Browsed by
Author: Rich Horton

A Really Impressive First Novel: The God of Endings by Jacqueline Holland

A Really Impressive First Novel: The God of Endings by Jacqueline Holland


The God of Endings (Flatiron Books, March 7, 2023)

At this year’s Capricon I shared an autograph session with Jacqueline Holland. In the way of things, especially with customers sparse, I ended up signing a couple of my books for her and she signed a copy of her first novel, The God of Endings, for me. The novel was published in March 2023 by Flatiron Books, a fairly new imprint.

Jacqueline Holland got her MFA from the University of Kansas, studying with the wonderful Kij Johnson. She has published work in some impressive literary journals, like Big Fiction. This novel is fantasy, and she told me her next two novels will be science fiction. It’s a vampire novel, which is normally not my thing, but Jacqueline’s description made it sound intriguing, and not your standard vampire novel (certainly these are not sparkly vampires!) and it lived up to that.

Read More Read More

Brian Stableford, July 25, 1948 – February 24, 2024

Brian Stableford, July 25, 1948 – February 24, 2024


The Last Days of the Edge of the World (Ace Books, September 1985), The Empire of Fear
(Ballantine Books, October 1993), and The Werewolves of London (Carroll & Graf,
November 1994). Covers by Don Maitz, uncredited, and uncredited

Perhaps it is recency bias, or poor memory, or some other artifact of how human minds process data, but I cannot recall a time when the science fiction field lost so many significant writers in such a short time. At any rate, I know I have never written so many obituaries for significant SF writers in such a short time!

Brian Stableford died February 24, after an extended period of poor health. He was 75. I never met him, and only corresponded with him as part of a mailing list (he did recommend a time viewer story to me!), but I have read his work extensively, and even so, have barely scratched the surface.

His bibliography is, frankly, intimidating. He wrote dozens of SF and Fantasy novels, as many or more short stories. He was a very prolific anthologist, with a particular interest in early SF, and, especially, in French works of fantastika. He translated countless* French novels and stories into English. He wrote hundreds of book reviews and essays, and published many non-fiction books. And for all that prolificity, his work was of exceptional quality.

Read More Read More

Great Books Make You Cry

Great Books Make You Cry


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.

I mean, Crowley does it to me all the time. The conclusion of Engine Summer makes me tear up just thinking about it. (“Ever after. I promise. Now close your eyes.”) And the same for a few passages in The Translator. I was tearing up just trying to talk about “Great Work of Time” at a panel at Boskone a few years ago.

Read More Read More

Christopher Priest, July 14, 1943 — February 2, 2024

Christopher Priest, July 14, 1943 — February 2, 2024


Galaxy December 1973, containing Part I of The Inverted World. Cover by Brian Boyle

I find myself writing another obituary for a major SF writer — this has been a terrible couple of months. Christopher Priest, one of the true giants of our field, has died at 80. He is survived by his partner, Nina Allan, a brilliant SF writer in her own right. (I suppose Priest had a “type,” as his two ex-wives, Lisa Tuttle and Leigh Kennedy, are also first-rate SF writers.)

When did I first know of Christopher Priest? That would have been when his novel, The Inverted World, was first serialized in Galaxy, December 1973 through March 1974, or at least when I first read the book. I have a probably false memory of reading the serial, which would have had to have been in back issues, as I first bought Galaxy in August of 1974. So likely I actually read the paperback from 1975. Be that as it may, the novel purely blew me away. I quickly read Darkening Island (the American title of his novel Fugue for a Darkening Island) and was entranced by its radically non-linear narrative, something new to teenaged me.

Read More Read More

Retro Review: Fantastic, August and October, 1972

Retro Review: Fantastic, August and October, 1972


Fantastic magazine, edited by Ted White. August and
October 1972. Covers by Jeff Jones and Mike Hinge

My Retro Reviews of Amazing have concentrated on the Goldsmith/Lalli years, but I recently read this pair of issues from Ted White’s era, which extended from 1969 to 1979. As a youngster, I started reading Amazing in late 1974, so right in the middle of White’s editorship.

These two issues, then, date a bit earlier than my first encounter with Amazing. I bought them so I could compare the serialized version of Avram Davidson’s Ursus of Ultima Thule with the book version. But there was plenty more of interest in these two magazines.

TOCs first.

Read More Read More

Bad Things Come in Threes: Terry Bisson (February 12, 1942 – January 10, 2024), Howard Waldrop (September 15, 1946 – January 14, 2024), Tom Purdom (April 19, 1936 – January 14, 2024): A Tripartite Obituary

Bad Things Come in Threes: Terry Bisson (February 12, 1942 – January 10, 2024), Howard Waldrop (September 15, 1946 – January 14, 2024), Tom Purdom (April 19, 1936 – January 14, 2024): A Tripartite Obituary


Terry Bisson, Howard Waldrop, and Tom Purdom

On the heels of Terry Bisson’s death I heard news that Howard Waldrop had died. And this morning I woke up to learn that Tom Purdom had also died. A profound 1-2 punch to the SF community, followed by a knockout. Bisson and Waldrop were two of the most original, indeed weirdest, SF writers; and if Purdom wasn’t as downright weird as those two he was as intriguing in his slightly more traditional fashion. All three writers wrote novels, but it’s fair to say they are all best known for their short fiction.

I never met Terry Bisson (we exchanged emails once, when I asked for permission to reprint one of his stories) and I only met Howard Waldrop briefly at a couple of conventions (a ConQuesT and a World Fantasy.) I also never met Tom Purdom in person, though we did correspond for a while back when he was writing his online autobiographical posts. So I can’t say I knew any of these men well, but all seemed, from a distance if you will, people eminently worth knowing. And if I couldn’t know them personally, I had to settle for knowing them via their fiction.

Read More Read More

No More Stories — The Capstone to Joanna Russ’s Alyx Sequence: “The Second Inquisition”

No More Stories — The Capstone to Joanna Russ’s Alyx Sequence: “The Second Inquisition”


Orbit 6, edited by Damon Knight (Berkley Medallion, June 1970). Cover by Paul Lehr

“No more stories.” So ends Joanna Russ’s great novelette “The Second Inquisition.” But in many ways the story is about stories — about how we use them to define ourselves, protect ourselves, understand ourselves. It’s also, in a curious way, about Joanna Russ’s stories, particularly those about Alyx, a woman rescued from drowning in classical times by the future Trans-Temporal Authority.

“The Second Inquisition” first appeared in Orbit 6 in 1970. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette. It was included in the anthology Nebula Award Stories 6, along with Gene Wolfe’s “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories,” which first appeared in Orbit 7 and was also nominated for a Nebula — and which has some resonances with “The Second Inquisition.” Russ’s story has been anthologized several times since, and is collected in her book The Adventures of Alyx, and in the recently released Library of America collection Joanna Russ: Novels and Stories.

Read More Read More

David Guy Compton, August 19, 1930 — November 10, 2023

David Guy Compton, August 19, 1930 — November 10, 2023


Farewell, Earth’s Bliss (Ace Books, 1971), Synthajoy (Berkley Books, September 1979), and
Ascendancies (Ace, January 1985). Covers by Reginald Lloyd, Richard Powers, and Barclay Shaw

I learned this week that David Guy Compton died on November 10. He was born on August 19, 1930, in London, the child of two actors. He lived to the age of 93.

He wrote SF as “D. G. Compton,” mysteries as “Guy Compton,” romance novels as “Frances Lynch,” and also radio plays, some non-fiction (including a book about stuttering), and some non-genre books, including his last, a semi-autobiographical novel called So Here’s Our Leo, from 2022.

He had his greatest success with his science fiction, especially a dozen novels published between 1965 and 1980, of which the best known is The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe (1974), published in the US as The Unsleeping Eye, and made into a well-regarded movie, Death Watch (1980), directed by Bernard Tavernier. But all of these novels were provocative and original — really unlike what anyone else was doing. I particularly recommend Farewell, Earth’s Bliss (1966), The Steel Crocodile (1970), and Ascendancies (1980).

Read More Read More

Mission to the Mesozoic: The Shores of Kansas by Robert Chilson

Mission to the Mesozoic: The Shores of Kansas by Robert Chilson


The Shores of Kansas (Popular Library, March 1976). Cover by Mariano

Here’s another in my series of reviews of fairly obscure books from the ’70s and ’80s. Like some others, this review is of a book I bought at the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention in Lombard, IL, earlier this year.

Rob Chilson is a Kansas City based writer (though born in Oklahoma) whose first story appeared in Analog in 1968. (Likely he is one of the few John W. Campbell discoveries still alive, though I think Donald Kingsbury, who is 94 and whose first story was in Astounding in 1952, remains the senior among that group.) His first stories and novels, including this one, were published as by Robert Chilson, though by the mid-80s he was using Rob.

I’ve known Rob for a number of years, seeing him most often at the KC convention ConQuesT. I saw him most recently at the World Fantasy Convention, which was in Kansas City this year, where he was kind enough to sign this very book for me. He’s a fine writer, and I’ve enjoyed his short fiction for a long time, with notable stories including “This Side of Independence,” “Farmers in the Sky,” “The Conquest of the Air,” and a series of stories set 60,000,000 years in the future, called collectively “Prime Mondeign.” (The most recent of these is “The Tarn,” from Analog in 2015.)

I had not read any of his novels until I recently tried his first, As the Curtain Falls, also set in the very distant future. It had interesting aspects, but ultimately I felt it didn’t quite work, and it was clearly a first novel that probably could have used another revision. I’m happy to report that The Shores of Kansas, his third novel, from 1976, is much better.

Read More Read More

Michael Bishop, November 12, 1945 – November 13, 2023

Michael Bishop, November 12, 1945 – November 13, 2023

Michael Bishop

The first issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction I bought was August 1974, and it had some fine work, perhaps most notably John Varley’s first published story, “Picnic on Nearside.” But… the second issue had, as the cover story, “Cathadonian Odyssey,” by Michael Bishop. At that time, I had no idea who Michael Bishop was. But that story fair blew me away. I was awed. Overwhelmed. I thought it a sure Hugo winner and it was on my first ever Hugo nomination ballot (and it was a finalist, losing to a good but not great Larry Niven story, “The Hole Man.”)

Shortly later I read his story “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” in Donald Wollheim’s Best of the Year collection, and was again wowed. And I continued reading his work with great enjoyment — short fiction such as “The Samurai and the Willows,” “Saving Face,” “The Quickening,” “Dogs’ Lives,” “Apartheid, Superstrings, and Mordecai Thubana,” “Cri de Coeur,” and “Twenty Lights to the Land of Snow” being particular favorites.

Read More Read More