The Martian Chronicles Meet True Grit: The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud

The Martian Chronicles Meet True Grit: The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud

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The Strange (Saga Press, March 21, 2023). Cover uncredited

I wish I could take credit for the headline of The Martian Chronicles Meet True Grit for Nathan Ballingrud’s terrific novel, but according to the author, Karen Jay Fowler came up with it. I hope she won’t mine me stealing it because it is as spot on as any description I could come up with.

The more prosaic version is that The Strange is a Western riff on Ray Bradbury’s vision of Mars, but without the canals. A Mars in an alternate 1930s timeline when interplanetary space travel first began during the Civil War, an oblique reference (among a slew of oblique references to classic SF tropes and personages) to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter, an ex-Confederate Barsoom warlord. Just as Bradbury had no interest in explaining how humans could actually exist on Mars sans space suits in a sort of off-world version of 1950s Illinois, or Burroughs how you can get astrally projected from an Arizona cave to Mars, Ballingrud just wants you to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride.

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Five Things I Think I Think (March 2024)

Five Things I Think I Think (March 2024)

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And it’s another installment of Five Things I Think I Think. Because we all like to tell EVERYONE else our opinions, right? Social media was a godsend for mankind’s overweening self-absorption. Not that I have a problem with that…

Hopefully I hit on an item or two of interest.

1) BARKER & LLEWELYN IS AN EXCELLENT SERIES

Will Thomas has written fourteen novels and one short story featuring Sherlock Holmes’ “hated rival upon the Surrey shore” (“Adventure of the Retired Colourman”). Cyrus Barker is an Eastern-trained private inquiry agent. Thomas Llewelyn is his Watson. I had read the first several novels years ago.

Audible has most of them, and I went back to book one, the aptly-titled Some Danger Involved, and am about to start book eight, Hell Bay. I highly recommend this to Holmes, or Victorian detectives, fans.

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Neil’s Horror Corner: The Weird, Weird West, Part 1

Neil’s Horror Corner: The Weird, Weird West, Part 1

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Dead Noon (Igotshde Productions, 2009), Mad at the Moon (Republic Pictures
Home Video, 1992), and Bullets for the Dead (Visionquest Entertainment, 2015)

I’m sometimes asked why I haven’t got around to watching Oppenheimer or Killers of the Flower Moon yet, and that’s because I’m too busy watching this sort of stuff.

Dead Noon (2009) – Prime

Stand-off with six guns?

Yep. Flaming bullets too.

Uncomfortable chaps?

Zombies, demons etc.

Any good?

No, ma’am.

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

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

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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 Annual World’s Best SF, appeared four months before Wollheim’s death at the age of 76.

The series survived both editorial changes and a switch in publishers (from Ace to DAW, in 1972), and was one of the only Year’s Best series to receive multiple paperback reprints. In fact, for collectors like me, its publication history is all rather confounding. Follow along while I try and figure it all out.

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A to Z Reviews: “A Brief History of Death Switches,” by David Eagleman

A to Z Reviews: “A Brief History of Death Switches,” by David Eagleman

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A to Z Reviews

David Eagleman’s “A Brief History of Death Switches” is a perfect example of a story whose meaning changes over time, but is just as valid now than it was when it was originally published in 2006.

Around the time Eagleman wrote his story, there were many web services which were set up designed to prolong a person’s internet presence beyond death. These services would send out emails purportedly from the dead person on anniversaries or notifications of death. They didn’t last long, but Eagleman took the idea and expanded upon it.

In the context of his story, death switches begin as a means of protecting information. If a person doesn’t log into an account in a set period of time, the system assumes they are dead and sends the appropriate log-in information to a designated successor. This is meant to ensure that businesses can continue to function and heirs can access confidential financial information following the death of an employee or loved one.

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The Hobby Shop Dungeon, by Benoist Poire and Ernest Gary Gygax Jr.

The Hobby Shop Dungeon, by Benoist Poire and Ernest Gary Gygax Jr.

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The Hobby Shop Dungeon Marmoreal Tomb Campaign Starter

The Hobby Shop Dungeon, by Benoist Poire and Ernest Gary Jr. Gygax is a marvel to behold.

One can utilize these books and maps for years — a complete setting loaded with maps, histories, set pieces, dungeons (arguably a mega-dungeon), wilderness, factions, heraldry, unique monsters, unique magic items, and adventure hooks abounding. It is quite a feat and an enormous labor of love.

Poring through it all, I’d say my favorite parts are the heraldry (very Greyhawk in spirit), the wilderness and dungeon maps, and the Prismatic Maze (sounds very Vancian).

I’ve assembled some photos from the box set below for you to enjoy. You can order copies from Troll Lord Games or from Isle of Games.

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Emancipation: April by Mackey Chandler

Emancipation: April by Mackey Chandler

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April, Mackey Chandler (self published, May 4, 2019). Cover uncredited

Back in 2020, one of the blogs I follow had a paragraph about a newly released self-published novel, Who Can Own the Stars? by Mackey Chandler. The title sounded interesting, so I tracked it down on Amazon. It turned out to be volume 12 of a series; having enjoyed it, I went back to the first volume, April, and then read through the entire series, one volume at a time.

Like many science fiction writers of an earlier era, Chandler has a background that’s technological rather than literary. The April series is self-published, and has the rough spots that often go with that: It could benefit from a professional line edit, both to catch errors of language and to avoid minor inconsistencies such as changing a character’s name. As a copy editor, I’m sensitive to such things, and often they put me off a book. However, I just finished rereading April, and still found it both enjoyable and interesting.

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New Treasures: The Water City Trilogy by Chris Mckinney

New Treasures: The Water City Trilogy by Chris Mckinney

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Midnight, Water City; Eventide, Water City; and
Sunset, Water City (Soho Crime, 2021-2023). Covers by Vlado Krizan

I was in Barnes & Noble last week, and saw an intriguing set of books on the shelves: The Water City Trilogy. It’s not often an entire trilogy manages to sneak past me, especially one with covers this colorful. The back of the first volume had this enticing blurb from Buzzfeed.

This gritty noir set in a sci-fi landscape is a real page turner.

I’m not familiar with the publisher, Soho Crime, and I’ve never heard of the author, Chris McKinney. But I’m not known in this business as a crazy risk taker for nothing. I put down my money and brought Midnight, Water City home.

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: The Big Store (Wolf J. Flywheel)

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: The Big Store (Wolf J. Flywheel)

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For nearly the first time in a year, it’s Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone!

If you read my column here, or follow me on FB, you know that I am a gargantuan Nero Wolfe fan (points if you got that). It’s my favorite series in any genre. I’ve written a lot of fiction and non-fiction about him, and below, you can find links to the prior forty-four posts here at Black Gate.

I have several stories in progress (maybe I could actually finish one or two!). There is one project I set aside that has been one of the most fun things I’ve written so far. I’m also a huge Marx Brothers fan. While The Big Store is not considered one of their best movies, I like it quite a bit.

I’m deep into a story in which I have Wolf J. Flywheel hire Wolfe for help solving a murder in The Big Store. The story is original, but it uses the characters, and is definitely an homage. You can imagine how Groucho gets on Wolfe’s nerves.

If this works, I might write one with Groucho and Wolfe, based on the Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel radio show. I think I do Groucho and Chico fairly well. Hope you get a chuckle.

The doorbell rang. I put down my coffee and walked out to the hall, waving off Fritz, who had come out of the kitchen. “Allow me. I’ve been staring at the wall for fifteen minutes. I don’t think it’s going to move now that I’ve taken my eye off of it.” I shooed him away.

I looked through the one-way glass to see two men standing on the stoop. Even as a boy in Chillicothe, Ohio, I was never the slack-jawed yokel New Yorkers think we corn-fed Midwesterners are. But I’m pretty sure my mouth was hanging open now. The guy in the front had a ridiculous mustache and dark, bushy eyebrows. Add in the wire rim glasses and cigar, and he was probably the most unique-looking individual to visit the Brownstone.

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Vintage Treasures: Memories by Mike McQuay

Vintage Treasures: Memories by Mike McQuay

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Memories (Bantam Spectra Special Edition, August 1989). Cover by Will Cormier

Mike McQuay published his first SF novel, Lifekeeper, in 1980, and he died just fifteen years later, in May 1995. But in that decade and a half he enjoyed an impressive career as a science fiction and fantasy novelist.

He made his mark writing men’s adventure with a light SF twist, starting with the Mathew Swain (“The 21st Century Private Eye”) series, the covers of which unfailingly featured our hero clutching one of three essential tools of the trade: a pistol, a cigarette, or a slender young woman (frequently several at once). They began with Hot Time in Old Town (1981), which proudly bore the cover blurb “Can a hard-boiled private eye beat the odds in the back alleys of tomorrow?” That same year he was selected to write the novelization for John Carpenter’s cinematic masterpiece Escape From New York, and you can sorta see the connection.

Just six years later McQuay published Memories, which signaled a significant evolution as a writer. It was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award for distinguished science fiction paperback, and began a period when McQuay was taken much more seriously. His next book The Nexus — which Joe Bonadonna called ‘brilliant’ in his Black Gate review — was released as part of Bantam Spectra’s prestigious Spectra Special Edition line in 1989.

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