Search Results for: tale covers

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Young Horatio Hornblower

Comments 6 comments

Hornblower 1: The Duel (UK, 1998) When you think about swashbucklers at sea, two time periods come to mind: that of the pirates and privateers, from the 16th through 18th centuries, and the Napoleonic naval era at the beginning of the 19th. British captains and crew figure prominently in both these milieus, as you’d expect from an island nation that depended on sea trade and effective warfare on the waves. The British, of course, are proud of their naval heritage,…

Read More Read More

Cloud Painters, Alien Blobs, and War in the Asteroids: March-April 2024 Print SF Magazines

Comments 0 Comment

March-April 2024 issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and the Winter 2024 Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Covers by Eli Bischof (for “Ganny Goes to War”), Eldar Zakirov (for “How Sere Kept Herself Together”) and Mondolithic Studios. There’s some great old-time serial adventure in this month’s print SF magazines. In the Asimov’s SF novella “How Sere Kept Herself Together,” Alexander Jablokov brings back his cynical detective Sere Glagolit (introduced in “How Sere Picked Up Her Laundry,”…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Truth About Sherlock Holmes (Doyle on Holmes)

Comments 5 comments

I have about 500 Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle-related books on my shelves. No surprise, there are some pretty neat things. I’m going to do a couple posts over the next few weeks, looking at some things written by Doyle – or directly involving him. The first is in my copy of Peter Haining’s The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It’s a really nifty book put out by Barnes and Noble in 1995 (with Jeremy Brett on the cover). If you don’t…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Night’s Black Agents by Fritz Leiber

Comments 2 comments

Nights Black Agents (Berkley Books, May 1980). Cover by Wayne Barlowe Nights Black Agents was Fritz Leiber’s first first collection — and in fact his first book. It was originally published in hardcover by Arkham House in 1947, when Leiber was 37 years old. It collects six stories published in Weird Tales and Unknown Worlds, plus one tale from a fanzine, and three new stories — including the long Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser novella “Adept’s Gambit.” Needless to say,…

Read More Read More

The Horrors of Sam Moskowitz

Comments 10 comments

Horrors in Hiding, Horrors Unseen, and Horrors Unknown (Berkley Medallion, February 1973, June 1974, and February 1976). Covers: Vincent Di Fate (x2), uncredited A few years back I wrote a trio of Vintage Treasures pieces about a series of Berkley Medallion paperback horror anthologies from the mid-70s, all edited by Sam Moskowitz (with an assist from Alden H. Norton). Horrors in Hiding (February 1973) Horrors Unseen (June 1974) Horrors Unknown (February 1976) The last two were the final anthologies Moskowitz…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: The Bantam Spectra Élisabeth Vonarburg

Comments 2 comments

The Bantam Spectra Élisabeth Vonarburg: The Silent City (August 1992), In the Mothers’ Land (December 1992), and Reluctant Voyagers (March 1995). Covers by Oscar Chichoni, Oscar Chichoni, and Stephen Youll I left Canada to attend grad school at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign in August 1987, and when I did I lost touch with much of the vibrant Canadian SF scene. There were a few Canadian authors celebrated in the States — folks like Charles de Lint, Donald…

Read More Read More

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Darkness Before the Dawn

Comments 13 comments

Dungeons & Dragons (USA/Czech Republic, 2000) Heroic fantasy on the big screen was in a parlous state at the dawn of the 21st century, and anyone whose crystal ball was foggy about the immediate cinematic future could be forgiven for thinking that swords and sorcery films were at their nadir. The Barbarian Boom was long past, Kull the Conqueror had been terrible, the Merlin miniseries was mediocre, and Xena: Warrior Princess had run its course. It was a grim time,…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: World’s Best Science Fiction First Series edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr

Comments 6 comments

World’s Best Science Fiction First Series (Ace Books, 1970). Cover by Jack Gaughan If you want to understand science fiction, it’s not a bad idea to start by reading Year’s Best volumes. And if you’re going to do that, it’s not a bad idea to start with the World’s Best Science Fiction, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr, an annual series that began in 1965 and lasted for an amazing 26 volumes. The last of which, The 1990…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: The Augmented Agent by Jack Vance

Comments 12 comments

The Augmented Agent (Ace Books, September 1988). Cover by Terry Oakes I need to read more Jack Vance. It’s not hard to do. Virtually all of his short fiction has been collected over the years, in places like the five-volume The Early Jack Vance, edited by Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan, and the massive The Jack Vance Treasury. Of course, those are small press collections, and if you’re looking for a more affordable way to dip your toe into the…

Read More Read More

Great Books Make You Cry

Comments 28 comments

John Crowley’s Flint and Mirror (Tor, April 2022), Engine Summer (Bantam, December 1983), and The Translator (William Morrow/HarperCollins, April 2002). Covers: unknown, Yvonne Gilbert, Chin-Yee Lai Recently I mentioned that passages in John Crowley’s Flint and Mirror made me cry… and it was (nicely) hinted that maybe it’s odd for men to cry while reading. The thing is, I cry often while reading. Sometimes for sad events, sometimes for joy, sometimes for anger, sometimes for wonder, sometimes for sheer beauty….

Read More Read More