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Fantastic Universe, September 1959: A Retro-Review

Fantastic Universe, September 1959: A Retro-Review

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Fantastic Universe September 1959-smallHere is probably one of the less-remembered digest SF magazines of the 1950s. Fantastic Universe was founded in 1953 and lasted until 1960, publishing 71 issues overall… it was a bimonthly briefly then a monthly until its demise (with a missed issue or two along the way). Thus it survived the collapse of the pulps in about 1955, and the American News Company disaster in 1957 or so, and even Sputnik. That’s not a bad run, all things considered.

But what does historian of the field Mike Ashley say of it (in Tymn/Ashley, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines):

Fantastic Universe was born at the height of the SF magazine boom in 1953, and perhaps the most surprising fact about it was that it survived the boom and appeared regularly throughout the rest of the 1950s.  Because if FU had any distinguishing feature it was its remarkable lack of memorable or meritorious fiction.

Ouch!

Alas, a skim through the TOCs of its run supports that notion: the most memorable stories were perhaps “Short in the Chest,” by “Idris Seabright” (Margaret St. Clair); “The Large Ant,” by Howard Fast; “Be My Guest,” by Damon Knight; and Robert Silverberg’s “Road to Nightfall.”

Add a couple of stories more famous for either their novel expansion, or the movie version: Algis Budrys’ “Who?” and Philip K. Dick’s “Minority Report,” and a couple decent but minor stories each by Poul Anderson and Jack Vance, oh, and say Walter Miller’s “The Hoofer” and Avram Davidson’s “The Bounty Hunter.” There was a short Borges story in translation as well (before Borges was all that well known in the US). Not all that much to show for 71 issues: even these stories I mention are solid works but not their authors at their very best.

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January Short Story Roundup

January Short Story Roundup

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oie_1743017Z1jBJggOHere we are again with a new batch of short stories for your reading pleasure. Some were good, some were alright, you know, the usual. Remember, though, whatever I write about these stories, take the time to go check them out yourself and let the writers and magazines know what you think.

Swords and Sorcery Magazine Issue 36 marks three years of continuous publication and is one of its best in a while. The first tale, “The Fourth River” by Brandon Ketchum, is a good old bit of monster-fighting set in the forests of a magical land called Ohio, in a seventeenth century filled with fantastical beasts. The story tells of the violent encounter between a party of colonial traders and a bunch of Shawnee with a Kinepikwa — a giant serpent with antlers and the power to paralyze any unlucky enough to view the evil gem embedded on its brow.

“The Fourth River” is good example of the continuing movement by some writers away from the too, too common medieval trappings of much fantasy. There’s not much to the characters — they’re too busy struggling to save the Ohio Territories from destruction — but Ketchum does a good job limning out his alternate reality in six thousand words.

Issue #36’s second story is “Warden’s Legacy” by Daniel Moley. It’s only his second published story, but it feel like it’s part of a much longer tale. Dane is a talented soldier hoping to join up with an elite unit, the Phantoms. They are the frontline in a war against a force of wizards bent on resurrecting the Forshai, a race of reptilian beings who once ruled mankind. Not a bad story at all, with enough tantalizing refrences to a larger world to make me want to read more.

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New Treasures: The Cobbler of Ridingham by Jeffrey E. Barlough

New Treasures: The Cobbler of Ridingham by Jeffrey E. Barlough

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The Cobbler of RidinghamWinter is the best time to appreciate Jeffrey E. Barlough, perhaps none more so than the current brutality we’ve been experiencing in New England. Day after day of snow blowing past the windows makes it easy to imagine oneself in Barlough’s alternate history of an ice age that never fully receded; and a fire in the grate and a cup of hot coffee at hand while the wind howls beyond the lattices blurs the distinction between this reality and living in a separate megafauna-filled America settled by Victorian doomsday survivors swaddled in coats and mufflers.

In Barlough’s latest novel, The Cobbler of Ridingham, Richard Hathaway comes to Haigh Hall to examine some letters penned by Pharnaby Crust, an overlooked composer whom Hathaway intends to rescue from obscurity with a thorough biography. While studying in the Hall’s library, Hathaway observes a lurking shadow without source and is soon immersed in the curse of Crispin Nightshade, the infamous cobbler of nearby Ridingham. Nightshade used something known as haunted leather to fashion shoes which, when placed on the feet of corpses, could make the dead walk again. There are bumps in the night, unexplained footprints, a boot found in a snow bank, and more, all involving Barlough’s typical cast of well-sketched characters from upstairs and down.

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I, The Sun by Janet Morris

I, The Sun by Janet Morris

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I the Sun Janet Morris-smallI, The Sun
By Janet Morris
Perseid Press (534 pages, October 27, 2014, $26.95 in trade paperback)
Cover art: The Seal of Suppiluliumas

This masterpiece of historical fiction was based on the actual writings and historical records of Suppiluliumas I, the great Hittite king who dominated the Middle East around the 14th century, BC. He rebuilt the old capital of Hattusas, and from there exercised his Imperial Power over the Hittite heartland, controlling the lands between the Mediterranean and Euphrates. But he was not a king to sit back on his throne and pull the strings of his minions, advisors and subjects. No, he was hands-on, and long before he became king he made his way in the world, fighting and whoring and playing politics. His military career included dealing with the eastern kingdom of Mitanni, and regaining a solid grip on Syria.

I, The Sun was first published in 1983 by Dell Books, and with this classic story of Suppliluliumas I, author Janet Morris laid the groundwork for her most famous fictional character — Tempus the Black, whom she first introduced in the original Thieves’ World series, and in her own, later novels such as Beyond Sanctuary, Beyond the Veil, Beyond Wizardwall, and The Sacred Band, written in collaboration with her husband, Chris Morris.

In I, The Sun, Janet Morris weaves a brilliant, sprawling tapestry of events in the life of this great king of the ancient world, whom we first meet when he is known by his birth-name, Tasmisarri. This historical novel, cleverly written in first-person to stand as the official autobiography of Tasmisarri/Suppiluliumas, begins with the death of his father, the Great King Arnuwandas. Since Tasmi cannot sit the throne until his majority, his uncle Tuthaliyas inherits the crown. But so much can happen until Tasmi comes of age, and so, to keep his own brothers from killing each other — and him, and thus seizing the throne, Tuthaliyas adopts Tasmi and makes him his heir.

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Second-hand Magic, Part I

Second-hand Magic, Part I

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Magic For SaleAt a science fiction book sale not too long ago, I picked up an anthology from 1983 called Magic For Sale. There was something irresistibly appropriate in buying the book second-hand: edited by Avram Davidson, it’s a collection of stories for the most part precisely about the magic that lies within the second-hand. About purchasable goods with something in them beyond cost and explanation. About shoppers who find more than they expected. About supernatural bargains, each with its own twist.

Mostly. It’s actually difficult to find a plot description that fits all the stories in the book. Many involve strange old shops (that may or may not be present when a shopper returns), but many don’t. Most involve somebody buying something, but several are about decisions not to buy, or even simply about a customer escaping a shop more-or-less intact. Virtually all involve magic, except one or two that are, at least superficially, science fiction. So in some ways it’s quite a mixed bag.

And then again, in other ways it isn’t. Tonally, the stories feel quite similar, which might be a function of Davidson’s tastes as editor. But it’s interesting to wonder how much the similarity has to do with the nature of the book’s theme: the moment of transaction, the buying (or not) of the odd and dangerous. The way that the unnatural enters everyday life. Often, in horror and dark fantasy, critics like to talk about the “irruption” of the supernatural into the real; but the relevant definitions of irrupt have to do with something breaking in by force, and that’s exactly what doesn’t happen here, in most cases. Mostly, these stories are about making deals, and whether a character chooses to accept the deal they’re given, and what happens as a result. Mostly. One way or another, certain themes tend to emerge.

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Alien Rats, Apocalyptic Nightmares, and a Horror Worse Than Ghosts: Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Volume One

Alien Rats, Apocalyptic Nightmares, and a Horror Worse Than Ghosts: Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Volume One

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Year's Best Weird Fiction-smallWhat comes to mind when you think of “weird” literature? For me, I’m inclined to think about horror stories. But the weird, and its long tradition, is so much more. For an attempted definition of “weird” one could not do better than the following:

[The weird is] speculative in nature, chiefly derived from pulp fiction in the early 20th century, whose remit includes ghost stories, the strange and macabre, the supernatural, fantasy, myth, philosophical ontology, ambiguity, and featuring a helping of the outré. Weird fiction, at its best, is an intersecting of themes and ideas that explore and subvert the laws of Nature (p. 7).

These helpful words come from editor Michael Kelly’s foreword to the first volume of Undertow Publication’s Year’s Best Weird Fiction. As Kelly’s definition of weird makes clear, it has never fit neatly into any one category of genre. Thus he concludes that we are long overdue to have a year’s best anthology dedicated specifically to the weird.

One of the very interesting things about this proposed project is the goal of having a different guest editor each year. And one of the things that really excited me about this anthology, when I first heard about it, was that Laird Barron was going to be the inaugural guest editor. Barron is an excellent writer of horror and the weird, and personally one of my favorite authors.  See my reviews of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All, The Light is the Darkness, and The Croning. But is his anthology of the weird any good?

In a word, yes.

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The Series Series: What, You Mean Sarah Beth Durst’s Conjured Is A Stand-Alone?

The Series Series: What, You Mean Sarah Beth Durst’s Conjured Is A Stand-Alone?

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Sarah Beth Durst Conjured-smallConjured defied nearly all my expectations. That’s part of what makes it awesome.

Alas, one of my expectations was that it would be the first volume in a series. It’s strong enough to have carried that work, and then some. Instead, the book turns its final twist with a near-audible click, and we must leave its characters for good.

I need to tell you about it anyway.

My copy of Conjured came to me in a big bag of freebies at the World Fantasy Convention. Most of the books in that bag were first volumes in series, given away to promote the later volumes. When I gave each book a one-page chance to catch my attention, this was the story that wouldn’t let me go.

Eve can’t put together a coherent memory of the crimes she witnessed, or much else about her past, but the FBI must find the killer she escaped from. She knows she’s the only victim who ever escaped. She knows he wants her back. Nothing else she remembers fits the life she’s living now in the Witness Protection Program.

She’s as big a mystery to herself as her former captor is to the FBI. Why, she wonders, does she know what pizza is, but not how to unbuckle a seat belt?

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The Long Reach of Night: The Voidal Vol. 2 by Adrian Cole

The Long Reach of Night: The Voidal Vol. 2 by Adrian Cole

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oie_862634UE7X7d5eLast year I reviewed (quite favorably, after an initial aversion to it) The Oblivion Hand (2001), the first collection of Adrian Cole’s stories about the Voidal. To say they’re excessive, over the top, and incredibly phatasmagorical barely does them justice. They are all those things and much more. These traits are carried over into the second volume, The Long Reach of Night (2011), an even better book than the first.

The Voidal is a man, cast out by the Dark Gods onto the currents of the Omniverse as punishment for some unknown sin. He has been stripped not only of his memory but also of his right hand, which has been replaced with the Oblivion Hand — a sentient-seeming thing that carries out the will of his tormentors. The Voidal is endlessly tossed about parallel dimensions and planets of the Omniverse, wholly against his will, a scourge in servitude to some celestial tribunal.

By the end of The Oblivion Hand the Voidal had acquired an associate, the froggy familiar, Elfloq. Together they set out on a search, from one hellish locale to another, for how to restore the Voidal’s lost memories and free him from the control of the Dark Gods.

Like its predecessor, The Long Reach of Night is a fix-up. Two of the stories appeared in magazines previously, but the rest appear here for the first time.

It is Elfloq who is the real protagonist of this book. For much of the time, the Voidal is lost somewhere in the aether. In each story the familiar is forced to hunt for clues to where his master is, ever formulating a plan to get one step closer to their goals.

Sometimes Elfloq is forced to undertake some dangerous task in exchange for information. In the first story, “The Preposterous Library,” he must travel through the pages of a book entitled The Skullworks to a pocket world of the same name.

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Wolfmen in the Wild West: A Review of What Rough Beast by James A. Moore and Charles R. Rutledge

Wolfmen in the Wild West: A Review of What Rough Beast by James A. Moore and Charles R. Rutledge

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What Rough BeastWhat Rough Beast
James A. Moore and Charles R. Rutledge
Illustrations by Keith Minnion
White Noise Press
Signed and numbered hand-crafted Chapbook, 28 p., $17.00 ($15.00 plus $2.00 shipping)

Chapbooks have been around for a long time. For those who may be unfamiliar with them, they are short books usually consisting of a single story, although short collections are also common. They tend to focus on a particular work, or in the case of several stories, a particular writer.

The quality of chapbooks can vary. Before technology made it possible to produce professional level products, it was not uncommon to see chapbooks that were simply photocopies stapled together. These days, though, chapbooks can be works of art. Like the one we’re going to look at today. More on that in a bit.

Until recently, White Noise Press was not a publisher with which I was familiar. I was, however, familiar with the work of Moore and Rutledge, both collaboratively (here) as well as individually (here and here). These authors have a knowledge and love of the genre, and it shows in their work. Guys who are fans of Karl Edward Wagner and Manly Wade Wellman are all right in my book.

So when Charles contacted me not long ago inquiring if I would like a review copy of What Rough Beast, I thought about it for a while (1 while = 0.5 nanoseconds), then said yes.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Best I’ve Ever Read…

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Best I’ve Ever Read…

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BoysLife_Cover

See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out.

And so begins the best piece of writing I’ve come across.

In the seventies and the eighties, Robert R. McCammon was a successful horror author. Usher’s Passing (a sequel to Poe’s classic), Wolf’s Hour (World War II werewolf yarn) and Swan Song (post-apocalyptic epic) were among his excellent works. 1990’s Mine was a different kind of terror tale, as was 1992’s Gone South.

To oversimplify, McCammon wanted to move out of horror and into new genres. And he was told to forget it: to not mess with the formula (shades of Brian Wilson and Pet Sounds). So he wrote two historical novels that weren’t published, and he quit.

A decade later, that first historical book, Speaks the Nightbird finally saw the light of day in 2002 and has spawned seven sequels and one short story collection. The next book is under way. I read the first two and enjoyed them. But they grow continually darker and I quit after book three. Too much for me.

McCammon has written a few other novels and novellas, back in the horror genre. But he returned on his own terms, and not with a major publishing house.

Two thousand is a low estimate of how many books I’ve read, and the single finest piece of writing I’ve ever come across is in the introduction to his 1991’s Boy’s Life. Which isn’t really too surprising, because that is the finest book I’ve ever read; in any genre. It’s not a horror book: it’s a coming-of age tale. It’s a book about the magic of our youth. And what happens to that magic.

One of my favorite authors, Tony Hillerman, said that Fly on the Wall, was his attempt at writing The Great American Novel. He feels he came up short. He would know, though it’s in my Top Five Novels list. But I’m gonna say that Boy’s Life is McCammon’s Great American Novel. And it’s in the running for THE Great American novel You ask me for only one book to read (beyond the Bible), and I’m telling you Boy’s Life.

Here’s the rest of that snippet from the opening that has stayed with me for going on three decades:

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