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Month: January 2012

A Few Words on Clark Ashton Smith

A Few Words on Clark Ashton Smith

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A Rendezvous in AveroigneLast Friday was Friday the thirteenth. It was also Clark Ashton Smith’s birthday. In memory of that conjunction, I’d like to write a bit about Smith and his work. I have only a few thoughts about Smith’s prose style; Ryan Harvey’s excellent and insightful look at Smith’s fiction can be found in four parts, here, here, here, and here. And you can find an online collection of Smith’s works here.

Smith’s probably a familiar figure to many readers of this site, but for those that don’t know him, some background: Born in 1893, Smith suffered from a fear of crowds, and never attended high school. He was an autodidact and dedicated reader; he apparently read, in fact, through the Encyclopedia Britannica and Webster’s Dictionary. He wrote novels as a teenager (I haven’t read them, though in recent years they’ve been put into print), sold a few stories at 17, and then published a collection of verse at 19. Plagued by ill-health, he continued to write poetry, and in 1922 received a fan letter from H.P. Lovecraft. The two men became pen pals, and shared ideas and imagery.

In 1929 Smith began writing weird fiction, odd mélanges of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. He published in Weird Tales, like Lovecraft, and like Robert E. Howard, with whom he struck up a friendship by post in 1933. Howard died in 1936, Lovecraft in 1937, and then late in 1937 first Smith’s mother and then his father passed away. Smith had for the most part stopped writing fiction in 1935; although a few stories came in later years, as well as more verse, Smith shifted his focus to sculpture for much of the rest of his life. He died in 1961.

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New Treasures: Armchair Fiction

New Treasures: Armchair Fiction

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girl-who-loved-deathI stumbled on the new line of Armchair Fiction science fiction and horror reprints late last year, and finally ordered a few in December.

Armchair claims they’re “dedicated to the restoration of classic genre fiction,” and they mean it. So far they’ve published 39 “Double Novels” — two short novels packaged together, modeled after the fondly-remembered Ace Doubles from the 50s and 60s — plus 15 single novels, and six short story collections.

Much of what they’ve publishing has been out of print for decades, including work from Fritz Leiber, Murray Leinster, Robert Sheckley, Mack Reynolds, Jerome Bixby, Keith Laumer, Edgar Pangborn, Richard S. Shaver, Robert A. W. Lowndes, Leigh Brackett, Raymond F. Jones, Poul Anderson, and many others.

When a vintage press is inclusive enough to reprint the work of Richard S. Shaver, author of the infamous “Shaver Mysteries,” you know they’re serious. Trust me.

I’ve been very pleased with the books I’ve received so far — they’re quality productions, probably print-on-demand, although POD has gotten so polished these days I can’t even be sure. They’re glossy paperbacks, with excellent cover reproductions (most taken from 50s SF magazine covers and Ace Doubles), about the size of a trade paperback, and reasonably priced at $12.95.

They have 15 new releases for Winter 2012, including fiction from Clifford D. Simak, Rog Phillips, Stanton A. Coblentz, Jack Sharkey, Edmond Hamilton, Frank Belknap Long, Don Wilcox, and other neglected science fiction and horror writers.

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Mark Rigney Reviews Ivy’s Ever After

Mark Rigney Reviews Ivy’s Ever After

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ivys-ever-afterIvy’s Ever After
Dawn Lairamore
Holiday House, Inc., (311 pp, $16.95, 2010)
Reviewed by Mark Rigney

There is a land where children go, to fill their minds with castles and kings and queens and rescues and, well, you know. All that stuff. For some, that land comes equipped with polyhedron dice. For seasoned readers ready to dispense with their dice, one can always fall back on Tolkien, Sir Walter Scott, or Le Morte d’Arthur. But what if you happen to be, say, nine years old, and a veteran of second-hand My Pretty Ponies and half-remembered episodes of TV’s greatest fantasia, Sesame Street? The Babysitter’s Club won’t be for you, no, and Swallows and Amazons might be a little dated. Time, then, to sample the gentle charms of Ivy’s Ever After.

Dawn Lairamore has two things on her mind from the get-go. First, she sets out to tell a quite traditional tale set (of course) in a distant, unknown realm where a crisis of succession will soon vault young Princess Ivy into being the only one in the entire kingdom who can save the kingdom entire. Second, she wants to upend the genre just enough to ensure that Ivy actually will be a heroine worthy of a post-Sigourney Weaver world, a heroine who will rely not at all on the hapless men in her life (including her father, the king), and, indeed, not by any male aside from the rather large, winged exception of the dragon set to guard Ivy’s tower.

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Black Static #26

Black Static #26

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black-static-26Black Gate contributor Mark Rigney’s story, “The Demon Laplace,” inspires the cover art by Rik Rawling for the December 2011-January 2012 Black Static. A variation of the “be careful what you wish for” trope, Rigney’s protagonist, Alan, is a 27 year-old postal worker whose lackluster love life has him worrying that he’ll never find someone to settle down with or, worse, he’ll settle for whoever might come along.  Then he meets mercurial Michael Wish (ostensibly short for Wyczniewski), a postal colleague of Alan’s who is taking a break from grad studies in statistics.  Michael in Hebrew means “he who is like god” and who better than a god to grant wishes; unless, that is, the god is really a devil.

Further complicating the picture is whether mathematics can actually predict future behavior (if you aren’t familiar with Laplace’s equation, Google can explain it for you).  After a series of what could be clever parlor tricks, an initially dubious Alan comes to invest god-like powers in Michael when the prediction that Alan will marry the next woman he talks to comes true.

The question is does it come true because Michael actually can predict the future or is it because Alan is so thorough convinced of Michael’s prestidigitation that he acts to make it true? Knowing, or at least believing, that someone can foretell future events leads to Alan’s obsession with finding out what he should do next. Problem is, Michael disavows that he was really doing anything more than “messing” with Alan:

“You little jackass. You want what really happened. Fine. When we met, sorting mail? That was a break from grad school–statistics,yes, probability curves — but I was halfway through my thesis, I was bored stiff, and I needed some kind of inspiration. Turns out what I needed was a live. unsuspecting subject. And there you were, a walking tabula rosa, just going with the flow…You fell for everything I said, hook, line and sinker. There. Is that what you came to hear?

4081Problem is, that’s not what Alan came to hear. Which results in tragedy (you are reading a dark horror magazine so why would you expect anything less?) that may, or may not, have been easily foreseen.

In your future I see some interesting reading ahead.

Blogging Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Part Sixteen – “Return to Earth”

Blogging Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Part Sixteen – “Return to Earth”

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fg6fg5“Return to Earth” was the sixteenth installment of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon Sunday comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between July 6 and December 28, 1941, “Return to Earth” is the first storyline following the conclusion of the Mongo storyline that had carried the strip through its first seven years. The journey back to Earth takes six days. Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkov crash land in the Atlantic Ocean and are picked up by a US Navy Destroyer. Rather than receiving the heroes’ homecoming they anticipated, they find they are treated with suspicion. The government fears that they might be Fifth Column agents of the totalitarian Red Sword regime (Alex Raymond’s commentary on 20th Century Fascism) whose aggression has led to a Second World War.

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Goth Chick News: 50-Year-Old Bird Carcasses Anyone…?

Goth Chick News: 50-Year-Old Bird Carcasses Anyone…?

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image0081There are those who will maintain that in order to call yourself a “fan” of something, you must be a complete expert on that topic.

I, however, would not be one of those people.

Those bits of trivia I retain about my favorite subject matters is sheer coincidence born of seeing, hearing or reading it multiple times until it stuck. Because of this there has been more than one incident where I inadvertently insulted a “real fan” of said topics by not being immediately aware of some “critical” bit of information related to them.

I am about to commit this exact sin, so if you’re one of those “real fans” of Alfred Hitchcock, then you may want to avert your gaze before you are forced to slam your keyboard down in disgust.

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David Soyka Reviews Is Anybody Out There

David Soyka Reviews Is Anybody Out There

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is-anybody-out-thereIs Anybody Out There?
Nick Gevers and Marty Halpern, eds.
DAW (312 pp, $7.99, June 2010)
Reviewed by David Soyka

The $64 question of the modern era is not whether God exists. How you answer that depends on intangibles and inferences based more on faith than the scientific method. What is nearly as imponderable is the empirical evidence of a vast universe (and possibly co-existent multi-verses) within which conditions exist (or once existed) that may give rise to life as we know it (putting aside consideration of life as we don’t know it and are incapable of comprehending). Moreover, given the age of the universe, it is further conceivable that there is, somewhere in some galaxy, more advanced civilizations capable of interstellar travel that, by now, should be aware of our existence. Even if we are in an Einsteinean universe in which speed of light travel cannot be exceeded, seeing as how that we are already capable of mapping distant universes, presumably a more advanced civilization would have the technology to find us and make radio contact, just as we have been launching Elvis recordings out beyond the solar system in hopes of doing the same. With no results.

So, where are they? This is the crux of the famous Fermi Paradox, posed by the Nobel physicist who reasoned that given the mathematical probabilities of the existence of alien civilizations, why hasn’t anyone phoned home? Is it truly possible that we are the only intelligent beings in the universe? Or, more depressing, are “intelligent” beings fated to self-destruct, allowing technology to harness their fate instead of the other way around, before becoming capable of interstellar travel?

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The Nightmare Men: “The Supernatural Sleuth”

The Nightmare Men: “The Supernatural Sleuth”

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941723-lLin Carter’s Anton Zarnak is a man of mystery. With a jagged streak of silver running through his black hair from his temple to the base of his skull and his exotic features and peculiar mannerisms, Zarnak is almost as outré as the enemies he fights. With a startling knowledge and a somewhat sinister history, Zarnak battled evil in three stories penned by Carter — “Curse of the Black Pharaoh”, “Dead of Night”, and “Perchance to Dream” — as well as in a half dozen or so more contributed by the likes of Robert M. Price, CJ Henderson, Joseph S. Pulver Sr. And James Chambers. All of these stories, for those interested, are collected in Lin Carter’s Anton Zarnak: Supernatural Sleuth from Marietta Publishing.

Like the pulp characters Carter based him on, Zarnak is something of a Renaissance man. Educated at a number of prestigious universities, including the Heidelberg (where he studied theology with a certain Anton Phibes, according to “The Case of the Curiously Competent Conjurer” by James Ambuehl and Simon Bucher-Jones), the Sorbonne and Miskatonic University, he is an accredited physician, musician, theologian and metaphysicist. He speaks eleven languages and has one of the finest and most complete collections of occult literature in existence. His home drifts like a soap bubble between Half-Moon Street in London, No. 13 China Alley in San Francisco and a cursed apartment building in New York; always decorated in oriental splendour, it is filled to bursting with esoteric paraphernalia, including a hideously decorated mask of Yama which always hangs in a place of honour above Zarnak’s desk.

And, as the saying goes, ‘so a man’s home, his mind’ — Zarnak is the proverbial odd duck. By turns consoling and caustic, arrogant and affectionate, and almost inhumanly ruthless, Zarnak is no comforting Judge Pursuivant or soothing John Silence. He is singularly and irrepressibly Zarnak.

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14 Questions for David Barr Kirtley

14 Questions for David Barr Kirtley

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daveheadshotmarch2011Nowadays, most anyone who’s into science fiction and fantasy will know Dave Kirtley, half of the team that hosts The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy. What I bet a lot of people don’t know is that he has copied GAME OF THRONES, word for word, by hand, to learn about style and sentence structure, or that he’s also a talented artist who wants to help other up and coming artists get exposure. When I first met him, he was still a newly minted Asimov Award winner (the award has since been renamed the Dell Award), soft spoken, and curious about how I’d fallen in with such a motley crew of critique groupmates. I think we spent most of that first conversation talking about George R.R. Martin, because back then I was the cool person who knew George and Dave hadn’t even met him. I even introduced Dave to George at TorCon during a wild party thrown by the Brotherhood Without Banners. And when I say wild, I mean really full of people in odd costumes (okay, fine, by con standards, not wild). George was sitting in the back of the room by himself because none of his fans were brave enough to try to talk to him.

And now, how times have changed. Dave’s the one with all the cool friends and contacts, but he agreed to let me interview him, either because he’s really nice (he seems that way, at least, though soft spoken people can be sneaky about that) or because he thinks I set up that first meeting with George R.R. Martin that led to us having his full attention for most of the rest of the party. I didn’t hesitate to wonder, just sent him interview questions before he could change his mind.

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For the Resolute at New Year’s: Promises, Process, and Progress

For the Resolute at New Year’s: Promises, Process, and Progress

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bgnanoOaths, vows, geasa, bindings–you love reading about that kind of thing, or you wouldn’t be here at Black Gate. A vow is powerful magic. A vow written or witnessed is more powerful still.

You would think, then, that the New Year’s resolutions that saturate our culture this time of year would work better than they do. There’s lots of help out there for people who make resolutions about physical fitness, but not so much for people who make resolutions about their writing. How do you come up with a writing resolution that you’ll be glad to fulfill, not just when it’s all over, but while you’re actually doing the work? If you’ve already made a resolution, how do you follow through on it? Maybe last year you tried the crazy ordeal that is Nanowrimo, and you’re looking for a way to tap into its productivity that is actually sustainable. Maybe Nanowrimo’s cheery cultishness turned you off, and you’re sure there must be another way.

There’s an abundance of other ways, thank goodness. Although I have fond memories of frenzied November write-ins, and my novella that’s slated to appear in a forthcoming issue of Black Gate got its start as the first chapter of a Nanowrimo project, my Nanowrimo survival skills are some of the least sustainable writing behaviors in my repertoire. I have some very different ones that have helped me stay in the game for years and finish some long, daunting projects. I want to tell you about some books on process that have been of enduring use to me in broadening that repertoire.

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