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Vintage Treasures: Strange Eons by Robert Bloch

Vintage Treasures: Strange Eons by Robert Bloch

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Strange Eons Robert Bloch-smallBack in July, I did a Vintage Treasures article on The Best of Robert Bloch, the second in my series on Lester Del Rey’s Classics of Science Fiction. In doing the research for that article, I came across references to Bloch’s book of Lovecraftian fiction, Strange Eons, first published in 1979.

My curiosity was piqued. It took a while to track down a copy, but this is the age of the Internet, when all things are possible. I settled in to read it this morning and I was surprised to find it’s a novel, not a collection, as I assumed. Given the big Doctor Who news today, I was also amused to find the last page given over to a house ad for Pinnacle’s Doctor Who novelizations, with a banner quote from Harlan Ellison: “Incomparable… extraordinary… my hero, Doctor Who!”

The book is dedicated to H.P. Lovecraft — at least that wasn’t a surprise. As the publisher notes on the back of Strange Eons, Bloch was a protégé of Lovecraft and, at the age of fifteen, the youngest member of the “Lovecraft Circle” of writers. The novel builds unabashedly on the work of the master, starting with the premise that the creatures he wrote of are real, and his books form a dire warning for mankind:

What men know is called science; what they have not yet learned they call magic. But both are real….

In the world of today and the near future, three people inexorably linked by a common interest in the work of H. P. Lovecraft, discover: that the legendary creatures he created in his fantasies have hideous counterparts in reality… that his fiction is incredible fact… that his message is a warning…

Spooky stuff. I’ll see if the execution lives up to the promise. Strange Eons was published by Pinnacle Books in June 1979, with cover art by David Hada. It is 249 pages, priced at $1.95 in paperback. I paid $5.50 for a fine condition copy on eBay.

See all of our recent Vintage Treasure articles here.

Galaxy Science Fiction, May 1951: A Retro-Review

Galaxy Science Fiction, May 1951: A Retro-Review

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Galaxy Science Fiction May 1951-smallThe May, 1951 issue of Galaxy featured the first installment of a new novel, two novelets and two short stories.

By this point, I would think readers would be thrilled by this magazine. It’s amazing to consider how many of its stories were later reprinted, and how so many authors became legendary in the field (if they were not already so).

“Bridge Crossing” by Dave Dryfoos — Roddie grew up among androids and is the only human left within the city of San Francisco. There are other humans who live outside the city and raid it for supplies; Roddie views them as enemies. One night, he finds one and decides to act friendly to the woman to learn more about his enemies. Despite their commonality, he is determined to remain allied with his android friends.

Dave Dryfoos had over 20 published stories between 1950 and 1955. And that was it. He didn’t die until 2003, but I can’t find information on why he seemed to stop writing in 1955 (if that’s in fact what happened).

At any rate, “Bridge Crossing” is an interesting tale and I only had a feel for where it was going, not a definite sense (which kept it tense). And it had a great last line.

“Mars Child” (Part 1) by Cyril Judd — Mars is colonized by pioneering humans, some of whom feel like Mars is a second chance to populate a planet without all of the pollution on Earth. The Sun Lake colony depends on trade with Earth to thrive, but the colonists hope to one day sever ties with Earth — to be completely independent. Dr. Tony Hellman, one of the colony’s council members, delivers a newborn to eager parents, but his main duties include assessing the radioactive levels of their exports.

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New Treasures: Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs

New Treasures: Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs

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Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs-smallI had the pleasure of talking to Bob Garcia a few weeks ago, at a party at Doug Ellis‘s house near Chicago. Bob is a great guy — always jovial and superbly well-informed, and always ready to entertain with fascinating, behind-the-scenes tales of the publishing biz. His American Fantasy was one of the finest fantasy magazines of the 80s, and ever since he’s been well-positioned at the heart of the industry.

I took the opportunity to ask him about his new anthology, Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, co-edited with Mike Resnick, just published by Baen on October 1st. It’s such a great idea — all new stories set in the many worlds of ERB, by many of today’s hottest writers — that it’s a wonder no one has thought of it before.

Bob was happy to give me the details. The book contains ten new tales set in the legendary worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs — plus one reprint, Resnick’s novella, “The Forgotten Sea of Mars,” which originally appeared in the fanzine ERB-dom way back in 1966. This is the only Mars/Barsoom story in the book, as Disney now controls the rights to Burroughs’s Mars properties.

The book suffers not at all for that, however. When Bob and Mike started approaching writers, soliciting submissions, they were overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response. The final Table of Contents includes a new Tarzan tale by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, a Carson Napier of Venus homage by Richard A. Lupoff, a Moon Maid contribution from Peter David, a Mucker story from Max Allen Collins and Matthew Clemens, a Pellucidar story by Mercedes Lackey, a crossover tale by Joe R. Lansdale (“Tarzan and the Land Time Forgot”), plus stories by F. Paul Wilson, Todd McCaffrey, Kevin J. Anderson and Sarah A. Hoyt, and Ralph Roberts.

Here’s a few sentences from the introduction by Resnick and Garcia that give you an idea of the breadth of Burroughs’s accomplishments and just how vast a playground he left for their contributors to play in.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Three

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Three

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poster_05Sadrums_of_fu_manchu_posterx Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu was first serialized in Collier’s from April 1 to June 3, 1939. It was published in book form later that year by Cassel in the UK and Doubleday in the US. The third quarter of the book picks up with Ardatha having risked her life to warn Bart Kerrigan to leave Venice immediately. The beautiful Eurasian climbs through the startled Englishman’s window in his canal-side hotel room and pleads with him to cease interfering in the Si-Fan’s plans to assassinate German dictator Rudolf Adlon.

While Kerrigan’s mind reels at the thought that Ardatha shares the same feelings for him as he does for her, the two are interrupted by the sound of footsteps outside. They fall silent, fearing she has been followed, but when the footsteps pass, the two fall into one another’s arms and make passionate love in their desperation.

After Ardatha departs into the night, Kerrigan first fears for her safety and then is overcome with guilt at the thought that she acted the part of a decoy who kept him from his duty of watching over Sir Denis. He rushes to his friend’s room and finds Smith has disappeared. Kerrigan is forced to realize that while he made love with Ardatha, Sir Denis fell into the hands of the Si-Fan and their efforts to protect Rudolf Adlon from assassination have been compromised as a result.

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Understanding Howard’s “The Tower of the Elephant”

Understanding Howard’s “The Tower of the Elephant”

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The Tower of the Elephant-smal

“This is just like Dungeons and Dragons, Daddy.”

It’s New Year’s Eve, 2012. Gamer Dad and I are having a fine old time, drinking beer and wallowing in geek culture, while our families are hanging out to see in 2013 together. We’ve played Red Box D&D in the afternoon with our boys – 7 & 9. Now, it’s storytime for the boys and, going with the theme, he and I are taking it in turns to read Robert E. Howard’s The Tower of the Elephant.

Both Dads jump in.

“No –” I begin. “Dungeons and Dragons –”

“– is like Conan!” completes Gamer Dad.

But the lad has a point. Here’s one of the more iconic Conan yarns and yet, on the face of it, it’s an episodic heist story; pretty much what you’d get if you wrote up a D&D session…

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Sea-Change

Sea-Change

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moldvay-basic1Fantasy literature and Dungeons & Dragons have a long history together. In his foreword to the original edition of the game (dated November 1, 1973), Gary Gygax specifically references several authors’ works, such as “Burroughs’ Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits,” “Howard’s Conan saga,” “the de Camp & Pratt fantasies,” and “Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser pitting their swords against evil sorceries.” There are also – or, rather, were – references to Tolkien as well, but these were excised after the Professor’s estate objected (the excisions were not very thorough; even in later printings, one can still find occasional references to ents and balrogs, among other things). My own beloved “Blue Book” edition of D&D (edited by J. Eric Holmes) includes references not only to Tolkien, Howard, and Leiber, but also to Gardner F. Fox, creator of Alan Morgan, Kothar, and Kyrik, as well as to H.P. Lovecraft’s Great Old One, Cthulhu.

By now, Appendix N of the Dungeon Masters Guide is well known, both on this site and elsewhere. What many people do not know is that Gygax produced a “rough draft” of that appendix in issue number 4 of Dragon magazine (December 1976). Entitled “Fantasy/Swords & Sorcery: Recommended Reading,” its content is roughly the same as that in Appendix N. It’s primarily noteworthy for including Algernon Blackwood, though Gygax makes no reference to any titles he recommends from this great British writer of ghost tales. Another interesting aspect, at least from my perspective, is that, unlike Appendix N, which is quite clearly presented as a list of the books Gygax himself found “of particular inspiration” (to borrow his own phrase once more), this early version is presented as one of “recommended reading,” as if he were an instructor drawing up a list for an Introduction to Fantasy Literature course.

Fascinatingly enough, the 1981 edition of Dungeons & Dragons, edited by Tom Moldvay, includes an extensive “Inspirational Source Material” section that was drawn up, not by a university professor, but by a children’s librarian at the Lake Geneva Public Library. This librarian, Barbara Davis, is given a “special thanks” citation in the rulebook’s credits for “compiling part of our bibliography.”

Though it’s quite possible, even likely, that many of the titles included in the 1981 list were inspirational to Moldvay or to other members of the editorial team at TSR Hobbies, its presentation is much different than that of Appendix N. Whereas Gygax simply lists his favorite authors in alphabetical order, the later list is divided into several categories in an almost scholarly fashion. The three largest sections are “Fiction: Young Adult Fantasy,” “Non-Fiction: Young Adult,” and “Fiction: Adult Fantasy.” There are also sections for “Short Story Collections” and “Non-Fiction,” as well as a list of “some additional authors of fantasy fiction.”

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The Lovecraft Circle at the First World Fantasy Convention

The Lovecraft Circle at the First World Fantasy Convention

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H.P. Lovecraft and Frank Belknap Long (Brooklyn, 1931)
H.P. Lovecraft and Frank Belknap Long (Brooklyn, 1931)

In a recent Silver Lodge podcast I listened to, British horror writer Ramsey Campbell mentioned that there was an online recording of panels at the first World Fantasy Convention held in Providence, Rhode Island in 1975 that included some members of the original “Lovecraft Circle” — those writers who were first influenced by, and in contact with, horror pulp writer H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) before he died.

I was immediately intrigued and attempted to track down this recording. In the Community Audio section of the Internet Archive, I found there were actually three separate MP3 tracks, composing two different panel discussions recorded at this inaugural World Fantasy Convention held in Lovecraft’s honor.

The first was with some well-known fantasy & horror authors, concerning how they came to write fantasy and supernatural fiction. Moderated by cartoonist and editor Gahan Wilson, these authors included Joseph Payne Brennan, Manly Wade Wellman, and Lovecraft Circle members Robert Bloch and Frank Belknap Long. (As far as I know, Brennan and Wellman were not in contact with Lovecraft before he died.) One common thread was that Arkham House published all four of these authors.

The second and third files are from another panel discussion at the convention, this time about fantasy and supernatural horror publishing. Again moderated by Gahan Wilson, the speakers include publisher Donald A. Wollheim and author Robert Bloch.

According to the webpage,

The audio was recorded in October 1975 by and for Myrddin Press, which published the fanzine Myrddin. The recordings were made with a Sony monophonic cassette recorder, and parts of it appeared on a paper-thin flexible vinyl disc that came with the third issue of Myrddin. The three files uploaded here contain the clearest and most interesting portions from the tapes.

If you’re interested in any of these individuals or their works, I highly recommend that you give these recordings a listen (total audio time just under 90 minutes). I’ll mention a few tidbits from the panel discussions that I found very interesting and which I hope will peak your interest to attempt a listen yourself.

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The Other Appendix N

The Other Appendix N

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runequest2coverThe death of Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and one of the fathers of the roleplaying game, provided added impetus to the already-extant (in 2008) re-evaluation and appreciation of what have come to be popularly known as “old school” roleplaying games. An important part of that re-evaluation centers on the literary origins of RPGs, particularly the books that fired the imaginations of their designers. Gygax helpfully provided us with a list of the authors who were, in his words, “of particular inspiration” to him. This list is now known quite widely simply as “Appendix N,” since it first appeared as just that, a lettered appendix at the back of his Dungeon Masters Guide (1979).

Appendix N has been much discussed over the last half-decade, becoming a significant talking point for those interested in the origins of the hobby of roleplaying. For example, there is much debate regarding the extent to which D&D truly captures the spirit of the books Gygax presented as being “the most immediate influences.” So energetic has the discussion of Appendix N become that it has not only spilled over into the wider world of fantasy (including this very site), but it has led to a mini-revival in pulp fantasy, with authors such as Abraham Merritt, Fletcher Pratt, and Margaret St. Clair (to cite but three on Gygax’s list) receiving more attention in recent years than they probably have in decades. Within the roleplaying hobby itself, Appendix N is well on its way to becoming a “brand,” with at least one RPG, Goodman Games’s Dungeon Crawl Classics, heavily promoting its own adherence to Gygax’s canon as one of its major selling points.

The creators of other early roleplaying games were usually not as forthcoming in acknowledging their literary inspirations, though there are, of course, exceptions, such as Steve Perrin and Ray Turney’s RuneQuest. First published in 1978, RuneQuest is, in its own words, “a departure from most FRP (as they are abbreviated) games” in that it is “tied to a particular world, Glorantha.” The brainchild of Greg Stafford, Glorantha is a fantasy world evocative of ancient history and myth and one of the most enduring settings in the hobby. For that reason, Glorantha is also frequently described as being both complex and idiosyncratic to the point of being inaccessible to newcomers.

I do not share this judgment of Glorantha, but I understand why some might make this claim. Fortunately, its designers offered some insight into their own inspirations in a bibliography that they coincidentally also labeled “Appendix N,” a full year before Gygax would use the same designation. Like Gygax’s own list, it is not exhaustive, but only “contains those [books] we felt exemplary or exceptional.” RuneQuest‘s Appendix N one-ups Gygax, in my opinion, by being an annotated bibliography, which provides additional insight into not just what books and authors were inspirational, but why.

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Vintage Treasures: The Best of John W. Campbell

Vintage Treasures: The Best of John W. Campbell

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The Best of John W Campbell-smallJohn W. Campbell is one of the most important figures in 20th Century science fiction and fantasy.

If Campbell’s name seems familiar, it’s no accident. He’s come up multiple times in this series so far. In my last article, The Best of Hal Clement, I noted that Clement’s heroes frequently quoted Campbell’s pulp heroes Morey and Wade, and that Clement had been discovered by Campbell in June 1942, when Campbell was editing Astounding Science-Fiction.

In my previous piece, on The Best of Jack Williamson, I also observed that Williamson had “survived the coming of Campbell,” by which I meant that he was one of the few authors talented enough to continue writing SF in the pulps after about 1939, when Campbell had re-made the entire field in his image.

I could go back through all the other articles in this series and see just how often Campbell comes up, but I think you get the point. In the first half of the 20th Century, science fiction existed almost solely in the magazines and Campbell dominated the field so thoroughly that the start of the “Golden Age of Science Fiction” is usually marked by the year he began editing Astounding — the year he discovered writers like Robert Heinlein, A.E. Van Vogt, Isaac Asimov, Theodore Sturgeon, Lester del Rey, and many others.

In his memoir, I, Asimov, Asimov called Campbell “the most powerful force in science fiction ever, and for the first ten years of his editorship he dominated the field completely.”

But we’re not here to talk about Campbell the editor. We’re here to talk about Campbell the writer. And specifically, the eleven short stories he wrote between 1932 and 1939 collected in The Best of John W. Campbell.

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Vintage Treasures: The Best of Hal Clement

Vintage Treasures: The Best of Hal Clement

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The Best of Hal Clement-smallHal Clement was perhaps the least well-known subject in the Classics of Science Ficiton series, even in 1979, when The Best of Hal Clement appeared. He’s virtually forgotten today, 10 years after he died.

Ironically, he was probably the author I was personally most familiar with. Not because I read much of his fiction (not a lot was in print by the late 70s), but because of Maplecon.

Maplecon was the small local science fiction convention in Ottawa, Canada. I started attending in 1978, riding the bus downtown to the Chateau Laurier, a pretty daring solo outing at the age of fourteen. Hal Clement lived just a few hours away from Ottawa, in upstate New York, and he’d been a Guest of Honor at one of the earliest Maplecons; after that, he became a regular attendee. The convention staff referred to him warmly as “our good luck charm.”

I remember Clement — whose real name was Harry Clement Stubbs — as a friendly, highly articulate, and good-humored man. He was in his early 50s when I first saw him, so of course I considered him infinitely old. He was also soft-spoken and not prone to talking up his own work, which probably explains why all those times I heard him speak didn’t result in a lingering interest in his novels.

Clement wrote in a category that is nearly extinct today: true hard science fiction, in which The Problem — the scientific mystery or engineering puzzle at the heart of the tale — is the central character, and the flesh-and-blood characters that inhabit the story are there chiefly to solve The Problem. When Clement talked about writing, he mostly talked about the requirement to keep his stories as scientifically accurate as possible; he described the essential role of science fiction readers as “finding as many as possible of the author’s statements or implications which conflict with the facts as science currently understands them.”

Okay, that ain’t how I view my role as a reader — and I read a fair amount of hard SF. But your mileage may vary.

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