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Forgotten Authors: John T. Phillifent

Forgotten Authors: John T. Phillifent

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John T. Phillifent (a.k.a. John Rackham)

John T. Phillifent was born in Durham, England on November 10, 1916.

As with last week’s entry, Henry J. Kostkos, Phillifent worked as an electrical engineer.

Although Phillifent wrote some short fiction and three The Man from U.N.C.L.E. tie-in novels under his own name, he also used the pseudonym John Rackham for the majority of his fiction. According to Phillifent, he reserved his own name for his best material.

His first published work was the Jupiter Equilateral, published by the Tit-Bits Science Fiction Library in 1954 under the Rackham name.  He wouldn’t publish anything under his own name until the story “Point” appeared in the December 1961 issue of Fantastic Stories of the Imagination.

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You Need Some Strong Medicine: The New Holmes on the Range

You Need Some Strong Medicine: The New Holmes on the Range

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This updated essay, a comprehensive chronology, and a Q&A which Steve Hockensmith kindly did with me, represent the deepest dive anyone has done on the terrific Holmes on the Range series. It incorporates all the novels and short stories featuring Otto and Gustav Amlingmeyer, as well as the two novels and one short story for the spin-off Double-A Western Detective Agency.

I just read the new novel, Strong Medicine, and it was great Big Red and Old Red fun, as always. Throughout the year I listen to various Holmes on the Range audiobooks and they keep entertaining.

If I still haven’t convinced you to try that first novel, Holmes on the Range (or the short story collection, Dear Mr. Holmes), give me the benefit of the doubt. Steve’s a really good writer, and these are fun Western mysteries, with a Holmes underlay. Don’t be a saphead. 🙂

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In the Summertime: The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare

In the Summertime: The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare

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This news, which is called true, is so like an old tale that the verity of it is in strong suspicion.

Second Gentleman, Act V Scene ii

Over the past several years, I’ve written about three of Shakespeare’s plays; The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Macbeth. All are steeped in the magical and wondrous. Part of the whole point of this column is to force myself to read some things I haven’t already. With plenty of the his plays left unread, I turned once more to his works. While no more of his works are as overtly supernatural, I knew there were elements to be found in at least one or two more. Perhaps, the most obvious is Hamlet, wherein a dead king’s ghost spurs his mopey son on to action. As I’ve read and seen it performed numerous times, I dug around a bit and came upon The Winter’s Tale. While in the end it’s doesn’t near the three first mentioned plays in mystical content, there is some, and, more importantly, it’s a fascinating and strange play.

First published in the First Folio in 1623, the exact date of the play’s composition remains uncertain. Nonetheless, most authorities consider it one of his latter works, probably written around 1610. It’s catalogued among his problem plays, a term first used by critic F.S. Boas to describe All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and Troilus and Cressida. These are plays that veer from the tragic to the comic, not sticking to a single major tone as do his comedies and tragedies. Later, The Winter’s Tale, Timon of Athens, and The Merchant of Venice were added to the list by others. Boas felt the plays allowed the exploration of complex themes in unique ways. That The Winter’s Tale veers from the terrible and tragic to the comic and pastoral before achieving reconciliation can definitely be seen in this light.

The title implies we are going to hear a story, one that might be told around the hearth on a cold winter’s night. Filled with implausibilities, it will draw us into a tale both tragic and comic, but in the end, provide us with a happy ending (more, or less) that we want to hear.

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Into the Weird: Weird Times 2 — Cars, Roads, and Travel

Into the Weird: Weird Times 2 — Cars, Roads, and Travel

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A 1923 Ford Model T
This post is the second in a series reflecting on the world of 1923 as a background to early issues of Weird Tales. Imagine that you’re an American in February of 1923, and you’re taking a walk to the newsstand to buy the first issue of a new pulp fiction magazine. What sort of things will you see?

Probably the first thing you’ll notice as you set out into the street is the street itself, and its contents. The motor car has begun to change urban life. Since Ford introduced the Model T fifteen years ago the price has steadily dropped; there were almost 11 million registered passenger automobiles in the United States by the end of 1922, and will be just shy of 13.5 million by the end of 1923. Cars are registered, incidentally, and license plates have been required since 1918, but most states do not issue driver’s licenses; half the states will require licenses by 1930, and as late as 1935 only 39 states will mandate licenses and not many of those will require passing a test. In 1923 Model Ts are still the most common make of car, though competing models are about to cut into its sales. Famously, you can get a Model T in any colour, so long as it’s black; Ford used to offer a range of colours, but in 1914 streamlined production by cutting back to a particular type of black paint that was cheap and fast-drying. Model Ts do not at this time have shock absorbers, windshield wipers, rear view mirrors, bumpers, or an instrument panel for a speedometer (not a standard feature) or gas gauge.

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Forgotten Authors: Henry J. Kostkos

Forgotten Authors: Henry J. Kostkos

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Amazing Stories, August-September 1933, cover by Leo Morey

This week starts a brief period where these explorations are going to be shorter, for many of these authors have little biographical information available.

In the 1972 anthology Clarion II, Damon Knight included an essay entitled “Goodbye, Henry J. Kostkos, Goodbye,” using the author, along with J. Harvey Haggard, as an example of an author he once read and was invested in, but whose name no longer meant anything to modern readers. At the time, both Kostkos and Haggard were alive (Haggard would be alive for another 29 years).

Henry J. Kostkos was born on June 11, 1900.

Kostkos and his wife, Mary, had two children, Miriam and Maureen. Kostkos worked for Western Electric as an electrical engineer as well as for Bell Labs in Chicago and Ohio. He worked on display mechanisms developed by Bell Labs for their associated telephone companies. At various times, he ran his own contracting business in New York and in Chicago.

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What I’ve Been Watching – July 2026

What I’ve Been Watching – July 2026

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I haven’t shared what I’ve been watching, since February. Nothing earth shattering, but I’m sure you occasionally wonder. So…

Back in January, I canceled all my subs except for Prime (keeping BritBox within that one). RokuTV and Tubi are regulars for me now, along with Prime, and I’ve got my DVDs (VHS hasn’t come back into play yet.

I don’t watch much sports anymore, and no brand new shows – I have an antenna, but no recording capability. I’m pretty content with the new normal. I’ve always been a re-watcher, and that helps fill the gap. But I’m still adding in some other stuff. Frankly, I’m happy without all the subs.

HIGH TIDE

This was a total surprise to me when I discovered it a couple weeks ago. I was in high school when Jessie’s Girl exploded. And of course, Rick Springfield was Dr. Noah Drake. I didn’t even watch General Hospital, and I knew that.

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Forgotten Authors: Harry Stephen Keeler

Forgotten Authors: Harry Stephen Keeler

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Harry Stephen Keeler

Harry Stephen Keeler was born in Chicago on November 3, 1890. His father died when he was two and his mother subsequently remarried. After her new husband, who was a gambler, lost Keeler’s mother’s savings and mortgaged the family home that was left to her by Keeler’s father, he killed himself. Keeler’s mother subsequently remarried again, but her third husband died of illness when Keeler was only 13 years old.  Following the suicide of his first step father, Keeler’s mother took in boarders, mostly theatrical workers, to make ends meet and keep the family home.

The trauma of losing a father and two step fathers by the age of 13 appears to have had an impact on Keeler’s mental state and his mother had him committed to an insane asylum when he was a child. He apparently had multiple sessions in the asylum, including one that ended with his discharge on July 29, 1914, when he was declared recovered and had his property and voting rights restored.

Keeler often skipped school to attend to a paper route, but eventually he managed to earn a degree in electrical engineering from the Armour Institute. From 1912 to 1914, he worked in a steel mill in Chicago. He began writing in earnest in 1913, publishing his first short story that year. 1914 saw him publishing his first piece of crime fiction, the novella “Victim No. 5.” His early fiction appeared in magazines such as Argosy and Top-Notch Magazine.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Will Murray on Lester Dent’s Lost Detective

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Will Murray on Lester Dent’s Lost Detective

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I’m always happy when my Pulp buddy Will Murray writes an A (Black) Gat in the  Hand essay. He tackles cool stuff that never even occurs to me. And often which I knew nothing about. Will is the leading authority on Lester Dent’s Travis McGee predecessor (and you KNOW I love me some John D. MacDonald), Oscar Sail. But I had never even heard of the the maritime PI who follwed Sail: Cyrus Peace. So I’m thrilled to give you Will’s essay on another Dent PI: who, unfortunately, never made it to print. Read on, MacDuff. 

An interesting sub-genre of modern detective fiction is the private detective who lives on and operates from a boat anchored somewhere along the Florida coast.

John D. McDonald’s Travis McGee is considered the most successful in this peculiar sub-genre. His houseboat, The Busted Flush, was moored off Fort Lauderdale.

(Editor’s Note – Click here for Black Gate’s John D. MacDonald coverage)

Others include the trio of troubleshooters who operated out of a Miami Beach houseboat in the 1960-62 Warner Bros. television show, Surfside 6––Dave Thorne, Sandy Winfield II, and attorney-turned PI Ken Madison.

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Into the Weird: Weird Times 1 — Architecture and Housing

Into the Weird: Weird Times 1 — Architecture and Housing

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The first issue of Weird Tales went on sale in late February of 1923. It was cover-dated March, but that was a sell-by date. The issue would have arrived in stores on or about February 18, roughly a week before the first issue of Time magazine. In writing about early Weird Tales, I found it useful to think about that kind of context, and to look into that moment in history.

Partly that was because some aspect of a story would occasionally become clear once I understood specific terms or references or background. Mostly, though, I found an immersion in the time helped themes become clearer and habits of thought more obvious. In the hope that exercise might be useful for anyone else reading early Weird Tales or other fiction of the 1920s, I’ll be putting up a series of posts looking at different aspects of the era, reflecting on things I’ve learned or think I’ve learned. I hope these posts will also be useful as references I can link to in my reviews, rather than having to take the time to explain some 1920s-specific detail in a story.

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Murder — What Is It Good For? Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood

Murder — What Is It Good For? Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood

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There’s nothing I love more than a good murder… but, before you summon the authorities, let me qualify that a bit. I love a fake murder, a fictional murder. I’ll follow Perry Mason, Lieutenant Columbo, and Jessica Fletcher anywhere.

The real thing, though? I have deeply conflicted feelings about books, movies, and especially television shows that deal with actual homicides, which puts me at odds with virtually the entire Entertainment Industrial Complex, with Prime and Netflix and all of the other streamers, because it seems like real murder is their bloody bread and butter; do any of them make anything other than true crime shows?

Immersing yourself in a fictional killing is one thing; I know that when the cameras stopped rolling, the victim got up from the floor, brushed himself off, and shared a smoke and a joke with Raymond Burr or Peter Falk. But an actual murder, where a real human being suffered and died? I don’t know — that just doesn’t seem like entertainment to me, but I’m clearly in the minority (even in my own house). I blame it all on Truman Capote and his 1966 smash bestseller (and the smash film version which followed a year later), In Cold Blood. Capote’s “nonfiction novel” has to be reckoned one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, as it virtually created the true crime genre that now dominates the media landscape to the tune of several billion dollars a year.

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