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The Unqualified Unique: The Daily Mail Interviews Me for Clark Ashton Smith’s 50th Morbid Anniversary

The Unqualified Unique: The Daily Mail Interviews Me for Clark Ashton Smith’s 50th Morbid Anniversary

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young-clark-ashton-smith-1912Sunday was the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Clark Ashton Smith. We morbid fans of a writer with a delectable taste for morbidity love to celebrate death anniversaries as much as birth ones, and the seduction of the half-century mark is too great to dismiss.

My own celebration ended up in the hands of others, however. Two weeks ago, Jim Planck, an editor for The Daily Mail, a New York State newspaper, contacted me about doing an interview to commemorate Clark Ashton Smith’s death for a Sunday feature. He had come across my articles on Smith on Black Gate (here, here, here, and here) as well as on my website, and thought I could contribute to the article.

It’s flattering to realize that others have started to view you as an expert on one of your favorite authors. I dream that one day a publisher will ask me to edit and/or write an introduction to a collection of the works of either Clark Ashton Smith or Cornell Woolrich.

The Daily Mail Sunday edition does appear on-line, but the C-1 section of the paper doesn’t. (And unless you live in the Catskills and have access to the Daily Mail or its sister paper out of Hudson, NY, The Register-Star, you won’t be able to see it in print.) I’ve brought the full text of the interview over to Black Gate so you can hear me heap more praise on CAS.

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The Nightmare Men: “The Diehard”

The Nightmare Men: “The Diehard”

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crerarShiela Crerar, psychic investigator and adventuress, first burst into public view in the pages of The Blue Magazine in 1920 with “The Eyes of Doom”. The obscure creation of the intriguingly enigmatic Ella Scrymsour, Crerar battled ghosts, werewolves and gibbering ghouls of all types from May of 1920 to October of that same year, appearing in a grand total of six stories which vanished into the literary ether when The Blue Magazine folded not long after. Luckily for aficionados of occult sleuths, Ash Tree Press released a lovely collection in 2006, marking the first time these stories were collected or reprinted in any form.

Beginning with the aforementioned “The Eyes of Doom”, in which Crerar confronted the eponymous vengeful spirit, the series progressed with “The Death Vapour”, “The Room of Fear”, “The Phantom Isle”, “The Werewolf of Rannoch”, and “The Wraith of Fergus McGinty”. Unlike her masculine counterparts in the occult detective business, Crerar is a two-fisted phantom fighter, wading into supernatural situations with little more than guts, brains and a distinct lack of fear bolstered by harsh economic necessity. Not for her the remote recordings of Dr. Hesselius or the psychical solutions of John Silence. Instead she pounced willy-nilly on lycanthropes and luminescent manifestations, sinking her teeth into matters both mundane and malevolent with equal determination.

Say hello to Shiela Crerar, the Scottish terrier of the psychic set.

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The Nightmare Men: “Physician Extraordinary”

The Nightmare Men: “Physician Extraordinary”

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john-silence

‘Rich by accident and a doctor by choice, John Silence took only those cases which interested him.’

The above is from “A Psychical Invasion” (1908), the first of Algernon Blackwood’s stories to feature Dr. John Silence, the ‘psychic doctor’.  Blackwood chronicled six of Silence’s cases, though only five appear in the initial collection, John Silence (containing “A Psychical Invasion”, “Ancient Sorceries”, “The Nemesis of Fire”, “Secret Worship”, and “The Camp of the Dog”; “A Victim of Higher Space”, the sixth story, was included in later collections) released in 1908 (then re-issued in 1942). Even if you can’t get your hands on one of the many reprint collections (or on the 1942 re-issue as I was lucky enough to do), you can rest easy…Blackwood’s work is in the public domain and is freely available from a variety of electronic sources.

The stories themselves are in the inimitable Blackwood style, seen at its most effective in “The Wendigo” and “The Willows”, and display the author’s interest in the occult. The horrors that Silence faces are nebulous things, at once more vast than the horizon and smaller than the inside of a cupboard. They range from nightmare assaults out of deep time to unrequited yearnings gone impossibly savage, originating in both human action as well as from events far outside of human understanding. Time and space are suggestions at best, and as in the works of Hodgson and Lovecraft, reality itself comes under assault from outside entities which seek to impose themselves on their victims.

Enter John Silence, MD.

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Sword Noir: A Role-playing Game of Hardboiled Sword & Sorcery

Sword Noir: A Role-playing Game of Hardboiled Sword & Sorcery

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conan-cityImagine Conan in Shadizar, meeting with a beautiful woman calling herself Fortuna who pays him to find Thuris, the man who kidnapped her younger sister. Conan accepts the woman’s coin but finds himself in the middle of double and triple crosses as Fortuna — known as Brigid the Bold in the underworld — seeks for the Falcon of Maltus along with her betrayed confederates, Jubliex Cairo, Wilmer the Younger, and Gutmar.

Think of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser hired by the powerful merchant Sternwood to scare ne’er-do-well Geiger away from the merchant’s daughter Carmen, only to be caught up in blackmail, murder, kidnapping, and family secrets.

Yes, those were the plots of The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep using three of the iconic characters of sword & sorcery. That’s what I’d call Sword Noir, and that’s what I called the role-playing game I just published, subtitled A Role-playing Game of Hardboiled Sword & Sorcery.

Sword Noir is a game now, but it started as something a little more than a conceit and little less than a genre. Basically, I attempted to give some kind of short-hand to the stories I wrote.

sword-noirAs usual, the kind of stories I was reading and writing bled into the kind of games I was playing, and this took me down a path I did not expect. I ended cobbling together a system that was purpose built to play “sword noir.” In order to do that, I had to define the term.

This is what I came up with: Characters’ morals are shifting at best and absent at worst. The atmosphere is dark and hope is frail or completely absent. Violence is deadly and fast.

The characters are good at what they do, but they are specialists. Trust is the most valued of commodities – life is the cheapest.

Grim leaders weave labyrinthine plots which entangle innocents. Magic exists and can be powerful, but it takes extreme dedication to learn, extorts a horrible price, and is slow to conjure.

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UFO TV Presents: Pulp Fiction – The Golden Age of Sci Fi, Fantasy

UFO TV Presents: Pulp Fiction – The Golden Age of Sci Fi, Fantasy

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So I recently stumbled upon this terrific, hour-long documentary on the Golden Age of Science Fiction and Fantasy pulps, produced by UFO TV.

I admit I’ve never heard of UFO TV before (um, is it a cable station I don’t know about?), but this is a fun offering. Some of the folks interviewed include Ray Bradbury and Kevin J. Anderson (with a large variety of L. Ron Hubbard paperbacks prominently displayed over his shoulder, from every angle), and the mix of old movies clips and spot animation is top-notch.

Plus they pack in what must be a record number of SF pulp covers for a documentary. Seriously.

YouTube offers the entire video for free, although it’s interrupted occasionally by (skipable) commercials.  It’s just like TV used to be!

The Black Coats: An Introduction

The Black Coats: An Introduction

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black-coats-1black-coats-21Les Habits Noirs is a series of seven landmark novels in pulp fiction history that have sadly been neglected outside of their native France. A fair degree of skepticism among modern readers is to be expected. Translations of obscure French novels can be a spotty affair and the verbose literary style of Victorian literature with its lengthy philosophical or historical passages are often wearying for a 21st Century audience. For every Fantomas that still captures modern imaginations, there are countless Dumas or Hugo pastiches whose only redeeming quality is their historical value to the avid student of fantastic fiction. Happily, Les Habits Noirs is one of those rare treasures that are as enthralling today as it was 140 years ago.

Paul Feval wrote all seven books in the series. He was an amazingly prolific author who turned out swashbucklers, vampire tales, crime fiction and religious works of vastly varying quality. Brian Stableford has spent much of the last decade translating his works into English for publication by Jean-Marc Lofficier’s Black Coat Press, a pulp specialty publisher who chose the English-language title for Les Habits Noirs for their imprint. Many critics have compared Les Habits Noirs to Mario Puzo’s Godfather series. My own best comparison would be to consider it the antecedent to Norbert Jacques’ Doctor Mabuse, the Gambler and especially the three films Fritz Lang made from that seminal work. Like Lang’s three masterpieces of crime, Les Habits Noirs bridges the gap between Pulp and Art.

The seven books in the series were published between 1863 and 1875 and concern members of a secret society headed by a crime family led by the patriarchal Colonel Bozzo-Corona. The first book, entitled Les Habits Noirs in France, was re-titled The Parisian Jungle by Black Coat Press for their English translation. The book introduces the criminal brotherhood, The Black Coats as a cross between the Mafia and the Illuminati. Modern readers weaned on Dan Brown’s intriguing if hopelessly hackneyed neo-pulp thrillers will marvel at what a true master of the conspiracy thriller sub-genre is capable of crafting. Colonel Bozzo-Corona is as beguiling a criminal mastermind as any in fiction. A feeble grandfather figure that can strike as quick as a cobra, Bozzo-Corona is always portrayed as displaying an uncommon brilliance. His fatal flaw is his borderline Messianic complex which promises to be his ultimate undoing.

Like his creation, Feval was possessed of a similar fatal flaw in his inability to maintain the high standard of quality that he demonstrated with this series. Too much of his non-series work was derivative and, after leaving his fiction works behind following a dramatic religious conversion, he doomed his reputation to be little more than a literary footnote. From that perspective, Black Coat Press and Brian Stableford’s work seems little short of evangelical in its mission to bring Les Habits Noirs to a wider audience who will appreciate this seminal work for its richness and mesmerizing tone.

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Masterpiece: The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett

Masterpiece: The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett

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PZO8005-Cover.inddI committed a major heresy, in public and on record, against the sword-and-sorcery community when I stated on the recording for a podcast that, in the realm of “sword-and-sorcery” fiction, I prefer Leigh Brackett over Robert E. Howard. Although at least one participant on the podcast seconded my opinion, I do understand why most sword-and-sorcery readers cannot go with me on this. Howard is, after all, the Enthroned God of the genre. And, strictly speaking, Brackett did not write fantasy or historicals. Her specialty was action-oriented science fiction with heavy fantasy influences, the sub-genre of science-fantasy known as “planetary romance.” (Sometimes called “sword-and-planet.” I hate that term.)

I love Robert E. Howard’s work; it’s foundational for me. But, it’s “not that I love Howard less, but that I love Brackett more.” To that extent, I want to promote the sheer awesomeness that is Leigh Brackett whenever I can. And in her 1949 novel The Sword of Rhiannon (buy it here!) she reached what I believe is her apex: a planetary romance set across an ancient version of Mars, crammed with sword-swinging action, pirate-style swashbuckling, alien super-science, a hero as flinty as granite, an alluring and surprising femme fatale warrior, and an overarching theme of redemption, loss, and futility that ends up pushing what sounds like a standard adventure into a work of intricacy and overwhelming emotion.

Leigh Brackett (1915–1978), a long time resident of the same neighborhoods in Los Angeles where I grew up and still live, was a student of Howard’s work and an immense admirer. However, she didn’t copy him when she started her own career, but infused his passionate style with her own passions. Brackett shows the influence of other predecessors — Clark Asthon Smith, A. Merritt, C. L. Moore, Henry Kuttner, Otis Adelbert Kline, Edgar Rice Burroughs — but her mixture is blended so perfectly that all of it feels fresh and driven. I just finished another re-reading of The Sword of Rhiannon, and I am as thunderstruck as ever with how damn great Leigh Brackett was at what she did. Even more, I am awed at how modern her tale feels, even though the outer hull shows it as an old-fashioned pulp romance. Not that there’s anything wrong with the old pulp style; I still read Edgar Rice Burroughs avidly. But Brackett to this day stands in a class of her own.

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Murray Leinster’s “Runaway Skyscraper”

Murray Leinster’s “Runaway Skyscraper”

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murray-leinster-runaway-skyscraperI’m a nut about the trivia of dates, so the moment I heard about the birth of my second nephew, A. Dean Martin (yes, really), I had to look up the famous people who share his birthday of June 16. The list includes philosopher Adam Smith, legendary film comedian Stan Laurel, and Apache leader Geronimo. Oh, and some fellow named Murray Leinster.

It was that last name that struck me the most. Murray Leinster is one of those science-fiction masters who has managed to find a place in general public obscurity. Despite a writing career lasting over half a century, Leinster’s name probably means nothing to most casual readers of contemporary science fiction, unless they pick up anthologies of Golden Age stories.

Murray Leinster (pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, 1896–1975) is a rare case of a twentieth-century science-fiction author whose career started before the Campbell Revolution in Astounding but also continued through and beyond it, into the era when Astounding had become Analog and the field had broadened with The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Galaxy. Like Jack Williamson, Leinster shifted easily into the stable of authors that John W. Campbell corralled for Astounding, which was otherwise made up of newly discovered writers. Leinster wrote some of his best work for Astounding, most notable among them “First Contact,” a story which the Science Fiction Writers of America voted into the classic 1970 anthology The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, meant as a “Nebula Awards before there were Nebula Awards.” “First Contact” tied for fourth place in the list of stories with Theodore Sturgeon’s “Miscrocosmic God.” Its inclusion in the collection marked it as one of the greatest short stories in the field pre-1965.

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If, October 1957: A Retro-Review

If, October 1957: A Retro-Review

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if-oct-57This is the fourth installment in Rich Horton’s retro-reviews of science fiction and fantasy digest magazines from the mid-20th Century. The first three were the February 1966 Analog, the December 1965 Galaxy, and the January 1966 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Click the images for larger versions.

Back to the ’50s for this one. If is a magazine I remember with affection, even though I never saw a precisely new copy — the last issue, except for an abortive one issue 1986 revival, appeared in December 1974, just a couple of months after I started buying magazines, but my source (Alton Drugs in Naperville, IL) didn’t carry it. But its evident sense of playfulness, at least in the Pohl years, has always appealed to me.

At any rate, this issue appeared at a portentous time – its issue date is October 1957, the same month that Sputnik I was launched. So this magazine is from the very cusp of the Space Age.

Indeed, I have a few magazines on hand from roughly the same time (1957, or up to January 1958 – which certainly went to press before the news of Sputnik), and I propose to cover them in the next few old magazine reviews.

The title is one odd aspect. Is it If: Worlds of Science Fiction? Or is it Worlds of If? Apparently the original title was officially If: Worlds of Science Fiction, but it wobbled early on, at least as to its display. In 1972 the then publishers, UPD, officially changed it to Worlds of If. (All this from Phil Stephenson-Payne’s wonderful Galactic Central site.)

At any rate this issue appears fairly unambiguously to be If: Worlds of Science Fiction. The editor (and publisher, and indeed founder) was James L. Quinn. (Confusing because a later publisher was named Guinn.) (And I should note that though Quinn was publisher from the start, the first editor was Paul Fairman.)

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On NPR: Howard Andrew Jones on Pulp Fiction

On NPR: Howard Andrew Jones on Pulp Fiction

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pulp-cover---planet-stories-summer-1946-lorelei-of-the-red-mists-1Black Gate Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones had his turn in the national spotlight last week, with a feature article on National Public Radio’s website titled Rich Tales In Cheap Print: Three Pulp Fiction Finds.

Howard used his fifteen minutes of fame to shine a spotlight on neglected pulp masters:

The pulps have a well-earned reputation for purple prose, but there was gold among the dross.

Fine adventure stories from other genres were printed in pulps like Adventure, Weird Tales and Planet Stories, but unfortunately, many of these authors remain neglected or marginalized. Today’s readers might expect to find nothing but legions of square-jawed heroes, wilting damsels and tentacled monsters in the old magazines, but there were also skilled, inventive writers plying their trade, evoking thrills and chills without formulaic plotting.

Howard calls out three modern reprints of some of the very best fantasy from the pulp era, returned to print by publishers who have worked hard to preserve pulp fiction and present it to a modern audience:

  1. Lorelei Of The Red Mist, Leigh Brackett (Haffner Press)
  2. Who Fears The Devil, Manly Wade Wellman (Paizo Publishing)
  3. The Best Of Robert E. Howard Volume 2: Grim Lands, Robert E. Howard (Del Rey)

All these publishers deserve your support — and you deserve to read these stories. As Howard says in his final line, “Some of the tales are dark, many are brooding, but though they be decades old, each beguiles with a siren call to strange lands to witness heroic deeds.”

Read the complete article here.