Beasts of Burden Omnibus by Evan Dorkin, Jill Thompson, and Benjamin Dewey

Beasts of Burden Omnibus by Evan Dorkin, Jill Thompson, and Benjamin Dewey

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I wanted to write a haunted house story, but not along traditional lines. After a few false starts I hit on the idea of a haunted doghouse, which became my pitch for “Stray.”

Evan Dorkin

The Beasts of Burden Omnibus (2025) brings together all the stories of the supernatural investigators of the town of Burden Hill as written by Evan Dorkin and illustrated by Jill Thompson and Brian Dewey. What separates the protectors of Burden Hill from others in their field like John Silence or Carl Kolchak is that they are animals. Dogs, in fact, mostly, with a few cats enlisted along the way.

Let me start by providing several warnings for this review. First, I love psychic investigator stories. I watched the Kolchak tv show with my mom when it premiered and I was 8, and Manly Wade Wellman’s John the Balladeer is one of my absolute favorite series of stories. Second, I’m very fond of talking animals, from Wind in the Willows to Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy books (well, at least the first half-dozen or so). Third, and finally, I’m friends with Evan Dorkin. We’ve known each other for, well, a very long time. Nonetheless, before I go any further, let me say, while I might have been predisposed to enjoy Beasts of Burden, there was no guarantee I’d like it as much as I do. It also means I got to ask him a couple of questions about the his stories and the series’ evolution.

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Into the Weird: Weird Tales, July-August 1923 (Volume 2, Number 1), Part 1

Into the Weird: Weird Tales, July-August 1923 (Volume 2, Number 1), Part 1

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Weird Tales, July-August 1923, front and back covers.
The fifth issue of Weird Tales was cover-dated July-August 1923, meaning for practical purposes that the magazine had skipped publishing in the month of July. With the skipped month the first volume of Weird Tales came to an end after four issues; the fifth issue began Volume 2, which would last for four months. Then the magazine skipped the month of December, and the January 1924 issue began Volume 3, which would run for another four issues. Things got a little confusing at that point, as we will eventually see.

The second volume doesn’t have any major differences in format from the first, which is to say the July-August issue physically resembles the June one. It’s the same size, with the same logo. The cover illustration’s black-and-white instead of colour, but is a definite step up in craftsmanship. The image is signed ‘Mally’ above the initials ‘RLM’ in a circle, and is likely the work of George William Mally, perhaps in collaboration with his wife Ruth Lena Mikelson Mally. It’s solid draughtsmanship and looks reasonably dramatic, though it’s unclear what story it’s meant to be illustrating.

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So Much Potential: Lords of the Ultra-Realm by Doug Moench and Pat Broderick

So Much Potential: Lords of the Ultra-Realm by Doug Moench and Pat Broderick

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Lords of the Ultra-Realm by Doug Moench and Pat Broderick (DC Comics six-issue mini-series, 1986)

I started scouting for sword and sorcery in the spring of 1974, after stumbling upon Marvel Comics’ Conan the Barbarian #39 (March 1974). At the time, Robert E. Howard’s most famous creation was known to few beyond the then-small and -deviant subcultures of comics and fantasy.

How obscure, in my adolescence, was the Cimmerian? I mistook the cover’s loincloth-clad, axe-swinging character for a Tarzan knock-off. How wrong — how delightfully wrong — I was. More like this, please!

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Forgotten Authors: R. R. Winterbotham

Forgotten Authors: R. R. Winterbotham

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R.R. Winterbotham

Russell R. Winterbotham was born on August 1, 1904 in Salina, Kansas to Gertrude (nee Bond) and Dr. Jonathan Winterbotham. He married Nadine Shick and they had one daughter, who they named Ann.

His sf career had two phases, the first running from 1935, when he published “The Star That Would Not Behave” in the August Astounding Stories, to 1943. Most of his science fiction was bylined with his initials: R.R. Winterbotham. Winterbotham claimed that he “was the only writer to have stories in the one and only issue of Flash Gordon Magazine. I wrote both of the stories in that issue, one under the name of R. B. [sic] Botham. Don’t read them.” In fact, the only issue, which appeared in December, 1936 included Winterbotham’s “The Sage of the Smokepot” and “Botham”’s “The Last War,” but also James Edison Northford (or Northfield)’s The Master of Mars and R.C. Vance (or Vane) and F.K. Young’s “The Man Without a Brain.”

The early forties saw him publish three novels about Maximo the Amazing Superman. He also continued to publish short fiction until 1943 when “Oridin’s Formula” appeared in Planet Stories, but after its appearance, Winterbotham focused on his newspaper career and writing numerous books for Big Little Books and Little Blue Books.

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Poison Pen and Poltergeist: Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

Poison Pen and Poltergeist: Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

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Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers (Avon, 1968)

“Do you know the Guest Room, miss? That would be after your time, perhaps. Well, it’s on the New Bridge, miss, between Tudor Building and the North Annexe where the Cottage used to be, miss, only of course that’s all done away with now and you has to go up by the main staircase past the West Lecture Room, miss, what used to be the Junior Common Room, miss, before they made the new entrance and moved the stairs, and then turn right and it’s half-way along the corridor. You can’t mistake it, miss.”

In Gaudy Night, Sayers returns to Harriet Vane, after showing Peter Wimsey on his own again in Murder Must Advertise and The Nine Tailors. In fact, a large part of Gaudy Night focuses on Vane on her own, while Wimsey is away doing something for the foreign service. The chronology is a little odd; at one point the events of The Nine Tailors, published just the year before, are referred to as three years in the past. Perhaps Sayers wants to make a point of how long Wimsey’s courtship of Vane has been at a standstill. In any case, Gaudy Night finally resolves that issue.

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A Library With a Life of Its Own

A Library With a Life of Its Own

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This is one of six shelves in my study and doesn’t show my multiple floor stacks, three of which are, seriously, as tall as I am.

Hello, it’s my first post in 13 years (since The Before It’s Too Late List, way back in October 2013) and I have to discuss my library again. Obviously.

It occurred to me that my library, the mass of books I’ve spent my life accumulating, has acquired a kind of life of its own.

A few years ago I was reading a history of detective fiction, and it was mentioned that the longest running detective series was the one about Mike Shayne by ‘Brett Halliday’ (originally Davis Dresser but later many ghost writers working under the Halliday name). Damn, I thought, I really ought to try some Mike Shayne. I seemed to recall I had picked up a Shayne novel somewhere, so I checked my shelves. I had two. Which ones? The first and second volumes. My library was prepared to answer my needs perfectly even if I had no recollection of setting it up to do so.

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Richard Stark’s Parker, Part 11: The Seventh

Richard Stark’s Parker, Part 11: The Seventh

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The Seventh by Richard Stark (Pocket Books, 1966)

What is it?

Volume 7 of Richard Stark’s Parker series of crime novels.

The title applies in two ways.

The string Parker joins for the heist is made up of seven criminals, with each of them expecting to receive a seventh of the take. (There’s a clever twist on this at the end, as well.)

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What I’ve Been Listening To: Mistletoe Murders (November 2026)

What I’ve Been Listening To: Mistletoe Murders (November 2026)

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Tis the season. Yeah, I know, we just put Halloween to bed. But I got chocolate Little Debbie Christmas tree cakes at the grocery store last week and I’m not complaining about that ONE bit!

I’m about to pitch you an Audible streaming series that has ties to How I Met Your Mother and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Good Witch, and Veronica Mars. Just to whet your interest.

Headspinner Productions created a streaming series for Audible: Mistletoe Murders. Hallmark then adapted it to a TV series. Unless I specify, I’m talking about the Audible streaming show.

Emily Lane runs a year-round Christmas store – Under the Mistletoe — in a small Canadian town. A town that has a hunky, too-good-to-be-true, sheriff; Sam. Who has the perfect teen daughter, Violet (more on her in a bit). Naturally, she works in the store.

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Weird Times 8: The International Scene

Weird Times 8: The International Scene

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The Canadian Red Ensign as used from 1922 to 1957 (top), and the current flag of Canada, the Maple Leaf or l’Unifolié.
This is the sixth post in a series reflecting on the world of the 1920s as a background to early issues of Weird Tales. Imagine that you’re an American in a big city in 1923, and you’re taking a walk to the newsstand to buy the first issue of a new pulp fiction magazine. What sort of things might you see? What do those things suggest about ways people think? Or about the stories they tell?

Perhaps, just possibly, you’ll walk past a hotel or other building with a display of flags of the world. In which case you might see a flag representing Canada. You won’t find a Canadian consulate or legation, as Canada doesn’t have any of those in 1923. The reason why not will be hinted at by the Canadian flag you’ll see. Officially, the national flag of Canada in 1923 is the Royal Union Flag, also known as the Union Jack. But there is another flag more specifically associated with Canada: the Canadian Red Ensign. The original Red Ensign, flown by British merchantmen, is a field of red with the Union Jack in the upper left corner. The Canadian Red Ensign formerly added the coat of arms of the nine provinces to the red field; in 1922 when King George V granted Canada a coat of arms the new heraldry replaced the provincial insignia. The Red Ensign’s not an official flag, and in fact will only be formally authorised for use on Canadian government buildings outside Canada in 1924, but it’s widely-used nevertheless and during the Great War was a common symbol of Canadian identity. You will certainly not see a red-bordered flag with a red maple leaf against a white background; in 1923, you’re more than 40 years too early for that.

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Some Thoughts on Steven Spielberg’s 2005 War of the Worlds

Some Thoughts on Steven Spielberg’s 2005 War of the Worlds

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Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (Paramount Pictures, June 29, 2005)

H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds has always been a favorite of mine, since reading the excellent Classics Illustrated version, then Wells’ novel, and finally seeing the wonderful 1953 George Pale/Byron Haskins film version on television. I first encountered Wells in grade school, in an anthology of short stories, where I first read his “The Truth About Pyecraft”. That’s where I also first encountered Ray Bradbury and his “There Will Come Soft Rains,” and Poe’s The Raven, my favorite poem. Among a number of other authors in that collection were stories by Jack London, Saki, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Later I read Wells’ The Time Machine, When the Sleeper Wakes, The Island of Dr. Moreau, In the Days of the Comet, and The Shape of Things to Come, to name a few.

The 1953 film version of War of the Worlds is a classic, for sure, and to me it’s the perfect example of what makes for a great science fiction film. Magical special effects that still hold up today, with solid performances by the cast, and lush cinematography that really pops on Blu-Ray. Enough has been written about that film, so today I want to share some thoughts on Steven Spielberg’s 2005 version, without comparing the two films in any way. I don’t consider it a true remake, because both films are based on Wells’ novel. They’re just two different visions.

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