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An Old Dark House Double Feature: The Ghost and the Guest (1943) and The Monster Walks (1932)

An Old Dark House Double Feature: The Ghost and the Guest (1943) and The Monster Walks (1932)

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The Ghost and the Guest Lobby Card-small

The Ghost and the Guest
PRC Pictures, 1943
Directed by William Nigh

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A decrepit old mansion that appears to be haunted. A pair of newlyweds move in and by the time it’s all said and done, we find out that the mansion is actually a hub for some nefarious criminal type dudes.

This was not a particularly fresh concept, even in 1943, and the execution leaves more than a bit to be desired. To call it a B-movie is probably elevating it to a much higher status than it deserves. I’m not sure if there’s such a thing a Z movie but this one’s no better than a V, at best.

The most notable factoid about this uninspired piece of work is that it was written by none other than Morey Amsterdam, best known for his role as one of the sidekicks on The Dick Van Dyke Show. His comic stylings, even at that time, were probably kind of old school, but he made it work with superior timing and delivery. None of which is on display from any of the alleged thespians in this particular cinematic exercise, where the comedy — and pretty much everything else — leaves a lot to be desired.

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Review: Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear — Actually Rather Wise

Review: Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear — Actually Rather Wise

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BigMagic
I wanted — expected — to hate this book.

I wanted — expected — to hate this book.

I only know the work of Elizabeth Gilbert from the movie Eat, Love, Pray: Men Are Kind of Expendable (And Arranged Marriages Are Cute as Long as You Are a Bystander) which I believe may not quite have caught the depth of the original book.

So Big Magic… Creative Living…

OMG this is where those damned writer memes come from! (See my ranty guest post on Charles Stross’s blog.)

But actually, behind the willful whimsy Elizabeth Gilbert speaks wisdom that applies to we Black Gate folk, and SF&F fans in general. It also reminds me of a long lost essay by Ryan Harvey entitled something like, “What if the Fifteen-Year-Olds were right?”

It has six parts, with inspiring titles. However, the structure is more literary than… well structural, and really she’s taking us on a tour of her mental map of the creative life, so I’ll just tell you why I was impressed (or in one case, unimpressed).

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The Fionavar Tapestry Book 2: The Wandering Fire by Guy Gavriel Kay

The Fionavar Tapestry Book 2: The Wandering Fire by Guy Gavriel Kay

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oie_2251331IZpxRuY1When I set out to delve into epic high fantasy late last year, I deliberately chose some stories I’d read already and remember liking. Rereading The Summer Tree, first volume of Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Fionavar Tapestry, justified my fond memories of it. I ended my review stating: “This is how epic high fantasy can look if it doesn’t want to merely ape LotR or regurgitate the same bits and pieces over and over again.” Those words do not apply to the second book, The Wandering Fire (1986).

Upon finishing the second volume I remembered that, when I read it the first time, I didn’t rush to read the concluding book, The Darkest Road. In fact, it was several years before I picked it up. It won’t be so long this time, but I sure don’t feel like reading it tomorrow.

In The Summer Tree, five Canadian grad students were magically transported from Toronto to Fionavar, the primary universe. Over the course of the novel, they were transformed spiritually and, some of them, even physically. Dave Martyniuk became Davor, adopted member of the nomadic Dalrei, and keeper of the horn that unleashes the Wild Hunt. Kimberly Ford became the Seer, able to manipulate certain magics and see the future. More drastically, Paul Schaefer, distraught over the death of his girlfriend a year earlier, sacrificed himself on the Summer Tree to summon, and become a conduit for, the god Mornir. Jennifer Lowell was kidnapped and raped by Rakoth Maugrim, Fionavar’s dark lord. Only happy-go-lucky Kevin Laine seemed to escape unchanged, yet Fionavar was stimulating his natural mournful romantic tendencies to some unseen end.

While The Wandering Fire purports to move the group deeper into the heart of the growing fight against Maugrim, what was once exciting and focused now feels hurried and slapdash. Momentous events come and go in the space of a few paragraphs. In one case a major secret is discovered but so little time was invested in it beforehand, it seems tossed off and rather inconsequential instead of horrifying, as intended.

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Retro Reviews: Amazing Science Fiction, June 1960 and July 1960

Retro Reviews: Amazing Science Fiction, June 1960 and July 1960

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Amazing Science Fiction June 1960-small Amazing Science Fiction July 1960-small

Two more issues from 1960, which more and more seems to me to be the year Cele Goldsmith really began to hit her stride. I’m covering these two because they contain both parts of a serial, James Blish’s …And All the Stars a Stage.

The June cover is by Leo Summers, illustrating Robert Bloch’s “The Bald-Headed Mirage.” Interiors are by Finlay and Varga. For July the cover is by Harrel Gray, not illustrating any story. Interiors are by Finlay, Varga, and Grayam.

Norman Lobsenz’ June editorial is about death rays, and sterilization schemes. The book review column, The Spectroscope, by S. E. Cotts, covers Chad Oliver’s Unearthly Neighbors and John Brunner’s Slavers of Space, both favorably. The letter column features Mike Deckinger; B. Joseph Fekete, Jr.; Paul Shingleton, Jr.; Paul Zimmer, Scott Neilson; Bob Adolfsen, N. C., Lenny Kaye; and A. D. Scofield. The only names I recognized were Zimmer (Marion Zimmer Bradley’s brother) and Kaye, whose letter is his first, wherein he calls himself “the loneliest fan in the state of New Jersey.” Kaye’s second letter appeared the next issue … I’ll discuss him in the next paragraph. Mike Deckinger was also a pretty prominent fan, and folks who were around back them remembered Fekete and Shingleton as well.

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Blogging The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer – Part Two: “The Zayat Kiss”

Blogging The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer – Part Two: “The Zayat Kiss”

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NOTE: The following article was first published on March 14, 2010. Thank you to John O’Neill for agreeing to reprint these early articles, so they are archived at Black Gate which has been my home for over 5 years and 260 articles now. Thank you to Deuce Richardson without whom I never would have found my way. Minor editorial changes have been made in some cases to the original text.

ZayatInColliersfumanchu1It has often been noted that Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie are cut from the same cloth as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and yet they display as many differences as they do similarities to their more famous progenitors. When Sax Rohmer incorporated “The Zayat Kiss” into the first three chapters of his first novel, British readers had a distinct advantage over their American counterparts in that the UK edition, The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu contains chapter titles that The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu is lacking. The first chapter is titled, in a direct reference to the opening chapter of the first Holmes novel, “Mr. Nayland Smith of Burma.”

Yet it is not Nayland Smith who conjures the most indelible image of Sherlock Holmes so much as it is the brilliant, but eccentric criminal pathologist, Chalmers Cleeve who we meet as he crawls beetle-like about the crime scene. Cleeve is stumped by the murder of Sir Crichton Davey as much as Scotland Yard’s Inspector Weymouth (who Smith and Petrie meet for the first time in this tale) for it requires more than deductive reasoning to successfully combat Dr. Fu-Manchu. The Devil Doctor can only be matched by an opponent destined to defeat him. Fate, in its distinctly Eastern concept, is the deciding factor in restoring order to the frenzied paranoiac world that Rohmer vividly creates for his readers in sharp contrast with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s prevailing belief that trained reasoning can solve any problem.

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The Body’s Upstairs at Hangover House

The Body’s Upstairs at Hangover House

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HangoverColliersHangoverRandomSax Rohmer’s last title to receive a hardcover edition in the US during his lifetime was Hangover House. It was Rohmer’s final showing on the bestseller lists and his only novel published by Random House. It was first serialized in Collier’s from February 19 to March 19, 1949 prior to its hardcover publication by Random House in the US and Herbert Jenkins in the UK.

Interestingly, Collier’s had published an earlier iteration as the short story, “Serpent Wind” in their November 7, 1942 issue. This story was part of a series later collected in book form in 1944 by Robert Hale as Egyptian Nights in the UK and by McBride & Nast under the title Bimbashi Baruk of Egypt in the US. “Serpent Wind” was retitled “The Scarab of Lapis Lazuli” for its hardcover publication. The story later appeared under its original title in the anthologies, Murder for the Millions in 1946 and Horror and Homicide in 1949.

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January Short Story Roundup

January Short Story Roundup

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oie_1623615pLzdaIcYIt has finally gotten cold here in the Northeast, but I’ve got plenty of thunderous swords & sorcery stories to keep me busy indoors reading. January brought not only Swords and Sorcery Magazine’s usual complement of two stories, but also issues of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and Grimdark Magazine. That’s a terrific way to kick off the new year.

Swords and Sorcery Issue 48, as editor Curtis Ellett writes, brings four years of publication to a close, which is pretty impressive. That’s like fifteen years in internet time, so congratulations are in order.

The issue kicks off with the impressive (and impressively titled) “The Quarto Volume, or Knowledge, Good & Evil” by Ken Lizzi. Cesar is a member of a mercenary company in a land similar to Renaissance Italy but with demons and wizards. Those who control those spirits control the world, and that’s a small number of people. Now, Cesar learns, there’s the possibility of power escaping into the hands of the many. Cesar is cut from the same cloth as any number of roguish heroes, but Lizzi’s prose lends him a clear voice and the setting has great potential. An earlier Cesar the Bravo story was included in the anthology Pirates & Swashbucklers from a few years back. Considering my love of all things piratey (check out the article Howard Andrew Jones and I did about Captain Blood), I’ll probably be buying that soon.

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Fellowship of the Pathfinders: The Importance of Party Dynamic in Fantasy Adventure

Fellowship of the Pathfinders: The Importance of Party Dynamic in Fantasy Adventure

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illustration by Eric Belisle
illustration by Eric Belisle

I bought my first Pathfinder novel after reading about it here in a New Treasures post. Howard Andrew Jones’s Stalking the Beast just looked like a lot of fun. Hunting down a big scary monster? Okay, cool. And I’m a sucker for half-orcs. The potential dynamic of a half-elven ranger and a half-orc barbarian working together grabbed me — in fact, I don’t think I ever ran a D&D campaign that didn’t have something like that combination in the mix.

As I described in my review here at Black Gate, I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun the book was — I found myself not wanting to put it down: an experience I was not primed to expect from previous RPG adaptations I’ve read. It delivered the sort of entertainment I am hoping for when I crack open an RPG-themed book, and it was very well written just in general terms as a fantasy novel. Well plotted; good world building; but most importantly, great characters. The dialogue was just as entertaining to read as the action set-pieces.

I subsequently read two of Tim Pratt’s books for Paizo Publishing, and then I went back to Jones’s first contribution to the series. All four of the books impressed me, which left me wondering: is it just because I’m a fan of Jones and Pratt? I mean, these are good writers (a critic more dismissive of “tie-in” literature might have uncharitably suggested they were just “slumming,” writing for a game publisher’s bi-monthly novel line). Were these books the exception, or are Pathfinder novels routinely this level of quality?

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The Lost World: A Classic Sixties SF Blockbuster

The Lost World: A Classic Sixties SF Blockbuster

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Lost World 4

The Lost World (1960)
Directed by Irwin Allen

The shorthand version of this review is that The Lost World was directed, co-written and co-produced by Irwin Allen. If you know anything about Allen, who had something of a lock on science fiction TV in the Sixties, you’d probably have a pretty good idea of what to expect. It’s not outstanding production values, award-winning scripts and stellar acting.

To give some perspective, The Lost World was released a year before Allen’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea came to the big screen and a few years before the latter as made into a TV show. A show that was followed by in quick succession by other Allen productions, such as Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants. While I didn’t find The Lost World to be a very “good” movie, I thought it was an entertaining example of a blockbuster SF/adventure movie from this era.

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Blogging The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer – Part One: “The Zayat Kiss”

Blogging The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer – Part One: “The Zayat Kiss”

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NOTE: The following article was first published on March 7, 2010. Thank you to John O’Neill for agreeing to reprint these early articles, so they are archived at Black Gate which has been my home for over 5 years and 250 articles now. Thank you to Deuce Richardson without whom I never would have found my way. Minor editorial changes have been made in some cases to the original text.

ZayatInColliersinsidious 1Arthur Henry Ward was born in England in 1883. His father hoped his son would make his way through life as a respectable businessman, but young Arthur was determined to make a name for himself as an author.

He discovered immortality with the invention of two unlikely monikers that conjured an air of exotic intrigue when they debuted in print a century ago. The first was his chosen pen name, Sax Rohmer and the second was the name of the character at the heart of his first published novel, Dr. Fu-Manchu.

Over the years, the name lost its hyphen and became synonymous with the moustache artists and actors always depicted the character as wearing despite the fact that he was always described in print as clean-shaven. Dr. Fu-Manchu is a brilliant and honorable scientist who is opposed to British colonial interference in the East. Using a variety of fiendish inventions, insects, and assassins, he sets out to remove Western influence and silence those who know too much about the East.

Most intriguing in our post-9/11 world, the Devil Doctor chooses to fight his battles not in China, but on British soil using terror as his weapon. He is opposed in his efforts by stalwart British colonialist Nayland Smith and Smith’s bodyguard and Fu-Manchu’s chronicler, Dr. Petrie. Rohmer’s stories spanned five decades moving in real time with his characters aging alongside their author. For much of the first half of the last century, Dr. Fu-Manchu was the villain readers loved to hate.

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