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Category: Vintage Treasures

The Books of David G. Hartwell: The Masterpieces of Fantasy

The Books of David G. Hartwell: The Masterpieces of Fantasy

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Masterpieces of Fantasy and Enchantment-small Masterpieces of Fantasy and Wonder-small

David G. Hartwell passed away on January 20th. He was not a fiction writer, but he was nonetheless one of the most respected and influential figures in the industry. He was a senior editor at many of the genre’s most important publishers, including Pocket, Arbor House, Avon/Morrow, and Tor Books, where he edited thousands of books (yes, thousands). He edited The New York Review of Science Fiction for nearly 30 years, and was nominated for the Hugo Award 41 times.

But for me his most enduring contributions to the field will always be his delightful anthologies, of which he produced many. David had a habit of editing sprawling, ambitious books which gave readers new insights into the field. Two of his earliest, released in 1988 and 1989, and co-edited with his future wife Kathryn Cramer, were Masterpieces of Fantasy and Enchantment and Masterpieces of Fantasy and Wonder.

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We All Have to Start Somewhere

We All Have to Start Somewhere

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Warchild Richard Bowes-small Feral Cell Richard Bowes-small Goblin Market Richard Bowes-small

We all have to start somewhere and this is where I started: Three paperback originals from Warner/Questar. Warchild was the first (in 1986) with an EMBOSSED cover – Art by Richard Corbin. It sold okay, got on a Year’s Best list. [Click on any of the images for bigger versions.]

Feral Cell came out in 1987 – About alternate worlds and cancer which I’d had while writing Warchild – this got me some critical attention plus I got cured!

The sequel to Warchild was Goblin Market (1988) – nice enough but didn’t sell like the original (maybe because the cover wasn’t embossed).

Here are the back covers to all three books.

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Tracking Down Frank Kelly Freas’ Planet Stories Cover for “The Ambassadors of Flesh”

Tracking Down Frank Kelly Freas’ Planet Stories Cover for “The Ambassadors of Flesh”

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Planet Stories Summer 1954-small

A little while ago, I posted one of our two big IlluxCon purchases — a Hubert Rogers Astounding cover that we had arranged to buy over the summer from a friend, and the deal was completed at IlluxCon. This is the other major piece we picked up there, also from the same friend (click for a bigger version).

It’s by the great Frank Kelly Freas, and is the cover for the Summer 1954 issue of Planet Stories. It illustrates “The Ambassadors of Flesh” by Poul Anderson, which was the third of his Dominic Flandry stories. Needless to say, Flandry saves the day, and the girl.

Like all of the original Planet Stories covers I’ve seen, the block where the magazine’s logo went was just painted as a solid color. My friend had the logo scanned and printed onto mylar, which is laid in on top of the painting as it’s framed, so the logo is actually not on the artwork. Freas won the first of his ten Best Artist Hugos in 1955, about a year after this painting was published.

On a side note, artist Herman Vestal, a Fiction House regular, contributed a double-page spread which ran as the interior illustration for this story. Several years ago at Windy City, I managed to pick up the left half of that illo (still looking for the right half!), which has Flandry in a good action scene. I’ll post that down the road.

Amazing Science Fiction Stories, March 1960: A Retro-Review

Amazing Science Fiction Stories, March 1960: A Retro-Review

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Amazing Science Fiction Stories March 1960-smallThe cover of this issue gives Robert Silverberg’s byline as “Bob Silverberg,” though the Table of Contents shows “Robert Silverberg.” Bob Silverberg seems to have been given as his byline on a few stories (including his first publication), as well as some letters.

The cover is by Albert Nuetzell, showing a spaceship and some people investigating an archaeological site, presumably on another planet, complete with strange writing and an enormous stone humanoid head (click on the image at left for a bigger version). It doesn’t go with any of the stories in the magazine. Interior illustrations are by Mel Varga and by Virgil Finlay.

Norman Lobsenz’ very brief editorial is about Project Ozma, Frank Drake’s pioneering attempt to detect signals from intelligent extraterrestrials using radio. S. E. Cotts’ brief book review column, The Spectroscope, covers Benjamin Appel’s The Funhouse, Murray Leinster’s The Pirates of Zan, and Adam Lukens’ The Sea People.

The letters in “Or So You Say …” come from Jacqueline Brice, Jess Nash, Bob Adolfsen, Paul H. Taylor, Frank H. Terrell, and Dr. Raymond Wallace, none of those names familiar to me. The biggest common theme is praise for Alan Nourse’s novel Star Surgeon.

The stories are:

Novel:

Seven from the Stars, by Marion Zimmer Bradley (42,800 words)

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Some Vintage Genre Fiction Still Worth Reading (and Why)

Some Vintage Genre Fiction Still Worth Reading (and Why)

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Harold Lamb
Harold Lamb. Still worth reading.

We love our vintage Historical Adventure, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery/Planet/ Sandal/Wombat etc. Call it Vintage Genre Fiction. This despite the fact that most old stuff is crap.

Seriously.

Listen: We’re on a road trip and my wife — Driver’s Privilege, and bear with me — puts on a retro chart show for 1968. We bop along to The Rolling Stones and some Soul, then on comes a song called MacArthur Park.

Go on, click the link I dare you. You’ll love the maudlin delivery, the lush strings and perky keyboard arrangement. Better yet are the lyrics. Here’s the refrain:

Someone left the cake out in the rain,
I don’t think that I can take it,
‘Cause it took so long to bake it,
And I’ll never have that recipe again, oh noooooo

At this point the kids and I are howling with pain.

Now if you like 60s music, know about, then right now you’re fighting the urge to dive down to the comments and start explaining why it’s good (please don’t). And it’s true, if you have a specialist interest then your cultural pleasures aren’t always mainstream.

Everybody else is still trying to unhear that song (Someone left the cake out in the rain/ I don’t think that I can take it/ Cause it took so long to bake it…).

And that, my friends, is how most people react to Vintage Genre Fiction.

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Mutants, Burger Creatures, and Genetically Engineered Sharks: Orbit 12, edited by Damon Knight

Mutants, Burger Creatures, and Genetically Engineered Sharks: Orbit 12, edited by Damon Knight

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Orbit 12-smallOrbit 12
Edited by Damon Knight
Berkley Medallion (240 pages, $0.95, March 1974)
Cover by Paul Lehr

If I’ve got my story straight, there were 21 volumes of Damon Knight’s Orbit anthology series in all — and The Best of Orbit. The first of these saw the light of day in 1966.

Obviously, that puts this volume somewhere in the middle of the pack as far as the chronology goes. Reviewing is a subjective thing and we all like what like, but I’ve got to say that I wasn’t very impressed. I’ll start with a look at the two stories I liked, and move on to the many more that I liked less.

PICKS

“What’s the Matter with Herbie?,” by Mel Gilden

Nine stories into this volume and this is the first story that appealed to me. It’s a tale of two very alien aliens in a universe where strange aliens seem to be the norm. There’s not much to the plot but Gilden’s imaginative take and whimsical touch made it worth reading.

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Can You Help Date This John W. Campbell Pic?

Can You Help Date This John W. Campbell Pic?

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John W Campbell-small

A few weeks ago I talked about Hubert Rogers’ Astounding covers, and his fascinating correspondence with Robert A. Heinlein and L. Sprague de Camp.

During one of his trips to visit editor John W. Campbell at Astounding‘s offices, Rogers took along his camera. Here’s one of several shots that Rogers took that day of Campbell at his desk. [Click the image for a bigger version.]

None of the photos are dated, unfortunately, but my guess is that it’s sometime in the 1940’s. If anyone can pin down a more precise date, I’d love to hear it!

Vintage Treasures: Travelers of Space, edited by Martin Greenberg

Vintage Treasures: Travelers of Space, edited by Martin Greenberg

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Travelers of Space 1951-small

Gnome Press, the brainchild of Martin Greenberg and David A. Kyle, was founded in 1948, and it published some of the most important science fiction and fantasy of the 20th Century in hardcover for the first time — including Sixth Column by Robert A. Heinlein (1949), The Castle of Iron by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt (1950), Conan the Conqueror by Robert E. Howard (1950), I, Robot (1950) and Foundation (1951) by Isaac Asimov, City by Clifford D. Simak (1952), Robots Have No Tails by Lewis Padgett (1952), Judgment Night by C.L. Moore (1952), and Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke (1952). The Gnome Press hardcovers — gorgeously designed and made with great care — are some of the most collectible books in the field.

For me however, the most desirable Gnome Press books are their original titles, and especially their anthologies, which gathered neglected short fiction from the Golden Age of science fiction pulps for the first time. They published several in their Adventures in Science Fiction series, all edited by Martin Greenberg, including Men Against the Stars (195), Journey to Infinity (1951), The Robot and the Man (1953), and Travelers of Space (1951).

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Open Road Returns Cherry Wilder’s A Princess of the Chameln to Print

Open Road Returns Cherry Wilder’s A Princess of the Chameln to Print

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A Princess of the Chameln-smallCherry Wilder was the pseudonym of New Zealand SF and fantasy writer Cherry Barbara Grimm, who died in 2002. She produced many popular fantasy novels in the late 70s and early 80s, starting with the Torin trilogy (which we discussed back in July), and the four novels in the Rulers of Hylor series (A Princess of the Chameln, Yorath the Wolf, The Summer’s King, and The Wanderer; the last co-written with Katya Reimann). Sadly, all have been out of print in the US for thirty years.

Fortunately, Open Road is taking steps to rectify that. They published a digital version of A Princess of the Chameln on November 17, and next month they will offer a print-on-demand edition. Here’s the new description.

When her royal parents are killed during a coup, Princess Aidris Am Firn of the Chameln flees for her life. Constantly on the run from unseen enemies of the crown, she poses as a commoner and joins a cadre of women warriors so she can fight those who assassinated her parents and continue to hunt her. While cultivating allies, Aidris learns that two pretenders have ascended to the dual thrones of Chameln. Having discovered their true queen is still alive, counselors from Chameln rally to her side and convince the queen that the time has come for her to reclaim her birthright. But before she can do this, she must discover who her enemy really is, lest the unknown assassins strike her down too.

The other books in the series will follow shortly: Yorath the Wolf (ebook February 16, POD April 12) and The Summer’s King (ebook May 17, POD July 12). Open Road is also responsible for the fabulous Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak, the 14-volume series we examined here.

A Princess of the Chameln will be published on February 2, 2016. It is 288 pages, priced at $14.99 in trade paperback, and $5.99 for the digital edition.

Vintage Treasures: The Walking Drum by Louis L’Amour

Vintage Treasures: The Walking Drum by Louis L’Amour

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WalkingDrum
I read this book so you don’t have to.

I read this book so you don’t have to.

Perhaps this review will make you want to read it.

Perhaps you shouldn’t.

It’s complicated.

The Walking Drum is the only medieval adventure written by Louis L’Amour, the mindbogglingly prolific author of a zillion Westerns. That alone makes it a retro must-read. A medieval romp by a horse-opera yarn-spinner who had also been a professional boxer and merchant seaman. How can we resist?

In actuality, the book is… odd. It fulfills expectations, both positive and negative, exceeds them, falls well short of them, and — ultimately — could have done with an edit before being released into the wild.

Reading it has made rethink my choice of reading matter (and also my strategy as a writer, but that’s for another article). Let me start from the beginning

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