronic copy of this issue.
I’m glad to see it isn’t dead. I’ve had a subscription since I graduated college. I’m going to try to work this issue into the reading schedule as soon as I can. *looks at TBR pile and sighs*
At least it’s not dead yet. I’m not optimistic about any of the digests at the moment. I’ll explain further down.
Not unexpectedly, there are some changes. Now that F&SF is in the stable of the (formerly) Penny Press digests, it has the same format as they do. Same dimensions, same cheap paper, and the same flimsy cover. The heavier cover stock and the thicker paper is gone.
Not surpprising, like I said. But not a welcome change as far as I’m concerned. F&SF went to a heavier cover stock some years ago. As a print subscriber, I appreciated that. I would still get issues with torn covers, but not as many. Hopefully, I won’t get too many damaged copies. Continue reading
12 DoCGS Day 7: “The Death Mask” by Henrietta D. Everett
This is another chiller. It’s not set at Christmas, but it is the kind of story that might be related around a fire. It’s author wrote at a time when genre conventions weren’t as well established (rigid) as they are today. Supernatural elements mixed with mundane settings. the thing that mattered wasn’t so much the genre, but the quality fo the story.
Henrietta D;. Everett
Heniretta D. Everett (1851-1923), sometimes bylined as H. D. Everett, wrote twenty-two novels. According to what little I coudl discover about her, about half of them had fantasy or proto-science fictional elements.
“Wth Death Mask” is her best known ghost story and was the title of her collection of stories published in 1920. This story was praised by H. P. Lovecraft. I didn’t read it. I listened to it on audio in The Literature of Lovecraft Vol. 1 produced by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society. It is the usual high quality production the HPLHS does. M. R. James also had a high opinion of this story. Continue reading
A Brief Requiem for Unthemed Anthology Series
The last couple of days have been hectic, and I’m too tired to put together another ghost story post (I need to do some bibliographic research on the author of the next story) or do much work on original fiction. But since I wanted to write something to keep my writing streak going.
I’ll do a followup on this one later. I need to do some research first. You’ll see what I mean below. Continue reading
Northern Shadows
Today is January 3. It’s the birthday of J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973). His shadow over the field of fantasy is arguably the longest of any author. Many writers have written in imitation of him (think early Terry Brooks) or in reguttal to him. (Michael Moorcock and George R. R. Martin).
Tolkien drew on northern European mythology in crafting his worlds. That topic alone is worth multiple dissertations, and I’m not going to try to dwell on it in any great scholoarly depth.
Instead, I want make some general observations. Continue reading
Crafting the Short Story: Reflections on Charles Beaumont
This is the second birthday post for today. It’s on Charles Beaumont (1929-1967), if you couldn’t tell from the title. The first birthday post was on Isaac Asimov.
Beaumont couldn’t have been more different than Asimov. Where Asimov focused on science, often at the expense of the humanity of his characters (it’s been said), Beuamont was a master at crafting believable, individual characters. But then Asimov wrote science fiction, whereas Beaumont primarily wrote fantasy.
Beaumont was a protege of Ray Bradbury, something I’ve commented on before. That’s not to say Beaumont was inferior to Bradbury. He wasn’t, although he was to soem extent a different kind of writer. For a compasrison of two stories written by Beaumont and Bradbury from the same prompt, see this post.
What I want to focus on today is Beaumont as short fiction writer. Continue reading
Reflections on Robotics
Today is January 2, which is the birthday of Isaac Asimov (1920-1992). It’s the first of two birthday posts for this date. The other is Charles Beaumont.
Asimov needs no introduction, I’m sure. Some of his work is still in print, primarily the Foundation books (at least the early ones although I’m not sure about the later ones) and some of the robot stories. His other short fiction, both science fiction and mysteries, as well as his later science fiction novels that are stand-alones haven’t fared so well.
The Foundation series, along with some associated novels (The Stars LIke Dust, Pebble in the Sky, and The Currents of Space) are set in the far future. The robot stories were relatively near future at the time, a future that is now in our past. Not all of the robot stories directly connected to the main series which concerned scientist Susan Calvin. (Note to self: write an essay about Asimov’s choice of a female scientist as protagonist in the early forties.) Then, there were the novels featuring R. Daneel Olivaw, which were set a little further in the future and were a blend of detective and science fiction.
In the last few years of his life, Asimov connected the two series, bridging the near future Susan Calvin and R. Daneel Olivaw with the Foundation series. The wisdom of this decision could be open to question, but it’s been so long since I read some of those works, that I’ll refrain from comment.
He also cowrote some prequels to the Foundation series with some of the major science fiction writers of the early nineties. I’ve not read them and won’t mention them further in this post.
What I’d like to focus on here are the robot stories.
They were first collected in 1950 in I, Robot which was published by Gnome Press. That’s the cover above. Some of them, especially the earlier stories in the book, are rather dated and don’t hold up well. Susan Calvin isn’t a character in the first few storeis. Once she makes an appearance, though, the quality increases. Remember, these are some of Asimov’s earliest stories. He was still learning his craft. Continue reading
12 D0CGS Day 6: “The Third Shadow” by H. Russell Wakefield
Brief Update: I’m still going to review 12 ghost stories, but I don’t think I’ll finish within the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas. I may include storeis that aren’t Christmas specific. I’m not sure if the tradition if telling ghost stories at Christmas means that the stories themselves must be set at christmas.
Today’s story is by one of the master of the traditional ghost story, H. Russell Wakefield.
I read it in Sunless Solstice, another of the British Library’s Tales of the Weird series.
I can’t recommend this series enough. I’ve got a handful of volumes in print and more in electronic format. They’re chock full of all kinds of good stuff.
But I digress.
Wakefield’s stories, at least the ones I’ve read, don’t deal with freindly ghosts. Wakefield’s ghost are not nice, and you hope you never meet one. In the case of “The Third Shadow”, we have a vengeful ghost. Continue reading
12DoCGS Day 5: “Thw Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance” by M. R. James
Merry Christmas!
It’s almost over as I write this, but I hope the day has been and continues to be a merry one for all of you. And that you’re enjoying some winter weather to set the tone. We’re running t he air conditioner here in Texas.
Today I’ve chosen to look at a ghost story by one of the practitioners whose work is associated with Christmas and keeping the tradition of ghost stories at Christmas alive into the Twentieth Century.
That would be Montague Rhodes James.
M. R. James routinely wrote a ghost story for his friends at Christmas, but there was only one that was acdtuallyt set at Christmas.
That story is “The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance”, which was first published in 1913.
It’s available in a number of volumes. I read it in Supernatural Horror Vol. VII edited by Will Oliver.There will be spoilers in this post. Continue reading
12DoCGS Day 4: “The Spectre Horseman; or, Haunted Wye-Coller Hall” by James Skip Borlase
James Skip Borlae is perobablay not a name familiar to many of you. I recall under what circumstances I bought The Shrieking Skull and Other Victorian Chritmas Ghost Stories. I bought a year ago, or maybe two. I didn’t get a chance to read any of the stories before Christmas in whatevder year I bought it.
So I decided to read on this year for Twelve Days of Christmas Ghost Stories. I read two stories that didn’t have a ghost in them, although they were set on Christams Eve and were horror stories without supernatural elements.
Then I read “The Specter Horseman”. (I haven’t read the title story yet. Maybe I should ahve started with that one.)
I enjoyed the story, but I was disappointed int he ghost element.
Set during the English Civil War, it’st he story of an elderly minor nobler who is a Royalist. He falls for a beautiful young girl and convinces her poverty-stricken father to let him marry her. Or as the story puts it, sell her to him. Continue reading