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Blogging The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer, Part Eight – “Andaman — Second!”

Blogging The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer, Part Eight – “Andaman — Second!”

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NOTE: The following article was first published on June 6, 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 nearly 6 years and 270 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.

51Jj9Pe2unL._SX315_BO1,204,203,200_248009“Andaman — Second!” was the seventh installment of Sax Rohmer’s serial, Fu-Manchu first published in The Story-Teller in April 1913. The story would later comprise Chapters 18-20 of the novel, The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu (originally re-titled The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu for U.S. publication). Rohmer returned the series to its Holmesian roots by mining Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans” for inspiration. Conan Doyle’s case concerns stolen submarine plans taken from Cadogan West while Rohmer’s story involves stolen aero-torpedo plans taken from Norris West. “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans” was published in 1912, just a few months before Rohmer wrote “Andaman — Second!” and shows that Sherlock Holmes was still very much a model for the Fu-Manchu series at this early stage.

The story starts out with Dr. Petrie in the final throes of fighting his feelings for Karamaneh. He tries telling himself that slavery in the 20th Century is an impossibility, but he cannot doubt Karamaneh’s account of her tragic life of bondage and enforced servitude. Try as he might to convince himself that she is too foreign to his values and culture and that she has been jaded and corrupted by her life and experiences, he cannot deny his heart. The reader’s expectation at this point is that Rohmer will bring the two lovers together once Petrie wins her freedom from Dr. Fu-Manchu. Of course, it is worth remembering that Rohmer delights in breaking with tradition. Happy Endings are never assured in his fiction.

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The Omnibus Volumes of C.J. Cherryh, Part IV: The Complete Morgaine

The Omnibus Volumes of C.J. Cherryh, Part IV: The Complete Morgaine

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The Complete Morgaine CJ Cherryh-smallLast year, in my series on The Omnibus Volumes of C.J. Cherryh, I mentioned The Morgaine Saga, a collection of the first three novels in her classic sword-and-sorcery series. That’s a fine book, but there are two problems with it. One, it doesn’t include the final novel, Exile’s Gate, and two, it’s been out of print for over a frickin’ decade.

Ah well… I guess when you’re a vintage paperback collector, you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. The Morgaine Saga was a terrific book, and collectors were glad to get it (when we could find it). Gate of Ivrel, Cherryh’s first novel, and the first book in the series, was a breakout book for her. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer the year after it appeared, and it helped launch her entire career (for the intimate details of her start in the business, watch CJ’s talk at 2016 the Nebula Awards last month.)

In honor of CJ’s Grand Master at the Nebula’s, DAW gave out samples of her work to all the attendees. And I was surprised and delighted to find a copy of The Complete Morgaine among the giveaways. Published in trade paperback last year, it contains all four books for the first time in a single volume:

Gate of Ivrel (1976)
Well of Shiuan (1978)
Fires of Azeroth (1979)
Exile’s Gate (1988)

I guess it’s true what they say… good things come to he who waits. The Complete Morgaine was published in September 2015 by DAW Books. It is 816 pages, priced at $20, with a cover by Michael Whelan. It also contains an introduction by Andre Norton. We previously surveyed The Omnibus Volumes of C.J. Cherryh (and there’s more than you think): Part I, Part II, and Part III.

How Does Story Happen? An Interview with Jane S. Fancher

How Does Story Happen? An Interview with Jane S. Fancher

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Ring of Lightning Jane S Fancher-small Ring of Intrigue Jane S Fancher-small Ring of Destiny Jane S Fancher-small

In my report on the 2016 Nebula Awards weekend, I talked about my two-part interview with SF and fantasy writer Jane S. Fancher, author of the Groundties trilogy and the Dance of the Rings novels. (It turned into a two-part interview because the memory on my new iPhone maxed out while recording CJ Cherryh’s epic Grand Master talk, and my first attempt at an interview lasted all of three minutes. Fortunately, Jane was understanding enough to pick up our interview 24 hours later.)

The Dance of the Rings novels were some of the first review copies I ever received, back in the late 90s when we were first getting the review site SF Site off the ground, so they meant a lot to me personally, and it was a delight to finally meet Jane in person. Turns out we had a lot in common, not the least of which was fond memories of the 90s comic scene (especially WaRP Graphics, publishers of ElfQuest, where Jane got her start in the industry), and a fascination with SF publishing. She was kind enough to share her stories of breaking into the industry, the tumultuous ups and downs of starting with short-lived Warner Questar, publisher of her first three novels, and switching to DAW for her first fantasy series.

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Vintage Treasures: Green Magic: The Fantasy Realms of Jack Vance

Vintage Treasures: Green Magic: The Fantasy Realms of Jack Vance

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Green Magic Underwood Miller-small Green Magic Jack Vance-small

Jack Vance was one of the most prolific fantasists of the 20th Century at both long and short lengths, producing some 55 novels and dozens of short stories. Underwood-Miller published no less than 60 hardcover volumes of his work during his lifetime, chiefly collections, and Subterranean Press produced some eleven volumes of his short stories and novellas, starting with the massive Jack Vance Treasury in 2007, and including The Early Jack Vance, a thoroughly delightful five-volume set that ended with Grand Crusades.

All those marvelous hardcover volumes were aimed at the collectors market, however, and sadly Vance had precious little fantasy short fiction reprinted in paperback. In fact, he had relatively few mass market collections at all. Ace gave us a handful of science fiction collections, including The Worlds of Jack Vance (1973), Galactic Effectuator (1981) and The Augmented Agent and Other Stories (1988); DAW published Dust of Far Suns (1981) and The Narrow Land (1982); and Pocket just one: The Best of Jack Vance (1976).

But what Vance lacked in quantity, he made up in quality. His 1979 collection Green Magic: The Fantasy Realms of Jack Vance, one of the very few collections that focuses on his fantasy work, gathers some of his very finest work, including the title story and the brilliant “The Moon Moth.” It appeared in hardcover from Underwood Miller in 1979, and was reprinted in paperback by Tor in 1988.

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Future Treasures: The Medusa Chronicles by Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds

Future Treasures: The Medusa Chronicles by Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds

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Arthur C Clarke A Meeting With Medusa-small Arthur C Clarke The Medusa Chronicles-small

Arthur C. Clarke’s A Meeting With Medusa won the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 1971, and 45 years later is still considered one of the great classics of SF. It introduced us to Howard Falcon, who suffered a terrible accident while exploring the hostile skies of Jupiter — an accident that nearly destroyed his helium-filled airship, and both turned him into the world’s first cyborg, his badly damaged body largely replaced with machines, and made him essentially immortal. When Falcon returns to Jupiter in a more advanced ship, he makes contact with giant jellyfish-like creatures he names “Medusae.” The Medusae may be intelligent, and Falcon’s experience with them changes him even more dramatically than his previous accident. Now Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds have written a novel-length sequel to Clarke’s classic tale, following Falcon’s further adventures to the limits of our solar system… and beyond.

Inspired by Clarke’s novella, The Medusa Chronicles continues the story of Howard Falcon, perhaps humanity’s greatest ambassador and explorer, and the centuries of his adventures among our solar system, the rise of artificial intelligence, and our expansion on to other planets, written with the permission from Clarke’s estate by two of our greatest science fiction writers, Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds.

The Medusa Chronicles is an awe-inspiring work by two modern masters of science fiction who have taken the vision of one the field’s greatest writers and expanded upon it, combining cutting-edge science, philosophy, and technology into a transcendent work of fiction that offers a plausible future for our solar system through the eyes of one of its great fictional heroes.

The Medusa Chronicles will be published by Saga Press on June 7, 2016. It is 412 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $7.99 for the digital version. The cover is by Getty Images.

Parallel Universes and Space Marines: Rich Horton on The Games of Neith by Margaret St. Clair/The Earth Gods are Coming by Kenneth Bulmer

Parallel Universes and Space Marines: Rich Horton on The Games of Neith by Margaret St. Clair/The Earth Gods are Coming by Kenneth Bulmer

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The Games of Neith-small The Earth Gods Are Coming-small
Galaxy, June 1975
Galaxy, June 1975

Over at his website Strange at Ecbatan, Rich Horton looks at another obscure Ace Double.

Here’s an Ace Double featuring a couple of authors I’ve discussed before. I bought it partly because of that — both writers have proved enjoyable in the past, St. Clair often more than that, and, partly, frankly, because of the quite gorgeous Emswhiller cover on the St. Clair book, which for some reason reminded me of Wendy Pini’s cover for the June 1975 Galaxy.

I wrote before about Margaret St. Clair (1911-1995) as follows: “She was one of the more noticeable early women writers of SF, but somehow her profile was a bit lower than those of C. L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, and Andre Norton. Perhaps it was simply that those writers did just a bit more, and were just a bit better (taken as a whole) than her, but it does seem that she’s not quite as well remembered as perhaps she deserves. One contributing factor is that she wrote some of her very best stories pseudonymously, as “Idris Seabright.” 20 or so of her 50+ short stories were as by Seabright, including some of the very best (such as “Short in the Chest” and “An Egg a Month from All Over”). She also wrote 8 novels (four of them published as Ace Double halves). Her career in SF stretched from 1946 to 1981…”

Reading this book made clear to me another reason St. Clair is not as well remembered as Moore, Brackett, or Norton — she was much weaker at novel length than at shorter lengths. At least, that is, based on those I’ve read. The Games of Neith was a terrible disappointment to me — it’s really just a bad, silly, book.

Sadly the flip side, Kenneth Bulmer’s The Earth Gods are Coming, doesn’t measure up much better.

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Science Fiction Stories, January 1955: A Retro-Review

Science Fiction Stories, January 1955: A Retro-Review

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Science Fiction Stories January 1955-smallMuch has been made, justifiably, of Robert A. W. Lowndes’ habit of making bricks without straw over decades with Columbia Publications’ magazines, mostly Future and Science Fiction Stories. He fought tiny budgets and ridiculously irregular publication schedules to produce credible issues time after time.

This issue appeared during a fairly prolific time for the magazines, though. Science Fiction Stories was now bimonthly, and, shockingly enough, 6 issues did appear in 1955. For that matter, 4 more issues of Science Fiction Quarterly also appeared. Only one issue of Future, but that makes 11 issues total for Lowndes that year — almost as many as John W. Campbell!

This issue of Science Fiction Stories is light on features — only one is listed, “Voyage to Nowhere,” by Wallace West, but Lowndes notes “Twenty years ago, this would have been presented to readers as a story.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but 60 years later, I still say it’s a story, and I’m not quite sure why Lowndes wants to call it “a speculative essay.” So I’ll list it with the fiction.

The cover is by Ed Emshwiller, not too typical of his best work (and not illustrating any of the stories). Interiors are by Emsh, Freas, and Orban.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu, Part Seven – “Karamaneh”

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu, Part Seven – “Karamaneh”

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NOTE: The following article was first published on May 23, 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.

The_Mystery_of_Dr._Fu-Manchu_cover_1913-227x350karamaneh-1“Karamaneh” was the sixth installment of Sax Rohmer’s serial, Fu-Manchu first published in The Story-Teller in March 1913. The story would later comprise Chapters 16 and 17 of the novel, The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu (initially re-titled The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu for U.S. publication). The story opens with Nayland Smith, Dr. Petrie, and Inspector Weymouth preparing a dragnet around the area where Dr. Fu-Manchu is known to have a base of operations. They have no illusion that they will capture the doctor himself, but hope to round up enough of his minions to deal a significant blow to the enemy.

Smith and Petrie are among a dozen Scotland Yard men combing the area. As they pass by a gypsy encampment, Smith recognizes one of the gypsies as a disguised dacoit who is wanted for murder in Burma (where Smith serves as police commissioner). While they fail to apprehend the man, they succeed in capturing the female gypsy before she can escape. The disguised gypsy woman turns out to be the mysterious slave girl who has repeatedly saved Petrie’s life since Smith first involved him in the affair. Rohmer does an excellent job of conveying Petrie’s mixed feelings of compulsion and revulsion when faced with this dangerous and exotic woman.

The reader shares Petrie’s ambivalence towards this complex character. She is beautiful and graced with a foreign otherness that defies precise identification and she has risked her own life several times in order to save Petrie, yet she has also willingly participated in the murder of countless other innocent men. Rohmer makes much of her unabashed stare that few men would be able to hold. Petrie is fascinated with her, but also feels ashamed that the object of his affection is opposed to all that defines a British subject at this point in time.

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Vintage Trash: Producers Releasing Corporation, the Poorest of Hollywood’s Poverty Row

Vintage Trash: Producers Releasing Corporation, the Poorest of Hollywood’s Poverty Row

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Strangler_of_the_Swamp_poster

The 1930s through 1950s are generally seen as Hollywood’s Golden Age. It was a time when major studios had glamorous stars and made blockbuster pictures with casts of thousands.

It was also a time when cheap production companies ground out quickie films on a shoestring budget, and sometimes, just sometimes, created something worth watching.

Welcome to Poverty Row, the result of the world’s insatiable appetite for film. In the days before television, many people went to the movies every day. Not only did they get a movie, but they also got a newsreel, cartoon, and a shorter “B” movie. Neighborhood theaters often showed B-movies as features since they were cheaper to rent and the audience of local kids didn’t care about great production quality, they just wanted to see some cowboys shooting it up. And that’s where Poverty Row came in.

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The Granddaughter of Fu Manchu

The Granddaughter of Fu Manchu

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MSMM 0181Mike Shayne, the redheaded tough guy private eye, was introduced in the decidedly more lighthearted detective novel, Dividend on Death penned by the pseudonymous Brett Halliday in 1939. The character was an instant success and Michael Shayne (as he was initially known) quickly became a cottage industry leading to another 77 (mostly hardboiled) detective novels through the mid-1970s, over 300 short stories through the mid-1980s, 11 B-movies in the 1940s, a radio drama series that lasted nearly a decade, an early 1960s television series that made it for a full season, a TV tie-in Dell comic book that lasted three issues, and his own magazine digest that ran for nearly 30 years. The character may seem like just another clichéd private eye today, but over the years a number of very talented authors hid behind the fedora and turned-up collar of “Brett Halliday” – Bill Pronzini, Dennis Lynds, James Reasoner, Frank Belknap Long, and the ubiquitous Michael Avallone among them.

The reason we have turned our attention to this particular ginger with the mean disposition is a trilogy of stories that appeared in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine in 1981 and 1982 featuring a character known as the Black Lotus. As the storyline developed “Brett Halliday,” in this instance James Reasoner, strongly suggested the Black Lotus was the granddaughter of Fu Manchu. Mr. Reasoner was cautious and did not name names, of course, but elements of the three stories read like a Sax Rohmer tribute – including the Black Lotus’ real identity, Leiko Smith sharing the surname of the protagonist of the Fu Manchu stories, Nayland Smith. The character’s first name (which is Japanese, rather than Chinese) was likely borrowed from Leiko Wu, the love interest from Marvel Comics’ contemporaneous Master of Kung Fu series (1973-1983) which licensed the Fu Manchu characters from Rohmer’s literary estate. I first learned of the Black Lotus storyline from Win Scott Eckert’s very useful Fu Manchu chronology. My friend, Don O’Malley was kind enough to send me scanned copies of the three issues in question in order that I finally have a chance to read them.

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