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Julius Schwartz on A. Merritt, Amazing Stories, and the First Worldcon

Julius Schwartz on A. Merritt, Amazing Stories, and the First Worldcon

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sfcon08 - darrow - williamson signing - schwartz - unknown - ruppert-small

The first Worldcon, July 1939. Left to right: Jack Darrow, Jack Williamson,
Julius Schwartz, unknown, and Conrad Rupert. Photo by Bill Dellenback

While letters from and to Otto Binder made up the majority of the correspondence I acquired from the estate of Clifford Kornoelje (aka in science fiction circles as Jack Darrow), Binder wasn’t the only science fiction notable that Darrow corresponded with. One of his other correspondents was Julius Schwartz, remembered today for his roles in both the science fiction and comics fields. I thought I’d post two of those letters from Schwartz — along with some related material — today.

The first letter from Schwartz to Darrow is dated December 12, 1932. The Mort that he refers to in several places is their mutual friend, Mort Weisinger. It has a mention of Astounding, a mention of a dinner that Schwartz (and presumably Weisinger as well) will be having with pulp author David H. Keller. And most particularly, it has an interesting bit resulting from an interview that Schwartz had conducted with A. Merritt two weeks earlier. I don’t know if Merritt actually sued Amazing, as Schwartz claims, or whether he just threatened them, but Amazing did run an apology in their June 1933 issue.

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: Tarzan at the Earth’s Core

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: Tarzan at the Earth’s Core

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tarzan-at-the-earths-core-first-edition-j-allen-st-johnYou’ll believe a Stegosaurus can fly!

In the time I’ve written about Edgar Rice Burroughs for Black Gate, only once have I examined one of his Tarzan books. That was eight years ago. This lack of Tarzan representation isn’t because I dislike the character. A number of the early Tarzan adventures rate among my favorite Burroughs novels, and I’ll defend Tarzan of the Apes as one of the twentieth century’s Great Books. But since there’s more information available about Tarzan than any other Burroughs series, my literary adventuring was more interesting when it stayed in hinterlands of ERBiana.

However, it’s a thrill to have the ape-man swing in through the side door during one of my series retrospectives. Let’s welcome Tarzan onto the stage of Pellucidar. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Sagoths of all ages … it’s crossover time!

Our Saga: Beneath our feet lies a realm beyond the most vivid daydreams of the fantastic … Pellucidar. A subterranean world formed along the concave curve inside the earth’s crust, surrounding an eternally stationary sun that eliminates the concept of time. A land of savage humanoids, fierce beasts, and reptilian overlords, Pellucidar is the weird stage for adventurers from the topside layer — including a certain Lord Greystoke. The series consists of six novels, one which crosses over with the Tarzan series, plus a volume of linked novellas, published between 1914 and 1963.

Today’s Installment: Tarzan at the Earth’s Core (1929–30)

Previous Installments: At the Earth’s Core (1914), Pellucidar (1915), Tanar of Pellucidar (1929)

The Backstory

Although most of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s novels occur in the same universe, linked through the author’s fictional surrogate version of himself, Tarzan at the Earth’s Core is the only point where a character from one series leaps to another as the protagonist. It’s the fourth Pellucidar novel and the thirteenth Tarzan novel — full crossover achieved for the first and last time in the ERB canon.

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Future Treasures: The Horror on the Links: The Complete Tales of Jules De Grandin, Volume One by Seabury Quinn

Future Treasures: The Horror on the Links: The Complete Tales of Jules De Grandin, Volume One by Seabury Quinn

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The Horror on the Links The Complete Tales of Jules De Grandin Volume One-smallToday Weird Tales is chiefly remembered as the magazine that launched the careers of the great pulp fantasy writers of the 20th Century. But as most fans of the Grand old Lady of the pulps know, the most popular Weird Tales author wasn’t Robert E. Howard, or H.P. Lovecraft, but Seabury Quinn, someone whom is almost completely forgotten today. Quinn’s supernatural detective Jules De Grandin — a top-seller in the 20s and 30s, appearing in over ninety stories and a single novel between 1925 and 1951 — has been out of print for decades. Night Shade rectifies that injustice with the first volume of The Complete Tales of Jules De Grandin, arriving in hardcover next week.

Today the names of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith, all regular contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the first half of the twentieth century, are recognizable even to casual readers of the bizarre and fantastic. And yet despite being more popular than them all during the golden era of genre pulp fiction, there is another author whose name and work have fallen into obscurity: Seabury Quinn.

Quinn’s short stories were featured in well more than half of Weird Tales’s original publication run. His most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave, often set in the small town of Harrisonville, New Jersey. In de Grandin there are familiar shades of both Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, and alongside his assistant, Dr. Samuel Trowbridge, de Grandin’s knack for solving mysteries — and his outbursts of peculiar French-isms (grand Dieu!) — captivated readers for nearly three decades.

Collected for the first time in trade editions, The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, edited by George Vanderburgh, presents all ninety-three published works featuring the supernatural detective. Presented in chronological order over five volumes, this is the definitive collection of an iconic pulp hero.

The first volume, The Horror on the Links, includes all of the Jules de Grandin stories from “The Horror on the Links” (1925) to “The Chapel of Mystic Horror” (1928), as well as an introduction by Robert Weinberg.

The Horror on the Links: The Complete Tales of Jules De Grandin, Volume One will be published by Night Shade Books on April 4, 2017. It is 512 pages, priced at $34.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital edition. Not sure who did the cover, but I’m working on it.

A Jaunt Through Clark Ashton Smith’s Collected Fantasies—Vol. 1: The End of the Story

A Jaunt Through Clark Ashton Smith’s Collected Fantasies—Vol. 1: The End of the Story

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Clark-ashton-smith-end-of-the-story-wildside-press-coverI’ve read the complete works of Clark Ashton Smith. And I’ve been known to write at length about them, or to chat with journalists on the topic. There’s nothing unusual about this, since Smith ranks among my favorite five or so authors of all time.

But only recently did I decide to undertake reading his fantasy stories in the original order he wrote them. I can thank Night Shade Books’ five volume series, The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, for making this an easier task than it would’ve been only a few years ago. When the series started to appear in 2007, the hardcover volumes went out of print rapidly. Even a hardcore fan like myself couldn’t justify a purchase of one of the high-priced used copies.

However, as of 2016, all five of The Collected Fantasies are now available in inexpensive trade paperbacks that can be purchased through online retailers with a few clicks. The texts for these volumes have been meticulously prepared (no simple feat considering the revisions and alternate versions published in the past) and offered in the chronological order of composition.

I’m taking a stroll through these editions to read the stories as they were imagined and committed to paper. Instead of regaling you with further long essays, I’m going to take on the role of sightseer, bringing back notes and a slideshow presentation about the best — and the rest — of each volume.

By the way, if you are new to Clark Ashton Smith, the Night Shade editions aren’t the best way to start out. They’re aimed at the collector and long-time connoisseur. I recommend the Penguin Classics collection The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies as a better Smith introduction. If you like the heady journey, there’s much more to explore in the dark fathoms below…

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New Treasures: If This Goes Wrong… edited by Hank Davis

New Treasures: If This Goes Wrong… edited by Hank Davis

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If This Goes Wrong... Hank Davis-small If This Goes Wrong... Hank Davis-back-small

I’m really enjoying these recent Hank Davis anthologies, especially The Baen Big Book of Monsters and Things from Outer Space. As I’ve mentioned before, no one else today is collecting writers like Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford D. Simak, Fritz Leiber, and Fredric Brown and packaging them in mass market anthologies for under 8 bucks. Davis is making the greatest SF writers of the 20th Century accessible to casual modern readers, and that’s no small thing.

Plus, his anthologies are a blast.

His most recent, If This Goes Wrong…, showed up just after Christmas. It collects 17 tales of off-kilter futures originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, Galaxy, World of IF, Analog, and other fine publications. Just think — some kid in Oklahoma picked this book up and discovered the science fiction of the pulps for the first time. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: Tanar of Pellucidar

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: Tanar of Pellucidar

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tanar-of-pellucidar-original-printing-coverA long time has passed, both on the surface of the Earth’s sphere and within it. On the surface, it’s been almost fifteen years since Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the second of his inner world adventures, Pellucidar. During this time, ERB penned another ten Tarzan novels, a couple more Martian ones, and a few of his finest standalone tales. Burroughs incorporated himself and set up the offices of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. in a part of the San Fernando Valley soon to be named Tarzana. It seemed unlikely he would return to writing about Pellucidar after almost a decade and a half … but then he hatched a plan to give the Tarzan series a boost using the fuel of the Earth’s Core.

Our Saga: Beneath our feet lies a realm beyond the most vivid daydreams of the fantastic … Pellucidar. A subterranean world formed along the concave curve inside the earth’s crust, surrounding an eternally stationary sun that eliminates the concept of time. A land of savage humanoids, fierce beasts, and reptilian overlords, Pellucidar is the weird stage for adventurers from the topside layer — including a certain Lord Greystoke. The series consists of six novels, one which crosses over with the Tarzan series, plus a volume of linked novellas, published between 1914 and 1963.

Today’s Installment: Tanar of Pellucidar (1929)

Previous Installments: At the Earth’s Core (1914), Pellucidar (1915)

The Backstory

The gap between Pellucidar and Tanar of Pellucidar is fourteen years, the longest hiatus for any of ERB’s major series. Despite numerous pleas from readers, Burroughs apparently had no intention to explore Pellucidar further. But at the end of the 1920s, he devised a plan to jolt life back into the Tarzan books by sending the Lord of the Apes somewhere stranger than the usual lost jungle cities. He already had that “somewhere stranger” waiting to be used: Pellucidar was the perfect Tarzan destination vacation!

But first, Pellucidar needed a bit of a dusting-off to set it up for Lord Greystoke’s arrival, as well as to remind the reading public that the setting existed. Burroughs put into action a two-book plan, starting with a new standalone Pellucidar novel to lure readers into the upcoming Tarzan adventure.

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Off to a Writing Retreat in Cairo

Off to a Writing Retreat in Cairo

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DSC_2083

On the left is the anthropoid coffin of Wenmontu, of the 22nd or
23rd dynasty (944-716 BC). To the right is the coffin of Mesiset,
late 22nd to early 25th dynasty (c. 750 BC). These are in the
archaeological museum of Bologna, which has an excellent
Etruscan collection I wrote about in a previous post.
Photo copyright Sean McLachlan.

I’m stepping out of the blogosphere for the next couple of weeks to do a writing retreat in Cairo. As Black Gate regulars know, I usually go to Tangier, but now that my Tangier novel is out, I’m changing location to work on a new project.

It’s a neo-pulp adventure novel tentatively titled The Masked Man of Cairo: The Case of the Purloined Pyramid and follows the adventures of a disfigured World War One veteran turned antiquities dealer who gets tangled up in the machinations of the Thule Society in 1919. And yes, a pyramid really was stolen from Giza! Well, sort of.

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: Pellucidar

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: Pellucidar

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Pellucidar-1st-Edition-Cover-smallWelcome back to the concave world of Pellucidar and the second novel in Edgar Rice Burroughs’s series of adventures within the globe: the eponymous Pellucidar. ERB left readers in suspense about the fate of hero David Innes at the close of At the Earth’s Core, but only a year later delivered audiences from the tension and closed out a duology about the Imperial Conquest of the Pellucidar. (And we still have five more volumes to go after this.)

Our Saga: Beneath our feet lies a realm beyond the most vivid daydreams of the fantastic… Pellucidar. A subterranean world formed along the concave curve inside the earth’s crust, surrounding an eternally stationary sun that eliminates the concept of time. A land of savage humanoids, fierce beasts, and reptilian overlords, Pellucidar is the weird stage for adventurers from the topside layer — including a certain Lord Greystoke. The series consists of six novels, one which crosses over with the Tarzan series, plus a volume of linked novellas, published between 1914 and 1963.

Today’s Installment: Pellucidar (1915)

Previous Installments: At the Earth’s Core (1914)

The Backstory

During the mid-teens, Edgar Rice Burroughs frequently wrote with the aim of creating two-part novels. The books we know today as The Mad King, The Cave Girl, and The Eternal Lover are combinations of an original novel and its closely connected sequel. The Pellucidar series might have gone the same way. The sequel to At the Earth’s Core was written at this time and serves as an immediate follow-up that brings the story of its first novel to a conclusion. If Burroughs hadn’t returned to the setting fourteen years later and continued writing more about Pellucidar, it’s possible that At the Earth’s Core and Pellucidar would be considered a single novel today — probably simply titled At the Earth’s Core. (My title choice would be Conquest of the Earth’s Core.)

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Weird Tales Reprints Published by Goodman Games

Weird Tales Reprints Published by Goodman Games

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weird-tales-may-1934-450x600-225x300The Goodman Games site is one of my regular stopping points on the web. The company’s well known as an imagination factory that produces some of the most innovative and entertaining game supplements in print today. It’s also home of the popular Dungeon Crawl Classics role-playing game.

What it’s never been until now is a purveyor of Weird Tales, so I was intrigued when I discovered five facsimile issues of the famous magazine were available for purchase on the site.

I wrote publisher Joseph Goodman and asked him what this availability signified.  As I should have guessed, it involved Appendix N, Gary Gygax’s famed recommended reading list printed at the back of the original Dungeon Master’s Guide (from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, if you’re not a gamer).

For those not in the know, that appendix launched a generation into the exploration of fantasy fiction, from Anderson to Zelazny. It was an immense influence on gamers and future writers alike and something Joseph Goodman has used as a touchstone for both the creation of adventures and the design of the Dungeon Crawl Classics game itself. Here’s what he had to say.

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Announcing the Winners of The Watcher at the Door: The Early Kuttner, Volume Two!

Announcing the Winners of The Watcher at the Door: The Early Kuttner, Volume Two!

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The Watcher at the Door-smallWe had a near-record number of entries in our latest contest. Not too surprising, as this time we’re giving away two copies of The Watcher at the Door: The Early Kuttner, Volume Two, the latest archival quality hardcover from Haffner Press.

This gorgeous book is a massive collection of 30 early weird fantasy tales by Henry Kuttner, and readers have been asking about if for months. We first gave you a sneak peek back in April 2015.

How did you enter? All you had to do submit the title of an imaginary weird fantasy story. The most compelling titles — as selected by a crack team of Black Gate judges — were entered into the drawing. We drew two names from that list, and the two winners will both receive a free copy of The Watcher at the Door, complements of Haffner Press and Black Gate magazine.

So let’s get right to it. The first job was to select the Top 25 entries from the numerous submissions we received over the past 9 days — no easy task, let me tell you. But after much agonizing debate (and two brief fist fights), here are the judges selections.

  1. Bob Cooper — Give Me Back My Heads!
  2. Chris Dodson — Wrath of the Mad King in the Golden Tower
  3. Kyle Crider — O, Slime That Yearneth and Singeth Out
  4. Amy Bisson — The Crystal Scimitar of Doom!
  5. George Kelley — Vampires of the Obsidian Void
  6. William White — The Lilt in Her Voice, the Grin on Her Face

    7. …

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