Black Gate

Frontier of the Dark (Ace Books, January 1984). Cover by Attila Hejja

A. Bertram Chandler was an enormously prolific science fiction author whom we haven’t covered much at Black Gate. He wrote some 200 short stories and over 40 novels, and is chiefly remembered today for his popular tales of the pioneer Rim Worlds, especially the adventures of John Grimes.

Chandler began his career as a merchant marine officer in the UK, eventually commanding ships in the Australian and New Zealand merchant navies, including the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne. He drew heavily from his long career sailing everything from tramp steamers to troop ships to infuse his fiction with a distinctly naval flavor.

His 1984 novel Frontier of the Dark, published the year he died, is a significant departure. A science fiction horror tale featuring werewolves in space, it bears the dedication, “For Harlan Ellison, who made me do it.”

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Nightfrights (Peacock/Penguin, 1975). Cover by David Smee

They say that science fiction and fantasy readers love to identify with their heroes. To imagine themselves learning that they’re a wizard, attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Or being called to participate in The Hunger Games, or captain a starship.

I get it. I’m 59 years old, and the instant I saw the cover of the 1975 edition of Nightfrights I identified with the wide-eyed old coot on the cover. That’s what qualifies as an intrepid hero I can identify with these days. Awakened in the middle of the night, called upon to investigate the inhuman shrieks in the backyard, telling ourselves it’s just raccoons but knowing in our heart that’s it’s ghouls. Or Bughuul, from that Sinister movie I just watched on Prime. Or our neighbor Jerry, driven mad by fumes from his lawnmower. Don’t come any closer Jerry, I’ve got Alice’s rolling pin, and I know how to use it.

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XIII (DAW Books, October 1985). Cover by Michael Whelan

The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XIII was the thirteenth in the DAW Year’s Best Horror series, and the sixth edited by the great Karl Edward Wagner (1945–1994). The book was copyrighted and printed in 1985. Michael Whelan returns as cover artist after taking a hiatus from Series XII. This marked Whelan’s tenth cover for the series! The newest cover is more fantasy than horror with an elf or goblin-like human playing a bone as a flute in a Pan-like fashion. There is a darkness to the art that is suggestive of horror or darker fantasy. Whelan’s diverse choice of artistic topics for horror does not disappoint.

This volume contained seventeen different authors. All male. Nine were American, six were British, and there is one returning Canadian author, Vincent McHardy and a returning German-born author, David J. Schow. Six of these stories came from books. Another six came from professional magazines. Two came from fanzines, one from a convention program, one from a chapbook, one from a journal, and one from a comic book. Considering the pre-internet era of this volume, Wagner is impressive in that he seemed to read everything from everywhere, looking for good horror.

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The Mind Spider and Other Stories and Ships to the Stars (Ace Books, 1976). Covers by Walter Rane

Last year I discussed the marvelous collection The Worlds of Fritz Leiber, published by Ace in 1976, and was astounded to find the author make this claim in the introduction.

I believe this collection represents me more completely, provides a fuller measure of the range of my fictional efforts, than any other. I’ve tried to make it that way, without repeating stories from other collections, especially the ones currently in print. There no overlap with those whatsoever. (Overlapping collections are an annoyance to readers and authors alike.)

Leiber had more than half a dozen collections in print in 1976, including five volumes of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser tales, two volumes of The Book of Fritz Leiber (DAW, 1974 and 1975), The Best of Fritz Leiber (Del Rey, 1974), and the two collections we’re discussing today, The Mind Spider and Ships to the Stars.

How is it possible to assemble a world-class retrospective and avoid any overlap with his other popular collections? I guess the only way to do it is to be Fritz Leiber.

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