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Amazing Science Fiction, December 1959: A Retro-Review

Amazing Science Fiction, December 1959: A Retro-Review

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Amazing Science Fiction December 1959-smallHere’s an issue from very early in Cele Goldsmith’s tenure (and very early in my life, I might add – this issue presumably appeared about a month after I did). It was in fact the first issue of Goldsmith’s second year at the helm.

The cover is by Leo Summers, illustrating (not too accurately) Alan Nourse’s novel Star Surgeon, which appears complete in this issue. Above the magazine title is the title of another story, “Knights of the Dark Tower,” without mention of the author, as was Amazing’s curious habit. Interior illustrations are by Summers, Virgil Finlay, and Mel Varga (with one uncredited).

The editorial, by Norman Lobsenz, celebrates Walter X. Osborn, a man living in the Philippines who was then 85 and had been reading Amazing since its beginning. Osborn’s favorite story? Possibly “The Green Man Returns,” by Harold M. Sherman from December 1947. His least favorite? The Shaver mysteries.

S. E. Cotts’ book review column, The Spectroscope, is extremely short. The one novel covered is Seed of Light, by Edmund Cooper, which Cotts criticizes for being too ambitious. But high praise goes to two anthologies, The World That Couldn’t Be, edited by H. L. Gold, and Mary Kornbluth’s Science Fiction Showcase, which she put together with Fred Pohl’s help (Pohl insists she picked the stories, though – he just helped clear the rights) after Cyril Kornbluth’s death.

The letter column features Bob Anderson, John Hitt, Ray Hahn, Jacqueline Brice, James S. Veldman, Paul Matthews, and Bobby Gene Warner (no names familiar to me, though Warner, as I recall, showed up in another Amazing lettercol from this period). No real controversies. Lots of Praise for Murray Leinster’s “Long Ago, Far Away”.

There is one “Complete Novel”, and 6 short stories, one of them a very brief vignette.

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The Crawling Horrors of Mars: Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis”

The Crawling Horrors of Mars: Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis”

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Xiccarph-smallI have a confession to make. I’ve read almost nothing by Clark Ashton Smith.

I know. I suck. CAS was one of the most important fantasy writers of the pulp era. Alongside H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, he established Weird Tales as the most important and influential fantasy magazine of the early 20th Century.

It’s not like I haven’t had plenty of folks on the BG staff trying to steer me right. Ryan Harvey’s epic four-part examination of The Fantasy Cycles of Clark Ashton Smith, starting with The Averoigne Chronicles way back in 2007, was a terrific bit of scholarship, and I was proud to publish it. More recently, John R. Fultz offered a detailed study of Smith’s poem “The Hashish Eater,” and Matthew David Surridge joined the discussion with his 2012 article “A Few Words on Clark Ashton Smith.” Just a few examples.

I blame Isaac Asimov for my early ignorance. Asimov strongly disliked Smith’s ornate style, famously relating the tale of the first CAS story he tried to read, in which he encountered the word “veritas,” which Smith used instead of “truth.” Yes, Asimov noted, veritas does mean truth, but he couldn’t fathom why anyone would use it instead of simply using “truth.” He put the story down and never tried Smith again.

Asimov introduced me to most of my early pulp heroes, in books like Before the Golden Age, The Hugo Winners, and The Early Asimov. His prejudice must have stuck with me, since I read almost nothing by Clark Ashton Smith for my first few decades as an SF reader.

Fortunately, this genre gives you lots of chances. Back in September I purchased a marvelous collection of 28 vintage paperbacks. One of the prizes in the lot was Xiccarph, part of Lin Carter’s highly collectible Ballantine Adult Fantasy library. Before putting it away I decided to dip into it. Here’s what I found on page two of Carter’s intro:

Since Weird Tales quite logically had a right to prefer tales that were weird, Smith conformed. In doing so he invented a minuscule sub-genre all his own.

To see precisely what I mean, turn to the story called “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis,” which is included in this book.

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Rick Lai and the Secret Histories of Pulp Fiction

Rick Lai and the Secret Histories of Pulp Fiction

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shadows01-01sisters01Pulp historian Rick Lai is perhaps best known for his definitive chronologies of Doc Savage and The Shadow published by Altus Press. The comprehensive nature of these works has inspired more than one reader to wish Lai had dedicated his career to producing similar volumes for all other pulp series. While that particular wish may not be possible to accommodate, he has devoted much of his time and energy for the past quarter century authoring speculative articles on works of imaginative fiction. Some of his literary investigations fall within the Wold Newton framework established by Philip Jose Farmer, while others do not. Much like a dedicated theosophist indifferent to sectarianism, Lai seeks the truth regardless of where the path leads.

Altus Press subsequently published two volumes collecting all of Rick’s articles under the titles Daring Adventurers and Criminal Masterminds. The former features articles concerning the classic pulp hero, The Avenger; as well as more obscure characters created by Talbot Mundy and Robert E. Howard; and multiple articles concerning such well-loved characters as Peter the Brazen, Raffles, Professor Challenger, Arsene Lupin, and Jules de Grandin. The second volume shifts the focus to the villains readers loved to hate such as Fu Manchu and various Yellow Peril clones including Hanoi Shan and Sumuru; Jules Verne’s seminal super criminals, Captain Nemo and Robur the Conqueror; Guy Boothby’s highly obscure Dr. Nikola; Bulldog Drummond’s arch-nemesis, Carl Peterson; and the most famous criminal mastermind of all, Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes series by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

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Vintage Treasures: Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger

Vintage Treasures: Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger

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Prince of Foxes-smallIf you’ve been reading my Vintage Treasures posts for any length of time, you’re probably aware I have a weakness for buying small collections. Especially vintage paperback collections.

There are a few ways to find interesting lots on online auctions sites like eBay, but I’ve had the most success recently searching for Bantam Giants, a line which repackaged a lot of popular historical adventure fiction in paperback with terrific covers — and without chopping it up first to fit the smaller format, a common practice in the early days of paperbacks.

Bantam Giants are a great way to learn about new writers (okay, old writers, but new to me), and they’re ridiculously cheap. They sold — by the tens of thousands — on newsstands for 35 cents in the early 1950s. Generally speaking, copies in fine condition are still fairly common, and don’t cost much more than that now.

Last year I talked about discovering the works of Lawrence Schoonover, especially his 13th Century adventure novels The Golden Exile and The Burnished Blade. Tucked into the same collection that contained those volumes was a gorgeous book titled The King’s Cavalier, by someone named Samuel Shellabarger.

My guides through the world of 40s and 50s historical adventures, the Honorable Howard Andrew Jones and John C. Hocking, have been telling me about Shellabarger for years. So I was delighted to find another of his novels in the latest collection of Permabooks and Bantam Giants I acquired last month: Prince of Foxes, a tale of adventure and intrigue in Renaissance Italy.

It follows the exploits of Andrea Orsini, a talented and resourceful peasant who rises through the ranks to become a political agent for the sinister Cesare Borgia. It was filmed in 1949, with Orson Welles as Borgia and Tyrone Power as Orsini.

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Fredric Brown, Stanley G. Weinbaum, and Appendix N: Advanced Readings in D&D

Fredric Brown, Stanley G. Weinbaum, and Appendix N: Advanced Readings in D&D

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What Mad Universe-smallTime to get caught up with the tireless Mordicai Knode and Tim Callahan, as they trek towards the finish line of their epic Appendix N re-read over at Tor.com.

This time, they take a look at two names very familiar to Black Gate readers: Fredric Brown and Stanley G. Weinbaum, both of whom we’ve discussed recently, and at considerable length.

In fact, just last week I examined The Best of Fredric Brown, calling it “one of the best short story collections I’ve read in years.” Any collection which included “Arena,” “Puppet Show,” and “The Geezenstacks” has to be considered a classic, and I was looking forward to seeing what our intrepid literary explorers thought of it.

Not much, going by Tim’s analysis:

A spaceman single-handedly battles for the fate of the human race. A god plays war games with knights and bishops. Test tube babies become the new anointed ones. A mountaineer comes face-to-face with a yeti. Earth’s first contact with Mars goes horribly awry.

These are things that happen in the stories, often very short stories, of Fredric Brown. I can see why Gary Gygax liked them.

Unfortunately, their connection to Dungeons & Dragons is vague at best. They seem to fall into a category that, after reading most of these Appendix N recommendations, I can now confidently call Somewhat Clever Things Gary Gygax Enjoyed but are Pretty Tedious to Read Today.

Like the works of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, the stories by Fredric Brown seem to be the kinds of tales that would delight Gygax with their intellectual playfulness and that might be reason enough for their inclusion on his list of recommended reading, but the cleverness only goes so far, and the stories feel pretty thin otherwise.

Bah. I don’t mean to critique the critic, but I think Tim was asleep at the switch here. Maybe he should have read these magical tales on a long plane-ride to Las Vegas, like I did, instead of hunched over his laptop, thirty minutes before deadline.

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An American Fantasy Master: The Pulp Art of Virgil Finlay

An American Fantasy Master: The Pulp Art of Virgil Finlay

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Virgil Finlay cover for Famous Fantastic Mysteries-smallJohn O’Neill graciously offered me a spot in Black Gate’s blogosphere. How nice of him. Silly man, now he has to put up with me.

Most of you probably don’t recognize my name, but I’ve been in the fantasy-sf-comics business for years. I’ve worked at Cinefantastique magazine (and written for it), Mayfair Games, and First Comics. In 1984, I began freelancing and have worked for a number of specialty presses as designer, consultant, guru, you name it.

A few years ago, I decided I wanted more control of the work I was doing, packaged the first US edition of Creature From the Black Lagoon for DreamHaven Books, and co-edited the Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs with Mike Resnick for Baen Books. Go buy them both.

So what can you expect from me in the upcoming weeks and months?

Well, I’ll be giving you sneak peeks on things I’m working on, writing retrospectives of great American Fantasists (writers and artists) you should know about, and giving you a lot of information on fantasy films from the silent era to now.

The last bit is because I’m working on a history of fantasy films and occasionally I run across bits that are cool, but just don’t fit into the book. I’ll share them here.

This time, let’s start with a book I’m working on which allows me to talk about that wonderful artist Virgil Finlay.

It’s a 192 page 9 x 12 art book Doug Ellis, Bob Weinberg, and I are putting together, with over 150 black and white Finlay illustrations from Doug’s and Bob’s personal art collections, and a 32 page color section that will include paintings from Glynn Crain’s collection as well.

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Jack Ripcord and the Evolution of Pulp

Jack Ripcord and the Evolution of Pulp

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may72013trysnakebiteMost mainstream readers who were familiar with the phrase “pulp fiction” prior to Quentin Tarantino’s critically and commercially acclaimed film associated it with hard-boiled detective fiction. While this association only captured part of the eclectic spectrum of genres represented in pulp magazines in the first half of the last century, it must be noted that the documented evolution of the western gunfighter into the hardboiled detective hero was crucial to the proliferation of twentieth century popular culture.

Dashiell Hammett’s seminal hardboiled thriller Red Harvest could just as easily have been transferred from a mining town to a western setting. This flexibility is what allowed the story to be adapted so effectively decades after the fact by Akira Kurosawa as Yojimbo and by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars with equally trendsetting results.

Most people today best understand the ethos of pulp fiction from the 1981 blockbuster hit Raiders of the Lost Ark. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg perfectly encapsulated the archetypal pulp hero in the form of Indiana Jones, an original character who revived the cheap thrills and spills of pulp magazines and Saturday matinee serials and transformed them into box office gold.

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Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1951: A Retro-Review

Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1951: A Retro-Review

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Galaxy Science Fiction June 1951-smallThe June, 1951 edition of Galaxy Science Fiction featured several longer works: two novelets and the second part of a serial novel. That only left room for one short story.

In his editorial remarks, H. L. Gold writes of his discovery of science fiction and how his love for it helped him realize what he wanted for a career.

Unfortunately, the dream of editing as good a magazine as possible does not include production difficulties. Because buying paper these days is like being mugged on a dark street, GALAXY has been late much too often… Other headaches are distribution, newsstand display, rocketing costs, ruckuses over ads, sweating good stories into better stories, and improving art, which has been the biggest single gripe of readers.

Regardless of the hassles, Gold found a way to keep the magazine going, and the June issue is another strong showing.

“Hunt the Hunter” by Kris Neville — Ri and Mia act as scouts for humanity’s leader, Extrone, helping him to successfully hunt a farn beast. Extrone is an intimidating figure who will risk confrontations with hostile aliens for the chance at killing a farn beast, something so rare in the systems humanity controls. Ri and Mia try to hide their traitorous thoughts as they lead Extrone toward the beasts, hoping to complete their mission quickly before Extrone’s impatience leads to wrath.

I loved Extrone’s character in this story. By far, it overshadows everyone else, but it works. I could picture Jeff Bridges playing the role, if this was a movie, barking out commands and delivering the slow, menacing dialogue.

I read a little about Neville, and it seems he was one who quickly vaulted into several of the big magazines. But he apparently felt that his work extended beyond the accepted boundaries of science fiction at the time. So he withdrew from science fiction and instead wrote texts in the field of epoxy resins. Yes, I’m serious.

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Insanity in Pictures

Insanity in Pictures

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culbard-coverThough I can’t be completely certain, I think the first time I encountered the name of H.P. Lovecraft was sometime during the course of 1980, not long after I’d discovered Dungeons & Dragons. The thin blue rulebook contained inside the Basic Set included a single reference to “Cthulhu” as a deity alongside Crom and Zeus (two names I already knew). Back in those days, hobby shops were ground zero for the burgeoning roleplaying hobby. Bearded wargamers, nerdy college kids, heavy metal-loving teens, and fantasy fans of all sorts rubbed shoulders in these peculiar little stores, swapping stories of their characters and campaigns, as well as holding forth on a variety of topics. To a young person such as myself, hobby shops were amazing places filled with amazing people, whose company I sought out as often as I could.

There was a strange camaraderie among the hobby shops’ patrons – or so it seemed to me anyway. We were all a little strange by the standards of the time, taking interest in things that were still many years from mainstream recognition, let alone acceptance. Consequently, the usual distinctions of age didn’t matter much and I regularly found myself chatting with people years older than myself about gaming and fantasy and science fiction. I can’t begin to convey what a big deal this was to me. I was a shy, bookish sort and didn’t make friends easily, yet here I was gabbing with teenagers and university students as if we were old comrades.

That’s when I heard someone mention Cthulhu again and, callow youth that I was, asked just who (or what) Cthulhu was. Little did I know that that innocent question would lead to a lifelong interest in the life and works of H.P. Lovecraft.

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Vintage Treasures: The Best of Fredric Brown

Vintage Treasures: The Best of Fredric Brown

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The Best of Fredric Brown-smallWelcome to the 13th installment of my ongoing examination of one of the most influential book series of my youth, Lester Del Rey’s Classics of Science Fiction line. This time, we’re looking at the 1977 release, The Best of Fredric Brown, edited by Robert Bloch (who had his own entry in the series eleven months after this one, which I discussed back in July.)

The Classics of Science Fiction line was my introduction to many of the major SF and fantasy writers of the 20th Century (well, that and The Hugo Winners, which first introduced me to Poul Anderson, Walter C. Miller, Arthur C. Clarke, and others, and of course the various volumes of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame).

All that education didn’t teach me much about Fredric Brown, however. A week ago, I probably could have named only one Fredric Brown short story from memory, “Arena” — which, admittedly, I dearly loved. I first read it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, where it was selected as one of the finest short stories ever written, but even before that, I knew it as the Star Trek episode of the same name.

You probably think of it as, “Isn’t that the one where Kirk throws styrofoam rocks at the Gorn?”

Yes. Yes it is. And even though it has been much-parodied (including a brilliant video game commercial starring an 80-year old William Shatner and an aged Gorn in a re-match), it’s still one of the finest episodes of the original series.

So before I sat down to assemble my notes for this article, I took my paperback copy of The Best of Fredric Brown with me on a business trip, to a banking show in Las Vegas, and used the opportunity to reacquaint myself with the author. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting all that much. Not every installment in the Classics of Science Fiction could be a winner.

My mistake.

The Best of Fredric Brown is one of the best short story collections I’ve read in years. Brown is frequently compared to O. Henry for his gift for twist endings and the comparison is apt. Even when you’re on the alert, Brown manages to constantly surprise and delight you in a way that very few authors — in the genre or out — can pull off.

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