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Category: Vintage Treasures

Tor Doubles #37: Esther Friesner’s Yesterday We Saw Mermaids and Lawrence Watt-Evans’ The Final Folly of Captain Dancy

Tor Doubles #37: Esther Friesner’s Yesterday We Saw Mermaids and Lawrence Watt-Evans’ The Final Folly of Captain Dancy

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Cover for The Final Folly of Captain Dancy and Yesterday We Saw Mermaids by Pat Morressey

This volumes  was originally scheduled for September 1991, but the series was cancelled before it would see print. Both stories were eventually published by Tor in different formats. Had this volume been printed, it would have been the first volume in the series to include two original stories. Although published separately, both were coincidentally first published in the same month.

Yesterday We Saw Mermaids was eventually published as a stand-alone novel by Tor Books in October, 1992. Set in 1492, Friesner tells the story of a magical ship that seems to be racing Christopher Columbus’ expedition to the new world. The ship is mostly crewed by a group of nuns from Porto in Spain, but there is also a monk, Brother Garcilaso, a woman named Rasha, and two unnamed women, one called La Zagala and one called the Jewess. The story is told from the point of view of a young nun, Sister Ana, who has been appointed the scribe for the voyage.

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The Stories Before the Story – Half a Century of Reading Tolkien, Part Eight: The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien (mostly)

The Stories Before the Story – Half a Century of Reading Tolkien, Part Eight: The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien (mostly)

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First edition, UK

Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed they be for ever.

from Chapter 9 The Flight of the Noldor

I took The Silmarillion to camp with me the summer of 1978. I’d gotten it for Christmas the previous year, but I was put off by its Biblical diction. Still, I was determined to make my way through it. I mean, Tolkien was my favorite author, and I’d already read The Hobbit twice and Lord of the Rings, including the appendices.

I did read it that summer in the woods of Upper Delaware Valley. For all the activities, there was always free time to read, and read I did. Beside Tolkien’s book, I read Cajus Bekker’s A War Diary of the German Luftwaffe. Bekker’s book was a relatively easy undertaking, Tolkien’s was not.

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Tor Doubles #36: Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife and Our Lady of Darkness

Tor Doubles #36: Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife and Our Lady of Darkness

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Cover for Conjure Wife and Our Lady of Darkness by Wayne Barlow

Originally published in August 1991, Tor Double #36 offers two stories by Fritz Leiber, doubling the number of his stories included in the series. It also brings the official Tor Double series to an end, although just as I began by looking at a proto-volume in the series, I’ll be covering one last Tor Double next which, which was never published.

Conjure Wife was an originally published in Unknown Worlds in April 1943. The novel would eventually be awarded a Retro-Hugo, beating out works by C.L. Moore & Henry Kuttner, Herman Hesse, C.S. Lewis, A.E. van Vogt, and Leiber, himself. The novel is also listed in James Cawthorn & Michael Moocock’s Fantasy: The 100 Best Books and David Pringle’s Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels.

The novel follows Norman Saylor, a sociology professor at a small, conservative liberal arts college, Hempnell College. Saylor’s life is going well, he and his wife, Tansy, have a large circle of friends, his students respect him, and he is up for appointment to head the sociology department. Despite these seemingly close relationships with Tansy and their friends, most of the novel is focused on Norman’s thoughts and broodings, with little real interaction with anyone, certainly not over the important matters that concern him.

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The Tarzan of Outer Space: Balzan of the Cat People by Gerry Conway

The Tarzan of Outer Space: Balzan of the Cat People by Gerry Conway

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Balzan of the Cat People: The Blood Stones (Pyramid Books, May 1975). Cover artist unknown

Writing under the name Wallace Moore, Gerard F. Conway (1952 -), produced a 1970s trilogy billed as “The Tarzan of Outer Space.” Conway is known mostly for his comic book writing for Marvel and DC, where he wrote as Gerry Conway and is best known for co-creating the Punisher in 1974. He also has some TV and film credits, including for Conan the Destroyer.

I haven’t read any of his comics but have read the first two in his trilogy, and I own the third. I bought them because they have been billed as Sword & Planet fiction. I suppose they fit, although they’re not exactly typical, being more Tarzan than John Carter. The covers certainly stress that resemblance.

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The Best Vintage Paperbacks of 2025

The Best Vintage Paperbacks of 2025

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Chris Gunter’s choice for the best vintage paperbacks of 2025. Finally a socially relevant Year’s Best list

Ah, the end of the year. When social media — and my email in-box — are filled with Best of the Year lists.

I’m not complaining. I love ’em. But the ones I most enjoy are (of course) lists that include delightful old paperbacks finds. Or are maybe, I dunno, exclusively old paperbacks, since that’s about 90% of my own reading these days.

This year I especially enjoyed old books by Lin Carter (Flashing Swords 2), Jerry Pournelle (West of Honor), C.J. Cherryh (Faded Sun: Kutath) and Clifford D. Simak (City). Not too surprisingly, my favorite 2025 Best of the Year list (so far) has been a short post by Chris Gunter on the Vintage Paperback and Pulp Forum on Facebook, which enthusiastically included classics by Alfred Bester, Keith Roberts, Bob Shaw and others.

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Tor Double #35: Robert A. Heinlein’s Universe and Dean Ing’s Silent Thunder

Tor Double #35: Robert A. Heinlein’s Universe and Dean Ing’s Silent Thunder

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Cover for Universe and Silent Thunder by Joe DeVito

Tor Double #35 is the penultimate volume in the Tor Double series and also the final multi-author offering, originally published in July 1991. A throwback to the early volumes in the series, this volume, although only having a single cover, has embossed title text for the first time since volume #19.

Universe was originally published in Astounding Science Fiction in May 1941. Although not the first generation ship story, Universe is a relatively early example of the subgenre and Heinlein’s first foray into it, although he would return to it in the future, eventually published Universe and its sequel “Common Sense” as the novel Orphans of the Sky.

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The Sword and Planet of Andrew J. Offutt, Part II

The Sword and Planet of Andrew J. Offutt, Part II

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Messenger of Zhuvastou (Berkley Medallion, March 1973). Cover by Jeff Jones

Part I of The Sword and Planet of Andrew J. Offutt is here.

I’ve read two unabashed Sword & Planet novels from Andrew J. Offutt, Messenger of Zhuvastou, and Chieftain of Andor. I thought I had a sequel to the Andor book in my TBR piles but on closer examination it’s the same book with a different title: Clansman of Andor.

Messenger of Zhuvastou features an Earthman named Moris Keniston, the son of a Senator, although this is on a future Earth where humans have begun to spread to the stars. He heads for a primitive, barbaric world called Hellene in search of Elaine Dixon, a woman he is in love with who has been taken there — either voluntarily or involuntarily. Since the planet is supposed to be left undisturbed by galactic civilization, Moris undergoes plastic surgery to make him fit in with the humanoid natives. We already know he has been an Olympic level athlete and is a trained fencer.

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The Sword and Planet of Andrew J. Offutt

The Sword and Planet of Andrew J. Offutt

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My Lord Barbarian (Del Rey, April 1977). Cover by Boris Vallejo

Andrew J. Offutt (1934 -2013) wrote a lot of books and I’m going to talk about him more as I go along. He wrote several Conan pastiches and a whole series of pastiches about Robert E. Howard’s character Cormac Mac Art. He also wrote porn or near porn in several genres under pseudonyms, which I’ll get around to. He has several S&P novels to his credit. Here’s one.

My Lord Barbarian was billed as a Sword and Planet novel, but it didn’t have much of the feel of such a novel to me. It was indeed set on another planet (several in fact), and the setting is S & P — an artificial solar system created by an advanced human civilization which has fallen into decay. Most worship “Siense” (Science) as a God now.

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Tor Doubles #34: Damon Knight’s Double Meaning and Rule Golden

Tor Doubles #34: Damon Knight’s Double Meaning and Rule Golden

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Cover for Double Meaning and Rule Golden by Wayne Barlow

Originally published in May 1991, Tor Double #34 includes two stories by Damon Knight that had previously appeared together (along with three other stories) in Knight’s 1979 collection Rule Golden and Other Stories, published by Avon. Although listed as Tor Double #34 on the copyright page, this volume was published the month before Tor Double #33, which was discussed last week.

Double Meaning was originally published in Startling Stories in January 1953. It was reprinted as one half of an Ace Double in 1965, appearing with the Damon Knight collection Off Center. When reprinted as an Ace Double, it was retitled The Rithian Terror. Over the years, it has been reprinted using both titles.

Knight tells the story of Thorne Spangler, an investigator for the intergalactic human empire. Based on Earth in the mid-twenty-sixth century, he is given the task of finding an enemy Rithian who has managed to make it to the home planet. The Rithians are an alien race who can disguise themselves as humans. A group of either were known to have landed on Earth, seven of whom have been killed, but the final one has gone missing.

Double Meaning is a buddy story, of sorts. Spangler is paired up with Jawj Pembun, an investigator from one of the human colonies who has more experience dealing with the Rithians than anybody on Earth. Spangler views Pembun as a hick and an amateur who refuses to investigate following protocol, instead going off on tangents and jumping to conclusions. The fact that Pembun is quickly proven right in most cases, only makes it harder for Spangler to accept the man or his methods. …

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Sci-Fi Dystopias We Should Learn From

Sci-Fi Dystopias We Should Learn From

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Hardwired (Tor Books, June 1986). Cover by Luis Royo

Sci-fi has long been home to nightmarish views of the future as thrilling as they are frightening. The genre simply would not be the same without our post-apocalyptic wastelands.

But for every Handmaid’s Tale there’s a dystopian vision that doesn’t get the appreciation it deserves. Some have certainly sold millions of copies but are more recognized for drama or action as opposed to what they have to say about the challenges facing us tomorrow.  Here are several such examples that definitely deserve a bit more love from readers. Not for how epic or cool they are but for the underlying ideas their authors hoped we would absorb.

Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams

Hardwired is rightly celebrated for its contributions to cyberpunk. So much of the verbiage, flare, and aesthetic of the subgenre can be traced back to this relatively short novel. A future where the lines between man and machine are blurred? A ruined Earth? The illicit struggle to survive despite overwhelming odds? It’s all here, the ingredients many a choom would run with over the years.

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