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Forgotten Authors: Raymond F. Jones

Forgotten Authors: Raymond F. Jones

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Raymond F. Jones was born in Salt Lake City on November 15, 1915. He studied engineer and English at the University of Utah before working as a radio engineer. He later suggested that getting an English degree is one of the worst things a writer could do. He had a reasonable amount of success as an author, with his novel This Island Earth being the work he is best known for. It was adapted into a film in 1955, starring Jeff Morrow and featuring Russell Johnson, who would go on to portray the Professor on Gilligan’s Island, and Richard Deacon, who played Mel Cooley on The Dick van Dyke Show.

According to Jones, he was introduced to science fiction in 1927 when he read H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. He decided he never wanted to read it again because he was afraid it couldn’t live up to the “thrill of that first contact with the realm of imagined science.”

After graduating college, he served on a mission in Galveston, Texas and worked installing telephone exchange equipment for Western Electric in Texas, but after marrying Elaine Kimball on June 27, 1940, he took a job with the Weather Bureau to cut down on travel. During World War II, he used his radio engineering degree at Bendix Radio in Baltimore before settling in Arizona after the war.

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Friendships Matter

Friendships Matter

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A young red spaniel lies down and looks lovingly at a young black cat.
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

I’m going to rant a bit this post, so if apologies in advance for getting too serious about things that are, in fact, quite fun.

I want to talk friendships. Friendships in fiction, specifically, and how they’re often hijacked by well-meaning, representation-starved folks, and how that robs us of examples of deep, meaningful, powerful, but entirely platonic love in real life. And I think that’s more than a shame. It’s a crime.

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Steamed: January 2026 (More LA Noire)

Steamed: January 2026 (More LA Noire)

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I bought LA Noire on sale, several years ago. But I did not actually dig in to play it until last year. 68 hours of game play later, I completed it the second week of January, this year.

LA Noire is one of my all-time favorite games. It’s not perfect. But my goodness, what an experience to immerse yourself in. With a couple exceptions in the final chapter, you are Cole Phelps, a Marine and WW II war hero, starting out in the Patrol Bureau (known as a ‘desk’) of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). It’s 1947, and LA is a terrifically rendered city.

You move up the ranks, to Traffic, Homicide, Vice, and then down (bit of a career hiccup there), to Arson. You solve multiple cases working from each desk. With the Complete Edition, there are about two dozen cases, which do vary, and usually involve some violence. There are random crimes that come over the radio and you can choose to take them or not. They usually involve killing people, though there are quite a few high-damage chases.

There is an overarching plot that gives a Chinatown vibe to the game. I recognized some screen actors, who look like the characters they voice in game, which is cool.

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Forgotten Authors: H. B. Fyfe

Forgotten Authors: H. B. Fyfe

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February 1940 Astounding, with Fyfe’s debut story “Locked Out.”

Horace Brown Fyfe, Jr. who published under then name H.B. Fyfe, was born on September 30, 1918 in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was educated at Stevens Academy before attending Columbia University. Fyfe served in World War II and earned a Bronze Star. Fyfe’s day job was working as a laboratory assistant and a draftsman.

Fyfe began publishing in 1940, with the short story “Locked Out,” which appeared in the February issue of Astounding. Later that year, he published the short story “Hold That Comet!” in collaboration with F.H. Hauser. This was Fyfe’s only collaboration and Hauser’s only science fiction sale. He returned to college after the war and married Adeline Doherty in 1946.

Fyfe may be best known for his stories of the Bureau of Special Trading, which featured alien bureaucrats who were generally outwitted by the humans who they were attempting to stymie. His novel D-99, was unrelated to the BTS series, but it was similar in tone, although Rich Horton commented “That whole aspect of the book is wildly sexist, in a vaguely Mad Men-ish fashion.” Given that Campbell appreciated stories that demonstrated human superiority to aliens, it isn’t surprising that Fyfe’s fiction found a home in Astounding and Analog.

 

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Forever An Important Life – Howard Andrew Jones (1968 – 2025)

Forever An Important Life – Howard Andrew Jones (1968 – 2025)

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(As long as Black Gate lets me post here, this will run every year the week of Howard’s passing (January 16), to help keep his flame alive)

A LIFE IS NOT IMPORTANT EXCEPT IN THE IMPACT IT HAS ON OTHER LIVES – Jackie Robinson’s epitaph

Mark Rigney, Howard Andrew Jones, Bob Byrne

I did an interview last week with Jason Waltz for his ’24 in 42′ podcast (Yeah, I know: You just can’t wait to hear that one…).

One of the questions was about my favorite quote/lyric/poem/motivational thought. Some of you who know me probably figure it’s a Bible verse. And there are a couple that are right up there.

But it’s the epitaph on Jackie Robinson’s gravestone, which leads off this post.

My buddy Howard Andrew Jones has passed away from brain cancer. You’re going to see a LOT of people singing his praises in the coming weeks. All of it deserved. If I can stop crying long enough, my Monday morning post will be on Howard.

But you’re gonna see a common thread in the talk about Howard. The impact he had on other people’s lives. Especially in encouraging and helping writers – mostly in the sword and sorcery field.

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Forgotten Authors: George Allan England

Forgotten Authors: George Allan England

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George Allan England

George Allan England was born in Fort McPherson, Nebraska on February 9, 1877. He attended Harvard University, where he earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees. In 1903, he published Underneath the Bough: A Book of Verses. His first published science fiction story was “The Time Reflector,” which appeared in the September 1905 issue of The Monthly Story Magazine, edited by Trumbull White.

He published numerous short stories throughout the 1910s, which his novels Darkness and Dawn, Beyond the Great Oblivion, and The Afterglow being serialized in The Cavalier, between 1912 and 1913 and published by Small, Maynard & Company in 1914. These novels, set in 2915, a thousand years after “The Great Death” killed most of the human race during the 1920s. England’s protagonist, Allan Stern and his secretary survived the Great Death in a form of suspended animation, waking up to the new world. …

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This is Silly. Book Goals Are Not Personal

This is Silly. Book Goals Are Not Personal

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A tea cup sits atop a stack of artfully placed old books.
Image by Ylanite Koppens from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

How was your winter holidays? I hope you found it gentle and restful and full of the things that make you happy. I spent some time with family, which is always lovely, and more time by myself recovering (the joys of being a massive introvert). It seems that the end of the year was more fraught for others than myself, though.

I’m speaking of the BookTok community. There have been a few ruffled feathers with folks getting angry at other folks for the massive number of books they may (or may not, as one of the accusations proclaim) have read.

If that sounds silly to you, you are not alone. I’ve been watching from the sidelines giggling or rolling my eyes, depending. Let’s get into this nonsense… because sometimes watching train wrecks in slow motion is mildly amusing. And so I am here after another adventure into social media to report on what’s going on over there.

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The Best of Bob: 2025

The Best of Bob: 2025

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Happy 2026! Let’s kick butt for another year. Or at least, limp to the finish in 52 weeks. I really enjoy ‘meeting’ with my friends – and some strangers – here at Black Gate every Monday morning. Keep checking in, and let’s keep the discourse going on things we love. Or at least that catches our eye. Black Gate really is a family. My time writing here has almost been longer than my marriage was!

I continued to evade the Firewall at Black Gate (no, I do not earn a cent a word every time I mention ‘Black Gate.’ like some kind of blogging Pulpster), so I showed up every Monday morning. I had a much harder time conning other folks into writing my column for me – they’re catching on. Drat! So, I had to do my own work this past year.

Here are what I thought were ten of my better efforts in 2025. Hopefully you saw them back when I first posted them. But if not, maybe you’ll check out a few now. Ranking them seemed a bit egotistical, so they’re in chronological order. Let’s go!

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Catching My Breath & Some Things to Recommend

Catching My Breath & Some Things to Recommend

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Blessed are the legend-makers with their  rhyme of things not found within  recorded  time.

from ‘Mythopoeia‘ (1931) by JRR Tolkien

The impetus to write my Tolkien series came from rewatching Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and realizing just how much I dislike them. That realization drove me back to the actual books. Diving once more into Middle-earth inspired me to begin a deeper exploration of Prof. Tolkien’s works, creation, and their influences.

My original motivation, largely of drafting a retort to the films, was quickly supplanted as soon as I picked up The Fellowship of the Ring and once again read that opening line:

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

I found myself immediately being pulled into the great vortex of Tolkien’s art and ideas. As my previous entries into this series describe, my attention was sometimes drawn to different elements that it had been on previous reading and my appreciation for certain things had grown over the years. What I’m not sure I brought up much was how much enjoyment I get from actually reading Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

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Steamed: What I’ve Been Playing in 2025

Steamed: What I’ve Been Playing in 2025

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Throughout 2025, I shared with you what I was Reading, Watching, and Listening To (audiobook-wise), I also covered a little bit of videogaming in a couple columns. But I figured I’d talk about some of the games I played this year, in one post. Utilizing my approach from my Conan Pastiches article during Cimmerian September, we’ll keep it to two paragraphs each.

I do most of my gaming through Steam, with Fortnite and a couple titles on Epic. I haven’t played anything on Good Old Games in a few years now, and I don’t use Amazon gaming pretty much at all.

OUT OF THE PARK BASEBALL 26

The 2019 edition of this baseball sim is my third-most played Steam game (771 hours). And I had payed a prior version for years, as well. I upgraded to the 2026 iteration this Summer, and it’s already in my Top 20. This is a simulation, not an arcade game. You can take any team from history and manage it from year-to-year. And you can quit/get fired and take over another team. You can manage games pitch by pitch, or by batter. Or have the computer simulate the game, or even month.

I enjoy setting up World Series match ups of two historical teams. I just replayed the 2017 World Series as the Dodgers, beating the Astros, who couldn’t cheat in this baseball game. Before that, it was the 1947 Dodgers vs. the 1946 Indians. I really enjoy this option. I think any baseball wonk (which I absolutely am) would enjoy this game.

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