A to Z Reviews: “A Sound, Like Angels Singing,” by Leonard Rysdyk

A to Z Reviews: “A Sound, Like Angels Singing,” by Leonard Rysdyk

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A to Z Reviews

Leonard Rysdyk published a handful of short stories in the early 1990s, and has continued to self publish novels. His second short story, “A Sound Like Angels Singing,” appeared in 1993 in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s anthology Snow White, Blood Red, the first volume of their six book fairy tale anthology series.

Rysdyk’s narrator is a rat who goes about its rodential business scrambling for food, having sex, fighting with other rats, and basically living a glorious rat lifestyle. They do have to avoid the dogs and cats that humans employ to attempt to kill them, but for rats, every day is pretty much like every other day. The status quo doesn’t make for a good story, and so on this particular day, something strange seems to be happening, although the narrator can’t quite place what it is.

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The World of Tiers and Beyond: Philip Jose Farmer, Part I

The World of Tiers and Beyond: Philip Jose Farmer, Part I

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The World of Tiers, Volumes 1 and 2 (Science Fiction Book Club, November 1981). Covers by Boris Vallejo

Philip Jose Farmer (1918 – 2009). Farmer was a versatile writer. I discovered him from his Sword & Planet work with his World of Tiers series, but went on to read a lot of other books by him, including some pastiches he wrote in ERB’s universe. I’ll be discussing him here in two posts.

My introduction to Farmer came through the Science Fiction Book Club. They offered the first five books in The World of Tiers in a two-volume set, and I still have mine (shown here, with covers by Boris Vallejo.) I read them straight through and looked for more. There weren’t any. Not at the time. Years later, another book (More than Fire) was published, but I haven’t read it. I did read a connected book called Red Orc’s Rage.

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The End of Time and Me: Michael Moorcock’s Dancers at the End of Time

The End of Time and Me: Michael Moorcock’s Dancers at the End of Time

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The Dancers at the End of Time trilogy: An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands,
and The End of All Songs (Avon Books, September and November 1977,
and June 1978). Cover art by Stanislaw Fernandes

When I discovered Moorcock in the early 1980s, I read his trilogy Dancers at the End of Time and the associated novel A Messiah at the End of Time. I remember enjoying the trilogy, though I have only vague memories of the stand-alone novel. Back in 2017, I re-read Moorcock’s Elric series and wrote about it for Black Gate. In 2020, I did the same for his Corum novels and in 2022, I revisited Erekose. Rather than look at Hawkmoon, which I last re-read in 2010, I decided to dive into The End of Time sequence.

In addition to The Dancers at the End of Time trilogy and the novel The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming (also published as Messiah at the End of Time and Constant Fire), Moorcock has written several short stories that belong to the sequence: “Pale Roses,” “White Stars,” “Ancient Shadows,” “Elric at the End of Time,” and “Sumptuous Dress: A Question of Size at the End of Time.” Although most were published before I read the trilogy, I believe I missed all of them with the exception of “Elric at the End of Time.”

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Fame – an Introvert’s Dilemma

Fame – an Introvert’s Dilemma

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This is my literal nightmare.
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn!

It is a long-held convention, it seems, that writers are, by nature, introverts. From my experience, both quite personally, and with nearly everyone in my immediate professional circle, this seems to be the case. In fact, of the many writers that I know in person, only one of them is not an introvert. She is the only one who is invigorated by crowds. Others you might be excused believing are extroverts, given their bright, effusive natures, but they, too, collapse into a heap following interactions with people.

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Ten Things I Think Think: Marvel Edition

Ten Things I Think Think: Marvel Edition

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At loose ends and not too keen on writing over the Labor Day holiday weekend, I decided to start a week-long Marvel deep dive. I had re-watched Guardians of the Galaxy stuff for the third one, so I set those aside. And I had watched the Logan movies not too long ago, so I skipped X-Men stuff.

With those parameters, I re-watched (with a couple first watches):

Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers: Endgame
Iron Man 1
Captain America: The First Avenger
Iron Man 2
The Amazing Spider Man 2 (Andrew Garfield – first watch)
Thor 1
The Avengers
Thor 2: The Dark World
Iron Man 3
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
The Fantastic Four 1
Venom (first watch)
The Fantastic Four 2: Silver Surfer
Spider-Man 1 (Toby Maguire)
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 3

That’s a lot of Marvel And I really enjoyed the re-watch. Because I figure the world always needs more of my opinion, it’s time for another Ten Things I Think I Think – Marvel Edition. I kept watching more, and there’s a follow up to this post, here. 🙂

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When Your First Language is Role-Playing Games

When Your First Language is Role-Playing Games

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A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords by David “Zeb” Cook, Allen Hammack, Harold Johnson,
Tom Moldvay, Lawrence Schick, and Edward Carmien (TSR, 1986), and Oriental Adventures:
Night of the Seven Swords by Jon Pickens, David “Zeb” Cook, Harold Johnson, Rick Swan,
Edward Carmien, and David James Ritchie (TSR, 1986). Cover art by Jeff Easley and Clyde Caldwell

Always a writer, the first significant things I wrote were role-playing adventures, some for old-school Dungeons & Dragons, but mostly for what the kids today call a home brew system based on the PrinceCon rules (kudos to the very very few who know that one). Later in life I’d write for TSR, Inc., including some AD&D stuff, work for the Indiana Jones game (hats off to the great Harold Johnson who had way too much fun making paper cut-outs exciting), writing for a family game called CrossCheck (I think? That assignment = a zillion or so crossword puzzle questions), basically whatever the company needed doing that no one else wanted to do.

But in these early, formative years, I came up with games and ran them for my friends, first in high school, then in college. By then I worked on poetry and fiction, too, and ran into a problem. I spoke RPGs. Fiction was essentially a second language.

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Of Artistry, Addiction, and Self-discovery: Forthcoming Memoir of Fantasy Artist Tom Barber

Of Artistry, Addiction, and Self-discovery: Forthcoming Memoir of Fantasy Artist Tom Barber

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The art of Tom Barber: Amazing Science Fiction, March 1976, and the first issue of the
paperback version of Weird Tales, edited by Lin Carter (Zebra Books, December 1980)

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.

–Kurt Vonnegut

Tom Barber was working in a commercial art studio in the mid 70s when he walked into a local bookstore while on lunch break. He found a book of illustrations by N.C. Wyeth, picked it up, leafed through it.

Returning to work, he marched into his boss’ office and gave his two-week notice.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but after looking at those paintings I knew it was something along those lines,” he said.

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A to Z Reviews: “Auriga’s Streetcar,” by Jean Rabe

A to Z Reviews: “Auriga’s Streetcar,” by Jean Rabe

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A to Z Reviews

Growing up in northern Illinois with an interest in astronomy, I was very familiar with the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. The 40-inch refractor telescope, built in 1893, was the largest of its type until the 43 inch Swedish Solar Telescope was completed in 2001, although only 39 inches of that telescope are usable.

In 2004, Jean Rabe published the short story “Auriga’s Streetcar” in Martin H. Greenberg and John Helfers’ anthology Space Stations. Rabe’s heroine, Hoshi, has taken a private spacecraft to the abandoned Yerkes-Two space station on the eve of its deorbiting to see what she can salvage, with her focus on the40-inch lenses that had once be used at the Williams Bay Observatory, but which had since but relocated to the space station.

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A Master of his Art: Rattle of Bones and Other Terrifying Tales by Robert E. Howard

A Master of his Art: Rattle of Bones and Other Terrifying Tales by Robert E. Howard

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Rattle of Bones and Other Terrifying Tales (Clover Press, October 20, 2020). Cover by Gabriel Rodriguez

“Damned be the dark ends of the earth where old horrors live again.”
— Robert E. Howard

Some of the finest gifts are from your buddy, a kindred spirit and dog brother in REH fandom, such as that damnable reprobate, Levi Combs. At Gamehole Con this year, Levi gifted me with this beautiful copy of Rattle of Bones and Other Terrifying Tales, by Robert E. Howard. And what a treasure it is!

This collection contains some of REH’s finest horror yarns, such as “In the Forest of Villefère,” “Wolfshead,” “Sea Curse,” “Rattle of Bones,” “The Touch of Death,” “Dig Me No Grave,” “People of the Dark,” and “The House of Arabu.” It was published by Clover Press and features beautiful art by Gabriel Rodriguez. It also features an afterword by horror master Steve Niles, perhaps best known for 30 Days of Night.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Pirates Rise from a Watery Grave

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Pirates Rise from a Watery Grave

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Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (USA, 2003)

It’s hard to remember now, but a mere quarter-century ago, the pirate movie genre was dead and over, ninety years of cheesy swashbuckling and occasional scalawag glory doomed to the ash-heap of history. And then, grinning with malice, pirate films rose like drowned zombies and shambled back to the screen, more raffish and rakehelly than ever. And who do we have to thank for this unforeseen and unholy resurrection? A committee of corporate bean-counters at, of all places, Walt Disney Pictures — damn their eyes!

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