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Birthday Reviews: Jack Williamson’s “The Cold Green Eye”

Birthday Reviews: Jack Williamson’s “The Cold Green Eye”

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Fantastic March April 1953

Cover by Richard Powers

Jack Williamson was born on April 29, 1908 and died on November 11, 2006.

Williamson famously traveled from Arizona to New Mexico in a covered wagon when he was 7 years old. He went on to publish science fiction, beginning when he was twenty. Over the years, he frequently collaborated with Frederik Pohl and occasionally with James Gunn, Edmond Hamilton, and Miles Breuer.

Williamson received the Hugo Award for his autobiography Wonder’s Child: My Life in Science Fiction. He won a second Hugo, as well as his only Nebula Award, for his story “The Ultimate Earth.” His novel Terraforming Earth received the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

Williamson is also the recipient of numerous lifetime achievement awards. He has received them from the Writers and Illustrators of the Future, the Pilgrim Award, the Forry Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He received the Skylark Award from Boskone and the Robert A. Heinlein Award from the Heinlein Society. In 1968, he was inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame and into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1996. In 1976, he was named the second SFWA Grand Master. Worldcon recognized him with the Big Heart Award in 1994.

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Tarzan Swing-By: Tarzan and the Lost Empire (1928–29)

Tarzan Swing-By: Tarzan and the Lost Empire (1928–29)

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tarzan-and-lost-empire-grosset-dunlap-cover

Readers have asked me, but the answer is still no: I can’t tackle the entire Tarzan series the way I did Edgar Rice Burroughs’s other book series, Mars, Venus, and Pellucidar. There are twenty-four Tarzan books, not counting the juveniles, and I’d burn out long before the end if I tried to read them in sequence over a compressed time period.

But since I’m always glad to pick up a Tarzan volume here and there among my other Burroughs readings, I’ll negotiate. I’ll do an occasional Tarzan book “swing-by” to give spotlight time to ERB’s biggest contribution to popular culture. No particular order, just whatever Tarzan adventure grabs me at the moment.

So I’ll start with … let’s see … Book #12, Tarzan and the Lost Empire. Wherein the Lord of the Jungle finds yet another civilization lost in time in the heart of Africa: a remnant of the Roman Empire still living the ancient ways. Tarzan also gets a little monkey sidekick.

Tarzan and the Lost Empire falls into a period of the Tarzan novels that I think of as the “Filmation Era” because of how much the 1970s Filmation animated series Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle reflects it. After the tenth book, Tarzan and the Ant Men, Tarzan was distanced from the Greystoke legacy and his former supporting cast, and now has the companionship of both Nkima the monkey and Jad-bal-ja the golden lion. Jane vanished except for a single reappearance in Tarzan’s Quest (1936). The plots became standalone and repeated certain formulas, such as Tarzan discovering lost civilizations or facing a Tarzan imposter.

The writing quality of these books was still high in the late ‘20s and early ‘30s, and Burroughs hadn’t lost his skill at executing pulse-racing action set-pieces. But the plotting was often perfunctory as ERB became a bit fatigued with having to go back to the Tarzan well again and again. The story ideas and the prose popped, but the plots often meandered with overstuffed casts and too much incident that doesn’t go anywhere. Tarzan and the Lost Empire falls prey to these faults. But it also contains one of the most interesting hidden civilizations of the series and a setting that energized Burroughs.

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Birthday Reviews: William Sanders’s “When This World Is All on Fire”

Birthday Reviews: William Sanders’s “When This World Is All on Fire”

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Cover by Fred Gambino
Cover by Fred Gambino

William Sanders was born on April 28, 1942 and died on June 29, 2017.

Sanders wrote under his own name as well as the pseudonym Will Sundown. His novels included Journey to Fusang, The Wild Blue and the Gray, The Ballad of Billy Badass and the Rose of Turkestan, J., and, under the Sundown name, Pockets of Resistance and The Hellbound Train. Sanders has also written mysteries and the non-fiction Conquest: Hernando de Soto and the Indians, 1539-1543. From 2006 to 2008, he edited the online magazine Helix.

In 1989 Sanders was a nominee for the John W. Campbell, Jr. Award for Best New Writer. He won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History for his stories “The Undiscovered” and “Empire.” “The Undiscovered” was also nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. His story “Dry Bones” was also nominated for the Nebula and Sturgeon and Sanders was also nominated for the Sturgeon Award for “Jennifer, Just Before Midnight.” In 2008, he and Lawrence Watt-Evans were nominated for the Hugo Award for editing the Semiprozine Helix.

“When This World Is All on Fire” was originally published by Gardner Dozois in Asimov’s Science Fiction in the October-November 2001 issue. Dozois included it in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection and Sanders used it in his two short story collections: Are We Having Fun Yet? American Indian Fantasy Stories and East of the Sun and West of Fort Smith. Grace L. Dillon reprinted the story in Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction.

The world of “When This World Is All on Fire” has been ravaged by climate change, which has caused a rise in sea levels and temperatures making coastal areas and parts of the American south uninhabitable. For the Indians on the reservation in North Carolina, this means having to deal with a constant stream of white squatters who feel they should have access to the Indians’ open lands, a solution that the Indians and their police force disagree with.

Although climate change has caused the refugee problem, the story is more about the interaction between one of the Indian deputies, Davis Blackbear, and a family of squatters he had to chase off the reservation. The encounter should have been brief and Blackbear did his best to de-escalate it, but he found himself enamored by the squatters’ young daughter’s singing voice. When he sees her in a nearby town a couple weeks later, he steps in to stop her from being arrested.

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Birthday Reviews: Frank Belknap Long’s “Willie”

Birthday Reviews: Frank Belknap Long’s “Willie”

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Cover by William Timmins
Cover by William Timmins

Frank Belknap Long was born on April 27, 1901 and died on January 3, 1994.

In 1976, Long was nominated for three World Fantasy Award for his study Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside, his collection The Early Long, and received his second Lifetime Achievement nomination. He would eventually receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Award in 1978 and form the Bram Stoker Awards in 1988. In 1977, he was inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame.

“Willie” first appeared in the October 1943 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction, edited by John W. Campbell, Jr. It was reprinted in 1979 in Night Fear, a collection of stories by Long. In 1999, August Derleth included it as an example of a time travel story in New Horizons: Yesterday’s Portraits of Tomorrow. It was also reprinted in 2010 in the Centipede Press volume Frank Belknap Long, part of its Masters of the Weird Tale series.

Although the story is called “Willie,” the central character begins by thinking of himself as simply “Twenty-ninth Century Man.” He eventually learns that he is known as Agar, although he also has the identity of Monitor 236, a position of responsibility and dignity. Despite all of these identities, he is never quite clear who he is or how he fits into the primitive society in which he finds himself in. He does know that it is his responsibility to protect the people of the city.

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Birthday Reviews: A.E. Van Vogt’s “War of Nerves”

Birthday Reviews: A.E. Van Vogt’s “War of Nerves”

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Cover by Malcolm Smith
Cover by Malcolm Smith

A.E. (Alfred Elton) van Vogt was born on April 26, 1912 and died on January 26, 2000.

Van Vogt began publishing science fiction with “The Black Destroyer,” the first of four stories which became his novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle. His other major works include Slan, The Weapon Shops of Isher, and The World of ­Ā.

In 1966 his story “Research Alpha,” co-written with James Schmitz, was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novella. In 1996 his “The Mixed Men” and The World of ­Ā were both nominated for Retro Hugo Awards. That same year he received a Worldcon Special Convention Award for his six decades in science fiction. He finally won a Retro Hugo in 2017 for the novel Slan. His The Weapon Shops of Isher received a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 2005. He received a Forry Award in 1972 and an Aurora Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1980. In 1996, he was named an SFWA Grand Master and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

“War of Nerves was incorporated into van Vogt’s fix-up novel, The Voyage of the Space Beagle, the last of the four stories published (although set after the first story in the novel). It originally appeared in Other Worlds magazine in the May 1950 issue, edited by Raymond Palmer, the only one of the four not to appear in Astounding. The original story has been reprinted in van Vogt’s collections Monsters, The Best of A.E. van Vogt, and Transfinite: The Essential A.E. van Vogt. Monsters has also been published under the title The Blal. The story has been translated into French and twice into Italian.

“War of the Nerves” describes a telepathic attack on the Space Beagle by a previously unknown race, the Riim. The attack, which comes out of nowhere, results in the crew becoming either incapacitated or allowing their pent up emotions free. The scientists on board take sides in a civil war between factions and the military men begin looking for an excuse to let their hostility towards the scientists loose.

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Birthday Reviews: Fletcher Pratt’s “Hormones”

Birthday Reviews: Fletcher Pratt’s “Hormones”

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Cover by Richard Powers
Cover by Richard Powers

Fletcher Pratt was born on April 25, 1897 and died on June 11, 1956.

Pratt was nominated for an International Fantasy Award in 1952 for his nonfiction book Rockets, Jets, Guided Missiles and Space Ships co-written with Jack Coggins. In 2016, Pratt was nominated for two Retro Hugo Awards for the novellas “The Roaring Trumpet” and “The Mathematics of Magic,” both co-written with L. Sprague de Camp and part of their Harold Shea series.

“Hormones” was published in the second volume of Frederik Pohl’s Star Science Fiction series in 1953. Although that book has been issued in multiple editions, the story has never appeared elsewhere.

Reading science fiction published over the span of the twentieth century, much of it can be seen to be representative of its time, culturally, technologically, and literarily. In “Hormones,” Pratt attempts to update the disappearing shop story and the love potion story, with limited success. His shop doesn’t actually disappear, but the individual Herbert Schofield needs to deal with does vanish before Schofield can return.

Schofield’s character is stuck in a lower position at work than he would like, which not only impacts his career, but also his chances of marrying the girl he is dating. When a clerk at an all-night pharmacy offers him hormonal potions that can resolve both of his issues, he jumps at the chance. Pratt’s decision to update the magic potion with a veneer of chemistry is a nice change of pace.

Naturally, things don’t turn out the way Schofield expected and while the use of a love potion can be seen as akin to a date rape drug, Schofield has the tables turned on him. “Hormones” is an example of a story which was very much of its time, but doesn’t stand up well to the changing societal mores, which make it more creepy than was intended by the author or tone.

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How Much Adventure Can Fit on One Planet? Find Out in Tarsus: World Beyond the Frontier

How Much Adventure Can Fit on One Planet? Find Out in Tarsus: World Beyond the Frontier

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Tarsus Game Designers Workshop-small Tarsus Game Designers Workshop-back-small

I started playing Traveller in 1980, using Marc Miller and Frank Chadwick’s original 1977 boxed set from Game Designers’ Workshop. I really enjoyed it although — as I noted in my 2014 article on GDW’s Dark Nebula and Imperium board games — it was a little light on setting.

The original boxed edition of Traveller didn’t really have a setting — it was sort of a generic system for role playing in space, and it drew on the popular vision of a galaxy-spanning human civilization found in the science fiction of the time by Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Keith Laumer, H. Beam Piper, and others. (James Maliszewski did a splendid job of re-constructing the formative SF behind Traveller in “Appendix T.”) It was a game desperately in need of a rich setting, and it found one in Imperium.

Looking back, that critique was perhaps a little harsh. Yeah, the 1977 boxed set forgot to include a setting, and the publisher had to steal one from Imperium. But it wasn’t long before GDW began to improve the situation by producing high quality supplemental materials for Traveller. One of their better efforts was the boxed set Tarsus: World Beyond the Frontier, designed by Marc W. Miller and Loren K. Wiseman and released by GDW in 1983. I recently tracked down a copy, and I really wish I’d had it for those early gaming sessions in the trailer in my back yard in 1980.

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Demons and Monsters: The Black Mountains by Fred Saberhagen

Demons and Monsters: The Black Mountains by Fred Saberhagen

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THBLCKMNTN1971I ended last week’s review of The Broken Lands (the first part of Fred Saberhagen’s The Empire of the East) by saying it felt like something big was coming. I was right! The second book, The Black Mountains (1971), is one great big splashy explosion of pulp majesty. Even though I liked The Broken Lands, I didn’t get why Gary Gygax included it in Appendix N, the list of books that inspired his initial vision of D&D. Now I get it, 100% and absolutely.

Following the defeat and death of the villain, Satrap Ekuman, the Free Folk of the West are preparing to bring the war directly to the Empire of the East. Som the Dead is one of the greatest lords of the Empire, and its viceroy in the Black Moutains. Each of the lords has given himself to the demonic powers that rule the Empire and in exchange received special abilities. Som’s is that any attacks on him are reflected back at his opponents, making him nigh invulnerable.

In addition, among his army is an elite guard who wear metal collars. When they are severely or mortally wounded near the mountains, they are carried off to a secret lake of healing elixir by flying metal devices called valkyries. Finally, living under the mountains Som rules over, is the mighty and powerful demon, Zapranoth. To face him unprotected by magic leads to madness. With him live several other, lesser demons. It would seem Som the Dead is impossible to overcome.

Against these enemies Thomas, commander of the Free Folk, plans to lead his army. Fortunately, he is aided by wizards of his own, Gray foremost among them. He has secured the services of a djinn that posessess an understanding of technology, something magic has difficulty overcoming. Thomas has also found and captured the essence of two of Som the Dead’s demons. Control of a demon’s essence allows the owner to command or even destroy the demon. Deprived of two major elements of his army, Som the Dead may just be vulnerable to defeat.

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Birthday Reviews: Don D’Ammassa’s “The Library of Lost Art”

Birthday Reviews: Don D’Ammassa’s “The Library of Lost Art”

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Cover by David Lee Anderson
Cover by David Lee Anderson

Don D’Ammassa was born on April 24, 1946

D’Ammassa won the FAAN Award in 1979 for Best Single Issue of a Fanzine for Mythologies #15. He has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer four times and for Best Fanzine twice, without receiving the Hugo. Although D’Ammassa has written dozens of short stories, collected in more than a dozen volumes, and numerous novels, he is best known as a reviewer and a critic.

“The Library of Lost Are” was published by Algis Budrys in issue #5 of Tomorrow Speculative Fiction, which appeared in October 1993. The story has never been reprinted. Tomorrow ran for 24 print issues through 1997. From 1997 until 2000, the magazine was published online only, one of the first online magazines. Unfortunately, much of the magazine’s electronic record has been lost.

There are many stories of libraries which contain unwritten or lost books, and “The Library of Lost Art” is one. It focuses on John Cosgrove, who as an eleven year old boy was sent to spend the summer with his Uncle Dan, one of the only times he met him. Dan and Cosgrove immediately found themselves sympatico and Dan showed his nephew his library. It was filled with books that had never been published, just as the rest of the house was filled with art which had never been realized.

Although it is clear that an adult Cosgrove is reflecting back on his visit to his uncle’s house, there is little of an eleven year old in his portrayal.  The child version of Cosgrove not only thinks like an older person, but shows interests in literature which seem wrong for even the most precocious eleven year old.

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A Dark and Eerie Journey: Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Tree

A Dark and Eerie Journey: Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Tree

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The Hazel Wood Melissa Albert-small“My mother was raised on fairy tales, but I was raised on highways.”

Melissa Albert, via her narrator and protagonist Alice, opens The Hazel Wood with these words. The careful reader will latch on to that “but” right away, a particle suggesting that there is a great difference between the two — fairy tales and highways. Alice, raised by a single mother in a series of flights from bad luck, bad bosses and broken leases, believes there is. She is, at the book’s opening, a very typical protagonist in Young Adult fiction of the last sixty years. Outsider? Check. Troubled past? Check. Few or no friends? Check. Alice has recently undergone a drastic change in circumstances, as her mother has married a wealthy New York businessman. This has brought her a stable home, a stepfather who is at least trying to do right by her, and admission to an elite private school. There is a young man with a similar degree of wealth and a troubled past of his own.

And then things take a sharp turn off the well paved streets into new territory.

If you’re a fan of de Lint, Gaiman, McGuire or del Toro, the first line warned you. Alice has grown up on the run, not so much from mundane bill collectors but from her grandmother’s legacy. Althea Proserpine (again, a name that should set off alarm klaxons faster than a Klingon battle cruiser) was a reclusive author who wrote only one book, a set of “Tales from the Hinterlands.” Alice’s mother is dismissive of the book, loathes its cultish fans, and is insistent on forever staying far, far away from Althea’s home, The Hazel Wood.

And again, if you know fairy tales at all, you know what happens next.

No matter how hard a parent tries to keep a thing hidden from her child, it will come calling. So back onto the highway Alice goes, to find the truth of her own origins, of the mysterious book, of its legacy.

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