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Murray Leinster and the Moon

Murray Leinster and the Moon

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I first encountered Murray Leinster’s work when Black Gate published his classic pulp story “The Fifth-Dimension Catapult” in BG 9.

While the story was enjoyable, it didn’t resonate much with me at the time. The key I suppose was that his name stuck in my mind, and as time went by, and as I followed the Black Gate blog, I began to appreciate the many treasures I had been missing out on — purely through consuming mostly contemporary fiction.

Resolving to remedy this oversight, I decided to pay more attention when scanning flea market stands and the shelves of book exchanges. My Ace Double collection (something else I owe to Black Gate) started to grow exponentially, and eventually I came across a Murray Leinster novel: Four from Planet 5.

Four from Planet 5Amazing Murray Leinster

It’s a thin volume, which seems to have been par for the course back in the days before the fat-fantasy trend. It was published by Fawcett in 1959 under their Gold Medal imprint and runs to 160 pages, with cover art by the prolific Paul Lehr. Some research indicates that the story was published a few months earlier in Amazing Science Fiction Stories, September 1959, under the title “Long Ago, Far Away.”

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Vintage Treasures: Echoes of Valor II, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

Vintage Treasures: Echoes of Valor II, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

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Echoes of Valor II-smallKarl Edward Wagner continued his sword-and-sorcery anthology series with Echoes of Valor II, published in hardcover by Tor Books in August 1989, two years after the release of Echoes of Valor.

Wagner settled into an established pattern with this volume. The first one had been unusual for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it contained only novellas — three big stories by Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, and Henry Kuttner. Not that you can go wrong with Howard, Leiber, and Kuttner, but the next two books in the series offered a more varied table of contents.

Echoes of Valor had also been bare bones from an editorial standpoint. Not even an introduction, let alone commentary on the stories. Wagner rectified that with Echoes of Valor II, which included new and reprinted story intros and author retrospectives by C. L. Moore, Sam Moskowitz, Forrest J. Ackerman, and Wagner himself. This seems more what Wagner had in mind for EoV, which he clearly intended to be a definitive S&S anthology series.

In fact, it’s probable that the first volume was put together much more hurriedly than the last two. Not only was it missing the editorial content that would be the hallmark of the series, but it went straight to paperback. Echoes of Valor II appeared first in a handsome hardcover edition, and was reprinted in paperback in February 1991.

This one contains a rich assortment of classic S&S and heroic fantasy, including a Conan tale by Robert E. Howard, a Jirel of Joiry story and two Northwest Smith tales from C. L. Moore, a Venus novella by Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury, and a Hok the Mighty novella by Manly Wade Wellman… along with fascinating articles on how some of the stories came together.

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The Shock of the Old: The Professor Jameson Space Adventures by Neil R. Jones

The Shock of the Old: The Professor Jameson Space Adventures by Neil R. Jones

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Amazing_Stories,_April_1937-smallFew things are more exciting than finding an unheralded new author or reading an impressive new book fresh off the press. It is exhilarating to be present at the advent of a significant new work, to witness the beginning of an important writer’s career, or to feel yourself at the cutting edge of a genre. That sense of exploration and discovery is at the very heart of science fiction and fantasy.

These genres we love have roots that reach deep into the past, though, some of those roots extending into the cheap pulp magazines of the 20’s and 30’s, venues that at the time — and for long after — were utterly disreputable; anything that had even a whiff of such seamy origins was utterly damned in the eyes of critics.

Today’s top writers have moved far beyond those simple beginnings, and their finest works exhibit a thematic sophistication and literary polish that their progenitors can’t match, even as the best of those pioneers have finally achieved a hard-won respectability (penny-a-word pulpsters like Leigh Brackett and H.P. Lovecraft escaping the lurid confines of Planet Stories and Weird Tales to appear between the staid covers of the Library of America?! It’s about time.)

Writers like Neil Gaiman, China Meiville, and Susanna Clarke are expanding the boundaries of what can be accomplished with what is decreasingly called genre fiction, and for that we should all be grateful. Sometimes though, I must confess that I am compelled to put aside the careful work of the current generation for a while, because I just need a jolt of unadulterated pulp, and nothing else will do. (I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t around for the pulps, much as I wish I had been, so I have to rely on paperbacks, most of which are themselves now as old as I am, or older.)

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Vintage Treasures: Horrors Unseen, edited by Sam Moskowitz

Vintage Treasures: Horrors Unseen, edited by Sam Moskowitz

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Horrors Unseen-smallAbout six months ago I bought a small collection of vintage horror paperbacks on eBay (see the whole set here). It was a delightful batch of books, mostly anthologies and short story collections from the 60s-70s, and I’ve been gradually working my way through it.

I previously covered Night Fear by Frank Belknap Long, Carl Jacobi’s Revelations in Black, and Anthony Boucher’s The Compleat Werewolf, from the same set.

Horror anthologies are still published today, of course, and we’ve covered several recent examples right here. But over the years the market has shrunk enough that they are nowadays exclusively published in hardcover, or (at best) trade paperback. The days of the cheap paperback horror anthology, when a wide range of titles crowded the shelves, are long over. I miss them.

Sam Moskowitz was a well-known editor with some 25 anthologies to his name, and Horrors Unseen was the last. It was the third in a loose series which started with Horrors Unknown (1971) and Horrors in Hiding (1973; edited with Alden H. Norton). Sam was a pulp enthusiast, and these books are crammed full of classic horror tales from the pulps — this one includes the first reprint of C. L. Moore’s “Daemon” from Famous Fantastic Mysteries, and other reprints from Imagination!, Colliers, and other places.

Horrors Unseen was edited by Sam Moskowitz and published in June 1974 by Berkley Medallion. It is 208 pages, originally priced at 75 cents. It has never been reprinted, and there is no digital edition, but it’s not a rare book and copies are available online for $2-3. The cover artist is not credited, but it sure looks like Vincent di Fate.

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The Shade of Klarkash-Ton

The Shade of Klarkash-Ton

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None strikes the note of cosmic horror as well as Clark Ashton Smith. In sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Smith is perhaps unexcelled by any other writer, living or dead.

casSo wrote another great writer of cosmic horror, H.P. Lovecraft. Even given the Old Gent’s tendency toward hyperbole when extolling the virtues of his colleagues, I find it hard to disagree, particularly on this, the 122nd anniversary of Smith’s birth in Long Valley, California.

Of the “Big Three” – Lovecraft, Howard, and Smith – who wrote for Weird Tales during the 1920s and 1930s, CAS is the only one to have lived long enough to have died of old age and yet he’s also probably the least understood and celebrated. That’s a great pity, not just because he’s probably my favorite of that glorious triumvirate, but also because his works are quite unlike any other fantasy or science fiction writer before or since. Jack Vance probably comes the closest to conjuring up the shade of Smith, but there are lots of subtle differences between the two authors that make such a comparison facile.

For one, Smith considered himself primarily a poet rather than a writer of fiction. Even his most straightforward prose pieces possess a poetic character to them that transcends his florid vocabulary and indulgence in archaisms. There’s an incantatory rhythm to his writing that demands it be read aloud; I frequently find myself doing just that when I read a Smith story. It’s a very strange and powerful thing. Rarely have I encountered a writer whose written words so cried out to be spoken (intoned?). When you do so, the experience is like few others in literature. Smith’s writing is luxurious and appeals to all his reader’s senses, including the mind’s eye – that part of the imagination that doesn’t just conceive of people and things and places that have never existed but that strains at the edges of infinity. I find myself at a loss to describe precisely what I mean, but then that’s part of my point. Smith’s work often gives voice to the ineffable in ways that are both exhilarating and terrifying. Few others writers I have encountered can do that.

I make no secret of the fact CAS is my personal favorite of the Big Three of Weird Tales and the one whose works I most wish I could emulate. Though I strive mightily against it, I fear that my own writings evince a style more in keeping with the antiquarian Lovecraft than with the otherworldly poetry of the Bard of Auburn, though not for lack of trying. Smith’s genius is elusive and not easily reproduced.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Hard Boiled Holmes

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Hard Boiled Holmes

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HBH_MurderBy now, readers of this column (all three of you) know that I’m ‘all-in’ on Sherlock Holmes and Solar Pons. But I am also a long-time hard boiled fiction afficionado. I’ve got a section of the bookshelves well-stocked with private eye/police novels and short stories, from Hammett and Daly to Stone and Burke.

Now, I wouldn’t bet my house on the premise of the following essay, which first appeared in Sherlock Magazine back when I was a columnist for that fine, now defunct periodical. But I believe that I make a more compelling argument than you thought possible at first glance. The roots of the American hard boiled school can be seen in Sherlock Holmes and the Victorian Era. Yes, really.

And if any of the hard boiled heroes mentioned catch your fancy, leave a comment. I’ll be glad to tell you more about them. Without further ado, I bring you “Hard Boiled Holmes.”

“But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”

Raymond Chandler wrote these words in his essay, ‘The Simple Art of Murder.’ Ever since, the term ‘mean streets’ has been associated with the hard-boiled genre. One thinks of tough private eyes with guns, bottles, and beautiful dames. But was it really Chandler who created those words to describe the environment that the classic Philip Marlowe operated in?

Is it possible that it was Victorian London that gave birth to the mean streets, which would later become famous as the settings in the pages of Black Mask? Could it be that Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe were followers in the footsteps of Sherlock Holmes?

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Start Off the New Year With Strange Tales

Start Off the New Year With Strange Tales

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Strange-Tales-Wildside-Pulp-Reprint-smallerSanta was good to me this year. Lots of great paperbacks, some Warhammer 40K audio dramas, two graphic novels… and a copy of Strange Tales #6, cover dated October 1932 (the Wildside reprint edition, of course.)

Nothing like getting a famous pulp magazine for Christmas. This one contains a novella by Victor Rousseau and short stories by Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Belknap Long, Hugh B. Cave, Sewell Peaslee Wright, and Henry S. Whitehead, among others. I even know who Henry S. Whitehead is, thanks to my recent post on the Wordsworth edition of Voodoo Tales: The Ghost Stories of Henry S. Whitehead (and yes, I felt smug when I spotted him on the TOC). There’s even an essay on True Tales of the Weird by Robert W. Sneddon. The reprint includes all of the interior artwork by Amos Sewell and Rafael Desoto. Here’s the complete table of contents:

“The Hunters from Beyond” by Clark Ashton Smith
“The Curse of Amen-Ra” by Victor Rousseau
“Sea-Tiger” by Henry S. Whitehead
“The Dead Walk Softly” by Sewell Peaslee Wright
“Bal Macabre” by Gustav Meyrink
“Strange Tales and True,” essay by Robert W. Sneddon
“The Infernal Shadow” by Hugh B. Cave
“The Artist of Tao” by Arthur Styron
“In the Lair of the Space Monsters” by Frank Belknap Long
The Cauldron (Letters)

We covered several of Wildside’s pulp reprints in December. Strange Tales #6 is about 148 pages, priced at $14.95. Wildside’s has replicas of issues 4, 6, and 7 for sale as pulp reprints here.

Vintage Treasures: Bow Down to Nul by Brian W. Aldiss / The Dark Destroyers by Manly Wade Wellman

Vintage Treasures: Bow Down to Nul by Brian W. Aldiss / The Dark Destroyers by Manly Wade Wellman

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Bow Down to Nul-small The Dark Destroyers-small

We’re back to our survey of Ace Doubles, this time with a volume from 1960 containing lesser-known novels from two of science fiction’s brightest stars: Bow Down to Nul by Brian W. Aldiss and The Dark Destroyers by Manly Wade Wellman. Ace Doubles didn’t always have a clear connecting theme, but they did in this case, as both novels feature the struggle against brutal aliens who have conquered Earth.

Bow Down to Nul is a Galactic Empire novel, a fairly common theme in early pulp SF, made popular by writers like Asimov and Van Vogt. The empire in this case is a huge stellar realm controlled by the Nuls, an ancient race of giant three-limbed creatures. Earth is a backwater colony world, ruled by a Nul tyrant. The human resistance is disorganized, but aided by a Nul signatory attempting to bring to light abuses on Earth.

As Aldiss noted in his Note From The Author, the set-up strongly parallels the complex colonial relationships he witnessed first hand while serving in India and Indonesia in the forties.

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The Early Novels of Jack Vance: Grand Crusades: The Early Jack Vance, Volume Five, edited by Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan

The Early Novels of Jack Vance: Grand Crusades: The Early Jack Vance, Volume Five, edited by Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan

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Grand Crusades The Early Jack Vance Volume Five-smallSubterranean Press is now accepting pre-orders on the fifth volume of their landmark series The Early Jack Vance.

New titles in the series are released every March. I covered Volume Two, Dream Castles, after I unexpectedly found a copy in the Dealer’s Room at Capricon 33 in 2013, and I reported on Volume Three, Magic Highways, last March.

Volume Five is by far the largest so far (at 472 pages); I was also surprised to see that it contains only five stories, all short novels, most published in pulp magazines between 1950 and 1954.

The Rapparee (Startling Stories, November 1950)
Crusade to Maxus (Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1951)
Gold and Iron (Space Stories, December 1952)
The Houses of Iszm (Startling Stories, Spring 1954)
Space Opera (Pyramid Books, 1965)

This volume also contains a new introduction by the editors.

The first four books in The Early Jack Vance were a treasure trove for collectors, as they contained Vance stories that have been out of print for decades — and many that have never been reprinted. In contrast, this volume contains four short novels that have appeared in a handful of paperback editions over the decades (and under multiple titles), and one that has never been reprinted. This is first time they’ve been collected under one cover and the first time any have been in print for at least 30 years. I’ve selected a dozen covers from earlier printings below.

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Doc Savage Meets… The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Doc Savage Meets… The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

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Doc Savage Grinch-small

Kez Wilson has been publishing Doc Savage fantasy covers at his website for years, and they get more and more creative as the months go by. His December entry this year (#252) sees Doc Savage face off against a diabolical agent of Christmas evil. Here’s his Doctor Seuss-inspired back cover copy:

Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot. But the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville, did not. Then he got a wonderful idea! An awful idea! THE GRINCH GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA! Word of his plan to steal Christmas did leak, and the holiday began to look rather bleak. Then Cindy Lou Who took matters in her own tiny hands and got word to the one man who could foil those evil plans. Now when Grinchy Claus slips down the chimney with intent to burglarize, he’ll be face to face with a new holiday protector with glistening bronze skin and golden eyes.

Wilson’s pastiche covers are based on the brilliant work of James Bama and Bob Larkin, who illustrated the original Doc Savage paperbacks from Bantam. Check out his marvelous Doc Savage Fantasy Cover Gallery to see the Man of Bronze face off against Buffy, Ming the Merciless, Cthulhu, 007, The Thing, the Terminator, Sharknado, the Hardy Boys, Barbarella, Doctor Who, Kirk and Spock, and many others.